she was certain someone had used a camera flash. She couldn’t stop the gossip and the sensationalized stories, but that didn’t mean she had to like the sneakiness of the reporters. “I’d better go back inside. Howard will be missing me.”
Zane was still watching the shadowy figure of the security officer as he stepped into a concealed side entrance. “Are you serious about him?”
“Not anymore.” Feeling a wrenching regret at leaving the courtyard, Lilah made her way back into the crowded room.
Howard was still engrossed in conversation with a knot of older men. He didn’t bother to look her way. Lilah decided that Zane was right; he looked depressingly paternal.
Zane fell into step beside her. His fingers closed on hers.
Pleasure and guilty heat shooting through her, Lilah jerked her fingers free. Zane’s teasing grin made her heart pound. She resisted the almost overpowering urge to smile back. “What do you think you’re doing?”
The wicked grin faded. “Something I should have done before, checking out your date. I want to make sure Howard doesn’t have an agenda.”
“He does. I realized tonight that he’s married.”
Zane’s expression went from irritated to remote as he slid his cell out of his pocket and spoke briefly into it.
He snapped the phone closed. “Go to the car with Gemma and Elena. Spiros has just pulled up to the curb outside. I’ll deal with Howard. Your boyfriend was also out in the courtyard with a phone camera.”
Lilah stared at Howard who she noticed, was now knocking back something that looked extremely alcoholic. She remembered the shuffling sound, the extra flash.
Zane inserted himself into the jovial male group with the confidence and ease that came from being a supreme predator in the business world. She saw the moment Howard realized he had been made, the automatic reach for his pocket as if he wanted to shield his cell phone.
Howard’s wild gaze connected briefly with hers. With calm deliberation, Lilah turned her back on Howard and walked through to the museum lobby. She noted that she didn’t feel in the least shocked or depressed by the betrayal. On the contrary, there had been something highly satisfying in watching Zane go into battle for her. Unfortunately, along with her new ruthless streak, she seemed to have also gotten used to leading a life of notoriety.
Gemma and Elena strolled out directly behind her. Spiros held the door for them while they climbed into the limousine. Elena chatted with Spiros in Medinian, leaving Lilah with a clearly unhappy Gemma.
Seconds later Zane joined them. Gemma beamed and patted the vacant space beside her. Instead of climbing in, Zane glanced across at a group of boys Lilah had noticed loitering a small distance away from the limo.
He glanced at Lilah. “I won’t be long.”
Gemma, looking distinctly irritable as Zane walked over to the boys, extracted a cell from her clutch and within seconds was deep in conversation about her new job and a move overseas. Elena retrieved a romance novel from her clutch, attached an efficient looking little LED light to the back pages, and was promptly engrossed.
Lilah decided she clearly hadn’t lived, because she hadn’t thought to bring an activity with her that was suitable for downtime in a limousine. Absently, she noted Howard slinking off to his car, which turned out to be a sleek little hatchback with a personalized licence plate that read “HERS.”
Zane terminated a cell phone conversation as he walked back to the car. “I can’t come back to the hotel with you right now. I have to take care of these kids. They saw the posters for the charity auction—that’s why they came.”
Lilah stared across at the lean wraiths clustered around a park bench as if that small landmark was all they had. “What can you do?”
“Get them in a house for the night with state foster care. That doesn’t guarantee they’ll stay, but at least it’s a start. I’ll see you later.”
Lilah watched as Zane walked back to the kids, seeing the instant brightening of their faces. She hadn’t realized how personally involved he was, or how much kids liked him.
She felt like she was seeing him for the first time, not the quintessential bad boy or the exciting, elusive lover the media liked to publicize, but a committed, protective man who would make an excellent father.
With the rest of the night in Zane’s hotel suite looming, it was not a good time to discover that Zane had somehow managed to transcend the list of attributes she was searching for in a husband and had made her requirements seem petty and flawed.
Lilah’s cell phone rang as she stepped in the door of the suite. It was Zane. She remembered that she had given him her number earlier.
“Stay in my room. I won’t be late.”
She stiffened at the invitation, as if Zane was already so sure of her he assumed she would be sleeping with him. “No.”
There was a hollow pause. “Why not?”
“For a start, you already have a girlfriend.”
“Gemma is not my girlfriend. Like I said, she’s a company employee and she fills in as my escort on occasion. Tonight’s date was organized a few weeks ago. I would have canceled if I’d had time.”
Lilah’s fingers tightened on the phone. “I know this might sound silly to you, but I made a certain … vow. I might have forgotten it for a few minutes this afternoon, but that doesn’t change the fact that it’s important to me.”
There was a ringing silence, punctuated by raised voices in the background.
“I have to go,” Zane said curtly. “Whatever you do, don’t leave the suite. Spiros will be out in the corridor if you need anything. And don’t use the hotel phone. It’s not secure and the press are still camped in the foyer.”
The phone clicked quietly in her ear.
Feeling suddenly flat and a little depressed, Lilah walked through to her room and showered in the opulent marble bathroom, which not only contained a large walk-in shower, but a sunken spa tub. After slipping on a silk chemise, she belted one of the fluffy hotel robes around her waist and walked back out to the kitchen.
She found a bowl of fruit and a basket of fresh rolls on the counter. The fridge was groaning with food.
Abruptly starving, because she had been too wound up to eat anything but a few canapés from the buffet at the auction, Lilah helped herself to bread and cheese and a selection of mouthwatering dishes from the fridge. To balance out the decadence, she made herself a cup of tea.
Loading her snack onto a small tray, she carried it through to the sitting room and set it down on an elegant coffee table. She flicked through TV channels until she found a local news station.
Wrong choice. She stared at the live footage of Zane with Gemma at some point during the charity auction that evening. Her arm was coiled snugly around his.
