The Innocent Behind the Scandal (The Marchetti Dynasty 2)

Maks looked at her as if seeing her for the first time. He felt ridiculously betrayed that Zoe had kept this information from him. But he could also see now where her talent came from. She had it in spades. It was evident in every picture hanging on the walls of this tiny flat.

She just looked at him with those huge eyes.

Maks frowned as something else sank in. ‘Your parents were wealthy.’

Zoe nodded. ‘Very. When they died, my inheritance was kept in trust for me till I turned eighteen.’

Maks looked around. ‘And yet you live like an impoverished student.’

‘Because I never wanted to touch that money.’

He was taken aback at the stark tone in her voice. ‘Why not?’

Zoe’s throat moved as if she was struggling to say the words. ‘Because it was blood money. Money that I never should have had. I got it at the expense of my parents’ deaths. My brother, who never got to live his life. Of course I wasn’t going to use it. I’ve given most of it away to charity.’

Maks felt a pain near his chest as he thought of the fact that Zoe blamed herself for the accident. He pushed it down.

‘What has Dean Simpson got to do with any of this?’

Zoe sighed. ‘When I was eighteen I left Ireland for London. I’d always wanted to follow in my father’s footsteps, and he started his photography career here. Also, there was nothing for me in Dublin. No family. No ties. Just grief and bittersweet memories.’

Maks was still reeling from all this information and what it meant about the woman in front of him. If what she was saying was true.

He said, ‘Go on.’

She looked at him. ‘I never expected to see Dean Simpson again. When he came to London and tracked me down I realised I was lonely. I trusted him. We’d been in the same foster home. He was my first boyfriend. We had a shared past. What I didn’t know was that he’d somehow found out about my background, and my inheritance, and had come to pursue a relationship with a view to getting his hands on it. When Dean brought it up I was shocked. I told him what I’ve told you—that I wanted nothing to do with the money, that I’d given most of it away to charity—and that was when Dean got angry with me...when he realised I’d been getting rid of it.’

Zoe lifted her chin.

‘If you don’t believe me you can check the bank account where the money from the pictures was lodged. It’s in Dean’s name. He didn’t even try very hard to cover his tracks.’

Maks looked at Zoe, a small obstinately cynical part of him refusing to give in to what his gut was telling him—that she was innocent. Always had been. In more ways than one.

‘How do I know you weren’t working together? That you haven’t spent your entire inheritance and you’re looking to make more money at my expense?’

Zoe went so pale that for a moment Maks thought she might faint. Instead, she stalked past him and went to the door, opening it.

She looked at him. ‘Get out, Maks.’

A lead weight seemed to be stuck in his gut. And then he remembered. The reason why he’d come here in the first place.

He said, ‘There’s something else. I bumped into Pierre Gardin. He told me that you might be pregnant. Is it true?’

* * *

Zoe looked at Maks. She forced herself to breathe, to let oxygen get to her brain. Anger, betrayal, and so many other emotions roiled in her gut that she felt light-headed. All mixed up with a clawing need to throw herself into Maks’s arms and wind herself around him like a vine.

She forced all that out. The urge to self-protect was paramount.

When she felt as if she could sound calm she said, ‘That’s the most ridiculous thing I ever heard.’

‘Pierre said you weren’t well.’

Zoe’s face grew warm and she avoided Maks’s eye. ‘I had a bug, that was all.’

‘So you’re not pregnant?’

She gripped the handle of the door. ‘Please leave, Maks. I have an English class to teach today and I’m already late.’