A Perfect Husband (6 page)

Grimly he noted that the same addictive fascination that had tempted him to lose his head two years ago was stil at work. Lilah Cole was openly and unashamedly husband-hunting. She was the kind of woman he couldn’t afford in his life, and yet it seemed he couldn’t resist her.

Lilah stared straight ahead, her purse gripped in her lap.

“I know I’ve been invited to lunch with your family, but with everything that’s happened, maybe that isn’t such a good idea. If you drop me off, I can get a taxi back to the office.”

Zane’s jaw tightened at the subdued, worried note in Lilah’s voice. Lucas should have known better; he should have left her alone. “It’s lunchtime. You need to eat.”

She looked out of the passenger window. “I had cereal and toast for breakfast. I’m not exactly hungry.”

Zane found the thought of Lilah crunching her way through cereal and toast before facing the press oddly endearing.

He wondered what kind of cereal she ate then crushed his curiosity about her.

He braked for a set of lights. “Lucas would probably be relieved if you didn’t show.”

The words were ruthless, but he had gotten used to seeing Lilah calm and businesslike, with al her ducks in a row. For two years it had been a quality that had irritated him profoundly. Incomprehensibly, he now found himself looking for ways to get her back to her normal, ultraorganized self.

Her gaze snapped to his. “What Lucas wants or does not want is of no concern to me.”

Zane felt suddenly happier than he had in days. The lights changed, he put the car in gear and accelerated through the intersection. “I can take you somewhere else to eat if you want.”

Her head whipped around, her green gaze shooting fire.

“On second thought, no.”

“Good. Because we’re here.”

He watched Lilah study the elegant portico of the Michelin star restaurant as if the fluted columns represented the gates of Hades. “You’re a manipulative man.”

“I’m an Atraeus.”

“Sometimes I forget.”

He found himself instantly on the defensive. “Because I’m also a Salvatore?”

He did not voice the other lurking fear that had reared its head since his conversation with Lucas, that it was because he was only twenty-four.

She frowned, as if his shadowy past had not occurred to her. “Because sometimes you’re…nice.”

“
Nice
.” His brows jerked together.

She looked embarrassed. “I read the article about you on the charity website. I know that you wear those three earrings to help kids relate to you when you do counseling work. You can try al you like to prove otherwise but, from where I come from, that’s
nice
.”

Lilah breathed a sigh of relief when Zane pul ed in at her apartment’s tiny parking area. Lunch had been just as stilted and uncomfortable as she had imagined. Thankful y, the service had been ultraquick and they had been able to leave early.

Zane walked around and opened her door. Lilah climbed out of the low bucket seat, acutely aware of the shadowy cleavage visible in the V of her jacket and of the length of thigh exposed by the shortness of her skirt. When she had dressed that morning, the suit had seemed elegant and circumspect but it was not made for struggling out of a low slung ’Vette.

Zane’s gaze locked with hers, making her feel breathless. She clamped down on the uncharacteristic desire to boldly meet his gaze.

Arriving at the front door of her apartment with a man was what she liked to refer to as a dating “red zone.” She and Zane were not dating, but the situation had somehow become more fraught than any dating scenario she had ever experienced. After the kiss earlier, it would not be a good idea to al ow Zane inside her house.

She gave him a bright, professional smile. “It’s okay, you don’t have to see me in. Thanks for the lift.”

Zane closed the ’Vette’s door and depressed the key lock. “Not a problem. I’l see you to your door.”

“That won’t be necessary.” She aimed another smile somewhere in his general direction as she rummaged in her handbag for her door key.

Zane fel into step beside her. “If I’m not mistaken, that’s a reporter staked out over there.”

Lilah’s head jerked up. She recognized the car that had been parked outside of Lucas’s apartment the previous night. Her heart sank. “He must have fol owed us.”

“The car was here when we arrived. According to Lucas,
you
were the one who was fol owed last night. The press has probably been staking you out ever since you returned from Medinos. In which case, I’d better see you safely inside.”

Resigning herself, Lilah walked quickly to the large garage-style door, her cheeks warming as she saw the down-at-heel building through Zane’s eyes. A converted warehouse in one of the shabbier suburbs, she had chosen the building because it had been cheerful, arty and spectacularly cheap. The ground floor apartment included a huge light-fil ed north-facing room that was perfect for painting.

Zane, thankful y, didn’t seem to notice how shabby the exterior was, a reminder that he had not spent al of his life in luxurious surroundings.

Unlocking the door, she stepped inside the nondescript foyer, with its concrete floors and cream-washed wal s.

Zane slid the door to enclose them in the shadowy space. “How many people live here?”

“A dozen or so.” She led the way down a narrow, dim corridor and unlocked her front door. Made of unprepossessing sheet metal, it had once led to some kind of workshop.

She stepped into her large sitting room, conscious of Zane’s gaze as he took in white wal s, glowing wooden floors and the afternoon sun flooding through a bank of bifold doors at one end.

“Nice.” He closed the door and strol ed into the center of the room, his gaze assessing the paintings she’d col ected from friends and family over the years.

He studied a series of three abstracts propped against one wal . “These are yours.”

Her gaze gravitated to the mesmerizingly clean lines of his profile as he studied one of the abstracts. “How do you know that?” She had gotten the paintings ready for sale, but hadn’t gotten around to signing them yet.

Faint color rimmed his cheekbones. “I’ve bought a couple at auction. I also saw your work in a gal ery a few weeks back.”

A smal shock went through her that he had actual y bought some of her paintings. “I usual y sel most of what I paint through the gal ery.”

He straightened and peered at a framed photograph of her mother and grandmother. “So money’s important.”

Her jaw firmed. “Yes.”

There was no point in hiding it. Fol owing the recent finance company crashes, her mother’s careful life savings had dissolved overnight, leaving her with a mortgage she couldn’t pay. Subsisting on a part-time wage, which was al her mother could get in Broome, money had become vital.

Lilah hadn’t hesitated. The regular sale of her paintings supplemented her income just enough that she was managing to pay her mother’s mortgage as wel as cover her rent, but only just.

Her failure to present her resignation to Lucas the previous evening was, in a way, a relief. Resigning from Ambrosi Pearls now would not be a good move for either her or her mother.

A crashing sound jerked her head around. Dropping her bag on the couch, she raced through to her studio in time to glimpse a young man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a camera slung over his shoulder, as he clambered out through an open window. A split second later, Zane flowed past her, stepped over a stack of canvases that had been knocked to the floor, and fol owed the intruder out of the window.

Zane caught the reporter as he hung awkwardly on her back fence. With slick, practiced moves he took the memory stick from the camera and shoved what was clearly an expensive piece of equipment back at the reporter’s chest.

The now white-faced reporter scrambled over the fence and disappeared into the sports field on the other side.

While Zane examined the fence and walked the boundary of her tiny back garden, Lilah hurriedly tidied up the col apsed pile of canvases.

Her worst fears were confirmed when she discovered a portrait of Zane she had painted almost two years ago, after the disastrous episode on the couch. Zane had practical y stepped over the oil to get out of the window. It was a miracle he hadn’t noticed.

Gathering the canvases, she stacked them against the nearest wal , so only the backs were visible. She’d had a lucky escape. The last thing she needed now was for Zane to find out that she had harbored a quiet, unhealthy little obsession about him for the past two years.

Zane climbed back in the window and examined the broken catch. “That’s it, you’re not staying here tonight.

You’re coming with me. If that reporter made it into your back garden, others wil .”

Lilah’s response was unequivocal. Given that Zane seemed to bring out her wild Cole side, going with him was a very bad idea.

Her cheeks burned as he stared at the backs of the paintings. “That won’t be necessary. I’l get the window repaired. I’ve got a friend in the building who’s handy with tools.”

She led the way out of the room, away from the incriminating paintings.

His expression grim, Zane checked the locks on the windows of her main living room. “Your studio window is the least of your problems. You’ve got a sports field next door.

That means plenty of off-road parking and unlimited access. Even with a security detail keeping watch front and back, the press won’t have any problems getting pictures through al this glass.”

“I can draw the curtains. They can’t take pictures if there’s nothing to see.”

“You’l get harassed every time you walk outside or leave the house, and that fence is a major problem. Put it this way, if you don’t come with me now, I’m staying here with you.” He studied her plain black leather couch as if he was eyeing it up for size.

Lilah’s stomach flip-flopped as images of that other couch flashed through her mind. There was no way she could have Zane staying the night in her home. The kissing had been unsettling enough. The last thing she needed was for him to invade her personal space, sleep on
her
couch.

“You can’t stay here.”

Her phone rang and automatical y went to the answering machine. The message was audible. A reporter wanted her to cal him.

Lilah’s gaze zeroed in on the number of messages she had waiting: twenty-three. She didn’t think the machine held that many. “I’l pack.”

Six

Minutes later, Lilah was packed. Zane, who had spent the time talking into a cel phone, mostly in Medinian, the low, sexy murmur of his voice distracting, snapped the phone closed and slipped it into his pants pocket. “Ready?”

The easy transition from Medinian to American-accented English was startling, pointing out to Lilah, just in case she had forgotten, that Zane Atraeus was elusive
and
complicated. Every time she tried to pigeonhole him as an arrogant, self-centered tycoon, he pushed her off balance by being unexpectedly normal and nice.

While he took her suitcase, Lilah double-checked the locks. On impulse, she grabbed one of her design sketchpads then stepped out into the sterile hal , closing the heavy door behind her.

Zane was waiting, arms folded over his chest, a look of calm patience on his face.

“I’l just leave a message for a neighbor and see if he’l fix the window.”

Taking a piece of paper out of her purse, she penned a quick note. Walking a few steps along the dingy corridor, she knocked, just in case Evan was home. She didn’t expect him to be in until later in the day, so she slipped the note under his door. The door swung open as she turned to walk away. Evan, looking paint-stained and rumpled, stood there, the note in his hands.

“I didn’t think you’d be here until tonight.”

Evan was a high-end accountant and painter, and was also a closet gay. The apartment was something in the way of a retreat for him. She had been certain he would stay clear until the press lost interest.

Evan stared pointedly past her at Zane. “It’s my day off. I thought I’d come over early just in case you needed a shoulder.”

“She doesn’t,” Zane said calmly.

Evan’s expression was suspiciously blank, which meant he was speculating wildly. “Not a problem.” He transferred his gaze to Lilah. “Don’t worry, I’l fix the window. Cal me if you need
anything
else.”

Zane held the front door of the apartment building for her.

“So, you’re stil seeing Peters.”

Lilah shielded her gaze from the sun as she stepped outside. “How do you know Evan’s name?”

Zane loaded her case into the limited rear space of the Corvette. “Peters has a certain reputation with commercial law. So does his boss, Mark Britten.”

She could feel her automatic blush at the mention of Evan’s boss, the man who had been convinced she was dying to sleep with him before Zane’s appearance had ended the smal , embarrassing scuffle.

She descended as graceful y as she could into the Vette’s passenger seat. “Evan is a
friend
.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tel Zane that Evan was gay, but that would mean breaking a confidence. “He paints in his spare time.

He doesn’t live here. This is just where he keeps his studio.”

When they pul ed away from the curb, Lilah noticed that Zane’s security pul ed in close behind them. The ominous black sedan, fil ed with blocky, muscular men—the leading henchman, Spiros, behind the wheel—looked like something off a movie set. A cream van splashed with colorful graphics idled out of the shadows and slotted in behind the sedan.

Zane glanced in the rearview mirror and made a cal on his cel . When he slipped the phone back in his pocket, he glanced at her. “The van’s a press vehicle.”

“And Spiros is taking care of it?”

Zane’s gaze was enigmatic, reminding her of the gulf that existed between his life and hers. “That’s what he’s paid to do.”

Zane inserted the key card in the door of his hotel suite and al owed Lilah to precede him into the room.

Unlocking his jaw he final y addressed the topic that had obsessed him from the moment he had recognized Evan Peters and realized that not only were he and Lilah “friends”