by Fiona Brand
After obtaining directions from one of the kitchen staff, she paused by the door to Lucas’s private suite. Stiffening her shoulders against the chill of the Mediterranean fortress walls, she rapped on the imposing door.
Lean brown fingers manacled her wrist. “I wouldn’t go in there if I were you.”
Lilah spun, shocked by the deep, cool voice and the knowledge that Zane had left the dinner table and followed her.
Snatching her wrist back, she rubbed at the bare skin, which still tingled and burned from his grip.
She dragged her gaze from his overlong jet-black hair and the trio of studs glinting in one lobe. An unwanted surge of awareness added to the tension that had gripped her ever since she had arrived at the castello that evening and seen Lucas in the arms of Carla Ambrosi.
Lucas and Carla had a short but well-publicized past, which Lilah had mistakenly believed to be invented media hype. To further complicate things, Carla was Lilah’s immediate boss.
Zane indicated the closed door. “Haven’t you figured it out yet? Lucas is…busy.”
The startling notion that, beneath the casual facade, Zane was quietly angry was shattered by the distant sound of laughter and the tap of high heels. More guests leaving the dining table, no doubt in search of one of the castello’s bathrooms.
Suddenly, the stunning risk Lilah had taken in traveling thousands of miles for a first date with an extremely wealthy man whose love life was of interest to the tabloids came back to haunt her. He had fulfilled all of the criteria of her system. Now things were going disastrously wrong.
Zane jerked his head in the direction of the approaching guests. “I take it you don’t want to be discovered knocking on Lucas’s bedroom door?”
A wave of embarrassed heat decimated the chill. “No.”
“Finally, some sense.” Zane’s fingers curled around her wrist again.
The startling intimacy of the hold sent another tingling jolt through her. A split second later, heart pounding with nerves, she found herself crushed against Zane’s side and flattened against the cold stone of an alcove. She inhaled, bracing herself against the effect of the sandalwood and the sudden, nervous desire to laugh.
As unpleasant as the evening had been she couldn’t suppress a small thrill that Zane had come to her rescue. Now they were hiding like a couple of kids.
Zane leaned out and peered around a corner. When he settled back into place she discovered that she had missed the warmth of his body.
His dark gaze touched on hers. “What I don’t get is why Lucas asked you.”
Lilah stiffened at the implication that she was the last person Lucas should have asked to partner him at a family wedding.
Determinedly, she stamped on the soft core of hurt that had haunted her since she was a kid—that her illegitimate birth and the poverty of her background made her less than respectable. “You certainly know how to make a girl feel special.”
He frowned. “That wasn’t what I meant.”
“Don’t worry.” She dragged her gaze free from the dangerous, too-knowing sympathy in his. “I have no problems with the reality check.”
She just wished she had thought things through before she had left home. Labeled “Catch of the Year” in a prominent women’s magazine, Lucas had been too good to be true.
Somewhere in the distance a door snapped shut, cutting off the sound of footsteps and laughter. The abrupt return to silence made Lilah doubly aware of the masculine heat emanating from Zane’s body and that the pale pearlized silk of her gown suddenly seemed too thin, the scooped neckline too revealing.
Hot color flooded her cheeks as the stressed uncertainty that had driven her to go in search of Lucas, and the truth, gave way to the searing memory of the kiss on the flight out.
The sedatives she had taken had kicked in shortly afterward. She had not seen Zane again until they had landed in Singapore, where two more passengers, clients of The Atraeus Group, had boarded the jet. Courtesy of the extra passengers, the rest of the flight had been uneventful. During the customs procedures, aware that Zane had been keeping tabs on her, she had managed to separate herself from him and had taken a taxi to her hotel.
Zane checked the corridor again. “All clear, and your reputation intact.”
“Unfortunately, my reputation is already shredded.”
That was the risk she had accepted in traveling thousands of miles on a first date with her billionaire boss. She hadn’t yet had time to formulate the full extent of the damage this would do to her marriage plan. Her only hope was that the other men on her list didn’t read the gutter press.
Jaw locked, she marched to the door of Lucas’s suite and rapped again.
Zane leaned one broad shoulder against the door frame, arms folded across his chest. “You don’t give up easily, do you?”
Lilah tried not to notice the way the dim light of an antique wall lamp flared across his taut, molded cheekbones, the tough line of his jaw. “I prefer the direct approach.”
“Just remember I tried to save you.”
The door eased open a few inches. Lucas Atraeus, tall and darkly handsome in evening clothes, was framed in the wash of lamplight.
The small flare of anger that had driven her back to his door leaped a little higher. She had expected Lucas to be somehow diminished in appearance. It didn’t help that he still looked heartbreakingly perfect.
The conversation was brief, punctuated by a glimpse of Carla Ambrosi, the woman Lilah realized Lucas truly wanted, hurriedly setting her clothing to rights. In that moment any idea that she could retrieve the situation and persevere with Lucas dissolved.
Gripping the door handle, Lilah wrenched the solid mahogany door closed, cutting Lucas off. In the process the strap of her evening bag flew off her shoulder. Beads scattered as the pretty purse hit the flagstones.
Silence reigned in the corridor for long, nervy seconds. Lilah tried to avoid Zane’s gaze. She was so not grieving for the relationship. Somehow she had never managed to get emotionally involved with Lucas. “You knew all along.”
He picked up the purse and a number of glittering beads and handed them to her. “They’ve got a history.”
Lilah slipped the little beads into the clutch. “I read the stories two years ago. I guess I should have included the information in my—”
“Wedding planner?”
Her gaze snapped to his. “Process. My woman’s intuition must have been taking a mini-break.”
He lifted a brow. “Don’t expect me to apologize for being in touch with my feminine side.”
The ridiculous concept of Zane Atraeus possessing any feminine trait broke the tension. “You don’t have a feminine side.”
A sudden thought blindsided her. Zane in his position as The Atraeus Group’s troubleshooter was used to handling difficult situations. And employees. “You’re running interference for Lucas.”
It made perfect sense. With Carla in the mix, Lucas had hedged his bets and asked Zane to fly her out. Now Zane had stepped in to stop her making a scene. It placed her in the realms of being “a problem.”
“No.”
The flatness of Zane’s denial was reassuring. His motives shouldn’t matter, but suddenly they very palpably did. She couldn’t bear the thought that she was just another embarrassing, or worse, scandalous, situation that Zane was “fixing.”
In the distance a door opened. The sharp tap of heels on flagstones, the clatter of dishes, broke the moment.
Zane straightened away from the wall. “You could do with a drink.” His hand cupped her elbow. “Somewhere quiet.”
The heat of his palm against her bare skin distracted Lilah enough that she allowed him to propel her down the corridor.
Seconds later, Zane opened a door and allowed her to precede him. Lilah stepped into a sitting room decorated in the spare Medinian way, with cream-washed walls, dark furniture and jewel-bright rugs scattered on a flagstone floor. A series of rich oils, no doubt depicting various
Atraeus ancestors, decorated the walls. French doors opened out on to one of the many stone terraces that rimmed the castello, affording expansive views of a moonlit Mediterranean sea.
Zane splashed what looked like brandy into a glass. “When did you realize about Lucas and Carla?”
She loosened her death grip on her clutch. “When we arrived at the castello and Carla flung herself into Lucas’s arms.”
“Then why go to Lucas’s room when you had to know what you would find?”
The question, along with the piercing gaze that went with it, was unsettling. She was once again struck by the notion that beneath the urbane exterior Zane was quietly, coldly angry. “I’d had enough of feeling uncomfortable and out of place. Dinner was over and I was tired. I wanted to go back to the hotel.”
He pressed the glass into her hands. “With Lucas.”
The brush of his fingers sent another zing of awareness through her. “No. Alone.”
She sipped brandy and tensed as it burned her throat. She was not about to explain to Zane that she had not gotten as far as thinking about the physical realities of a relationship with his brother. She had assumed all of that would fall into place as they went along. “I put a higher price on myself than that.”
“Marriage.”
She almost choked on another swallow of brandy. “That’s the general idea.”
Fingers tightening on the glass, she strolled closer to the paintings, as always drawn by color and composition, the nuances of technique. Jewelry design was her trade, but painting had always been her first love.
She paused beneath an oil of a fierce, medieval warrior, an onyx seal ring on one finger, a scimitar strapped to his back. The straight blade of a nose, tough jaw and magnetic dark gaze were a mirror of Zane’s.
Seated beside the warrior was his lady, wearing a parchment silk gown, her exotic gaze square on to the viewer, giving the impression of quiet, steely strength. Lilah was guessing that being married to the brigand beside her, she would need it. An exquisite diamond and emerald ring graced one slim finger; around her neck was a matching pendant.
She felt the heat from Zane’s body all down one side as he came to stand beside her. The intangible electrical current that hummed through her whenever he was near grew perceptibly stronger.
Lilah swallowed another mouthful of brandy and tried to ignore the disruptive sensations. The warmth in the pit of her stomach extended to a faint dizziness in her head, reminding her that she had barely eaten at dinner and had already sipped too much wine. She stepped closer to study the jewelry the woman was wearing.
“The Illium jewels.”
Lilah frowned, frustrated by the lack of fine detail in the painting. “From Troy? I thought they were a myth.”
“They got sold off at the turn of last century when the family went broke. My father managed to buy them back from a private collector.”
Lilah noticed the detail of a ship in the background of the painting. “A pirate?”
“A privateer,” Zane corrected. “During the eighteen hundreds his seafaring exploits were a major source of wealth for the Atraeus family.”
Lilah ignored Zane’s smooth explanation. After a brief foray into Medinian history, she had gleaned enough information about the Atraeus family to know that the dark and dangerous ancestor had been a pirate by any other name.
She stepped back from the oil painting in order to appreciate its rich colors. The play of light over the warrior’s dark features suddenly made him seem breathtakingly familiar. Exchange the robes, soft boots and a scimitar for a suit and an expensive black shirt and it was Zane. “What was his name?”
“Zander Atraeus, my namesake, near enough. Although my mother didn’t have a clue about my father’s family history.” He turned away. “Finish your drink. I’ll take you back to your hotel.”
She followed Zane to the sideboard and set her empty brandy glass down. She noticed the glint of the seal ring on the middle finger of Zane’s left hand. “Your ring looks identical to the one in the painting.”
“It is.” His reply was clipped, and she wondered what she had said to cause the cool distance.
Suddenly she understood and busied herself extracting her cell from her clutch. She knew only too well what it was like to be an illegitimate child and excluded from her father’s family. As much as she had tried to dismiss that side of the family from her psyche, they still existed and the hurt remained.
“You don’t have to take me back to the hotel. I can call a cab.” Unfortunately, the screen of her cell was cracked and the phone no longer appeared to work. It must have happened when her purse had gone flying.
Zane checked his watch. “Even if the phone worked, you wouldn’t get a cab after midnight on Medinos.”
Her stomach sank. She was a city girl; she loved shops, good coffee, public transportation. All the good-natured warnings friends had given her about traveling to a foreign country that was still partway buried in the Middle Ages were coming home to roost. “No underground?”
A flash of amusement lit his dark gaze. “All I can offer is a ride in a Ferrari.”
Her stomach tightened on the slew of graphic images that went with climbing into a powerful sports car with Zane Atraeus. It was up there with Persephone accepting a ride from Hades. “Thanks, but no thanks. You don’t need to feel responsible for me.”
Zane’s expression hardened. “Lucas won’t be taking you back to the hotel.”
Her chin jerked up. “I did get that part.” She had been stupidly naive, but not anymore. “Okay, I’ll accept the lift to my hotel, but that’s all.”
Zane’s fingers brushed hers as he took her empty glass. “Good. Don’t throw yourself away on a man who doesn’t value you.”
“Don’t worry.” She stepped back, unnerved by how tempted she was to stay close. “I know exactly how much I’m worth.”
She realized how cool and hard that phrase had sounded. “I didn’t mean that to sound…like it did.”
His expression was neutral. “I’m sure you didn’t.”
Another memory surfaced. Two weeks after “the kiss,” at another function, Zane had found her politely trying to fend off her friend and escort’s boss.
She could still remember the hot tingle down her spine, the sudden utter unimportance of the older man who had decided she was desperate to spend the night with him. For an exhilarating moment she had been certain Zane had followed her because he wanted to follow up on the shattering connection she had felt when they had kissed.
Instead, his gaze had flowed through her as if she didn’t exist. He had turned on his heel and left.
In a flash of clarity she finally understood why she had agreed to travel to Medinos with a man she barely knew.
The date had been with Lucas, but it was Zane she had always wanted.
In her search for Mr. Dependable she had somehow managed to fixate on his exact opposite.
Lucas had been an unknown quantity and out of her league, but he was nothing compared to Zane. With Zane there would be no guarantees, no safety net, no commitment. The exact opposite of what she had planned for and needed in her life.
Four
Ten days later, Zane stepped into the darkened offices of The Atraeus Group’s newest acquisition, Ambrosi Pearls in Sydney. He took the antique elevator, which matched the once-elegant facade of the building, to the top floor.
It was almost midnight; most of the building was plunged into darkness. Zane, who was more used to mining and construction sites and masculine boardrooms, shook his head in bemusement as he strolled into Lucas’s office. The air was perfumed; the decor white-on-white. It looked like it had been designed for the editor of a high-end fashion magazine. He noted there was actually a pile of glossy fashion magazines on one end of the curvy designer desk.
Lucas turned from his perusal of downtown Sydney. His hair was ruffled as if he’d run his fingers through it, and his tie was askew. He looked as disgruntled as Zane felt coming
off a long flight from Florida.
Zane checked his watch. It was midnight. By his calculations he had been awake almost thirty-six hours. “Why the cloak-and-dagger?”
Lucas stripped off his tie and stuffed the red silk into his pocket. “I’ve decided to marry Carla. The press is already on the hunt. I’ve been trying to do a little damage control, but Lilah’s going to come under pressure.”
Zane’s tiredness evaporated. Now the midnight meeting at the office made sense. Lucas’s apartment had probably been staked out by the press. “I thought you and Lilah were over.”
If he had thought anything else he would not have gone back to Florida to close the land deal. He would have sent someone else.
Lucas paced to the desk, checked the screen of an ice-cream pink cell as if he was waiting for a text, then rifled through a drawer. He came up with a business card. “We are over, but try telling that to the press.”
He scribbled a number on the card. “Lilah came to my apartment. She was followed.”
Zane took the card. If he thought he had controlled the possessive jealousy that had eaten into him ever since Constantine’s wedding, in that moment he knew he was wrong. “What was Lilah doing at your apartment?”
Lucas frowned at the pink cell as if something about it was stressing him to the max. “I’m not sure. Carla was there. Lilah left before I could talk to her. The point is, I need you to mind her for me again.”
In terse sentences, Lucas described how a reporter had snapped photos of him kissing Carla out on the sidewalk, with Lilah looking on. The pictures would be published in the morning paper.
Every muscle in Zane’s body tensed at the knowledge that Lucas and Lilah were still connected, even if it was only by scandal.
During Constantine’s wedding, which Lilah had attended because she had not been able to get a flight out until the following Monday, she had made it clear she was “off” all things Atraeus. Zane had not enjoyed being shut out, but at least he’d had the satisfaction of knowing Lilah was over Lucas.
He wondered what had changed her mind to the extent that she had actually gone to Lucas’s apartment. Grimly, he controlled the cavemanlike urge to grab Lucas by his shirtfront, shove him against the wall and demand that he leave Lilah Cole alone. “She won’t like it.”