leading questions on the subject of marriage and he had gotten the wrong idea.
“I thought you were involved with both Peters and Britten.”
“Climbing the corporate ladder?” Which explained why he had practically ignored her for two years.
“Something like that.” He finished his brandy and set the glass down on the mantel.
Lilah kept her gaze glued on the flames. “And after we made love, when you knew I hadn’t slept with Evan or Britten, or Lucas, why didn’t you bother to contact me?”
“I figured we both needed some time. Besides, I needed to go out of town. Broome, to be exact.”
Lilah’s head came up at the mention of her hometown. “To check out the pearl farms?”
“I wasn’t interested in the pearls on that trip. I went to see your mother. I needed her permission.”
For a moment she actually considered that Zane had done something crazily old-fashioned and had declared his intention to ask for her hand. Almost instantly she squashed that idea. Firstly, he hadn’t asked her anything remotely like that, and since he’d walked into the interview room at the airport there had been plenty of time. Secondly, he would have to both want her and love her to propose marriage. “Permission to do what?”
“To pay off your mother’s mortgage and outstanding loans.”
She shot to her feet, any idea of a romantic idyll gone. “You’ve got no right to meddle in my family affairs, or offer my mother money.”
“The agreement has nothing to do with you and me. Or our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship, and my mother is in no position to repay you.”
“I don’t want the money back.”
She went still inside. “What do you want, then?”
“I already have it. Peace of mind.”
She frowned. “How can paying off my mother’s house give you peace of mind?”
“Because it takes financial pressure off you. Your mother was worried about you.” Reaching into his pocket, he produced a slip of paper.
Lilah recognized the check she had written out and expressed to her mother so she could make arrangements with her bank to pay off her mortgage. Clearly, the check had never been cashed.
He dropped the check on the coffee table. “You can give that back to Lucas.”
The coolness of his voice jerked her chin up. “It isn’t Lucas’s money. Although indirectly he, and you, did help me earn it.”
Zane’s brows jerked together. “The money didn’t come from Ambrosi, I made sure of that.”
“No. Some of my paintings sold. With the notoriety of my being involved with Lucas, then you, the gallery owner put huge prices on the works and sold out in one day.” She picked up the check. “This was the result.”
He took it from her fingers, crumpled it in his fist and tossed it into the fire. “Do you know what it did to me to see that check? I thought Lucas was helping you out financially.”
Lilah was on her feet now. “And that it was … what? Some kind of down payment on my becoming his mistress?”
“Maybe not right now, but it could have been, eventually.”
She let out a breath and tried to calm down. So … okay. She could understand his thinking, because she knew something of his background. She knew his mother had fallen from the glamorous life of an A-list party girl into drug addiction and had depended on a string of less than A-list men to support her and her son. It had been a precarious existence, and Zane had been forced to live it until he was fourteen. “What I don’t get is, why you could think that?”
He stepped close and threaded his fingers through her hair. She felt the pins give, moments later her hair slipped down around her shoulders. “You traveled to Medinos for a first date with Lucas. Now you’re here, a resident, and Lucas is planning on having a couple of days on Medinos … without his bride-to-be.”
She frowned. “Lucas is my boss, that’s all. The only thing I really liked about him was that he looks like you.”
The bald statement hung in the air, surprising her almost as much as it surprised Zane.
“You hardly knew me.”
She gripped the lapels of his shirt and absently worked a button loose. “But then that’s how it works.”
Zane tilted her face so she was looking directly at him. “You’re losing me.”
“Fatal attraction. The coup de foudre, the clap of thunder.”
“Still lost.”
“Sex,” she muttered baldly. “As in … an affair.”
His expression turned grim. He released his grip on her. “A dangerously unstable affair. With a younger man.”
She blinked at the grim note in his voice. “Uh—more or less.”
A split second later she was free altogether and Zane was several feet away, gripping the back of a leather chair. “Before we go any further let’s get one thing clear. I didn’t bring you here for a quick, meaningless thrill. If you want me to make love to you, we’re going to go about it in a normal, rational, adult way.”
Instead of throwing herself at him like some desperate, love-starved teenager. The way she had the last time.
The way she had been about to do about thirty seconds ago.
Lilah’s cheeks burned. Zane was still gripping the back of the chair. As if he needed the protection.
She had known this was going to be a sticky area, and she had messed up, again. She was beginning to understand what had gone so disastrously wrong for Cole women over the years. With their naturally passionate natures they tried too hard to be “good” then got caught in an uncontrollable whiplash of desire. “Now that you mention it, I don’t think this is the greatest time to make love.”
His gaze was as cool and steady as if those heated moments had never happened. “Then, good night. If you need anything, I’m just down the hall. Or, if you prefer, you can call on Jorge and Marta who are sleeping in the downstairs apartment, although they don’t speak any English.”
The words But what if I change my mind? balanced on the tip of her tongue. She hastily withdrew them as he padded across to the ornate liquor cabinet and splashed more brandy into a clean glass.
She had already made a string of rash decisions with regard to Zane. Before she made even more of a fool of herself, she needed to think things through.
Although the fact that she was going to make a fool of herself again was suddenly, glaringly, obvious.
