The Baby Secret

'What's this, the eternal brotherhood?' she asked grumpily. But he was right She knew he was right And she also knew she was going to have the dickens of a fight on her hands once Zac knew she was carrying his child. But she wasn't going to give in.

They left the restaurant arm in arm, and as always Victoria felt better for having talked to William, after crying most of the long, lonely night away, lying awake until the early hours.

She had moved into the tiny, one-bedroomed flat she was renting the day before, and amazingly it had been her mother who had been instrumental in her finding the little treasure of a place tucked away in Richmond. It belonged to the daughter of one of Coral's bridge partners, apparently, who was away working in America for twelve months and had decided to rent out if she could get a suitable lodger. Victoria was considered suitable, and so that was that and she was installed before she knew it.

Victoria had been only too grateful to find somewhere so quickly—the three days she had spent at her mother's apartment on her return to England had been more than enough for both women. And how Coral would react when she found out she was going to be a grandmother, Victoria didn't even like to contemplate. She was barely speaking to her daughter as it was, and Coral had told her flatly—in the first minute of their meeting on Victoria's return to England—that she considered Victoria totally responsible for the breakdown of her marriage.

As though he had picked up her thoughts, William stopped her on the pavement just outside the restaurant and enclosed her lightly in his arms, looking down into her face as he said, 'How is your mother behaving in all this, or don't I need to ask?'

'About as you'd expect,' Victoria said with justified bitterness. 'Everything is all my fault and Zac can't do anything wrong.'

'She's one on her own. It's hard to believe—'

Victoria never did find out what William found hard to believe, because in the next moment, as she stood relaxed in his arms, her head tilted as she looked up into the face of this tried and trusted friend, a dark, cold voice at the side of them brought her jerking out of William's hold as though something had bitten her. Which in a way it had, she thought shakily as her heart continued to beat like a crazy thing.

'I hate to interrupt what is obviously a tender moment, but I want a word with my wife.' Ice tinkled in every word.

'Zac.' Victoria stumbled backwards and would have fallen but for Zac's quick hand at her elbow, which immediately returned to his side when she was steady, as though he couldn't bear to touch her. 'What…? How did you…?' she stammered incoherently.

'Let's cut the 'what are you doing here?' scenario,' Zac grated with icy contempt. 'I'm sure we can do better than that.'

He looked magnificent. That was Victoria's first jumbled thought. Followed by, And angry. Definitely furiously, murderously angry. He was in a business suit, clearly having come from the office, and in spite of the rage that was turning the dark eyes into brilliantly black bullets and his beautifully chiselled mouth into a hard, straight line his control was absolute.

'Zac, this isn't a good moment,' she began tremblingly.

'On the contrary, Victoria, it is an excellent moment,' he said tightly, his eyes sweeping over her flushed, anxious face.

'I'm… I've just had lunch. This is—'

'William Howard,' Zac finished for her, giving the other man one scathing glance before turning back to Victoria again. 'Now say goodbye to your playmate because we've got some serious talking to do, the results of which will determine whether lover boy here needs a new face in the very near future.'

'What on earth are you talking about?' She stared at him in horrified amazement His voice hadn't been raised one iota above normal, which made the content of his words all the more incredible.

'It's very simple, Victoria, but not something to be discussed in the middle of the street,' Zac said with smooth control, only the lethal glitter in the black eyes betraying the rage he was hiding.

'Now just hang on a minute.' William had had enough of being ignored. 'Perhaps Victoria doesn't want to come with you.'

'Surprisingly I really don't care what Victoria wants,' Zac said with smooth venom, and then, as William went to say more, he added with biting savagery, 'Stay out of this, Howard.'

'Zac, have you gone mad?' Victoria asked faintly. 'Stop this.'

'One of us has, and don't try to tell me what to do.'

'She's not coming with you the mood you're in,' William said stoutly. 'Not without me as well, that is.'

'Wrong,' Zac rasped. 'Quite wrong.'

'You hurt her and I'll—' William knew immediately he had said the worst thing possible in the circumstances as Zac turned to him, with a lightning move of his formidable body, and but for Victoria moving even quicker between them William knew he wouldn't have been on his feet for many more seconds.

'Zac, please…' Victoria was hanging onto his arms now, but as Zac stared at the other man over her head William doubted if the enraged man in front of him even heard her.

'I wouldn't harm a hair of her head,' Zac grated out harshly, 'and she knows it. You, however, are a different matter.'

'Zac, you said you wanted to talk, so come on.' Victoria would have gone anywhere, said anything in that moment to get some safe distance between the two men. 'Where's your car?' She glanced wildly about the pavement as though she expected Zac's beautiful Jaguar to be sitting beside them like an obedient pet dog.

'Over there.' Zac gestured behind her without taking his glittering eyes off William for a moment, but although his voice was calmer Victoria could feel the bunched muscles under her fingers and she didn't dare let go of him.

'You don't have to go with him,' William said softly, looking straight into Victoria's terrified eyes now, 'His threats don't worry me in the least, Blue-eyes. You know that.'