Because Maks didn’t make you feel weak, said an inner voice.
He’d made her feel strong. Empowered. And yet even now she could hear Maks’s voice in her head, denying that he’d given her those things, those feelings. They’d been within her—all he’d done was encourage her to find them.
And he’d not held back from telling her what his life had been like. Why he had no interest in a relationship or anything more permanent. He’d been scarred too. Except, unlike Zoe, he’d not let himself get lost in a fantasy. He’d not let his innate weakness rise up to drown him. Again.
CHAPTER NINE
‘ARE YOU TAKING Nikos’s place in the tabloids now that he’s an apparently happily settled married man?’
Sharif’s tone was mocking. Maks curbed his urge to scowl at his older brother.
Downtown Manhattan was laid out all around them, visible through the huge windows, people were like industrious ants on the sidewalks. But it was wasted on Maks.
‘I hardly think a couple of photos in a few tabloids is up to Nikos’s standards. Or yours, I might add. You’re racking up quite the tally of kiss-and-tells. Not the best judge of women who can be discreet, hmm?’
Now Sharif did scowl. Not that it marred the handsomeness of his dark good looks. ‘Who is she, anyway?’
Maks bristled at his question. ‘You don’t need to worry about who she is. It’s over.’
Sharif cocked an eyebrow. ‘Pity. The board are still skittish, in spite of Nikos’s reformation. If you were to settle down too...?’
Maks waited for the inevitable sense of rejection that usually accompanied any suggestion or notion of permanence, but all he felt was hollow. Irritation made him say, ‘There’s as much likelihood of that happening as of you getting married.’
To his surprise, Sharif didn’t immediately rebut that statement. When Maks looked at him, his brother’s expression was one he couldn’t read. Almost...resigned.
Maks frowned. ‘Sharif?’
The expression passed as if Maks had imagined it. And a familiar mocking arrogance animated his brother’s face again as he said, ‘That’s enough gossiping, let’s get on with it.’
‘By all means,’ Maks responded, more than happy to focus on work.
* * *
A few hours later, in his hotel suite in Manhattan, Maks nursed a whisky as he looked out over the glittering lights of the city that never slept. He felt as if he might never sleep again. Restless under his skin. Hungry in his blood. For her.
He still wanted Zoe.
He’d never wanted a woman for longer than a brief period.
A tantalising prospect struck him. Maybe he’d been too hasty? Maybe he could come to an arrangement with her in which—
No. He ruthlessly shut down that train of thought. She wasn’t that kind of woman. Sophisticated. Who knew the rules of the game. He’d been her first lover. She’d just got under his skin.
All he had to do was remember Zoe’s reaction earlier, when he’d broken things off. The way she’d gone so pale. Her eyes huge. Stricken. It had only confirmed for him that he was doing the right thing. They had no future. As it was, he’d already dragged her into the public eye. After accusing her of being a paparazzi! The irony was not welcome.
But he couldn’t regret seducing her—not when it had been so earth-shatteringly satisfying.
He had no right to give her any hope for more. She’d been a brief aberration. A temptation he shouldn’t have succumbed to. A temptation he wouldn’t succumb to again.
Three weeks later
Zoe was gritty-eyed after another broken night’s sleep. Broken by dreams about Maks. And nightmares. In the latest one she’d been in Venice, endlessly wandering the narrow labyrinthine streets, searching for him, only to catch a tiny glimpse at the last second before he disappeared around another corner.
She hated herself for being so weak. He’d dumped her.
She told herself yet again that he’d done her a favour as she walked to her local corner shop for supplies.
There was nothing like being back in the grittier end of London to remind her of where she belonged. So when she looked down and saw the pictures on the front page of the tabloid newspaper she had to blink several times, wondering if she was still dreaming. Or hallucinating.