Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon (6 page)

Sparkle.

And so she would.

She sparkled and partied and kept herself busy, all of her energy and emotion poured into the trivial matters of shopping sample sales and deciding what the best entertainment for an evening was. She came back to the apartment only to deposit her shopping bags and to sleep, and she determinedly ignored the housekeeper Lila's silent censure.

She refused to think about Max. She didn't think about anything, anyone, not even herself. Yet with each party she
felt herself becoming more fragile, more frantic, clinging to a way of life that was surely slipping out of her grasp. Perhaps it had been for years, and it took the outing of her birth to make her realise she couldn't be an it-girl forever. Eventually you had to grow up. You had to do something.

You had to be strong.

Except she had no idea how to be strong, or even who she was, or how to go about finding out.

Three weeks after her night with Max, Oscar called her. Zoe wouldn't have even answered—she didn't want to talk to her so-called father—but she'd been asleep and she reached for her mobile in a half-stupor.

‘Zoe?' Oscar's sharp tone had her scrambling to a sitting position.

‘Dadd—' She pressed her lips together, and heard Oscar sigh.

‘I hadn't heard from you since you arrived in New York, Zoe, and I wanted to make sure you were all right. You sound as if you were asleep—'

‘I was.'

‘It's one o'clock in the afternoon.'

‘I was out late last night.'

The tiny, arctic pause told Zoe Oscar wasn't happy about that. ‘Am I to understand you have not taken steps to reach your father?'

‘He's not my father.'

‘Indeed.' Oscar's tone gentled. ‘But you know who I am talking about, Zoe, and—'

‘I haven't decided if I want to find him,' Zoe cut him off. ‘I'm not sure what good it will do. He hasn't been interested in me before now—'

‘I doubt he knew of your existence.'

‘You don't think my mother ever told him?' The
question came out stilted.
My mother.
Who was she? Bella and Olivia had memories; she had nothing but the knowledge that she was the cause of her mother's death. The only mother she had really ever known had been Oscar's third wife, Lillian, and she'd died months ago. The loss was still fresh, painful, leaving her feeling even more adrift.

‘I doubt it, Zoe.' Oscar paused. ‘But even if she did, his position was hardly tenable. She was married, you know, to me.'

‘Well, still,' Zoe said, hearing a petulant note creep into her voice. ‘I don't know if I want to find him.'

‘Then perhaps you should return here,' Oscar said after a moment, ‘to Balfour Manor.'

Balfour Manor…the only place she'd ever really thought of as home, with its gracious rooms and rolling lawns, its sense of history and honour, certain of its dignified place in the world.

If only she felt the same.

‘Zoe…?' Oscar prompted, and she shook her head even though he couldn't see her.

‘I can't.' She couldn't face everyone's pity or curiosity, the tabloids who wouldn't let go of her story, or the fair-weather friends who would turn—already had—at the first sign of rain. She couldn't, even though part of her—a large part—longed to flee back to the safe haven of home.

‘If you can't go back,' Oscar told her, a smile in his voice, ‘then go forward. That's why you're in New York—not just to ring up the charges on my credit card.' Although the kindness in his tone took the sting out of the words, Zoe still flushed guiltily.

‘OK,' she finally said, the one word given reluctantly, and Oscar gave a tiny sigh.

‘I love you, Zoe.'

Tears stung her eyes. She thought she'd cried them all already, yet there they were again, ready to fall. She blinked them back.

‘I love you too,' she mumbled.

After she hung up the phone she clambered out of the bed and walked through the quiet, empty rooms of the Balfour apartment. Out on the penthouse's terrace, Zoe sank into a wrought-iron chair, drawing her legs up to her chest.

It was a gorgeous day, the sky a pale, washed blue, the trees in Central Park a vivid green. Even in the city everything smelled fresh, new.

If you can't go back, then go forward.

The thought terrified her. She had no idea what forward looked like, felt like. What it could mean.

Yet she knew of only one step forward to take, the step she'd been sent to New York for.

She needed to find her father.

Z
OE
tilted her head back to survey the gleaming glass skyscraper once more; it was one of the tallest, most imposing buildings on Fifty-Seventh Street. A brass plaque by the front doors, guarded by an official-looking doorman in a navy suit with gold braid, had two discreet words:
Anderson Finance
.

Thomas Anderson, the CEO and founder of the company, was the man she'd come to meet. Taking a deep breath, her nerves still jarring and jangling, she walked briskly into the building's foyer, favouring the doorman with an imperious nod, her heels clicking on the black marble floor.

‘May I help you, miss?' A woman with an upswept do and a good deal of glossy make-up gave her a smile of official courtesy when Zoe was halfway to the bank of gleaming gold lifts.

She gave the woman a breezy smile. ‘I'm here to see Thomas Anderson.'

The woman didn't even blink. ‘Is he expecting you?' she asked, and Zoe gave her practised little trill of laughter.

‘No, actually, it's a surprise.' She batted her eyelashes, and saw a brief look of distaste flicker across the woman's expertly made-up features.

‘I'm afraid Mr Anderson doesn't like surprises,' the woman told her with a frosty smile. ‘And he has back-to-back meetings all morning—'

‘Then call up,' Zoe interjected. She smiled sweetly, even though her insides felt far too wobbly. ‘Tell him…' She took a deep breath. ‘Tell him Zoe Balfour is here to see him.' Another breath. ‘Alexandra Balfour's daughter.'

The woman pursed her lips and then reached for the phone. Zoe couldn't hear what she said into that gleaming black receiver; her heart was beating so fast and loud it thundered in her ears. It took all of her strength to simply stand upright, a cool little smile on her face, looking for the world like the outcome of that ten-second phone call held no import whatsoever.

The woman put the receiver down and gave her a rather narrow look. ‘He'll see you. Twenty-sixth floor.'

Zoe let her smile widen as she waggled her fingers and then she turned and walked crisply to the elevators, the click of her heels echoing all around her.

Her heart was still thudding right out of her chest and her finger trembled as she pushed twenty-six and then watched as each floor zoomed by, a reverse countdown.

A little ping announced she had arrived, and the elevator doors opened straight into a large reception room, endless yards of plush cream carpet scattered with leather sofas, a lot of modern art on the walls. Zoe glanced at a few blobs of colour daubed on a canvas and thought of Max's words to her at the gallery opening:
my company donated a quarter of a million dollars to fund these monstrosities on the walls
.

She smiled slightly, even though the memory of him still hurt, hurt more than it ever should, considering how little they really knew each other. Had known. Max Monroe was in the past; there would be no opportunities to know
him more, or at all, in the future. She would do well to remember that.

A black-suited PA rose from behind a streamlined glass-topped desk and walked over to her. ‘Zoe Balfour?'

‘Yes.'

‘Mr Anderson will see you now. I'm afraid he only has a few moments. He's got—'

‘Back-to-back meetings,' Zoe filled in. ‘So I heard.'

The PA threw her a startled look and Zoe realised how terse she sounded. She forced herself to smile.

The PA tapped on a pair of double doors of burnished mahogany before throwing them open and ushering Zoe into an office as huge and sleekly decorated as the waiting room. At the end of what seemed an acre of plush carpet a man waited behind a desk, his back to her. He gazed out the floor-to-ceiling windows of tinted glass at the bustling street below, a forest of skyscrapers stretching to the horizon.

Zoe recognised him from the photo she had, a grainy shot featured in the business section of the
New York Times
. His thick mane of salt-and-pepper hair, the wide set of his shoulders—she didn't even need to see his face to know this was the man she'd been looking for.

This was Thomas Anderson.

Her father.

Still, she wasn't prepared for the lightning bolt of shock that sliced through her when he finally turned, and she gazed into a pair of eyes as jade green as her own. She'd always felt like an anomaly among her sisters, with their dazzling Balfour blue eyes, the same as their father's. Hers were so different, and now she knew where those eyes came from, who had given them to her. And they were gazing at her now with an expression of cold courtesy.

‘Miss Balfour? How may I help?'

He had no idea why she was here, Zoe thought numbly. Or at least he was good at pretending he didn't.

‘I believe you knew my mother, Mr Anderson. Alexandra Balfour?'

He stilled, the expression in his eyes turning wary before it quickly cleared. ‘I don't— Yes, a long time ago. I had business in London one summer and I believe we may have met.' He raised his eyebrows. ‘Pardon me, Miss Balfour. I'd assumed you came here to ask on behalf of a charity or some such. I have numerous such requests and—'

‘That's not why I came.' Zoe spoke through stiff lips. Not unless
she
was considered a charity. ‘And you know it.' She didn't know where she found the courage or the conviction to say the last, but she knew it deep in her bones. Thomas Anderson knew exactly why she'd come here. He had to at least suspect. ‘I expect, being in finance,' she continued coolly, ‘you're rather good at maths.' He shrugged, and Zoe continued. ‘It will be twenty-seven years ago this June that you met my mother.' She paused, watching him. ‘I turned twenty-six in April.'

The silence was electric and went on for too long. Thomas Anderson's gaze had turned terribly cold. ‘I'm afraid, Miss Balfour, I have no idea what you're talking about.'

Zoe stared at him, not wanting to feel the well of disappointed hope opening up inside of her, consuming her. Had she actually thought he might accept she was his daughter? Open his arms and embrace her like some prodigal child? And would she have even wanted that?

At least a small, desperate part of her would have. She recognised that by the disappointment and despair swamping her now. Her nails dug into her palms and she lifted her chin. ‘I don't know how much of it reached the papers over here, Mr Anderson, but a little over a month
ago a story broke at the Balfour Charity Ball—a scandal.' She paused; her father's expression didn't change. ‘The story was that my mother—Alexandra Balfour—had an affair twenty-seven years ago, and her youngest daughter was actually illegitimate.'

The smile he gave her was chilly. ‘I'm afraid I don't read the kinds of papers that run those stories, Miss Balfour.'

‘No, you just live them.' The vitriol in her words shocked both of them, but Zoe didn't apologise. ‘This episode of my mother's life was discovered in an old journal she kept. She named you as my father.' There. It was said. It wasn't exactly true—she hadn't written his name—but how many American businessmen spent a summer in London, had been invited to Balfour Manor and had eyes the colour of jade?

Thomas Anderson stared at her for a long moment, and for a second—no more—Zoe thought he would admit it. Explain. Apologise. She longed for it, for the explanation and, more importantly, the acceptance. Then she saw a flicker of regret pass across his face like a shadow and he turned away from her, back to the windows.

‘I'm sorry,' he said quietly. ‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘Are you saying you didn't have an affair with my mother?' Zoe demanded in both disbelief and despair.

He paused, a tiny hesitation but telling nonetheless. ‘I knew your mother socially, for a very brief time.'

‘So she lied?' Zoe said, her voice turning raw. ‘In a journal she hid in a children's book, a journal she never expected anyone to see, she lied?'

‘I'm sorry,' Thomas said again. His back was to her, and his voice was low.

‘Just what are you sorry for?' Zoe demanded. ‘Father
ing me or not being able to admit it now? I could have a DNA test done—'

‘That would involve a court battle,' he returned sharply. ‘I don't think either of us want to go there.'

More scandal. More shame. ‘Why don't you want to admit it?' Zoe whispered. She felt the sting of tears behind her lids and she blinked hard. ‘We have the same coloured eyes,' she added in a choked voice. ‘No one in my family—no Balfour—has eyes that are green like mine. But you do.'

She saw his body tense and when he turned to her any possible trace of compassion or pity had completely vanished. He reached to press a button on his telephone. ‘My security guard, Hans, will escort you out, Miss Balfour. I believe our conversation is finished.' He paused, his eyes—so green and so cold—meeting hers. ‘I don't think I need to warn you that if this story spreads somehow, I could sue for slander.'

Zoe's eyes widened. ‘You're threatening me?'

‘Just stating a fact.'

She shook her head, her gaze falling on a large sterling-silver picture frame on the desk. Slowly, numbly, she reached over and turned it so she could see the photograph inside. It was a picture of a family.

A woman in her early fifties perhaps, with a stylish bob of silvery hair, and two boys and a girl. The girl, she saw with a terrible, creeping numbness, was actually a woman, about her own age. The boys were younger, perhaps in their teens.

He had a family. Of course. She stood there, gazing at her half-brothers and half-sister who would never know her, who would never want to know her. She didn't belong with them. She didn't belong with the Balfours.

She didn't belong anywhere.

Behind her the doors opened, and she felt a firm hand on her elbow. ‘Miss Balfour, let me show you out,' a man said, his voice polite but unyielding.

Zoe shook off his arm. ‘Don't touch me.' She turned back to Thomas Anderson, who was looking at her as if she were a bug he had just neatly squashed, a mixture of distaste and relief. ‘You can deny it all you want,' she choked, ‘but you and I both know the truth.' Hans grabbed her arm again, leading her backwards. Zoe gazed at her father, hurt and hatred boiling up within her and firing her words. ‘We both know,' she said, ‘and I'll never, ever forget this. Never.' The last word ended on a sob and, shaking off Hans once more, she turned around and strode from the room.

She wasn't aware of the curious gaze of her father's PA, or the several businessmen who entered the elevator on various floors as they sped down to the lobby. She ignored the woman at the front desk and the security guard who opened the door.

She could feel nothing but her own pain, see nothing but the look of utter rejection on her father's face. It was her deepest fear, her worst nightmare, and she'd just lived it.

Her head felt light and her vision swam; she tasted bile. She needed to find some composure, some control, but she couldn't even begin to know how. She took a deep breath, and another, trying to steady herself, but her stomach heaved and she bent over double, cold sweat prickling on her forehead.

From her handbag she heard the persistent trill of her mobile and with a wild, impossible lurch of hope she wondered if it was her father ringing, having second thoughts, wanting to apologise.

It was Karen. ‘Zoe! I just wanted to make sure you're coming out with us tonight. There's a new club opening in the Village—'

Zoe leant against the side of the building and closed her eyes. Cold sweat still prickled on her forehead and her mouth tasted metallic. ‘Is there?' she said dully. She could barely even make sense of Karen's words.

‘Yes, of course there is! You sound a bit funny.' Karen sounded torn between impatience and concern. ‘Are you all right?'

Zoe leant her head back against the brick wall. For an insane moment she wanted to confide just how not all right she was.
No, I'm not all right. I've been rejected outright by two men—maybe even two of the most important men in my life—in the space of two weeks. I don't know who I am or what I want to be, and I know I should have figured that out by now. I'm so scared.

‘I'm fine.' Karen wasn't the kind of friend who wanted to hear about those fears. She didn't have that kind of friend.

‘So are you coming tonight?'

Zoe opened her eyes. ‘Yes.'

She went out to the club with Karen and a bunch of New York friends determined to forget Thomas Anderson and Max Monroe. Both men—and their almost identical looks of sneering indifference—haunted her, their cold words of denial and rejection replaying in her mind, echoing through her heart. Still, Zoe tried to make a good show of it, dancing and laughing and flirting even though she felt so brittle inside, ready to break. After only an hour the club's pounding music made her head throb, and the cocktail she'd been drinking tasted sour. She left it virtually untouched on the bar and went in search of the loo.

The harsh lights in the ladies' put her own pale face into awful relief. She looked terrible, Zoe thought rather distantly as she waited in line for an open stall, her arms creeping around herself in a self-embrace. Two women in
skimpy dresses and stiletto heels were putting on lipstick in front of the mirror.

‘I had such a scare last week,' one of them said, her eyes on her own reflection, and Zoe found herself listening, curious despite her own sense of lethargy.

‘Oh?' The other woman asked in a rather bored drawl.

‘Yes.' She smacked her lips together and slipped her lipstick into her bag. ‘My period was three days late, but thank God I wasn't…'

‘Pregnant?' The friend filled in as she put her own lipstick away. ‘What a nightmare.'

Zoe watched them both sashay out in their spiky heels, and she didn't move until the woman behind her in the queue tapped her on the shoulder. ‘Are you in line or what?'