by Fiona Brand
That ingrained wariness of people made him good at his job. He didn’t take anything for granted. His approach was often perceived as clinical and heartless. Zane didn’t bring emotion into the process; he simply did the job he was paid to do.
But somehow, despite his background and his mind-set, he was involved. “Just what do you think every one of those guys who answered your ad wants?”
“A steady, stable relationship.”
“Do you believe in the tooth fairy?”
“This is not a good time to be sarcastic.”
“Then don’t believe in this. It’s not real.”
He straightened and stabbed a finger at one of the photos of a bronzed, sculpted torso. The handsome, chiseled face rang a bell. He couldn’t be sure, but he had a suspicion it belonged to a male model, probably from some underwear billboard. “They are not real.”
“Which is exactly why I intend to conduct one-on-one interviews next week. If they’re not genuine, I’ll know.”
There was a moment of vibrating silence. “This is the reason you have to be back in Sydney?”
“Yes.”
“Where, exactly, do you intend to conduct these interviews?”
“At restaurants and cafes. They’re not interviews exactly. More a series of…blind dates. After I conduct online interviews to screen candidates.”
Blind dates. Suddenly Zane needed some air.
Thirteen
Pacing to a set of French doors, he jerked them open, although he was more interested in Lilah’s reflection in one of the panes than the sun-washed balcony. “Did you give them your real name?”
“Yes. And a photograph.”
“Along with your occupation.” Lilah was nothing if not thorough. His tension ratcheted up another notch. “When the recent publicity hit the newspapers, they would all have instantly recognized you.”
Lilah could feel herself going cold inside. Of course she had considered that angle, but she had been guilty of hoping that the original list of five steady, reliable men she had assembled would be too sensible to read the gutter press, or to connect the wild stories with her resume.
Zane’s gaze, reflected in the glass, was neutral enough to make her feel distinctly uncomfortable. “The whole point of the exercise is marriage. What did you expect me to do? Pretend to be someone I wasn’t?”
“Like the guys who replied.”
Her gaze was inescapably drawn to a couple of the photos, which she suspected were of male models and not the candidates. In the case of one particularly stunning man, she was almost certain she had seen him on an underwear billboard. “I’m well aware that some of the applications are not honest.”
There was a vibrating silence. “I have resources. If you want I can have them screened by the private investigative firm The Atraeus Group uses in Sydney.”
For long seconds she wavered, but given the media exposure that had made her temporarily notorious, she couldn’t afford not to have Zane’s help. He was in the business of checking and double-checking on the integrity of businesses and personnel. She did everything she could to research the candidates, but with limited time and resources, she couldn’t hope to do any in-depth checking in the span of a few days. “Okay.”
Lilah brought up her file of applicants and vacated the chair. Zane sat down and began to scroll through, the silence growing progressively deeper and more charged as he read. “Do you mind if I email the file to my laptop?”
“Go ahead.”
Seconds later, he exited her mail program and rose from the chair. “I’m going to have these names checked out. The firm I use has access to criminal files and credit records. I’ll order lunch in, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to get some basic details back.” An hour and a half later, Lilah stared at the list of men on her dating site, her stomach churning at the thought of what Zane could turn up. While she had waited for the results of his investigation, she had eaten one of the selection of salads that had been delivered by room service then made herself coffee in the small kitchenette.
She sipped the coffee, barely tasting it. Six days together. She blinked back a wave of unexpectedly intense emotion. It wouldn’t be six days of making love; it would be six days of saying goodbye.
Jaw set, she forced her attention back to her laptop screen and began reading through all of the mail. She had expected to have a few withdrawals—what she hadn’t expected was for four of her five vetted men to have quit her page and the raft of new applications.
A prickling sense of unease hit her. She had compiled her previous list of stable, steady men over months from the unenthusiastic trickle of replies to her dating agency application. In the span of two days she had lost four of the five steady prospects she had intended to meet the following week and had received fifteen new “expressions of interest.” Not good.
She scrolled through the emails, flinching at some of the subject lines.
Clearly, it had been an easy matter to connect the scandalous stories in the press with her matchmaking page. Most of her solid prospects had quit and she was now being targeted by men attracted by her notoriety.
Zane strolled into the suite. “A handful of the applicants checked out.” He tossed a pile of papers down on the desk. “Don’t reply to any of these. If you do, you can count on my presence at any interviews you conduct because, honey, I’ll be there.”
Lilah swallowed the impulse to argue a point she was in one hundred percent agreement with herself. She did not want to end up at the mercy of some kind of kinky opportunist or worse, a reporter trying to generate another smutty story. “I don’t see how. You won’t be in Sydney next week.”
Zane strolled toward his bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging out of it as he walked. “For this, I’ll make a point of it.”
Lilah dragged her gaze from Zane’s broad back, and the unsettling, undermining intimacy of watching him undress. With an effort of will, she squashed the impulse to walk up behind him, wrap her arms around his waist, lean into his heady warmth and breathe in the scent of his skin. “I don’t see why when you made it clear you don’t want anything more than a temporary arrange—”
“You want more than the one week time limit?”
Lilah tried to squash the heart pounding thought that they could extend their affair for weeks, maybe months. The reason she was keeping the time so short was to get the fixation with Zane out of her system. She couldn’t in all honesty enter into a marriage with someone else if she was still attracted to Zane.
Although, she was already certain she had made a fundamental mistake. The desperate fixation had faded somewhat, but it had been replaced with something much more insidious.
She was beginning to like Zane. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had ever mentioned liking their lovers. There had simply been the dangerously out-of-control passion, which had been dispensed with when the pregnancies had become apparent.
She avoided answering him and instead stared at the papers Zane had tossed down on the desk. On the top was the underwear ad guy. In reality, he was a forty-five-year-old, twice-divorced mechanic who had somehow managed to make his application from a minimum-security prison cell.
According to the detective firm Zane had employed, he was currently serving a two-year sentence for car theft. With time out for good behavior, he could be out in six months.
The sound of running water in Zane’s shower broke the heavy silence that seemed to have settled around her. She skimmed the information on the rest of the applicants Zane had blacklisted. Logging back on to the matchmaking site, she deleted them from her page. That left her with six applicants in total, one from her previous batch of applicants, and five new ones. Three were depressingly unsuitable, so she deleted them. That left her with three.
The sound of the shower stopped.
She tried to concentrate on the photos and profiles of the three remaining men on her dating list. Jack, Jeremy and John, the three J’s.
They were all pleasant, attractive men in solid jobs. John Smith, wearing a crisp, dark suit, looked like an ad for Gentleman’s Quarterly. Listed as the CEO of his own company, he fitted the profile she had put together for a husband perfectly.
The one applicant who had not deserted her following the scandal in the newspaper, Jack Riordan, had been high on her list. He wasn’t perfect, but it was heartening that her top pick apart from Howard, who had not worked out, was still on board.
Taking a deep breath she decided she needed to reward Jack Riordan’s loyalty for sticking with her despite the scandal, take the plunge and commit to an initial date.
She typed in a suggested meeting time and place and hit the return key. Her computer made a small whooshing sound as the reply was sent. A split second later her message appeared on her page.
Stomach tight, pulse hammering, she stared at the neat print. After months of lurking online, reluctant to commit to anything more than a little window-shopping, she felt she was finally moving forward with her plans. She ought to feel positive that, while she wouldn’t have Zane in her life, at least she had the possibility of having someone.
There were no strings, she reminded herself. Half an hour in a coffee shop or over a lunch table, and if she didn’t like Jack, or vice versa, they need never contact one another again.
The thought was soothing. On impulse she quickly typed in affirmatives for the other two men. Now more than ever, with the end of her time with Zane set and the knowledge that hurt was looming, it was important to stay focused.
She stared at the three messages on screen and her stomach did a crazy flip-flop. The decision shouldn’t feel like a betrayal of Zane, but suddenly, very palpably, it did.
With a jerky movement, she pushed back from the desk, rose from her seat and strolled to the French doors. She stared out at the serene view of sea and the distant, floating shape of Ambrus.
A shiver went through her as she remembered the hours spent making love to Zane on Ambrus, then further back to the stormy interlude in Sydney.
Unhappy with the direction of her thoughts, she walked through to the bedroom and began to unpack. Long seconds ticked by as she emptied her suitcase and tidied it away in a large closet.
Despite trying to put a positive spin on the process of finding a husband, every part of her suddenly recoiled from the idea of replacing Zane in her life.
In her bed.
She walked back out into the sitting room and began to pace, too upset to settle. Her stomach was churning; she actually felt physically sick. She had the sudden wild urge to erase the messages she had sent, because she knew with sudden conviction that no matter how wonderful or perfect any one of the three J’s might be she was no longer sure she was ready to offer any of them a relationship. The thought of sharing the same intimacies with another man that she had shared with Zane made her recoil. She couldn’t do it.
The truth sank in with the same kind of absolute clarity she experienced when she knew a painting was finished or a jewelry design was completed. It was a complication she should have foreseen. She had tried to get Zane out of her system, but she had done the exact opposite of what she had planned to do. She had fallen wildly, irrevocably in love with him.
In retrospect, the damage had been done two years ago when she had first met him at the charity art auction.
She wondered why she hadn’t seen it from the first. Clearly she had been so intent on burying her head in the sand and denying the attraction that she had failed to recognize that it was already too late.
She had been a victim of the coup de foudre. Struck down somewhere between the first intense eye contact when she had strolled into the ballroom that night over two years ago and the passionate interlude at the end of the evening.
With her history she should have sensed it, should have known. Her only excuse was that neither her mother nor her grandmother had ever mentioned a lingering fascination or liking coming into the equation. Cole women were notoriously strong-willed. As soon as the pregnancies, and their lovers’ unwillingness to commit, had become apparent, the relationships had ended.
If she’d had any sense, as soon as she had registered the unusual power of the attraction she would have gotten as far away from Zane Atraeus as she could. Instead, she had offered to donate more paintings to his charity, gotten involved with fundraising, even volunteered to help with the annual art auctions. Every step she had taken had ensured further contact with Zane.
It was no wonder she had not been able to let go of the fixation. In her heart of hearts that was the last thing she had wanted. She had hung around him like a love-struck teenager, secretly sketching and painting him.
She had compounded the problem by legitimizing the affair as an exercise to get Zane out of her system. Instead she had succeeded in establishing him even more firmly in her life, to the extent that now she didn’t want anyone else.
She had been in love with Zane for two years. There was no telling how long she would remain in love, but given the stubborn streak in her personality, it could be for years. Quite possibly a lifetime.
She still wanted a stable marriage and a happy family life. She wanted love and security and babies, the whole deal. But she no longer wanted them with some unknown mystery man in her future.
She wanted them with Zane.
Zane strolled out as she headed back to the desk, dressed in a soft white shirt and a pair of faded, glove-soft jeans.
Aware that the screen of her laptop portrayed the appointments she had made, and which she was now desperate to retract, Lilah made a beeline for the desk.
Zane, who clearly had the same destination in mind, reached her laptop a split second before she did.
The scents of soap and clean skin and the subtle, devastating undernote of cologne made her stomach clench.
Zane touched the mouse pad. The screen saver flickered out of existence, revealing the three postings she had made.
To Lilah’s relief there were no replies, yet. In Sydney it would be midmorning. All three J’s would be at work.
“You’ve made times to meet.” Zane’s voice was soft and flat.
Lilah stiffened at his remoteness; it was not the reaction she had expected. The lack of annoyance, or even irritation, that she was progressing with her marriage plans was subtly depressing.
With the suddenness of a thunderbolt his cool neutrality settled into riveting context. She had seen him like this only once before, when he had been dealing with a former treasurer of the charity who had “borrowed” several thousands of dollars to pay for an overseas trip. Zane had been deceptively quiet and low-key, but there had been nothing either soft or weak about his approach. Potter had taken something that mattered to Zane, and he wasn’t prepared to be lenient.
Zane had quietly stated that if the money wasn’t back in the account and Potter’s resignation on his desk by the end of the day, charges would be laid and Zane would personally pay for and oversee the litigation.
Potter had paled and stammered an apology. He hadn’t been able to write the check fast enough.
Lilah had always been aware of Zane’s reputation for taking no prisoners in the business world. The element that had struck her most forcibly was that the charity had mattered to him personally.
Hope dawned. She knew she mattered to Zane; he had admitted as much. As hard as she had struggled to stay away from him, he had struggled to stay away from her, and failed.
Because she mattered to him on a level he could not dismiss.
By his own admission, he had become more involved with the charity than he had planned because she was there. They had ended up together on Medinos and in Sydney. They’d had unprotected sex. For a man who was intent on staying clear of entanglements, that in itself was an admission.
Then there was the small matter of Zane virtually kidnapping her for two days.
She felt like a sleeper just waking up. She had been so involved in the minutiae of day-to-day events and her own
plans for marriage that she had failed to step back and look at the bigger picture.
Zane cared for her. He said he cared about who she was with next. Although it was a blunt fact that Zane did not have a good track record with helping her to find love. He had gotten rid of Howard and a raft of dating applicants. He had effectively made sure that Lucas remained in her past.
There was only one conclusion to be drawn: Zane was jealous.
The tension that gripped Lilah eased somewhat as possibilities she hadn’t considered opened up, expanded.
If Zane was jealous, then maybe, just maybe, there was a chance that he could overcome his phobia about intimate relationships and commit to her.
The possibility condensed into a breathtaking idea.
Relationships were not her strong area; hence the marriage plan. It had not been successful, but at least it had given her a framework—a system—to move forward with, and that was what she needed with Zane.
Not a marriage plan. The stakes were suddenly dizzyingly, impossibly high. She needed a strategy to encourage Zane to fall in love with her.
It was a leap across a fairly wide abyss, but in that moment of realization she had already mentally taken that leap. The future stretched out before her in dazzling, Technicolor brilliance. Not just a steady, reliable marriage, but one based on true love.
Once Zane fell for her, she was confident the whole marriage thing would take care of itself. There was a risk involved, but when Zane succumbed to love, the intensity of the emotion should be powerful enough to dissolve whatever objections he had to marriage.
Heart pounding, Lilah stared at the incriminating dates on the screen. It occurred to her that the proposed dates had a positive angle. They could generate the pressure that was needed to convince Zane that he couldn’t bear to let her go.
The about-face in thinking was a little disorienting but she was already adjusting to the new direction. The sudden itch to sit down with a pad and pen and start formulating a plan was the clincher.
She could do this.