Read Online Zoe and the Tormented Tycoon by Kate Hewitt - Free Book Online Page B

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?’
    â€˜I’m sorry,’ Thomas said again. His back was to her, and his voice was low.
    â€˜Just what are you sorry for?’ Zoe demanded. ‘Fathering me or not being able to admit it now? I could have a DNA test done—’
    â€˜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?’
    â€˜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