Past Lies Read online

  “Aren’t you going into your rant now? Threatening my alimony payments?”

  He’d had enough of continually playing her games. Zach smiled and some of the surety slipped from Isabelle’s face. He shrugged. “Spin your lies.”

  Isabelle’s gaze travelled over his body and ice prickled his skin. “Are they lies?”

  Zach wasn’t listening. His attention fixed on Anna. Nathan Alexander leant against the bar, half-blocking the woman from his view. But he couldn’t miss her smile. Curving bright. Relaxed. There was that hitch in his chest again. But history was not repeating itself. He wasn’t the same man who had fallen for Isabelle’s lies twelve years before. That fool was long gone.

  Isabelle’s sharp voice sliced into this thoughts. “Your reputation always meant more to you than any woman.”

  “I can control my reputation.” Trust it. But those words went unsaid.

  Isabelle laughed. “Is that why you pay everyone off?”

  “You’ve had more than enough of my time.”

  “Shame I won’t be there when she laughs in your face.” The leather of her seat creaked, but Zach didn’t turn to look at her. Anna’s tilted head and the keen look of interest forced another twist of the knife in his gut. “Anna Shrewsbury? You can’t help yourself.” She paused. “You really are your father’s son.”

  It was hard to believe that he had once loved Isabelle, loved her and married her. “Collect Nathan.” He smoothed his hand down over his tie, his jacket. “I think you have to leave now.”

  “Zachary…”

  He turned and the satisfaction slid from her face. “Now.”

  Isabelle rose with her usual grace and her chin lifted as she met his glare. Her green eyes were hard. “Your reputation rules you.” She presented him with a brittle smile and then looked to Anna. “And hers trails after her like slime.” Her hand stroked over his jaw and he cursed the natural flinch. “I’m an angel compared to her.” She patted his cheek. “And you know it.”

  “Bye, Isabelle.”

  A loose crowd of men parted before her. A wry smile tugged at Zach’s mouth when hot looks followed her consciously swaying hips. But Isabelle wasn’t his concern anymore. Anna was. For this week, at least.

  He let out a slow breath and made himself follow Isabelle.

  ˜™

  Anna gripped her glass and smiled until her face ached.

  Nathan Alexander. Another man who she didn’t want to see again.

  He was a friend of Sofia’s and had been a plague in her late teens. Too smooth and plastic-pretty, he made her skin crawl. But she smiled. Because he had said that if she didn’t, he would tell Zach about them.

  “No need to grimace, Anna.”

  She sipped at the water in her glass, the melting ice clinking. It stopped her from telling him what she really wanted to say. The cold run of water cooled her. “I don’t like being blackmailed.”

  Nathan ran his fingertip around the edge of Zach’s glass. It hummed. “It’s not blackmail.”

  “No. Of course not.” Her knuckles whitened around her own glass. “You just plan to lie to the man I’m with—”

  Nathan held up his hand. “No lies, Anna.” Her hand itched to wipe the smirk off his face. “You propositioned me.”

  “I did not!”

  “Anna, I have to go.” Isabelle glanced back to Zach’s implacable face and she caught the swift slide of the woman’s regret. “Nathan.”

  The man took Anna’s hand and pressed it to his lips. His pale eyes fixed on her. She shuddered. “Goodbye, my luscious Anna.”

  Anna forced her breathing into an even rhythm. He would bait her to the last. He put Isabelle’s arm through his and with a flicking wave from Zach’s ex-wife, they left.

  She expelled a hot breath. “Creep.”

  “I see you know Nathan Alexander well.”

  Zach settled himself back onto his stool and picked up his drink. Distaste cut his mouth and he waved for the bartender to get him a fresh glass. Anna didn’t know whether that was meant to be a joke so she sipped at her water again and said, “Can we go now?” She straightened. “Or do you want more bad memories to crawl out?”

  He shrugged. “The entire company has the whole day off.” He picked the damp napkin from the bottom of the glass and dropped it back on the counter. “I have nowhere else to be.”

  “I do.”

  A smile twisted. “So…” She was the focus of those steel blue eyes. “How do you know Nathan so well?”

  Anna ignored the edge to his voice. “Like I know everyone. He’s one of Sophia’s hangers-on.”

  “Ah, Sophia.”

  “And what’s that supposed to mean?” Anna was tired of the games. Her head was starting to ache. “Look, Zach.” She picked up her bag. “I’m leaving. I think it’s time I dictated some of our time together.”

  “Anna…”

  “Want to make another scene, Zach?”

  His usual cold, unyielding expression settled across his face. It was little wonder that Isabelle had broken away from Zach. The man had the emotional range of a stump.

  “Go where?”

  The tight pain in her chest eased. “I want to get back to Ashford, pack and go without seeing Sofia.”

  “Fine.” He put his empty glass back on the bar. “Then we go.”

  Anna blinked. “Just like that?”

  “The less I see of Sofia today the better.”

  Her smile was sharp before she turned to the door. “Snap!” she said.

  Chapter Five

  The car door clunked shut.

  It was four o’clock, still just enough time for Anna to be in and out of the house before her sister was any the wiser. Zach slid onto the backseat beside her. He grimaced and pulled out his phone.

  “Quinn.” His face darkened. “Now?”

  Anna tugged at her seat belt and tried not to listen to the rushed voice on the other end of the mobile. Her stomach knotted. The rich food from the dinner still burned. From Zach’s tight expression, it didn’t look good. This was not her day.

  “Fine.” He paused. His voice softened. “Thank you, Elise.” A sharp stab of his thumb ended the call. “David. The office.”

  “I thought we were…” Anna began.

  “You thought wrong,” Zach muttered and yanked his seat belt across his chest. “Seems Gregory’s little game isn’t all that private, after all.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  His gaze gripped her and Anna willed herself not to shrink away. “Don’t you?” The car pulled out into afternoon traffic, smooth, silent. “Dalton suddenly wants a meeting. He’s heard disturbing rumours about company infighting.”

  “Should I know who this Dalton is?”

  Zach’s sharp profile silhouetted against the window. “He’s wealthy. Of course you do.”

  Anna straightened her skirt and refused to be drawn. Yet, she had the uncomfortable suspicion he was right. The name did sound familiar. Nothing would make her admit that, though.

  They crawled through Friday afternoon traffic with Anna’s spine tense and aching. She wanted to be home, packing. Have the time to avoid the snide comments of her sister, to prepare herself for the exhibition. Yet, here she was sitting in an air-conditioned car with a man who hated her, heading to a meeting that could take hours.

  Definitely not how she had seen the day progressing.

  “Here’s fine, David,” Zach murmured and the car pulled smoothly to the kerb.

  Anna tottered onto the pavement and stared up at the stunning glass façade of the Head Office of Quinn Brabant Technologies. This was another place she hadn’t visited in years. One stupid act had completely changed how she lived her life.

  Belatedly, she followed Zach up the wide, marble steps. Large doors slid back with a faint hiss.

  Her boots clacked over the marble floor. The atrium was still as breathtaking, stretching high, the roof a mesh of gleaming glass. Trees rustled in the air-conditioning, spreading the gen
tle scent of new leaves. Memory swamped her. Being fourteen and her first meeting with Gregory, riding in the glass-fronted lift to the top floor and finding not an ogre, but a friend.

  Anna’s hand covered her mouth and she took a slow breath.

  “Are you scared of heights?”

  The lift door closed.

  “No,” Anna muttered. She forced her hand to her side and willed back the burn of tears. Of course, this building had other memories. Trapped in the lift with Zach, Anna pushed them from her mind.

  The lift doors opened onto a silent office. Anna ignored the little burst of panic. She wasn’t alone with Zach. He had a client to meet. The scent of polish and clean carpets pushed her mind back.

  She was nineteen again and getting out of the lift to attend her first Christmas party. They walked past dark, empty desks to the far side of the sprawling office. Food, alcohol, music and chatter flowed.

  Sophia had refused to attend. It was a more relaxed affair, not the expensive pomp she had demanded year in, year out. Therefore, Anna was Gregory’s guest.

  “So you’re here in Sophia’s stead?”

  “Yes.” Butterflies massed in her stomach and that was just ridiculous. This was Zach. Boring, stiff, annoying Zach. She stared into the fizzing glass of champagne. Two sips couldn’t make her feel this giddy. “She…wasn’t feeling too well.”

  “Of course she wasn’t. She never does.” He lounged against the wall, an untouched drink in his hand. His cultured voice came out of the shadows and why it made her breath hitch she couldn’t explain. This was Zach. “And little Anna has stepped into her big sister’s shoes for the first time.” A thumb tip stroked along her jaw. “Haven’t you?”

  “Have I?”

  His low chuckle sent the butterflies whirling. “Who are you out to catch tonight?”

  Anna blinked. The slide of his thumb over her skin was almost hypnotic and she leant into his touch. “Gregory only asked me yesterday.”

  “And you just happened to have this dress”—his fingers trailed down the sensitive skin of her throat, caressed the thin strap clinging to her bare shoulder—“languishing in your wardrobe.”

  Her chest hurt with held breath and a liquid ache pulsed through her blood. What was he doing to her? “It’s just a dress.”

  “On anyone else but you, Anna.”

  Heat burst under her skin. He was teasing her, inflicting a cruel joke. Anna jerked back from his touch. She could still feet the imprint of him on her skin. “Don’t make fun of me, Zach.”

  “Anna.” His glass clattered down onto a nearby table. Warm hands framed her face, the sudden contact making her gasp. Shadows carved his face and darkened eyes held her. “This is not a joke.”

  And he kissed her.

  She crushed down more memories.

  She’d been a young, inexperienced idiot.

  Zach strode ahead. With her heels sinking into the thick carpet, she followed him. He disappeared through a door. But there was no client. Her nails dug hard at her palms. She watched Zach drop the blinds to the glass-panelled room.

  “What…what are you doing?”

  Zach’s laugh was bitter. “Don’t worry, Anna, I have no interest in seeing you spread across this table.” The sharp glitter of his eyes made the nails bite harder. “Not right now, anyway.”

  He grabbed a remote, pressed a button and a screen slid down from the ceiling. He pressed more buttons and the screen flared into life. “Sit there,” he said, pointing to the corner. “Out of sight.”

  “Please wouldn’t kill you,” Anna muttered.

  “Please, Anna,” he said, his tone unchanged.

  “And you call me impolite.”

  “Damn it, Anna, this is important.” He expelled a harsh breath. “Please sit in that corner chair and please be quiet.”

  The man was infuriating. Anna plonked onto a chair. An afterthought had her fill a cup from the water cooler she sat beside. She sipped the ice-cold water and silently buried daggers in Zach’s taut back.

  He sank into a chair, absent fingers undoing the buttons of his jacket. He scratched over his hair, but then smoothed tousled strands into place. A cool calmness settled onto his features. He pressed another button.

  A man filled the screen. Bluntly handsome with shrewd dark eyes, and yes Zach was right. She knew his face from…somewhere.

  “Quinn, what is going on?” the man demanded.

  “Nothing has changed.”

  “Nothing has changed?” The man’s face flushed. “You don’t even own your own company anymore!”

  Zach’s face didn’t flicker. “We can call the whole thing off right now, if you want Eric.”

  Water splashed over Anna’s legs, freezing her. “Oh my God.”

  “Who else is there with you, Quinn?”

  “No one of importance.”

  “Really?” His face swallowed up the screen. “Who is it?”

  That odd-shaped mole above his right eyebrow. Anna winced. Eric Dalton. One of the most paranoid men on the planet. He was also one of Sophia’s admirers. Was she the source of Zach’s leak?

  Zach let out a slow sigh. “Let Mr. Dalton see you, Anna.”

  Maybe he wouldn’t recognise her. Maybe he’d been too drunk when he’d made that pass to remember the fact that she’d poured a drink over his head.

  Dark eyes narrowed. “Anna Shrewsbury.”

  No. Of course, he remembered. She gave a half-hearted wave. “Hello, Eric.”

  “No one important, Quinn?” Eric Dalton’s laughter was harsh. “I don’t think the infamous Anna Shrewsbury qualifies as that.”

  Zach’s jaw tightened. “I thought you two would be acquainted.”

  “With the luscious Anna? Isn’t everyone?”

  Heat scorched Anna’s face. “You’re most definitely not, Eric.”

  The man sat back in his chair. Sharp light cut across his heavy features. A smile tugged at his lip. “Now that’s just being cruel, Anna.” His gaze flickered and she knew then that he was lying to annoy Zach.

  “I poured water over your head.”

  “Anna…” His oily tone made her skin crawl. “You don’t have to pretend in front of Zach. He’s known you even longer than I have.”

  Anger burned a fire through her gut. “Since you seem determined to lie about me”—Anna jabbed her thumb at the door—“I’ll be outside.”

  She closed the door on his laughter. Damn the man. She’d dug a deep hole for herself with her numerous lies. Her reputation…well, she didn’t want to dwell on how others saw her. But it had been made very obvious to her that day.

  Anna stared down into the atrium. She calmed her breathing. There was little use in getting so angry. Zach would continue to believe she jumped anything with a big enough wallet. She doubted Eric Dalton’s lies could blacken her name any further.

  Though she did hope Zach could think she would have more taste.

  Anna snorted and ran a hand through her hair.

  She leant back against a pillar, glancing around the desks and cubes. Until she found that corner. Her lips burned again at the memory and she tried to think of something, anything else.

  But the past was too strong.

  He tasted of brandy and another, indefinable taste that almost made her groan. The gentle pressure of his lips, savouring her. His hands slipped from her face, shaped her shoulders, arms until he found the glass clutched tight in her hand. It found a new home on a convenient desk.

  She was insane. This was Zach. Zach whose hands trailed fire down her body in slow exploration.

  “I wanted to do this from the moment I saw you tonight.”

  His voice was a heated whisper against her skin and it pulsed a need through Anna that she’d never experienced. Her spine pressed up against the cool plaster of a pillar, Zach’s body deliciously pinning her. “Why?” The word was almost a gasp.

  His mouth found hers, pulling slow, soft kisses that had her head spinning.

  “How could I not?�
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  It wasn’t an answer, but at that moment she didn’t care. His tongue flickered against her lips, her teeth and with her heart slamming, she opened her mouth to him.

  The deliberate sweep of Zach’s tongue over hers, hot, intense. This was unreal. Completely…

  He deepened the kiss and all thought scattered.

  Anna threaded her fingers through his hair, pressing his mouth hard against hers. Zach groaned. His hands shaped her waist and slid lower, curving over her hip and gripping her behind.

  The rub of his erection against her body sparked little pulses of pleasure. Her hips shifted and heat flared. She groaned and her hands moved down, holding him to her.

  “Do you know what you’re doing to me, Anna?” Zach’s heated breath stirred her skin and she shivered. His leg nudged hers, eased them apart. “What do you want?”

  “You.”

  The word gasped out on too little air. The hard pressure of his leg ground against her pubic bone and liquid heat melted through her body. She found his mouth again.

  More. She had to have more of him. Now.

  Faster.

  Harder.

  Fire burned up from her pelvis, her body tight, aching—

  Light exploded behind her eyes and Zach swallowed her sighing moan.

  Her kisses slowed. Zach supported her against the pillar as pleasure loosened her body, her legs. Her head fell back.

  “Anna.”

  His voice, suddenly sharp.

  “Anna.”

  With a start, she jumped out of the past. Her body was edgy, the need to be satisfied an unrelenting throb. A trembling hand wiped at her mouth and she willed herself to look at him. “Have…have you finished?”

  That steel blue gaze drilled her. “Have you?”

  “What?”

  “Seeing Dalton again…” His finger stroked her hot cheek and his touch was electric. She couldn’t hold back the gasp. His gaze narrowed. “…has obviously turned you on.”

  Anna shuddered and stepped away from him. “I don’t think so.” She let out a slow breath. “I need to get home, Zach. If I have to pack and get ready for tonight, it’s not leaving me much time.”