Lilah could feel herself turning pink. She was suddenly fiercely glad she was leaving town in two days. “No.” Ducking her head, she walked quickly out of the gallery.
She had just slept with the one.
Two days later, fresh off a flight from Broome in Western Australia and frustrated that he had not been able to get any reply from either Lilah’s work or home phone, or cell, Zane swung the Corvette into the parking space outside her building.
He buzzed the apartment. While he waited for a response, the electrifying moments on the couch replayed in his mind. The enthusiastic way Lilah had clung to him, the explosive moment when he had known for sure that she had never made love with Lucas, Peters or any other man. The fierce way she had locked him into her body when he had attempted to withdraw, as if she hadn’t wanted to let him go.
The brain freeze that had hit him, because he hadn’t wanted to stop, either.
When he’d discovered that Lilah had sneaked out on him during the night, he had been both furious and relieved.
The fact that he had made the monumental mistake of making love to her without protection, that he could have made her pregnant, still stunned him.
It had been right up there with finding out that she had been a virgin.
A day spent kicking his heels, trying to decide if those out-of-control moments had been unscripted and spontaneous or if he had been neatly manipulated by a consummate operator had been enough.
Every time he had examined what had happened, he had come to the same inescapable conclusion. Whatever Lilah’s motives had been in surrendering her virginity to him, she had taken care of the contraception, which argued her innocence.
He had done a background check on Lilah, even going so far as to fly to her hometown, Broome. When he’d found out that, like him, she was illegitimate, several pieces of the puzzle that was Lilah Cole had fallen into place.
He knew how a dysfunctional upbringing could influence decisions. Lilah had been brought up by her single mother, whose health was poor. Consequently, the financial burden had now fallen on her. She not only paid her own costs in Sydney, she paid her mother’s mortgage and medical bills.
The knowledge put Lilah’s search for a well-heeled husband into an irritatingly practical light. It had also exposed how potentially vulnerable Lilah could be to an “arrangement” should some man try to step into her life.
He leaned on the buzzer again. Since Lilah wasn’t answering any calls, he had reasoned that she had most probably taken some time off work and was inside, hiding out from the press.
His frustration level increasing when there was still no response, he cut through the adjacent property, another shabby warehouse, and pushed through the broken fence into Lilah’s backyard.
He examined the bifold doors and windows, which were locked and blanked out by thick drapes. He rapped on the door and tried calling. When there was no answer he walked back around to the front door and pressed buzzers until he got an answer from one of the other apartments.
A voice like a rusty nail being slowly extracted from a sheet of iron informed him that Lilah had left the country. Her apartment was now empty, if he wanted to rent it.
Zane terminated the conversation and strode back to the Corvette. A quick call to Lucas answered the question that was threatening to aggravate his newly discovered anger problem.
“Lilah has flown to Medinos. She’s agreed to head up the new Ambrosi Pearls facility.”
Zane’s fingers tightened on his cell. “Who made the arrangement?”
“I did. I’ll be flying out to Medinos in the next few days to check that she’s settling in.”
A snapping sound informed Zane that he had just broken one of the hinges that attached the LCD screen to the body of his phone. “Carla won’t be happy.”
That was an understatement. Carla Ambrosi was known for her passionate outbursts. But whatever Carla might feel about Lucas’s continuing involvement with Lilah didn’t come close to Zane’s level of unhappiness.
“After the crazy stuff the tabloids have been printing,” Lucas said grimly, “the less Carla knows about Lilah the better. I’m organizing for her to spend some time with her mother here when I fly out to Medinos.”
Zane’s stomach tightened. Which meant Carla would be conveniently out of the way for Lucas’s meeting with Lilah. “When did Lilah leave?”
“Today.”
Zane terminated the conversation and placed a call to Elena. Within seconds she had located the information he wanted. The only flight out of Sydney to Medinos that day had already departed.
Tossing the phone on the passenger seat, Zane slid behind the wheel and accelerated away from the curb. Lilah had left that morning, but her flight was long, with a three-hour stopover in Singapore and another shorter stop in Dubai. Using the Atraeus private jet, he would easily reach Medinos before her.
Whatever ideas his brother might have of conducting a clandestine affair with Lilah, Zane was certain of one fact. Lilah hadn’t chosen to give herself to Lucas; she had given herself to him.
He, also, had made a choice when he had made love with Lilah. He wanted her, and after two years, one night had not been enough. One thing was certain: he was not about to let Lucas entice Lilah away.
Satisfaction curled in his stomach as the decision settled in. If he’d had any reservations, in that moment they were gone.
The complication of Lilah’s virginity and marriage plan aside, he was finally going to live up to the reputation of his marauding ancestor.
Lilah was his, and he was taking her.
Lilah stepped into the air-conditioned terminal on Medinos.
Almost immediately she was accosted by a uniformed security guard, a holstered gun on one thigh.
Exhausted from the long nerve-racking flight, during which she had only been able to sleep in snatches, she accompanied the officer to a small, sterile interview room. Several fruitless questions later, because the guard’s English was limited and her Medinian was close to nonexistent, she resigned herself to wait. The one piece of information she had gleaned was that, apparently, they were waiting for a member of the Atraeus family.
Minutes later, her frustration levels rising, her luggage, along with a foam cup of coffee, was delivered to the interview room and an airport official showed up to personally process her arrival papers. As the official handed her stamped passport back, the door opened. Zane, dressed in dark jeans and a loose white shirt, his hair ruffled as if he’d dragged his fingers through it repeatedly, strolled into the room.
For a confused moment Lilah had difficulty grasping that Zane was actually here, then the meaning of his presence sank in. “You’re the Atraeus who had me detained.”
The official left, the door closing quietly behind him.
Zane frowned. “Who were you expecting? Lucas?”
The flatness of Zane’s voice was faintly shocking. Lilah couldn’t help thinking it was a long way from the teasing grin and the seductive huskiness of Saturday night. “As far as I know, Lucas is still in Sydney.”
Zane placed a newspaper, which had been tucked under one arm, down on the desktop.
The glaring headline, Lucas Atraeus Installs Mistress on Isle of Medinos, made her bristle. When she had flown out of Sydney, she had hoped she was leaving all of that behind.
Folding the paper over, she threw it in the trashcan beside the desk. “I haven’t seen that one.