The Innocent Behind the Scandal (The Marchetti Dynasty 2)

No. Maks rejected that thought as he stepped out of the shower. He slung a towel around his hips and saw his face in the mirror over the sink.

What was he doing? Letting a woman get under his skin like this? When there was no way it was going to last?

The most important person in the world to Maks was Sasha, his sister. As soon as he’d been old enough he’d taken Sasha out of his father’s house and had become her guardian. His father had died soon after, and anyway he hadn’t even noticed that his daughter was gone from his care. Because she hadn’t even been his.

Their experiences had fostered an unspoken agreement between them never to repeat the mistakes of their parents.

What he felt here, now, with Zoe, was some kind of lust-induced craziness. He knew better than this. He knew not to send mixed messages. And that was exactly what he was doing. Telling her one thing but behaving in the completely opposite way. When he thought of the previous day, wandering around Venice, hand in hand, taking a gondola—which no self-respecting Italian would ever do—he cringed.

Maks and his sister had been the flotsam and jetsam in the wreckage of their parents’ toxic marriage, and while Sasha had no interest in the Marchetti Group, Maks did. He’d made it his priority to ensure that he helped to build a legacy that would prove to be far more stable and durable and lasting than any marriage.

That was what mattered. Not the illusion of something that didn’t exist.

He knew this was an unprecedented situation. He’d never wanted a woman for longer than a couple of dates. So it would be hard to do what he had to. But he would do it because he couldn’t offer Zoe anything more.

* * *

Zoe sat on the bed for a long moment after Maks disappeared into the bathroom. She didn’t have to be a genius to figure out that something seismic had just happened.

She shouldn’t have taken those pictures.

But when she’d woken and seen him standing by the gently fluttering drapes she’d wondered if she was dreaming. Not awake at all. He’d looked like a living sculpture of a Greek god. Every line of his body perfectly proportioned and muscled in the light of dawn, bathing him in a kind of golden celestial glow.

Zoe had had only one impulse—to capture his beauty. She’d barely been aware of reaching for her camera and lifting it to her face. Much like the first time she’d taken his photo.

Realising that she was sitting in some kind of a stupor, waiting for him to emerge, she scrambled out of bed and took some clothes with her, washing and changing in the suite’s other bathroom.

When she was drying herself afterwards she was aware of a tension she hadn’t felt in days. She’d become so engrossed in Maks’s world. In his masterful seduction. To the point where she’d almost forgotten that a far grittier world existed for her outside of all this...fantasy.

She’d almost forgotten that this wasn’t normal. When she’d woken at first, before she’d opened her eyes and seen Maks in all his naked glory, she’d been feeling such a sense of contentment. And peace and safety.

A brief fantastical illusion.

Hard to forget, though, when the after-effects of Maks’s body moving over hers, in hers, still lingered.

A cold finger traced down her spine. She hadn’t felt that sense of happiness or safety in a long time—not since before her world had been torn apart and she’d lost everything she’d loved and known.

She heard Maks’s voice in the suite, low. Her pulse throbbed in reaction even as she realised that this was her wake-up call. She’d allowed no one close enough to hurt her—not even Dean, who she’d known and believed she trusted.

She threw on some clothes, a knot in her belly at the thought of facing Maks. But for a moment, before she walked into the main room of the suite, she was gripped by a fantasy.

Maybe she was being paranoid. Skittish. Maybe Maks wasn’t really that annoyed about the photos and maybe he was even now making arrangements to reschedule his work so they could spend another day together... And maybe she was safe. Maybe he hadn’t got so close that he would burn her alive.

But when she entered the main room and saw Maks pacing back and forth, his cell phone clamped to his ear, dressed in a three-piece suit, she knew something had broken.

He was remote, barely glancing at her. Speaking Italian. He gestured to where breakfast was laid out on the table. Fresh coffee, pastries, fruit, cereal. But Zoe wasn’t hungry.

Newspapers. Something caught her eye in one paper and she picked it up, her blood running cold. There was a picture of her and Maks at the ballet in St Petersburg. And another of them at the fashion event. And one from yesterday, here in Venice. She was holding his hand and looking up at him, smiling. No, laughing.

Zoe sank down into a chair. She felt sick to see herself plastered across the newspapers. But she’d been incredibly naive not to expect this. She recalled seeing those pictures of Maks’s brother’s new wife—Maggie?—in the papers. She’d had a similar deer-in-the-headlights look.

Maks terminated his conversation. Zoe looked at him. He had a stern expression on his face. One she hadn’t seen for some time.

She put down the paper. ‘Is everything okay?’

Maks put his phone in his pocket. ‘Not exactly, no.’

Zoe stood up again, trepidation prickling over her skin. ‘What is it? Did something happen?’