A Facade to Shatter

Chapter SEVEN

ZACH WAS ON the edge of control. Not in a way that made him sweat as helpless panic rose in his throat and threatened to squeeze the life from him. But he had a need to dominate. A need to take this infuriating woman to his bed and not let her out of it for several hours.

Not until she sighed her pleasure into his ear. Not until she gasped out his name the way she had in Palermo. Sweet, innocent Lia. He wanted to taste her again. Wanted to know if she was as sweet as he remembered. As intoxicating.

She stood very still in his grasp. He didn’t hold her tight. She could have broken free with a single tug. Oh, not when he’d first gripped her hand. Definitely not then. At that moment, he’d been intending to saunter back into the gathering with his woman at his side, looking happy and enraptured for the world to see.

He knew how this game was played. He could have a fast romance and marriage, but first he had to be seen with Lia. And they needed to appear as if they couldn’t keep their hands off each other. So far, they’d looked as if they might prefer to touch anyone else rather than each other.

He had to change that perception, especially since there were at least three reporters circulating at this party tonight. Tomorrow, on the society pages of the local papers, they’d mention his date. By tomorrow evening, they’d know everything about Lia Corretti.

And what he wanted them to know was that she was mad for him.

Except she didn’t look so much mad for him as mad at him at the moment. Furious, with her snapping blue-green eyes and dark auburn hair that caught the light like a flame. Her lips parted slightly as he stared at them. Her breathing grew shallow, her creamy breasts rising and falling more rapidly.

He could see the pulse thrumming in her neck. A very male sort of satisfaction slid through him. Lia was not immune, no matter how she bristled and glared.

Zach reached up and ran his thumb over the pulse at her throat. She gasped, but she didn’t pull away.

“We were good together,” he purred. “We could be again.”

Her eyes were wide as she gazed up at him. “This is an arrangement, Zach,” she said, her voice hardly more than a whisper. “An arrangement that does not include sex.”

He was beginning to regret that he’d used that word with her. She was intent on keeping it strictly business since he’d told her this was a temporary solution to protect their families from the media.

He’d fully intended it to be temporary when he’d said it. It had seemed the perfect solution. He didn’t know the first thing about being a father, wasn’t sure he could even do it. If he married Lia, gave their child a name and a legacy, they could go their separate ways in a few months and everything would be fine.

Except, strangely, since the moment the doctor had given him the test results earlier, he’d felt a sense of duty that warred with those thoughts.

And more than duty. When Lia had come downstairs tonight, he’d felt the same shot of lust he’d experienced in his room in Palermo. The same hard knot of desire had coiled inside his gut and refused to let go.

He bent toward her, breathed in her scent. “What is your perfume, Lia?” he asked, his breath against her ear. A shudder rolled through her. He could feel it in his fingertips where they pressed into her back and throat.

“It’s my own,” she said, her voice husky. “I went to a perfumer in the village. She made it for me.”

Zach breathed again. “Vanilla. A hint of lavender. Perhaps even a shot of lemon. For tartness,” he finished.

“I—I don’t know,” she said quickly. “I didn’t ask.”

Zach couldn’t stop himself from what he did next. He touched his tongue to her throat, glided to the sweet spot beneath her ear. The sound that came out of her made him hard.

Her hands were on his lapels, clutching him. “Zach, stop …”

“Do you really want me to?” he said against her sweet flesh.

She shuddered again, and he reacted with animal instinct, pushing her into an alcove where they were hidden from prying eyes. Unless someone was standing right in front of the opening, they would not be visible from down the corridor.

It was appalling behavior for a public event, but right now Zach was operating on a pure shot of desire.

“I definitely taste lemon,” he said, tilting her chin up and back until her eyes were on his. “You are so beautiful, Lia. So hot.”

“You are trying to seduce me,” she said, closing her eyes. “You would say anything to further your purpose.”

His hand slid around her back, up her rib cage. He shaped her breast, his thumb caressing her nipple beneath the fabric. He was gratified when it pebbled beneath his touch.

“Why do you say such things? Why don’t you want to believe the truth? If you weren’t hot, I wouldn’t be unable to control myself with you. Don’t you remember how it felt? How we burned together?”

“I remember it every day,” she said, still not looking at him. “I carry a reminder.”

He let his hand fall to her belly, pressed gently against her there. She uttered a little protest, but he didn’t take his hand away. He knew it bothered her that her belly wasn’t hard and lean. No, she was soft and pliable, womanly. Her body was curvy, not angular and hard from exercise. He liked it just the way it was.

“Maybe we should alter the arrangement,” he said, his tongue suddenly feeling thick in his mouth. As if he didn’t know the right thing to say. As if he were so new at this game of seducing a woman that the outcome could be in doubt.

She turned her head toward him, as if she was going to speak, and he knew the answer wouldn’t be what he wanted to hear from the way she stiffened at his words.

But he wasn’t going to give her a chance to say a thing. He brought his mouth down on hers, trapping her body between him and the wall. His heart was thundering in his chest, the way it did when he’d gotten that adrenaline rush after he’d aimed his jet straight up and climbed the sky like it was a mountain. Once he’d stopped climbing and starting racing toward earth again, only to pull up before it was too late, the g-forces holding him tight to his seat, he’d gotten another huge rush that made him laugh out loud at the sheer joy of flight.

Kissing Lia was similar to that feeling. Her lips were soft beneath his, though he sensed she didn’t want them to be. Her hands curled into fists on his lapels—but she didn’t push him away. He ghosted a thumb over her nipple and she gasped, letting his tongue inside her mouth.

Another shot of unfiltered desire ricocheted into his groin, making him painfully hard. He’d not been with a woman since he’d been with her. And before that, he’d not been with a woman in months. Lia had been the one to break the drought—and, strangely, he still desired her the way a man desired cool water after a hot trek in the desert.

Zach slid his tongue along hers, coaxed her into responding. She made a little noise in her throat—desire, frustration, he didn’t know which—but she stroked him in return. He tightened his grip on her, pulled her in closer to his body.

And then he assaulted her mouth more precisely, more urgently, taking everything she had to give him and demanding yet more. Her arms went around his neck, and then her body was arching into his, her hips pressing ever closer to that hardness at the core of him.

He cupped her ass with both hands, pulled her tightly to him, so tightly there could be no doubt what he wanted from her. He flexed his hips, pressing his hardness into her, finding that precise spot that made her gasp and moan.

He could make her come this way. He would make her come this way. He needed to hear her pleasure, needed to be the one to make her feel it.

Dimly, the click of heels against tile registered in his brain. The sound was coming closer, closer. With a frustrated groan, Zach broke away from the sweet taste of Lia. She looked up at him, blinking dazedly, her eyes slightly unfocused and distant, her lips moist and shiny. By degrees, her features changed, set, hardened into a cool mask.

“I’m sorry,” he said right before the heels clicked to a stop in front of the alcove. Except he didn’t know what he was sorry for.

“Mr. Scott?”

Zach closed his eyes for a brief moment. Then he turned to greet the socialite who stood there. “Yes, Mrs. Cunningham?”

Elizabeth Cunningham’s gaze darted past him to Lia, then back again. He didn’t miss the tightening of Elizabeth’s mouth, or the disapproving gleam in her eye. It pissed him off. Royally. Elizabeth Cunningham was thirty years younger than her husband, and much too judgmental for one who’d reached the pinnacle of society by marrying into it.

Zach reached for Lia’s hand, pulled her to his side. Claimed her. He thought she might move away from him, but she didn’t. She seemed to grasp the importance of appearances, after all.

“It’s time for your speech,” the other woman said, her gaze settling on his face once more.

Zach made a show of looking at his watch. “Ah, yes, so it is. I lose track of time when I’m with my lovely fiancée, I’m afraid.”

Elizabeth’s eyes widened. They darted to Lia. To Lia’s credit, she didn’t flinch or give away by look or gesture that she was anything other than what he’d said she was.

“Come, darling,” he told her, tucking her hand into his arm and leading her back toward the gathered crowd. Another speech, another event to tick off his social calendar.

Afterward, he would take Lia home … and then he’d finish what he’d started here tonight.

Lia was shell-shocked. She sat through the rest of the evening in a daze. Her mouth still tingled where Zach had kissed her. Her body throbbed with tension and need. She’d been so furious with him, so convinced she would never, ever be susceptible to his charms again.

She’d been wrong. Woefully, pitifully wrong.

She was still the same lonely girl she’d always been, the same girl looking for acceptance and affection. She despised herself for that weakness, despised Zach for taking advantage of it. She took a sip of her water and let her gaze slide over the crowd before turning back to Zach.

He stood at a podium close to their table, talking about his father, about the war, about the night he was shot down over enemy territory. He said the words, but she wasn’t convinced he felt any of them.

He was detached. Cold. The crowd was not. They sat rapt. And Lia couldn’t help herself. She was rapt with them. She learned about how his plane took a hit and he’d had to bail out. How he’d broken his leg in the landing, and how he’d had to drag himself to shelter before the enemy found him.

Then she listened to him talk about the six marines who’d been sent in to extract him after several days. They had all died trying to save him. He was the only survivor. It sent a chill down her spine and raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

He’d suffered much, she thought. So much that she couldn’t even begin to understand. She wanted to go to him, wanted to wrap her arms around him and lower his head to her shoulder. And then she just wanted to hold him tight and listen to him breathe.

Toward the end of his speech, a photographer started to take photos. His flash snapped again and again. Zach seemed to stiffen slightly, but he kept talking, kept the crowd in the grip of his oratory. The photographer moved in closer. No one seemed to think anything of it, but Lia remembered that night in Palermo and her palms started to sweat.

Zach gripped the sides of the podium, his knuckles white. The flash went off again and again and she didn’t miss the way he flinched in reaction. It was so subtle as to seem a natural tic, but something told Lia it was not. Then he seemed to stumble over his thoughts, repeating something he’d just said. Panic rose up in Lia’s chest, gripped her by the throat.

She couldn’t watch him lose his way like he had in Palermo. She couldn’t let him suffer that kind of public meltdown. She didn’t know that he would, but she couldn’t get past the memory of the way she’d met him, plastered against that wall with his eyes tight shut and the flashing and booming of lights and bass all around.

She didn’t have to look at this crowd any longer to know it would be disastrous if he did.

Right now, everyone seemed to be paying attention to Zach. She didn’t quite know what to do, or how to deflect their attention—and then she did. She coughed. Loudly. After a moment, Zach’s gaze slid in her direction. She kept coughing, and then she reached for the water, took a swallow as if she were having trouble. Zach’s attention was firmly on her now. He darted his eyes over the crowd, but they inevitably came back to her.

She coughed again, sipped more water. The photographer seemed satisfied enough with his photos thus far that he lowered his camera and melted toward the back of the crowd.

Lia stopped coughing. A few minutes later, Zach wound up his speech. The room erupted in applause. Lia breathed deeply, relieved. Though, perhaps Zach had been in control the whole time. Perhaps he’d never needed her intervention, lame though it was.

She watched him walk toward her. People stopped him, talked to him, making his progress back to her side take quite a long time. But then he was there, and she was gazing up at him, searching his face for signs of stress.

There were none.

He gazed over her head, his attention caught by something. Just for a moment, his mouth tightened. The flash went off again and Lia whirled toward the source.

“Come, darling,” Zach said, holding out his hand. “Let’s get you home.”

Several of the Washington elite slid sideways glances at them, but Lia didn’t care. She gave Zach a big smile and put her hand in his. He helped her from her chair and then they were moving toward the exit. They were waylaid a few more times, but soon they were on the street and Lia sucked in a relieved breath. They were facing the National Mall and the street was far quieter here since it fronted the museums instead of busy Constitution Avenue.

Raoul pulled up in the Mercedes on cue. Zach didn’t wait for him to come around and open the door. He yanked it open and motioned Lia inside. Then he joined her and they were speeding off into the night. Zach leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes. His palms were steepled together in his lap.

She found herself wanting to trace a finger along the hard line of his jaw. She would not do it, of course.

“Are you all right?” she asked presently.

His eyes opened. “Fine. Why?”

She fiddled with the beading on her gown. “I thought the photographer might have disturbed you.”

Zach was very still. “Not at all,” he said after a moment’s hesitation. “It goes with the territory. I am accustomed to it.”

His answer disappointed her, but she decided not to push him further. She remembered how angry he’d been in Palermo, how disgusted with himself. She’d hoped he might confide in her tonight, but she had to understand why he did not.

Still, she ached for him.

“I’m sorry those things happened to you,” she said. “In the war.”

He shrugged. “That’s what war is, Lia. Brutal, inhumane. People get hurt and people die. I’m one of the lucky ones.”

Lucky ones. He didn’t sound as if he believed those words at all. And yet he was lucky. He was here, alive—and she was suddenly very thankful for that. Her chest squeezed tight as she thought of what he’d said tonight—and how very close she’d come to never knowing him at all.

“Why don’t you fly anymore, Zach?” She remembered that he’d said he couldn’t but she didn’t know why. She’d asked him that night in Palermo, but then she’d told him not to answer when she’d thought she’d crossed a line into something too personal.

Now, however, she wanted to know. She felt like she needed to know in order to understand him better. Her heart beat harder as she waited.

He sighed. And then he tapped his temple. “Head trauma. Unpredictable headaches accompanied by vision loss. Definitely not a good idea when flying a fighter jet at thirty thousand feet.”

He sounded so nonchalant about it, but she knew how much it must hurt him. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes gleamed as he looked at her. “Me, too. I loved flying.”

“I don’t like to fly,” she said. “I find it scary.”

He grinned, and it warmed her. “That’s because you don’t understand how it works. By that, I mean the noises the plane makes, the process of flight—not to mention the fact you aren’t in control. It’s some unseen person up there, holding your life in his or her hands. But it’s all very basic, I assure you.”

“I know it’s mostly safe,” she said. “But you’re right. I haven’t flown much, and the sounds and bumps and lack of control scare me.”

She’d longed for a sedative on the long flight from Sicily, but she hadn’t dared take one because of the baby.

His laugh made a little tendril of flame lick through her. “A fighter jet is so much more intense. The engines scream, the thrust is incredible and the only thing keeping you from blacking out is the G suit.”

Lia blinked. “What is a G suit?”

“An antigravity suit,” he said. “It has sensors that tell it when to inflate. It fits tight around the abdomen and legs in order to prevent the blood draining from the brain during quick acceleration.”

Lia shivered. “That sounds frightening.”

He shrugged. “Blacking out would be frightening. The suit not so much. You get used to it.”

“You miss flying, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Every damn day.”

“Then I’m sorry you can’t do it anymore.”

“Me, too.” He put his head back on the seat and closed his eyes. She wanted to reach out and touch him, wanted to run her fingers along his jaw and into his hair. But she didn’t.

She couldn’t breach that barrier, no matter how much she wanted to. She didn’t know what she really meant by such a gesture, what she expected. And she couldn’t bear it if he turned away from her. If he rejected her.

Lia clasped her hands in her lap and turned to look at the White House as they glided by on Constitution Avenue, heading toward the Lincoln Memorial and the bridge across the Potomac. The monuments were brightly lit, glowing white in the night. Traffic wasn’t heavy and they moved swiftly past the sites, across the bridge and toward Zach’s house in Virginia.

Lia racked her brain for something to say, something basic and innocuous. No matter what he’d said about the photographer, she was certain he’d had trouble with the intrusiveness of the flash.

But she didn’t feel she could push the subject. He’d already shared something with her when he’d told her why he could no longer fly, and how much he missed it. He had not said those things during his speech. He’d said them to her, privately, and she knew it bothered him a great deal.

She was still trying to think of something to say when Zach’s phone rang. He opened his eyes and drew it from his pocket, answering only once he’d looked at the display. He spent the next fifteen minutes discussing his schedule with someone, and then the car was sliding between the gates and pulling up in front of the house.

Zach helped her out of the car and they passed inside as a uniformed maid opened the door. It was dark and quiet inside. The maid disappeared once Zach told her they needed nothing else this evening.

The grand staircase loomed before them, subtly lit with wall sconces that went up to the landing. Zach took Lia’s elbow and guided her up the stairs. His touch was like a brand, sizzling into her, and her breath shortened as all her attention seemed to focus on that one spot. She didn’t want to feel this heat, this curl of excitement and fear that rolled in her belly, but she couldn’t seem to help it.

The way he’d touched her earlier, kissed her—

Lia swallowed. She shouldn’t want him to do it again, and yet a part of her did. A lonely, traitorous part of her. She wanted him to need her, wanted him to share his loneliness with her.

He escorted her to the room she’d been shown to earlier. But he didn’t push her against the wall the way he had in the museum. His hand fell away from her elbow and he took a step back.

Disappointment swirled in her belly, left her feeling hot and achy and empty. After that blazing kiss in the art museum, she’d expected something far different. And after his speech tonight, she’d wanted something far different. That was the Zach she wanted to know—the one who hid his feelings beneath a veneer of coldness, who’d watched six marines die and who would never fly again, though he loved it.

That was the Zach he buried deep, the one he’d let out in Palermo. The one she wanted again.

“You did well tonight,” he said. Still so cool, so indifferent.

Lia dropped her gaze as another emotion flared to life inside her. Confusion. Maybe she was wrong. Maybe he was just very good at being what the situation required. War hero. Senator’s son. Fiery lover. “Thank you.”

“Good night, Lia.” He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. The touch was light, almost imperceptible. His hands were in his pockets.

She blinked up at him. “Good night, Zach.”

He didn’t make a move to leave so she opened her door and went inside her room because she thought that was what he wanted her to do. Then she turned and pressed her ear against the door, straining to hear him as he walked away. Her heart pounded in her chest.

What if he didn’t go? What if he knocked on her door instead? What if she opened it and he took her in his arms and said he needed her?

What would she do?

Maybe she should open the door. Just yank it open and confront him. Ask him why he’d kissed her like that earlier. Why he’d mentioned altering the arrangement and then acted like it never happened.

Her fingers tightened on the knob. She would do it. She would jerk it open. She would demand an answer and she wouldn’t fear rejection—

Footsteps moved away down the hall. A door opened and closed.

Lia wanted to cry out in frustration. She’d waited too long.

The moment was gone.