A Perfect Husband

by Fiona Brand

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

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

  He studied a series of three abstracts propped against one wall. “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 gallery a few weeks back.”

  A small shock went through her that he had actually bought some of her paintings. “I usually sell most of what I paint through the gallery.”

  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. Following 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 all 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 well 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 followed 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 collapsed 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 practically 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 wall, 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 will.”

  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’ll 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 all this glass.”

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

  “You’ll 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 automatically went to the answering machine. The message was audible. A reporter wanted her to call 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’ll pack.”

  Six

  Minutes later, Lilah was packed. Zane, who had spent the time talking into a cell 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 hall, closing the heavy door behind her.

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

  “I’ll just leave a message for a neighbor and see if he’ll 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’ll fix the window. Call me if you need anything else.”

  Zane held the front door of the apartment building for her. “So, you’re still 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 small, embarrassing scuffle.

  She descended as gracefully as she could into the Vette’s passenger seat. “Evan is a friend.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell 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 pulled away from the curb, Lilah noticed that Zane’s security pulled in close behind them. The ominous black sedan, filled 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 call on his cell. 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 allowed Lilah to precede him into the room.

  Unlocking his jaw he finally 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” of long standing, they were practically living together. “How long have you known Peters?”

  There was a moment of silence while she surveyed the heavy opulence of the suite. “Six years. Maybe seven. We met at a painting class.”

  “When did he move in next door?”

  His question was somewhat lost as Lilah strolled through the overstuffed room. The suite, he realized, with its curvy furniture, swagged silk drapes and gilt embellishment might not suit him, but it was a perfect setting for Lilah. Even dressed in the modern suit, she looked lush and exotic, like the expensive courtesans that, before Medinos had become a Christian nation, had been kept closeted in luxury behind lacy wrought iron grills.

  She trailed one slim hand over the back of a brocade couch. “As a matter of fact, I was the one who moved next door to him. Evan knew I was looking for a bigger place. When the apartment became available he let me know. It was ideal for what I wanted, so I snapped it up.”

  His jaw tightened. “And it was a bonus living so close to Peters.”

  Lilah dropped her purse on the couch and paused to examine an ornate oval mirror. She met his gaze in the glass. “Evan and I are not involved. As you put it, he has a certain reputation in the business world. His painting and some of his artistic friends don’t fit the profile, so he keeps that part of his life under wraps.”

  Involvement or not, it was the knowledge that Peters had likely shared Lilah’s bed that bothered him.

  Although it had not been the blond accountant’s portrait lying on the floor in Lilah’s studio. Or Mark Britten’s, or Lucas’s.

  The portrait had been his.

  Before he could probe further, his new P.A., Elena, who occupied a single room down the corridor, appeared. Plump but efficiently elegant in a dark suit and trendy pink spectacles, Elena had a clipboard in hand. Spiros appeared in Elena’s wake and carried Lilah’s bag through to the spare bedroom.

  Zane made brief introductions and signed the correspondence on Elena’s clipboard. He suppressed his irritation at Elena’s bright-eyed perusal of Lilah and the fascinated glances she kept directing his way. No doubt she had read some of the more lurid stories printed about him, which would explain why she seemed to think he needed chocolate-dipped strawberries and oysters on the half shell in his fridge. If she knew how he had lived over the past two years, he thought grimly, she would not have bothered.

  When both Elena and Spiros were gone, Zane shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it over a nearby chair and strolled to the doorway of Lilah’s room.

  The pressing questions surrounding the portrait she had painted of him were replaced by a sense of satisfaction as he watched her unload clothing into a huge, ornate dresser. In his suite.

  Maybe his personal assistant wasn’t so far off in her opinion of him.

  According to the history books, on his various raids, Zander Atraeus hadn’t confined himself to stealing jewels. At that moment, he formed a grim insight into how his marauding ancestor must have felt when he had stolen away the woman he had eventually married.

  Lilah glanced up, a stylish jewelry case in one hand. “Your P.A. doesn’t approve.”

  He settled his shoulder against the door frame, curiously riveted by the feminine items she placed with calm precision on top of the dresser. “Elena had a traditional Medinian upbringing. She would probably prefer you in a separate suite for propriety’s sake.”

  Her expression brightened. “Great idea.”

  “You’re staying here, where I can keep an eye on you. All the suites and rooms at this end of the corridor are booked out to Atraeus staff. It’s safe because no one comes in or out without security checking.”

  “What about the publicity?”

  He shrugged. “Whether you have a separate room or share this suite, after what happened this morning, the story they print will be the same. This way, at least, I know where you are.”

  She zipped her empty case closed and placed it in the closet. “What I can’t figure out is why that should be so important to you.”

  “I made a promise to Lucas.”

  Hurt registered briefly in her gaze. “Silly me,” she muttered breezily. “I forgot.” Pushing open the terrace door, she stepped out onto the patio.

  Zane caught her before she had gone more than a few feet. “Not a good idea. The terrace isn’t safe.”

  On the heels of the hurt that Zane was only following Lucas’s orders in looking after her, Zane’s grip on her arm sent a small shock of adrenaline plunging through her veins.

  She took a panicked half step, at the same time twisting to free herself. In the process her heel skidded on the paver. A sharp little pain signaled that she had managed to turn her ankle.

  “What is it?”

  She balanced on one heel. “It’s not serious.” It was the shoe that was the problem; there was something not quite right with the heel.

  A split second later she found herself lifted up, carried back inside and deposited on the bed.

  Zane removed the offending shoe, which had a broken heel, tossed it on the floor then examined her ankle. The light brush of his fingers sent small shivers through her. “Stay there. I’ll get some ice.”

  “There’s no need, honestly.”

  But he had already gone.

  Wiggling her foot, which felt just fine, Lilah stared at the ornately molded ceiling, abruptly speechless. Gold cherubs encircled a crystal chandelier, which she hadn’t previously noticed.

  She pushed up into a reclining position, and eased back into the decadent luxury of a satin quilted headboard and a plump nest of down pillows. She wiggled her ankle. There was barely a twinge, nothing she couldn’t walk off.

  Before she could slide off the bed, Zane appeared with a plastic bag filled with ice cubes. The enormous bed depressed as he sat down and placed the ice around her ankle.

  She winced at the cold and tried not to love the fact that he was looking after her. “It’s really not that bad.”

  He placed a cushion under her ankle to elevate it. “This way it won’t get bad. Just stay put.”

  He rose to his feet, his expression taking on a look of blunt possession that was oddly thrilling, and that soothed the moment of hurt when she had thought he viewed her as a problem. She decided that in the rich turquoise-and-gold decadence of the room, and despite his kindness over her ankle, she had no trouble placing Zane at all.

  When someone looked like a pirate and acted like a pirate, they very probably were a pirate.

  An hour on the bed without anything to read and no chance of drowsing off because she was on edge at being in Zane’s suite, and Lilah had had enough.

  Pushing into a sitting position, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed. She put weight on the foot. A few steps, with the barest of twinges, and she judged it was perfectly sound. The ice pack, which she had taken into her bathroom as soon as Zane had left the room, was melting in the bathtub.

  She checked the sitting room, relieved to see that it was empty, and noted the sound of water running, indicating that Zane was having a shower. After changing into jeans and a white camisole, she brushed her hair and wound it back into a tidy knot. Collecting her sketchpad and a pencil, she slipped dark glasses on the bridge of her nose and stepped out onto the terrace. A recliner was placed directly outside her room.


  Flipping the pad open, to her horror she discovered that she had picked up the wrong pad. Instead of her latest jewelry sketches, ornate pearl items based on a set of traditional Medinian pieces, she found herself staring at a charcoal sketch of intent dark eyes beneath straight brows, mouthwatering cheekbones and a strong jaw.

  Flipping through the book, she studied page after page of sketches, which she had done over a two-year period. Slamming the book closed, she stared at the blank office buildings and hotels across the street. Until that moment she hadn’t realized how fixated she had become.

  She had simply drawn Zane when she had felt the urge. The problem was the urge had become unacceptably frequent. It was no wonder that in the past two years she’d had trouble whipping up any enthusiasm for her dates. She had even begun to worry about her age; after all she was nearly thirty. She had even considered dietary supplements, but clearly food wasn’t the problem.

  A shadow falling over the sketchpad shocked her out of her reverie.

  Zane, wearing black jeans that hung low on narrow hips, his muscled chest bare. “You shouldn’t be out here. I told you, it isn’t safe.”

  Lilah dragged her gaze from the expanse of muscled flesh, the intriguing tracery of scars on his abdomen. She was abruptly glad for the screen her dark glasses provided. “We’re twenty stories up, with security controlling access to this part of the hotel. I don’t see how this terrace can not be safe.”

  “For the same reason I have bodyguards. The Atraeus family has a lot of money. That attracts some wacky types.”

  “Is that how you got the scars?”

  He leaned down and braced his hands on the armrests on either side of the recliner, suddenly suffocatingly close. “I got the scars when I was a kid, because I didn’t have either money or protection. Since my father picked me up, no one’s gotten that close, mostly because I listen to what my chief of security tells me.”

  She stared at his freshly shaven jaw, trying to ignore the scents of soap and cologne. “Which is?”

  “That no matter how sunny the day looks, there are a lot of bad people out there, so you don’t take risks and you do what you’re told.” He lifted her dark glasses off the bridge of her nose.