Resigning herself, Lilah walked quickly to the large garagestyle 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-filled north-facing room that was perfect for painting.
Zane, thankfully, didn’t seem to notice how shabby the exterior was, a reminder that he had not spent all of his life in luxurious surroundings.
Unlocking the door, she stepped inside the nondescript foyer, with its concrete floors and cream-washed walls.
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 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.”
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