Читать книгу Secrets In The Boardroom - Фиона Бранд - Страница 16

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. Young and fresh, with an ultrasexy fuchsia gown, Gemma was the perfect foil for Zane’s dark, powerful build.

Suddenly miserable, she flicked to another channel and stared blankly at an old black-and-white movie. At eleven o’clock, she turned the TV set off. Too restless to sleep and worried that her apartment might have been broken into, she decided to call Evan and check if he had managed to fix the window. She retrieved her cell from her handbag and discovered the battery was dead. In her hurry to pack, she had not included her cell phone charger.

She spent another half hour kicking her heels. Her irritation at her isolation in the fabulous suite was edged by the dreaded notion that maybe Zane hadn’t yet returned because he was now with Gemma.

It wasn’t as if she had a claim on Zane, or should want to make one. Despite the attraction that sizzled between them, the crazy, inappropriate sense of attachment, Zane Atraeus did not fit into her life.

The one area in which they were in complete harmony was the most dangerous part of their relationship. No matter how tempted she was to fall into bed with Zane, she couldn’t forget that sex had gotten her mother and her grandmother into trouble, literally.

At eleven-thirty, she retreated to her bedroom, climbed into the Hollywood fantasy of a bed and tried to sleep.

At midnight, tired of tossing and turning in a tangle of silken bedclothes, she pushed out of bed and walked back out to the kitchenette. On impulse, she picked up the hotel directory, found out how to dial out and called Evan, who was a night owl and didn’t normally go to bed until one or two o’clock.

Evan was terse and to-the-point. He had fixed the window, but now he was busy, entertaining a friend.

Cheeks burning, Lilah apologized. She was on the point of hanging up when Zane walked through the door.

Zane shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it over the back of a chair. “I thought I told you not to use the hotel phone.”

Lilah said goodbye and hung up. “I had to make a call. My cell phone battery was dead.”

He frowned. “Who is it? Howard?”

“No.”

“Lucas?”

“I called Evan to see if he’d fixed my window.”

He removed his bow tie and jerked at the buttons of his dress shirt. “Peters. Just how many male friends have you got?”

Annoyance zinged through her. “I don’t know why that should worry you, when you’ve got so many ‘friends’ yourself.”

Zane’s expression cleared, as if she had just said something that had cheered him up immeasurably. “I’ve spent half the night with a bunch of scared kids.”

She stared resolutely at his jaw, desperate to avoid the softening in his gaze. “It’s after midnight.”

Comprehension gleamed. “And you thought I was with Gemma.”

He closed the distance between them and framed her face so she was forced to meet his gaze, and suddenly there was no air. “Why do you think I became the patron of a Sydney charity, when I’ve been based in the States?”

Zane answered his own question. “Because I wanted you.”

Zane logged the moment Lilah accepted that he genuinely wanted her.

Desire burned away the jealousy that had gripped him when he had found her talking on the phone.

He didn’t get jealous. Ever since his early teens, he had controlled his emotions and his sex drive. He had been selective in his bed partners.

For two years, since he had severed his last short liaison, he hadn’t needed a woman at all. It was not unusual for him to have periods of celibacy, but this one had stretched beyond personal preference.

Lilah’s sea-green gaze locked with his.

The attraction didn’t make sense. He didn’t want Lilah to matter to him, but it was a fact that she did.

Bending his head, he touched his mouth to hers.

Long, drugging seconds passed. He lifted his head before he lost it completely. He was male, he loved women, their softness and beauty; he just didn’t trust them.

Until now, he’d had no interest in changing.

The thought that he could change, that he wanted to trust Lilah, made his heart pound.

Her fingers slid into his hair. The faint, tugging pressure as she lifted up and pressed her mouth to his was stunningly erotic. A wave of intense, dissolving pleasure shimmered through him. Dimly, he noted that he was on the edge of losing control.

Lilah lifted up on her toes, pressing closer to Zane. Subconsciously, she realized she had been waiting for this ever since Elena had interrupted them that afternoon.

With a stifled groan, Zane took a half step forward, pinning her against the edge of the counter.

She felt him tugging at her thick, fluffy robe, the coolness of the air against her skin as the robe slipped to the floor. He dipped his head and took one breast in his mouth through the silk of her chemise, and sensation jerked through her.

A split second later, the room tilted as he swung her into his arms. Depositing her on the soft cushions of one of the elaborate, overstuffed couches, he came down alongside her.

Blindly, she fumbled at his shirt until she found naked skin. She tore open the final buttons and impatiently waited while he shrugged out of the shirt.

She felt the heat of his palms gliding along her thighs, the warm silk of her chemise puddling around her hips.

In twelve years of dating, this was the closest she had come to feeling anything like the intensity that friends wept over and talked about, that she had absorbed second hand through books and movies.

Being desired, she discovered, was infinitely seductive; it undermined her defenses, dissolved every last shred of resistance. Even the idea of holding on to her virginity seemed vague and abstract. Especially in light of the fact that she had already more or less surrendered to Zane two years ago. After grimly hanging on to that bastion of purity for so long she couldn’t help thinking it might actually be a relief to get rid of it.

Zane’s fingers hooked in the waistband of her panties. Driven by desire and an intense curiosity, instead of resisting, Lilah lifted her hips and assisted the process. Cool air was instantly replaced by the muscular heat of Zane’s body as he came down between her legs.

As wrong as her logical mind told her it was to allow Zane to make love to her, the man who was holding her, cradling her as if she was precious to him, felt right. She had never felt more alive; she couldn’t help adoring every minute. In that moment she understood why both her mother and grandmother had risked all for passion. She couldn’t believe she had waited this long to find out.

In an effort to help out, she tugged at the fastening of his pants, and felt him hot and silky smooth against her. His heated gaze locked with hers. For a moment, time seemed to stand still. Then he surged inside her.

Zane froze.

His gaze locked with Lilah’s again. Comprehension sliced through the spiraling pleasure that for the past few minutes had numbed his brain. “You’re a virgin.”

Her expression was distracted, although she didn’t seem overly upset. “Yes.”

He wasn’t wearing a condom. That was another first.

Zane’s jaw clenched as wave after wave of raw desire washed through him. He had never lost control before. He needed to pull free and call a halt to the primitive rush of satisfaction that Lilah had only ever been his.

Lilah moved restlessly beneath him, the subtle shimmy easing the pressure and drawing him deeper. He gritted his teeth. “That’s not helping.”

Every muscle tensed as Lilah tightened around him, locking him into her body. Incredibly, he felt her climax around him. Burning, irresistible pleasure swamped Zane again. His jaw clenched as his own climax hit him, shoving him over the edge.

Long minutes passed while they lay sprawled together on the couch. Eventually, driven by an electrifying thought, Zane lifted his head.

He could make Lilah pregnant.

Not “could make,” he thought grimly. That was something that happened in the future. He was pretty sure they were in the realm of “making pregnant” as in now.

Lilah was loathe to move, loathe to separate herself from Zane because she was certain that, as singular and devastatingly pleasurable as the lovemaking had been, despite a little initial discomfort, Zane was less than impressed.

He hadn’t liked learning that she was a virgin.

Guilt flooded her when she remembered the shameless way she had clenched around him, holding him in her body.

A reflexive shiver went through her at the memory.

Zane’s gaze was oddly flat. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a virgin?”

Warm color flooded her cheeks. “There wasn’t exactly time for a conversation.”

“If I’d known, I would have done things … differently.”

“I hadn’t exactly planned on this, myself.”

He propped himself on his elbows. “Neither had I. Otherwise I would have used a condom. Which is the second issue. How likely are you to get pregnant?”

She felt her flush deepen, although this time the surge of heat wasn’t solely because of the very pertinent pregnancy question. “Don’t worry, there’s no danger of a pregnancy.” She tried for a breezy smile, a little difficult when she had just tossed away what her grandmother had always termed her Most Valued Possession. “I take a contraceptive pill.”

There was a moment of vibrating silence. Somewhere in the hush of the suite Lilah could hear the ponderous tick of a clock. Outside, somewhere in the distance a siren wailed.

Zane’s expression was oddly frozen. “It’s a relief someone was in control of the situation. For a minute there I thought we could be parents.”

“No chance.” She tried not to be riveted by the three very fascinating studs in his lobe. “The one thing I’ve never planned on being is a single parent.”

There was another heavy silence. She got the impression that Zane was not entirely happy with her answer.

“Since you’ve taken care of the protection so efficiently …” He dipped his head and lightly kissed her then systematically peeled off the chemise. Satisfaction registered in his gaze as he tossed the scrap of silk onto the floor and cupped her breasts, his thumbs sweeping across her nipples.

Lilah’s eyes automatically closed as the delicious sensations started all over again.

The rapid shift back into mind-numbing passion set off alarm bells. It occurred to her that now that they had made love, she was in a very precarious position with regard to marriage. Zane was not an option. He had never been an option. His aversion to relationships in general and marriage in particular was well publicized. She still wanted marriage, and she couldn’t in all good conscience continue with her marriage plans while she had a lover. Regretfully, she did her utmost to dampen down on the desire.

She felt as if she was surfacing from a dream. She had been shameless and had acted with abandon. Her face burned at the memory. She had actively encouraged Zane to have unprotected sex with her.

She had clung to him when he had wanted to put a stop to the process and withdraw, then it had been too late and over in seconds.

It was as if, in a weird way, even though she had been sensible enough to guard herself with contraception, a wild, irresponsible part of her had actually courted the very thing she feared most.

Guilt and fatalism churned in her stomach. The sheer weight of her family history and conditioning, the years of guarding against these types of liaisons, should have been enough to stop her.

“We can’t do this again.” Pressing at Zane’s shoulders, she wriggled free, grabbed at her chemise and dragged it on.

Zane’s gaze seared over her as she belted the thick robe around her waist. “All you had to do was say no.” The tinge of outrage in his voice stopped her in her tracks.

She flushed guiltily at the truth of that, since she had been the one who hadn’t wanted to stop in the first place. She dragged her gaze away from the bronzed, muscular lines of his body as he pulled on dark, fitted trousers. With his strong profile, his black hair tumbling to his broad shoulders, he was beautiful in an untamed, completely masculine way.

Disbelief flooded her that she had actually made love with him. Although the evidence was registering all over her body in tingling aches and the faint stiffening of muscles.

Zane retrieved his shirt. “There’s one other thing you don’t have to worry about. STD’s.”

Frowning, Lilah dragged her gaze from the mesmerizing sight of Zane’s six-pack.

Zane’s gaze snapped to hers. “Sexually transmitted diseases. I don’t have any. If tonight was a first for you, it was a first for me. I’ve never had unprotected sex with a woman before.”

Her stomach tightened at the clinical mention of another danger she had failed to consider, and the relegation of their lovemaking to sex. “Um … thanks.”

She could feel her face, her whole body, flaming. At twenty-nine, she was probably more naive than the average fifteen-year-old and Zane’s reputation with women was legendary. She had been so wrapped up in what she was experiencing she had failed to consider what Zane had to be thinking—that she was hopelessly gauche and naive.

Depression settled around her like a shroud. Way to go, Lilah Cole. Living up to the family crest. Abandon all thought of responsibility until it’s too late. “If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to bed now.”

He folded his arms over his chest, his gaze cool. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Not if she could help it.

Lilah closed her bedroom door behind her, relieved that she was finally alone. She checked the bedside clock and an unnerving sense of disorientation set in. It wasn’t yet one o’clock. Barely thirty minutes had passed since Zane had walked through the door. Thirty minutes in which her life had drastically altered.

She used her en suite bathroom to freshen up, this time hardly noticing the gorgeous fixtures. Instead of climbing into the elegant four-poster, she changed into jeans, a cotton sweater and sneakers, her fingers fumbling in their haste to get into casual, everyday clothes and restore some semblance of normality.

When she was dressed, she rewound her hair, which had ended up in an untidy mass, into a coil, stabbed pins through to lock the silky strands in place and systematically packed. Twenty minutes after entering her room, she was ready to leave.

Forcing herself to calm down, she sat on the edge of the bed and listened. She had heard Zane’s shower earlier, but now the suite was plunged into silence.

Taking a deep breath, she walked to her door and opened it a crack. The sitting room was in darkness. There didn’t appear to be any light filtering under the door of Zane’s bedroom or flowing out on to the terrace, signaling that he was still awake.

Lifting her bag, she tiptoed to the door and let herself out into the hall. She was almost at the elevator when Spiros loomed out of an alcove and stopped her.

His fractured English almost defeated her. When he picked up his cell and she realized he was going to call Zane, she summoned up a breezy smile, as if the fact that she was sneaking out in the middle of the night was all part of the plan. “Nessuno.” She jabbed at the call button and carefully enunciated each word as she spoke. “No need to call Zane, he’s sleeping.”

He frowned then nodded, clearly not happy.

Forty minutes later, Lilah paid off the taxi that had delivered her back to her apartment and walked inside.

She checked the messages on her phone. They were all from tabloids and women’s magazines wanting interviews. She had expected that Spiros, who had been uneasy about the fact that she had left at such an odd hour, would have caved and woken Zane up. Clearly, that hadn’t happened, because there was no message from Zane.

Feeling oddly let down that she hadn’t heard from Zane, she deleted them all.

Pulling the drapes tight, just in case someone was lurking outside with a camera, she changed into a spare chemise in pitch darkness and fell into bed.

She slept fitfully, waking at dawn, half expecting the phone to ring, or for Zane to be thumping on her door.

She got up and made a cup of tea, collapsed on the couch and watched movies. By ten o’clock, when Zane hadn’t either called or come by, exhausted from waiting, she dropped back into bed and slept until two in the afternoon.

When she got up, her stomach growling with hunger, she checked her phone. There were a string of new messages but, again, they were all from reporters.

Stabbing the delete button, she erased them all and finally decided to put herself out of her misery by taking the phone off the hook. On impulse, she checked her cell phone, but it wasn’t in her bag. She must have left it in Zane’s suite.

To keep the cold misery at bay that Zane didn’t appear to have any interest in contacting her, she opened a can of soup and made toast. Evan knocked on her door, wanting to return her spare key and check that she was okay. At four o’clock a second visitor knocked.

A courier. He handed her a package and requested she sign for it.

She scribbled her name, closed the door then ripped the package open. Her stomach dropped like a stone as her fingers closed around her cell phone.

From the second she had left Zane’s suite, she realized, she had been waiting for him to come after her, to insist that he wanted her back. That what they had shared had been as special for him as it had been for her.

That clearly wasn’t the case.

Zane hadn’t even bothered to include a note with the phone. All he had done was return her property in such a way that made it clear he no longer wanted contact.

Feeling numb, she put the phone on charge. Almost immediately, it beeped. Crazy hope gripped her as she opened the message.

It was Lucas, not Zane. He wanted her to call him.

Using the cell, she put the call through. Lucas picked up immediately. The conversation was brief. Thanks to her boosted media profile, she had just won a prestigious design award in Milan, which would give Ambrosi an edge in the market. A week ago, she had applied for the job of managing the new Ambrosi Pearl facility, which was to be constructed on the island of Ambrus, one of the smaller islands in the Medinian group. If she wanted the job, it was hers.

The job was a promotion with a substantial raise in her salary plus a generous living allowance. If she took it, paying her mother’s mortgage would no longer be a problem. She would even be able to save.

The only problem was, Zane lived on Medinos. Although, with the amount of travel he did, most of it to the States, she doubted their paths would often cross.

A bonus would be that she could leave Sydney and all of the media hype behind. She would have a fresh start.

Away from her latest sex scandal.

Taking a deep breath, she took the plunge and affirmed that she would take the job.

Lucas rang back a few minutes later. He had booked a flight, leaving in two days. Her accommodation, until a house could be arranged, was the Atraeus Resort on Medinos.

Reeling from the sudden change of direction her life had taken, Lilah rang her mother and told her the good news, carefully glossing over the bad parts.

After she had hung up, she cleared her answering machine and disconnected the phone. She also turned her cell phone off. She didn’t know how long it would take the media to discover that Lucas had offered her a job on Medinos, but given the added hype behind the Milan award, she didn’t think it would take long.

Too wound up to try and relax again, she decided to take one of her finished paintings to the gallery that handled her work.

When she walked into the trendy premises, the proprietor, Quincy Travers, a plump, balding man with a shrewd glint in his eyes, greeted her with open arms.

With glee he took the abstract she’d painted and handed her a check for an astounding amount. “As soon as I saw the story in the paper I contacted some collectors I know and put an extra couple of zeroes on the price of the paintings. I sold out within thirty minutes.”

“Great.” Lilah’s delight at the check, which was enough to pay off her mother’s mortgage and still leave change, went into the same deep, dark hole that had snuffed out her delight at the Milan award and her promotion.

She shoved the check in her purse. Just what she needed to brighten her day. Like her jewelry design, any value her art now had was tied to her notoriety.

Quincy propped the painting on an empty display easel and rubbed his hands together. “No need to put a price on this. I’ve got buyers waiting. Sex sells. What else have you got, love? You could scribble with crayons and we’d still make a fortune.”

“Actually, I’m leaving town for a while, so that will be the last one for the foreseeable future.”

Quincy looked crestfallen. “If I’d known that, I would have asked more for the other paintings.” He rummaged beneath his counter and came up with a battered address book. “But all is not lost. If the buyers know this is the last one, they’ll pay.” He flipped it open and reached for his phone. “By the way, did you really, er, date both brothers at the same time?”

Lilah could feel herself turning pink. She was suddenly fiercely glad she was leaving town in two days. “No.” Ducking her head, she walked quickly out of the gallery.

She had just slept with the one.