caught the edge of his grin as he stepped into the shadowy interior of the sitting room. Launching off the recliner, she raced after him, blinking as she adjusted to the dimness of the sitting room. She made a lunge for the pad. Zane evaded her reach by taking a half step back.
“Why do you need it so badly?” His gaze was curiously intent, making her stomach sink.
“Those sketches are … private.”
And guiltily, embarrassingly revealing.
The drawings cataloged just how empty her private life had been. He would know just how much she had thought about him, focused on him and how often.
He handed her the pad but instead of letting it go, used it to draw her closer by degrees until her knuckles brushed the warm, hard muscles of his chest.
The relief that had spiraled through her when she thought he hadn’t checked out the drawings dissolved. “You looked.”
“Uh-huh.” Gaze locked with hers, he drew her close enough that her thighs brushed his and the sketchpad, which she was clutching like a shield, was flattened between them.
He lifted a dark brow. “And you would be drawing and painting me because …?”
Lilah briefly closed her eyes. The old cliché about wishing the ground would open up and swallow her had nothing on this. “You saw the painting in my apartment.”
“It was hard to miss.”
She drew in a stifled breath. “I was hoping you wouldn’t.”
“Because then you could avoid admitting that you’re attracted to me. And have been ever since we met two years ago.”
Gently, he eased the sketchpad from her grip. “You don’t need that anymore.” He tossed the pad aside. “Not when you have the real thing.”
Lilah was frozen to the spot, gripped by the inescapable knowledge that if she wanted Zane, he wanted her. “Maybe I prefer the fantasy.”
“Liar.” His head dipped, his forehead touched hers. “What now?” The question was soft and flat.
“Nothing.” She swallowed, unable to take her gaze from his mouth, or to forget the memory of the kisses that morning.
Just that morning. In the interim a lot had happened. The passage of time seemed wildly distorted, as if days had passed, not hours.
And that was when she understood what had happened.
Somehow she had done the very thing she had worked to avoid. She had allowed herself to get caught in the grip of a physical obsession. And not just any obsession.
She stared into the riveting depths of Zane’s eyes. She had followed a path well-trodden by Cole women. She had fallen victim to the coup de foudre.
That was why she had ended up on the couch with Zane. It explained her inability to say “no” to kissing Zane on the flight and during the press conference.
Somehow, without her quite knowing how, she had allowed sex to sabotage her life.
Zane’s gaze narrowed. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“Like what?” But she knew.
Her guilty secret had been exposed, the emotions and longings she had kept quietly tucked away—all the better to deny them—had been forced to the surface.
And Zane wasn’t helping the process. Instead of backing off, he was making no bones about the fact that he liked it that she wanted him.
He dipped his head to kiss her. Lifting up on her toes, she wound her arms around his neck and met him halfway.
It was crazy. She hardly knew him, but already she knew how to fit herself against him, how to angle her jaw so his mouth could settle against hers.
With a stifled groan, he wrapped her close. Half lifting her, he walked her backward across the sitting room. Somewhere in the distance, Lilah registered the phone ringing, then they were in his room. The back of her knees hit the edge of his bed.
He came down beside her. Conscious thought evaporated as his mouth reclaimed hers. Long minutes later, he rolled and pulled her on top of him, his fingers tangling in her hair. Charmed and utterly seduced by the clear invitation to play, to kiss him back, she framed his face and lowered her mouth to his.
His palms smoothed down the curve of her spine, pressing her against him so that she was intimately aware of every curve and plane of heated muscle, the firm shape of his arousal. On the upward journey, he peeled her camisole up until he met the barrier of her bra.
Murmuring something short and soft beneath his breath, he fumbled at the fastening then shifted his hands around to cup her breasts.
The distinctive sound of the front door opening cut through the dizzying haze. Elena, dressed in a shimmering, ankle-length black dress and looking like a sleek well-fed raven in spectacles, appeared in the doorway to Zane’s room.
Zane muttered something short beneath his breath and rolled over in an attempt to shield Lilah from his assistant’s view.
Cheeks flushed, Lilah dragged her camisole back into place.
Elena dragged her fascinated gaze from Zane’s chest and seemed to remember herself. She checked the dainty watch on her wrist and addressed Zane in rapid Medinian.
Zane rose to his feet and pulled on a shirt that was draped over a nearby chair. “English, please, Elena.”
“The car is ready. Gemma, your, uh, date—” she directed an apologetic glance at Lilah “—is waiting. Providing we reach the museum in the next twenty minutes, we won’t be late.”
Gemma. Lilah jackknifed. She was Zane’s previous personal assistant and the pretty redhead he had escorted to almost every function the charity had held over the last two years.
Hurt shimmered through her. Above all the gorgeous girls Zane had dated, Gemma reigned supreme. Zane always went back to her. If Lilah had been tempted to fantasize about any kind of a future with Zane, this was exactly the wake-up call she needed.
A second salient fact registered. The museum. And an auction of a private art collection that had been donated to the charity.
Somehow in the craziness of the past few days, she had forgotten she was supposed to attend. Frantically, she checked her wristwatch.
She should have been dressed by now and calling a taxi.
Another thought occurred to her. “Howard.”
Zane’s head snapped around as he shrugged into a shirt. He gave her a questioning look.
“My date.” She scrambled off the bed. She was supposed to be meeting Howard outside the museum in fifteen minutes.
