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 stared pointedly past her at Zane. “It’s my day off. I thought I’d come over early just in case you needed a shoulder.”
“She doesn’t,” Zane said calmly.
Evan’s expression was suspiciously blank, which meant he was speculating wildly. “Not a problem.” He transferred his gaze to Lilah. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix the window. Call me if you need anything else.”
Zane held the front door of the apartment building for her. “So, you’re still seeing Peters.”
Lilah shielded her gaze from the sun as she stepped outside. “How do you know Evan’s name?”
Zane loaded her case into the limited rear space of the Corvette. “Peters has a certain reputation with commercial law. So does his boss, Mark Britten.”
She could feel her automatic blush at the mention of Evan’s boss, the man who had been convinced she was dying to sleep with him before Zane’s appearance had ended the small, embarrassing scuffle.
She descended as gracefully as she could into the Vette’s passenger seat. “Evan is a friend.” It was on the tip of her tongue to tell Zane that Evan was gay, but that would mean breaking a confidence. “He paints in his spare time. He doesn’t live here. This is just where he keeps his studio.”
When they pulled away from the curb, Lilah noticed that Zane’s security pulled in close behind them. The ominous black sedan, filled with blocky, muscular men—the leading henchman, Spiros, behind the wheel—looked like something off a movie set. A cream van splashed with colorful graphics idled out of the shadows and slotted in behind the sedan.
Zane glanced in the rearview mirror and made a call on his cell. When he slipped the phone back in his pocket, he glanced at her. “The van’s a press vehicle.”
“And Spiros is taking care of it?”
Zane’s gaze was enigmatic, reminding her of the gulf that existed between his life and hers. “That’s what he’s paid to do.”
Zane inserted the key card in the door of his hotel suite and allowed Lilah to precede him into the room.
Unlocking his jaw he finally addressed the topic that had obsessed him from the moment he had recognized Evan Peters and realized that not only were he and Lilah “friends” of long standing, they were practically living together. “How long have you known Peters?”
There was a moment of silence while she surveyed the heavy opulence of the suite. “Six years. Maybe seven. We met at a painting class.”
“When did he move in next door?”
His question was somewhat lost as Lilah strolled through the overstuffed room. The suite, he realized, with its curvy furniture, swagged silk drapes and gilt embellishment might not suit him, but it was a perfect setting for Lilah. Even dressed in the modern suit, she looked lush and exotic, like the expensive courtesans that, before Medinos had become a Christian nation, had been kept closeted in luxury behind lacy wrought iron grills.
She trailed one slim hand over the back of a brocade couch. “As a matter of fact, I was the one who moved next door to him. Evan knew I was looking for a bigger place. When the apartment became available he let me know. It was ideal for what I wanted, so I snapped it up.”
His jaw tightened. “And it was a bonus living so close to Peters.”
Lilah dropped her purse on the couch and paused to examine an ornate oval mirror. She met his gaze in the glass. “Evan and I are not involved. As you put it, he has a certain reputation in the business world. His painting and some of his artistic friends don’t fit the profile, so he keeps that part of his life under wraps.”
Involvement or not, it was the knowledge that Peters had likely shared Lilah’s bed that bothered him.
Although it had not been the blond accountant’s portrait lying on the floor in Lilah’s studio. Or Mark Britten’s, or Lucas’s.
The portrait had been his.
Before he could probe further, his new P.A., Elena, who occupied a single room down the corridor, appeared. Plump but efficiently elegant in a dark suit and trendy pink spectacles, Elena had a clipboard in hand. Spiros appeared in Elena’s wake and carried Lilah’s bag through to the spare bedroom.
Zane made brief introductions and signed the correspondence on Elena’s clipboard. He suppressed his irritation at Elena’s bright-eyed perusal of Lilah and the fascinated glances she kept directing his way. No doubt she had read some of the more lurid stories printed about him, which would explain why she seemed to think he needed chocolate-dipped strawberries and oysters on the half shell in his fridge. If she knew how he had lived over the past two years, he thought grimly, she would not have bothered.
When both Elena and Spiros were gone, Zane shrugged out of his jacket, tossed it over a nearby chair and strolled to the doorway of Lilah’s room.
The pressing questions surrounding the portrait she had painted of him were replaced by a sense of satisfaction as he watched her unload clothing into a huge, ornate dresser. In his suite.
Maybe his personal assistant wasn’t so far off in her opinion of him.
According
