“Sounds like a gigolo.” Zac glared at her, the candle flame throwing his carved cheekbones into sharp relief.
“Zac, he wasn’t. I certainly never gave him money.” But she had bought him a pair of sunglasses he’d admired. And a wallet. Nicoletta had bought him a leather jacket—in spite of his protests—and some other frivolous items that had caught her eye. Pandora had signed some of the tabs when they’d gone to lunch, the three of them—she, Steve and Nicoletta—while Nicoletta had picked up others. They’d thought it empowering. Steve had joked how he liked twenty-first-century women.
“He talked us all into going clubbing.” Pandora remembered her excitement, how it had felt to be seventeen and falling in love for the first time. This time it wasn’t a crush based on a poster of a movie star or a photo of a school friend’s brother. This time it was the real thing. Except she’d thought nothing would come of it because he’d so obviously preferred Nicoletta.
She’d been so naive.
“So he took you to a club and got you drunk.” Zac made a growling sound. “Two young girls.”
“We didn’t go alone.” She glared at him. “Let me finish. Alberto and the bodyguard came with. The first time we went, we only stayed for about an hour and we danced most of the time. But the next time we went, another friend of Alberto’s arrived, a guy Nicoletta had always fancied. Steve was heartbroken.”
“I’m sure he was,” Zac muttered. “He must have been crying in his Jack Daniel’s at the thought of the fortune slipping through his fingers.”
“You’re such a cynic. He wasn’t like that!”
“Did he know how wealthy you were?”
“I don’t think so. I was on the edge of the circle, the quiet, shy one.”
But she hadn’t been so shy that night that Nicoletta had gone off with Luigi. Then, she’d been animated—courtesy of the sweet, colourful cocktails with outrageous names she’d drunk to loosen her inhibitions. The excitement had carried her forward recklessly. When the seduction had come, she’d fallen into Steve’s bed like a ripe plum.
“Afterward …” Even the memory of her enthusiasm was mortifying. Jeez, she’d even invited Steve to High Ridge. “I wanted him to meet my father. I started talking about how soon we could get married. I mean, that’s what I thought love was about. I was so sheltered it was frightening. He couldn’t get away fast enough. I went back to New Zealand with my tail between my legs.”
“Idiot!” But Zac looked thoughtful now. “And that was the only time you slept together?”
She nodded miserably.
“Did he ever contact you again?” The intensity in Zac’s voice told her this was important. She snuck him a look across the table. His face was tense, unsmiling.
She thought of the messages her father had passed on to her when Steve had tracked her down and called her home in New Zealand a month later stating he needed to talk to her, that it had all been a misunderstanding.
Thank heavens her father had no idea what had really happened. She’d told him only that Steve was a friend of Nicoletta’s brother, Alberto. That’s when her father had told her that he’d had a trace done on Steve’s number, had him checked out and had decided he was an unsuitable companion for his only child. That he wanted her to cut the connection. Pandora had agreed with alacrity—Steve had made it painfully clear that last time she’d seen him that he didn’t feel anything like love for her. That her silly crush was not reciprocated. The last thing she’d wanted was her father to discover exactly how stupid she’d been, how she’d let him—and herself—down.
“No,” she said, stretching the truth a little, justifying it to herself. After all, Steve had never actually spoken to her. “And you never heard from him again?” She fiddled with the corner of the linen napkin. “What’s the point of all this? It’s not going to change the fact that I’m not a virgin.” Pandora wanted the inquisition to end. It achieved nothing except to stir up humiliating memories of the silly little goose she’d been.
“Humour me. Did you ever see him again?” She shot Zac a quick glance. His face was set, his gaze persistent. He was not going to let it go. And she no longer wanted to talk about it.
“He’s dead,” she said very quickly, throwing the napkin down and crossing her fingers under the crumpled fabric. Zac tensed, his body vibrating. “Are you sure about that?” Pandora glanced away from his piercing gaze into the blinding flicker of the candle flame. “I told you,” she said tonelessly. “He had contact with Alberto through a friend. That’s how I heard.”
“I assumed his claim to know a friend was a con on the part of this Steve to gain access to Alberto’s circle of friends.”
She’d never thought of that at the time. How naive she’d been. No wonder her father worried about her.
“Okay,” Zac said slowly. “So does anyone else know what happened that night?”
“I never told Nicoletta or Alberto … I was too ashamed.” And racked with guilt because she’d coveted a man who fancied Nicoletta. “And I doubt Steve would’ve, either.”
“No, he’d have wanted to keep open the chance to cement a relationship with your friend, Nicoletta, the wealthy industrialist’s daughter,” Zac remarked a trifle drily.
“Can we let it go now?” Pandora pleaded. “It was a mistake. I was so young, so romantic and so utterly stupid.”
“The memory is painful—”
“Yes. I wish it had never happened. I moved on afterward—it was my mistake, my secret. I went to the doctor. That in itself was terrifying because I had to find a doctor that my father didn’t know.” It had involved deception and made her feel underhanded and defiled. “I confessed to the doctor that I’d had a one-night stand and that I was scared I might be pregnant. I was so naive I didn’t even know if Steve had used protection that night.”
She’d been distraught. The doctor had been sympathetic. She’d done a pregnancy test and sent away samples for tests for diseases that Pandora had never even heard of.
“I told myself that I’d been lucky. I’d made one mistake, but I hadn’t gotten pregnant, nor had I picked up any disease or infection. So I put the whole nasty experience behind me. I refused to let it wreck my life.” Pandora blinked back the tears that filmed her eyes. “Yet now that night has come back to haunt me.”
“Pandora,” Zac’s tone was urgent.
She met his gaze staunchly. Zac would not want her now. She would get her divorce and go home to High Ridge. But at what cost?
“That one night means I’m not fit to be your wife.”
“Pandora!” Zac’s hands reached across the table and closed over hers. The shadows from the candlelight played over his face, giving him a dark, mysterious edge. “There is a way. The only people who know about your … indiscretion … are you, me and the doctor who is bound to silence. The man involved is dead.”
Something, some dangerous emotion, fluttered under Pandora’s breastbone. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that we keep it a secret. The doctor’s not going to tell nor will I. No one need know that you’re not a virgin.”
“Would you do that?” Did this sacrifice mean that Zac loved her? He was going against his entire upbringing—everything he’d believed in—to keep her with him. “Would you stay married to me? Keep the truth from everyone? Even your sister?”
Zac looked torn. “What choice do I have? It’s too late to annul our marriage—it’s already been consummated. If I walk away from you, the paparazzi will tear you apart. How can I do that to you?