by the dichotomy of his character. She had read his story on the charity website. One of the things she admired about Zane was that he happily revealed his past in order to help homeless kids.
“Put your head on my shoulder if you want.”
The quiet offer sent a warning thrill through her. She considered leaning against the window, but the thought that the shutter might slide open and she would catch a view clear down to the ground was not pleasant. “No, thank you.” She struggled to stay upright. “You’re nicer than I thought.”
“Tell me,” he muttered, “I’m curious. You’ve known me for two years. How did you think I would be?”
Her lids flickered open. Exactly how he had been the night of the ball. Dangerous, sexy. Hot.
With an effort of will, she controlled her mind, which had shot off on a very wrong tangent. Zane had probably been in intimate situations with more women than he could count. She doubted he would even remember how close they had come to making love. Or that she had actually—
She cut short that disturbing thought and searched for something polite to say. As an Atraeus, Zane was one of her employers now. She would have to adjust to the new dynamic.
Her stomach tensed at a thought she had cheerfully glossed over before. If she and Lucas married, their relationship would be even closer; he would be her brother-in-law. “Uh—for a start, I didn’t think you even liked me.”
“Was that after what happened on the couch or before?”
The flashback to the sensations that had flooded her that night was electrifying. From the knowing gleam in Zane’s gaze, she was abruptly certain he knew exactly what had happened.
Embarrassed heat warmed her cheeks. He had been lying on top of her at the time. She would be naive to consider that he had not noticed that she had lost control and actually had an orgasm.
He had to know also that if Gemma hadn’t turned up dangling car keys and making them jump guiltily apart, that she had been on the verge of making an even bigger mistake. “I’m surprised you remember.”
“Lucas won’t marry you.”
The sudden change of topic jerked her lids open. The dark fire burning in Zane’s eyes almost made her forget what she was about to say. “Lucas isn’t the only one with a choice.”
“Choose someone else.”
Lilah’s heart slammed against the wall of her chest. For a split second, she’d had the crazy thought that Zane had been about to say, “Choose me.”
From an early age she had discovered that men liked the way she looked. Something in the slant of her eyes, the curve of her cheekbones, the shape of her mouth, spelled sexual allure. On occasion attraction had spilled over into an uncomfortable fascination, although she had never thought that Zane Atraeus would find her more than ordinarily attractive.
She dragged in a lungful of air and tried to deny the heart-pounding knowledge that behind the grim tone Zane Atraeus really did want her. “What gives you the right—?”
“This.”
Zane bent toward her, his head dipped. Her pulse rate rocketed.
For two years she had tortured herself about her loss of control. Now, finally, she was being offered the chance to examine what, exactly, had gone wrong.
She caught another enticing whiff of clean skin and exotic cologne. Dimly, she noted that the concept of her ruination had receded, a dangerous sign, although she was still in control. She had time to shift in her seat. If she wanted she could turn her head—
Warm fingers gripped her chin. The pressure of his mouth on hers almost stopped her heart.
Suddenly, the electrical hum every time he looked at her coalesced into stunning truth. The double whammy of her ticking biological clock combined with prolonged celibacy was the reason she was having such a difficult time controlling her responses to Zane.
Relief surged through her. She didn’t know why she hadn’t thought about that two years ago. It was the logical explanation. Zane had caught her at a vulnerable moment at the charity ball. She simply hadn’t had the resources to resist him.
Jerking back from the seductive softness of the kiss, Lilah gulped in air.
The experience had been so riveting that the harder she had tried to suppress the memories, the more aggressively they had surfaced—in her dreams, her painting.
She had to get a grip on herself. She could not afford to take him seriously. According to the tabloids, the youngest Atraeus brother was the dark side of the mega wealthy Atraeus family, wild and dangerous to know, the bad as opposed to the good.
Which only went to prove that her judgment when it came to men was no better than her mother’s or her grandmother’s before her.
A little wildly she decided that the attraction was no bigger a deal for Zane than it had been two years ago. But that didn’t change the disturbing knowledge that, if anything, she was in an even more vulnerable position now. The sensations already coursing through her body had the potential to destroy the future she had mapped out for herself.
She could not let that happen.
She was strong-willed. She had steered clear of intense emotions and casual flings all of her adult life. She was not going to mess up now.
With a younger man.
Zane was twenty-four, twenty-five at most, and with no sign of tempering his fast, edgy lifestyle with the encumbrances of a wife and family. He could say what he liked about his brother, but on paper, Lucas was perfect. He was older, more mature, ready to commit and without the wild reputation.
Those minutes on the couch with Zane and the experience of losing control and almost giving herself to a man who had demonstrated that he did not care for her had been salutary.
She knew the danger of her weakness now. On top of the healthy sex drive that came with her Cole genes, her biological clock was ticking loudly in both ears.
The thought that Zane could make her pregnant sent a hot flash through her that momentarily welded her to the seat before she managed to dismiss the notion.
Zane was not husband material. All she had to do was ignore the magnetic power of the attraction and her raging hormones, ignore the destructive impulse to throw her wedding plan away.
And throw herself beneath Zane’s naked body.
Three
After a formal family dinner at the Atraeus family’s Medinian castello the following evening, Lilah excused herself from the table while coffee was being served. Lucas had left some twenty minutes earlier, during dessert. His defection had been no great surprise because through the course of the evening she had become grimly certain that he was involved with another woman.
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
