An hour later Damon gave up on his efforts to call Ben, who had clearly turned his phone off, or more probably thrown it into the deep blue Mediterranean Sea.
He paced to the enormous glass doors that stretched the length of one entire wall in his office. The heavy cloud from last night had gone and the day was clear and dry, the sun sparkling on the harbor and gleaming off the glossy, expensive yachts tied up in the viaduct. But the view, spectacular as it was, barely impinged on his thoughts. At this point, even Ben was the least of his problems.
Zara had gotten Rosie a passport.
There was no point doing that unless Zara had intended to leave the country with Rosie. Disappearing from sight again as she had tried to do just over a year ago.
Broodingly, he considered that maybe Zara had only wanted to take a vacation? The problem with that scenario was that he knew Zara didn’t have that kind of money. Walter had made a few discreet inquiries, so Damon knew that in financial terms, Zara was struggling to keep her head above water. The fact was, he had been propping up her finances for months, by hiring people he didn’t need.
If Zara couldn’t afford a holiday there was only one scenario left, she had been planning on leaving the country with Rosie and, in the process, leaving him.
But why start a new business if she was planning on emigrating? None of it made sense.
With sudden decision, he walked through to Walter’s office. “I need you to run a security check on Zara.”
Walter looked up from a thick legal pad on which he was making notes. “Didn’t we do that last year?”
“Not in depth.” Since Zara was fresh out of college, he had just asked for a standard check, which was relatively superficial, establishing whether or not there were any criminal convictions or debt issues that might compromise business loyalties, checking that qualifications and references were authentic. Since Zara had just graduated with an honors degree, and had been referred by a business acquaintance, an in-depth check had seemed like overkill.
“What exactly are you worried about?” Walter’s gaze narrowed. “The baby’s not yours.”
“Rosie’s mine.”
Walter gave him a bland look. “Knew it as soon as I saw her.”
Despite his irritation, Damon had to stop himself from grinning. “That obvious?”
“’Fraid so.” Walter shook his head. “At least the baby explains why Zara left. Although it still doesn’t really add up.”
Damon’s brows jerked together. “Explain.”
“Disclosure. It’s big with women.”
Damon waited for more; when it didn’t come he kept a grip on his irritation. “Walter, you’re going to have to use more words.”
Walter sat back in his chair. “Margot made me join this group for men who have difficulty communicating—”
“I thought Margot liked the strong, silent type.”
Walter gave him a stony look. “Do you want to hear this or not? According to the group facilitator, women actually like to talk about their emotional lives. It’s called disclosure. Darned irritating and a waste of time if you ask me, but Margot has got some bee in her bonnet because, apparently, I don’t discl—”
“Let’s take it back to Zara.”
Walter blinked as if he’d just returned from a dark place. “Okay. Simple equation. Zara was in love with you, so, being a woman, she should have told you about the pregnancy.”
Damon’s chest locked up. He felt like he’d just been kicked by a mule. “What makes you think Zara was in love with me?”
Walter gave him an “are you serious?” look. “Zara has all the raw materials of a sergeant major or a general. She could organize a war. So, it figures, why else would she let down her guard and sleep with you if she wasn’t, you know, in love?”
Damon’s jaw tightened on a complex surge of emotions—heat, raw possessiveness, unaccountable relief. An hour ago, any idea that Zara was in love with him would have had him warily backing off. But that was before she had calmly admitted that she already had a passport for Rosie. The passport was a game changer because it signaled that Zara and Rosie were leaving, and he did not want that to happen.
“So why do you think, if Zara was in love with me, that she didn’t ‘disclose’ the pregnancy?”
Walter looked reflective. “Zara’s a decisive woman. Maybe she just got tired of you.” He nodded his head. “Yep, that’s a pretty clear-cut reason for leaving.”
Damon restrained his irritation with difficulty. He could see why Margot had sent Walter to counseling. “She didn’t get tired of me.”
Walter drummed his fingers on the desk. “I guess, since she’s back.”
Damon’s jaw tightened. And she still wanted him.
“Which is why I need that security check. ASAP.”
Given Walter’s summation of Zara’s character, which was startlingly accurate, Zara’s contention that she had left him because she didn’t think he would want her in his wealthy, successful life now seemed both wimpy and implausible.
There had to be another reason.
That meant she was hiding something. Something important.
* * *
Several frantic hours later, Zara boarded Damon’s private jet, carrying Rosie. A uniformed steward followed, carrying the baby bag and all of Zara’s and Rosie’s luggage.
Since Zara had only ever worked for Damon for a few weeks, she had never seen the jet, which was unashamedly luxurious, with spacious cabin seating and a well-appointed bathroom and sleeping cabin at the rear.
Damon stepped into the cabin, instantly dwarfing the compact space. His cool gaze briefly connected with hers, leaving her feeling oddly confused, because the warmth of that morning seemed to have disappeared. He tossed his jacket over the back of a leather seat and chatted with the steward, whose name was Mark.
Predictably, Mark was an older man with a lean, muscled physique and a somewhat grizzled face marred by what looked like a serious burn scar on one side. She had no doubt whatsoever that this was another of Damon’s ex-soldiers.
As Zara tried to settle Rosie, enough that she could put the baby down to sleep in the portable crib Damon had sent ahead, the door to the flight deck popped open. Zara expected another ex-army type would have the job of pilot. Instead, a stunning blonde wearing a crisp flight uniform stepped into the cabin.
Zara continued to rock Rosie on her shoulder as the blonde introduced herself as Buffy McNamara, the pilot. Buffy lifted a hand at Damon, her polite smile transforming into a sparkling grin. Her casual “Hey, Damon” made Zara tense up inside.
Rosie chose that moment to spit up on Zara’s shoulder. Feeling distracted and out of sorts, Zara searched for some baby wipes.
When Damon didn’t end the conversation with Buffy, but showed every evidence of enjoying the exchange, even down to calling her Mac—the first part of her surname, and obviously some kind of extra special pet name—Zara’s tension coalesced into annoyance. She was busy trying to untie Rosie’s bib. What she really wanted to do was frog-march Mac back to the flight deck and tell her to stay there.
Jaw taut, Zara located a laundry bag and jammed the soiled bib inside it. She knew what the problem was. She was jealous, horribly jealous, although she could not afford to let Damon know that.
Damon took the seat next to her and dragged at his tie. “Is there something wrong?”
Zara found herself snared in the net of his gaze. Adrenaline zinged through her and her heart sped up. She took a deep breath and attempted a smile. “Rosie’s just a little unsettled, that’s all.”
At that moment Buffy strolled by on her way back to the flight deck. She paused by Damon’s seat and beamed at Rosie. “Cute baby. If you need help settling her, Mark can give you a hand. In fact, you could think about moving her into the bedroom at the rear—it’s quieter there and she might sleep better.”
And no doubt with Rosie tidily out of sight and out of Damon’s sleek, high-powered executive space, the flight would go more smoothly for the boss.
Zara fought another unreasoning spurt of annoyance. Buffy couldn’t know that Rosie was Damon’s daughter because they’d agreed to keep that a secret for now. “Thanks, that’s a good idea, but I think Rosie will be happier here in the cabin with me.”
When Buffy strode through the door of the flight deck Zara glimpsed the copilot, who was an older military type, just before the door closed.
Damon, his gaze tinged with amusement, offered to take Rosie. Feeling embattled, Zara handed over the baby and Rosie settled like a lamb on his shoulder.
Mark, who was busy stowing bags, looked bemused. “Hidden talents, Damon?”
“Looks like.” Damon patted Rosie on the back, but he scarcely needed to because she had already fallen asleep.
Minutes later, Damon lowered Rosie into the crib and tucked a cotton blanket around her. Zara busied herself zipping the baby bag closed before stowing it beneath the seat closest to the crib. She searched through her handbag and found her phone so she could check and see if Molly, who had agreed to work full-time in the agency until Zara got back, had sent her any last-minute texts. There were none, which was a relief—
“You should come and sit down.”
The low timbre of Damon’s voice made her tense. She took a deep breath and tried to calm down, but despite the good talking-to she had given herself, she was still terminally annoyed at the way he had flirted with Buffy. The kind of conversation that underlined the fact that despite Rosie, despite them sleeping together again, she had absolutely no claim on Damon at all.
Slipping her phone back into her handbag, she took her seat and snapped open the magazine she had bought for the flight and found herself staring at a page filled with photographs of women dressed for glamorous occasions. Caroline Grant was center stage, wearing the exact same dress she had worn to the charity gala she had attended with Damon.
Zara stuffed the magazine into her bag.
* * *
“You don’t have to be jealous of Mac,” Damon said quietly.
Zara fastened her seat belt with a crisp click. “I’m not jealous,” she muttered, keeping her voice equally low, so that Mark, who was seated at the rear of the cabin, couldn’t hear. “Although I guess Buffy is blonde, and you do seem to have this thing for blondes.”
“You’re not blonde.”
The jet picked up speed before leaving the ground. Zara’s stomach tightened automatically as they gained height.
“And neither am I your date.” She made the mistake of turning her head and was instantly ensnared by the molten silver of Damon’s gaze.
“You were last night.”
Heat flooded her along with a raft of memories she had been working hard to suppress and which now, literally, welded her to the seat.
“Mac is the wife of a friend. She was in the air force, part of the crew attached to our Special Forces group. She married one of the team, Brendan McNamara, which is why she goes by the nickname Mac.”
Relief surged through Zara, making her feel a little shaky and ridiculously happy. Happy that Buffy/Mac was just a friend, but even happier that Damon had been considerate enough to reassure Zara. It seemed to signal another positive turn in their relationship.
“I wasn’t going to do this right now,” Damon murmured with an odd flatness to his voice, “but now that we’re in the air and you can’t walk out on me, I have a proposition for you.”
Zara tensed. “A proposition?”
“As in marriage. We have a daughter. We’re good together. It won’t be a marriage in the usual sense, but I think what we have is workable.”
Not a marriage in the usual sense... Workable.
Zara wondered if she’d just time warped back to the nineteenth century. “Let me get this right. You’re proposing a marriage—with sex—on the basis that we have a child?”
She drew a deep breath. The conditions he was offering were businesslike but more than a little hurtful. In a blinding moment of clarity she understood why. It was because a ‘workable’ marriage of convenience was the absolute opposite of what she wanted.
Because somehow, despite everything, she had fallen in love with Damon.
For a split second her heart seemed to stop in her chest. When it started up again, it pounded so hard she could barely breathe.
“I think you know by now that I’d like to, but I...need some time.”
Because there was no way she could agree to an engagement, no matter how much she longed to. Not until he knew who she really was.
And once he knew that, he probably wouldn’t want to marry her.