Too Close for Comfort

by Heidi Rice

  Zane had looked so surprised when she’d joined him in his shower this morning, he’d dropped the soap. And risen to full attention so fast she’d been a little worried he might collapse from the loss of blood to his head.

  For someone whose sex life prior to Zane had been spectacularly bad, the way he reacted to her never failed to thrill her. Hearing his heartfelt groan when she’d sunk to her knees and swirled her tongue over the head of that beautiful erection had been yet more proof that she now had the ability to make men weak at the knees. Or at least this man.

  She loved the way he responded so readily to her teasing and her playfulness. Finding Zane’s buttons, and pushing them, discovering his limits and then charging right through them had become as addictive as the man himself, and all the things he could do to her.

  Iona dropped her brush into the turpentine, and stretched her spine, casting a critical eye on the portrait of the slightly moth-eaten but wise-eyed rescue cat.

  She felt pleasantly fatigued and a little achy from standing in the same position while C.D. dozed beside her. She felt the answering ache tug her abdomen at the thought of Zane’s imminent return, and grinned.

  She rinsed the paintbrushes and packed them up ready for tomorrow. Drawing the easel up, she carried it and the half-finished painting into the house and stowed them in the alcove where Zane had suggested she keep her supplies. The dog’s claws skidded on the wooden flooring as Iona slid the screen door closed and headed for the kitchen with C.D. at her heels.

  As the weather was a little cooler than it had been the last two days, she’d put together a lasagne. She enjoyed cooking, had learned how as a young girl when she and her father had had to survive on their own. But she’d forgotten how much she enjoyed cooking for others. And now she could use Zane’s state-of-the-art kitchen—instead of the tiny kitchenette at the cottage—it had become a real pleasure again. Of course, he’d moaned at first about her paying for all the grocery shopping, but she’d finally convinced him that if he wouldn’t accept any rent he’d have to let her at least do this much to pay her way.

  After ladling out C.D.’s chow and getting the dog a fresh bowl of water, she began searching for the salad ingredients in the fridge. Funny how after only a week in Zane’s house, they’d settled so easily into a routine.

  She glanced at the clock on the kitchen wall. Six o’clock. He’d be home in about an hour—and they’d be able to have a leisurely walk with C.D. before they had dinner. Or maybe they’d opt for sex first and dinner later.

  The grin widened.

  Quite apart from the empowering sex, she’d also got a surprising insight into the man in the last week. He still generally avoided talking about himself much, but their routine had allowed him to relax more and so she’d managed to weasel a few more details out of him, especially about his work.

  It was so strange now, she thought as she sliced tomato and shredded lettuce, to think that when she’d first met him she’d been so critical, and more than a little suspicious about what he did for a living. Now she knew about the huge diversity of work his firm provided and how closely he supervised and controlled every aspect of it, she could see why keeping a similar rein on every other aspect of his personal life might be natural for him.

  Zane exhibited a real dedication to duty in everything he did, which had made him not only a staggeringly successful entrepreneur, but also any woman’s dream lover. But it was when she managed to shake that precious control that she enjoyed their time together the most.

  C.D. sent up a series of exited yips, nearly making Iona slice off her thumb, before her less-sensitive hearing picked up the hum of a car engine in the driveway.

  She was drying her hands on a dishcloth when the bell chimed. Excitement tickled her skin as she headed down the hallway. Was Zane home early?

  Tonight might well be an evening for sex first, dinner later. Her lips twitched. In fact, she might have to insist upon it.

  The excitement fizzled, though, when she spotted the silhouette through the glass bricks that framed the front door. That wasn’t Zane. And then a white envelope popped through the letter slot.

  She picked up her pace and opened the door, grabbing hold of C.D.’s collar to stop the dog barrelling after the woman already strolling back to a shiny red Beemer—with a baby perched on her hip.

  ‘Hello, can I help you?’ Iona called after her visitor, her disappointment turning to curiosity as she lifted the heavy envelope from the mat and spotted Zane’s name in ornate lettering.

  The woman swung round in a circle, making the baby giggle. ‘Oh, hi,’ she said. ‘I thought there was no one in.’

  She walked back and Iona felt the prickle of envy at the woman’s tall, lithe figure. She exuded the slim, poised confidence of a supermodel with her short, classically cut blonde bob, which accentuated her amazing bone structure and a pair of stunning emerald eyes. The simple cotton summer dress that flowed around long legs and a cropped jean jacket only added to her funky glamour. The baby, who Iona would have guessed was about a year old, had soft curls of dark hair that framed a round face—and appeared to be blessed with the same easy smile and flawless petal-soft skin as his mother.

  ‘I’m so sorry to bother you. Are you Zane’s housekeeper?’ the woman said, still smiling politely.

  A panicked little flutter set up under Iona’s breastbone. Okay, this was a little awkward.

  The baby clutched a hand of his mother’s hair in one fat little fist, and stared owlishly at Iona. As his mother laughed and extricated herself Iona got a much better look at the child. And the panicked flutter became a blast of astonishment.

  The child had the same striking, translucent blue eyes as Zane, even down to the unusual dark rim around the irises.

  Good Lord. Did Zane have a child he hadn’t mentioned to her? She knew he was tight-lipped but that would be ridiculous, surely?

  ‘Um, no, not exactly,’ Iona stuttered. Not quite sure what the etiquette was in this situation. ‘My name’s Iona MacCabe,’ she said, deciding that honesty was probably the best policy. ‘I’m sort of living here, at the moment.’

  The woman looked disconcerted, but gathered herself quickly, the curious smile staying in place. If she was Zane’s babymama she seemed remarkably nonchalant about the new arrangements.

  ‘You’re Scottish,’ she remarked.

  ‘And you’re English,’ Iona replied, having been so preoccupied with the baby’s eyes she had only just recognised the crisp cut-off vowels of her neighbouring countryman.

  ‘How lovely,’ the woman said, apparently sincere, and held out her hand. ‘Hi, I’m Tess Tremaine. Oh, bugger…’ she said, clapping her hand to her forehead as her smile became sheepish. ‘Sorry, Tess Graystone. Would you believe it? We’ve been married for months and I can never remember to use his name.’

  She shook Iona’s hand with surprising vigour while the baby continued to stare, its fist now stuffed in its mouth.

  ‘Nate thinks it’s a Freudian slip because I’m secretly planning to run off with our estate manager, Manolito.’ She rolled her eyes charmingly. ‘As if! The poor man’s seventy if he’s a day…’

  The husky chuckle at her own joke made Iona smile, liking the woman. And Nate had to be her husband, so maybe she was mistaken about the baby.

  ‘I think I owe your husband a debt of gratitude,’ Iona said. ‘I was staying in his cottage in Pacific Grove up until about a week ago.’

  ‘That was you?’ The woman’s eyes lit now with a mixture of both excitement and curiosity. ‘And now you’re sort of living with Zane?’

  Iona nodded, not sure why she was getting such an enthusiastic reception, but willing to go with it. ‘Yes, that would be me.’

  ‘How intriguing.’ The woman jiggled the baby on her hip, making him giggle. ‘I’m afraid I’m now going to have to invite myself in for a cup of tea and quiz you mercilessly. Because I’ve only ever met a couple of Zane’s girlfriends and I’ve got to tell you—’ Tess’s
gaze flickered over Iona, making her hopelessly self-conscious about her paint-flecked T-shirt, faded cut-offs and bare feet ‘—they were both boringly predictable in comparison to you.’

  Iona huffed out a laugh, relieved at the woman’s cheeky smile and her apparent candour, and desperately curious herself. ‘You’re more than welcome to come in for a cuppa,’ Iona offered. But as she stepped back to let Tess into the house she got another good look at the toddler who stared at her with Zane’s eyes and had to add, ‘As long as you don’t mind me quizzing you about Zane right back.’

  ‘That seems only fair,’ Tess said easily, bouncing the baby on her hip as they walked down the hallway towards the kitchen. ‘Although I can’t imagine I’m going to be much use. Even though Zane and Nate have been friends for ever, I’m afraid to say, ever since Brandon here was born, he’s been a bit of a stranger. That’s why I’m here, actually.’ She nodded at the invite still clutched in Iona’s fingers. ‘To make sure he shows for the christening. I’m a little tired of us all pussy-footing around the issue of Zane’s relationship to Brandon. So I was going to try to guilt him into making an appearance.’

  Iona placed the invitation carefully on the countertop and filled the kettle. Zane’s relationship to Brandon? So he was the baby’s father.

  The odd clutch in the pit of Iona’s stomach made no sense, so she ignored it. She was just a casual fling—and Tess was the mother of his child. She had no call to feel possessive or resentful—or hurt. But as she pulled two mugs out of the cabinet she did feel she had a reason to be annoyed with Zane. Why hadn’t he told her about the boy? The cup clattered onto the countertop as her fingers shook. Surely even a casual fling deserved that much information?

  ‘Is something wrong?’ Tess asked, touching Iona’s arm. ‘You look rather pale.’

  ‘Yes, I…’ Iona began, righting the cup and turning to Tess, whose inquisitiveness was now tempered with concern. Iona sighed, deciding it was probably best to just spill it. She’d never had much time for pussy-footing about either. ‘You’re being ludicrously reasonable about all this, Tess. And I don’t know what the circumstances are surrounding the wee lad’s birth.’ For all she knew Zane might have donated sperm for his friend Nate. ‘Zane didn’t tell me about Brandon,’ she continued, picking up the invite. ‘Or this…But I guarantee you, I’m not the one stopping him from visiting his son.’

  Tess’s perfectly plucked eyebrows launched up her forehead, and then she let out a delighted laugh. ‘You have no idea how priceless that is.’

  ‘Why?’ Iona asked, starting to feel as if she’d entered an alternative reality.

  Tess gave her son a kiss on the nose. ‘Brandon’s not Zane’s son. He’s my husband’s son. He’s Nate’s son.’

  Iona stared at the boy again. And Zane’s eyes stared straight back at her. ‘But then how comes he has the same—?’

  ‘Because that sky-blue colour and the dark ring around is a genetic anomaly,’ Tess interrupted, clearly knowing exactly what Iona was referring to. ‘An anomaly that runs very strongly through the male line in The Graystone family,’ Tess added, her tone patient. ‘Zane is Nate’s brother. Or rather his half-brother. They have the same father.’ The woman’s smile faded. ‘Not that anyone’s allowed to mention it. Because as it happens, pig-headedness also runs very strongly through the male line in the Graystone family.’

  Iona stared, having been given more information about Zane’s father in a single sentence than she’d managed to prise out of him in a month. The one time she’d asked about his father, his reaction had been so cold and dismissive she’d never made the mistake of mentioning it again.

  ‘Doggie,’ the baby chortled and gestured wildly at C.D., cutting through Iona’s thoughts.

  ‘Why don’t you go and give Cookie Dough a hug?’ Tess said, letting the baby down and holding his hand as he toddled over to the dog’s basket.

  Iona’s curiosity levels shot straight to fever pitch as she watched C.D. accept the baby’s attentions with a patient thump of her tail.

  So the pinche gringo was his best friend Nate’s father too. And Tess seemed like a very nice, and very talkative woman, who was more than willing to be quizzed on the subject.

  Iona depressed the switch on the kettle. ‘How much time have you got, Tess?’ she asked. ‘I have a feeling this is going to take more than one cup of tea.’

  Tess laughed and checked her watch. ‘I’m at your disposal, for at least another half hour.’

  Iona prepared the teapot, hunted up some chocolate cookies she’d made two days ago, and dismissed the twinge of guilt at talking about something behind Zane’s back that he’d gone to great lengths to keep private.

  The man had shoe-horned pretty much every detail of her personal life previous to the moment she’d met him out of her during their long walks on the beach and over dinner every evening, and ante’d up very little in return, despite Iona’s concerted efforts in that direction—really dirty sexual favours included. Frankly, she was obliged to take Tess up on her offer—so she didn’t expire from curiosity like the proverbial cat.

  And anyway, this was what happened when you dated a detective. You were forced to get sneaky back.

  ‘But that’s ridiculous,’ Iona remarked, dunking her second cookie into the now tepid cup of tea. ‘How can they be best friends, know that they’re also brothers and yet never talk about it? Or even acknowledge it?’

  ‘It’s beyond ridiculous.’ Tess hugged her son, who sat on her lap busy gumming his cookie into a soggy mess. ‘Especially now we have Brandon. Zane’s his uncle and yet we’re not allowed to say so.’ She hitched her shoulders in an exaggerated shrug. ‘All I know is that they did talk about it when they were kids. And as a result of what happened, Nate refuses to bring it up again, until Zane says something first. And Zane never has. In fact, I have a suspicion that’s why he’s made himself scarce ever since Brandon was born. So now we’re at this ridiculous impasse. You see what I mean about the pig-headedness.’

  ‘What happened when they talked about it as kids?’

  ‘To be honest, Nate doesn’t talk about it much, because it still hurts, I suspect. He totally idolised Zane as a boy when he first went to live with his grandfather at San Revelle,’ she said, mentioning the fanciful castle that Nate’s great-grandfather had built near Half-Moon Bay and where Tess and her family now lived. ‘Maria worked as his grandfather’s housekeeper and she and Zane lived on the estate, so Nate spent all his free time at their cottage. Nate only found out years later that she’d gone to work there after Nate’s parents had kicked her out.’

  For getting pregnant by Nate’s father, Iona thought, still disgusted by what Tess had already told her of Maria’s past and the behaviour of a man who had seduced a teenager in his employ and then discarded her like so much rubbish as soon as her pregnancy started to show. Seemed Juana’s assessment of Harrison Graystone was correct.

  The Gallivanting Graystones, as the society press had dubbed Nate’s parents, had both died in a light aircraft crash over a decade ago, en route to a party in Martha’s Vineyard, but had left few people to grieve their parting, least of all their son Nate, who had been estranged from them both for years.

  Iona thought it desperately sad, though, that the bad seeds Harrison Graystone had sown could end up destroying the friendship between his two sons. Why couldn’t Nate and Zane be brothers, even if their father had disowned one and never acknowledged the other? Especially as they had bonded so young—and had remained friends despite everything.

  Tess sighed as she wiped Brandon’s mouth with a tissue. ‘All I know is that when Nate discovered the truth about Zane’s parentage he was overjoyed. He’d always wanted a proper family and he already thought of Maria as a surrogate mother. So naturally, he raced down to the cottage to tell Zane without thinking about Zane’s reaction…’ Tess’s voice trailed off, as if even she couldn’t bear to recall what she’d been told. ‘He was only twelve, for Pete’s sake.’
<
br />   ‘What happened?’ Iona prompted.

  ‘Zane went berserk,’ Tess said softly. ‘He punched Nate and kept on punching him until Maria pulled them apart.’

  Iona gasped, her stomach hurting now, not only at the thought of what Nate had endured, but also at how angry and confused Zane must have been to react in that way.

  He’d once told her he’d been wild as a teenager, but Iona couldn’t imagine him being violent. It simply didn’t jibe with the man she had come to know—because beneath Zane’s lazy, devilishly sexy charm was a man who always strived to keep his emotions on lockdown. It was what made seducing him such a delicious challenge. But now she was beginning to wonder if his control wasn’t a symptom of something painful and much more deep-seated than simply a desire to be in charge in bed.

  ‘Do you think Zane might have been in shock?’ Iona asked. ‘And that’s why he lashed out?’

  ‘No, it’s more complicated than that.’ Tess shook her head. ‘Nate’s convinced he already knew who his father was. Which is why Nate refuses to mention it to Zane again. Zane rejected their connection once, in the most graphic way possible—so Nate reverted to the Guy Code to salvage their friendship.’

  ‘The Guy Code?’

  ‘Avoidance as the better part of valour.’ Tess got up from the stool to bounce Brandon on her hip, who had become a little fussy now his second cookie had been demolished. ‘They pretend it never happened.’ Tess scoffed. ‘Which is patently counterproductive, but Nate refuses to budge.’ She pulled a multicoloured rattle out of her purse, and waved it in front of Brandon—who grabbed it and wedged it into his mouth.

  ‘So you thought you might be able to persuade Zane to talk about it instead?’ Iona said as realisation dawned. ‘By making sure he comes to the christening?’

  ‘Yes, Brandon’s even named after him—Zane’s his middle name—so I thought if he came he might…’ Tess plopped back on her stool, her son now drooling contentedly over the chew-toy. ‘It’s a stupid idea, isn’t it?’ she said, resigned. ‘Zane makes Nate look like an amateur when it comes to avoidance.’ She pushed out a breath. ‘But seriously, I’m desperate. I feel like there’s this big elephant in the room every time we see him, and, while the two of them are busy avoiding it, I keep tripping over it. I want to know why they can’t be brothers as well as friends. And I think Nate does too, although of course he won’t say so. But it’s worse than that. A week ago Nate asked Zane to be Bran’s godfather and he point-blank refused—I think they had a bit of a row about it, in fact, but of course Nate won’t talk about that either now.’