A Perfect Husband (15 page)

Zane’s clinical approach to their sleeping arrangements, his rejection of any depth of intimacy, was a reminder she badly needed. Now more than ever, she needed to carry through with her schedule for the fol owing week.

Zane frowned as he watched Lilah. The blank look in her eyes tugged at him, warring with his habit of careful y preserving his emotional distance. He was almost certain she was crying.

Instead of backing off, he found himself irresistibly drawn as she booted up her computer. “I thought we could go out for lunch.”

“That sounds nice.”

Zane frowned at the brisk note in Lilah’s voice. He glanced at her laptop screen. The separate rooms dilemma suddenly evaporated. “Are these online ‘friends’ al male?”

“As it so happens, yes.”

The emotional calm he had worked so hard to maintain since the riveting hours in the cave was abruptly replaced by the same fierce, unreasoning jealousy he had experienced when he had found out that Lucas was taking Lilah to Constantine’s wedding. “Have you dated any of them?”

She fished spectacles out of her handbag, pushed them onto the bridge of her nose and leaned a little closer to the screen as if what she was reading was of the utmost importance. “Not yet.”

Dragging his gaze from the fascinating sight of the spectacles perched on the delicate bridge of Lilah’s nose, he studied the list of men she was perusing. The lineup of photographs portrayed a selection of Greek gods, some flashing golden tans and overly white teeth, some dressed with
GQ
perfection. The one exception was a slightly battered, bleach blond surfer type.

Lilah scrol ed and he glimpsed the logo of the matchmaking agency. The lightbulb flared a little brighter.

“But you intend to?”

“That’s right. Next week when I have my annual vacation.”

His gaze snagged on the four men who had withdrawn.

He noted the dates. Just days after the scandal had erupted into the newspapers.

He also noted that the flood of new applications had al come in at a similar time. “How many?”

“Fifteen so far.” She scrol ed down to a chat page, which had several comments posted. “Seventeen if two other very good prospects come on board.”

The corporate-speak momentarily distracted him. He had to remind himself that the businesslike approach was entirely consistent with Lilah’s view of marriage. She didn’t just want a man, she wanted a paragon, someone who would tick every one of the boxes on her corporate marriage sheet.

Someone who possessed al of the steady, reliable qualities that he clearly did not. “This is why we only have a week. You’re fitting me in before you go back to Sydney to find a husband.”

Her gaze remained glued to the screen. “If I’m seeing someone from the agency I can’t be involved.”

Involved
. He suddenly knew the meaning of stress.

Lilah could feel Zane’s displeasure as he studied the emails pouring into her mailbox.

Abruptly, she found herself spun around in her chair.

Irritation snapped in his gaze and she realized she had pushed him too far with the list.

“Is that al this is?”

She dragged her spectacles off. “You said it yourself.

Marriage doesn’t come into our equation.”

“I thought we had an agreement.”

“We do, but long-term commitment is the one thing I do want. The reason I haven’t been able to settle on anyone is because you’ve always been in the picture just often enough to blot out any other prospects.”

The expression in his gaze was suddenly remote. “Are you saying I’m responsible for your decision to advertise for a husband?”

“No.”
Yes
. She stared at the screen and tried to pinpoint what had driven her to such an extreme. It had been after the last charity auction, she realized. Zane had been there with Gemma.

Lilah had spent an entire agonizing evening trying not to be aware of Zane and failing. Afterward, she had decided she needed to deal with the fixation by making plans for the future. It had been a relief to come up with a workable plan.

It was not a good time, she realized, to acknowledge that her approach had been naive and too simplistic. The strength of her plan had relied on the screening process of a matchmaking company and the integrity of the men who had replied, which was a fatal flaw. With her family history, she should have known better. “I’ve tried normal dating.

This seemed a more…control able option.”

Grimly, Zane decided that he shouldn’t be pleased he had effectively blotted out the other men in Lilah’s life.

Neither should he be annoyed that Lilah dismissed him as secure relationship material, when that was the stance he had always maintained.

He should be more concerned with distancing himself.

Given that they only had six days left to douse the fatal attraction that threatened to ruin both of their lives, it was not a good time to feel fiercely possessive.

Emotional y, he did not get involved; he had learned the hard way that love had conditions. It literal y took him years to trust anyone, and he could count those he did trust on one hand.

That ingrained wariness of people made him good at his job. He didn’t take anything for granted. His approach was often perceived as clinical and heartless. Zane didn’t bring emotion into the process; he simply did the job he was paid to do.

But somehow, despite his background and his mind-set, he
was
involved. “Just what do you think every one of those guys who answered your ad wants?”

“A steady, stable relationship.”

“Do you believe in the tooth fairy?”

“This is not a good time to be sarcastic.”

“Then don’t believe in this. It’s not real.”

He straightened and stabbed a finger at one of the photos of a bronzed, sculpted torso. The handsome, chiseled face rang a bel . He couldn’t be sure, but he had a suspicion it belonged to a male model, probably from some underwear bil board. “
They
are not real.”

“Which is exactly why I intend to conduct one-on-one interviews next week. If they’re not genuine, I’l know.”

There was a moment of vibrating silence. “This is the reason you have to be back in Sydney?”

“Yes.”

“Where, exactly, do you intend to conduct these interviews?”

“At restaurants and cafes. They’re not interviews exactly.

More a series of…blind dates. After I conduct online interviews to screen candidates.”

Blind dates
. Suddenly Zane needed some air.

Thirteen

Pacing to a set of French doors, he jerked them open, although he was more interested in Lilah’s reflection in one of the panes than the sun-washed balcony. “Did you give them your real name?”

“Yes. And a photograph.”

“Along with your occupation.” Lilah was nothing if not thorough. His tension ratcheted up another notch. “When the recent publicity hit the newspapers, they would al have instantly recognized you.”

Lilah could feel herself going cold inside. Of course she had considered that angle, but she had been guilty of hoping that the original list of five steady, reliable men she had assembled would be too sensible to read the gutter press, or to connect the wild stories with her resume.

Zane’s gaze, reflected in the glass, was neutral enough to make her feel distinctly uncomfortable. “The whole point of the exercise is marriage. What did you expect me to do?

Pretend to be someone I wasn’t?”

“Like the guys who replied.”

Her gaze was inescapably drawn to a couple of the photos, which she suspected were of male models and not the candidates. In the case of one particularly stunning man, she was almost certain she had seen him on an underwear bil board. “I’m wel aware that some of the applications are not honest.”

There was a vibrating silence. “I have resources. If you want I can have them screened by the private investigative firm The Atraeus Group uses in Sydney.”

For long seconds she wavered, but given the media exposure that had made her temporarily notorious, she couldn’t afford not to have Zane’s help. He was in the business of checking and double-checking on the integrity of businesses and personnel. She did everything she could to research the candidates, but with limited time and resources, she couldn’t hope to do any in-depth checking in the span of a few days. “Okay.”

Lilah brought up her file of applicants and vacated the chair. Zane sat down and began to scrol through, the silence growing progressively deeper and more charged as he read. “Do you mind if I email the file to my laptop?”

“Go ahead.”

Seconds later, he exited her mail program and rose from the chair. “I’m going to have these names checked out. The firm I use has access to criminal files and credit records. I’l order lunch in, it shouldn’t take more than a couple of hours to get some basic details back.” An hour and a half later, Lilah stared at the list of men on her dating site, her stomach churning at the thought of what Zane could turn up.

While she had waited for the results of his investigation, she had eaten one of the selection of salads that had been delivered by room service then made herself coffee in the smal kitchenette.

She sipped the coffee, barely tasting it. Six days together. She blinked back a wave of unexpectedly intense emotion. It wouldn’t be six days of making love; it would be six days of saying goodbye.

Jaw set, she forced her attention back to her laptop screen and began reading through al of the mail. She had expected to have a few withdrawals—what she hadn’t expected was for four of her five vetted men to have quit her page and the raft of new applications.

A prickling sense of unease hit her. She had compiled her previous list of stable, steady men over months from the unenthusiastic trickle of replies to her dating agency application. In the span of two days she had lost four of the five steady prospects she had intended to meet the fol owing week and had received fifteen new “expressions of interest.” Not good.

She scrol ed through the emails, flinching at some of the subject lines.

Clearly, it had been an easy matter to connect the scandalous stories in the press with her matchmaking page. Most of her solid prospects had quit and she was now being targeted by men attracted by her notoriety.

Zane strol ed into the suite. “A handful of the applicants checked out.” He tossed a pile of papers down on the desk. “Don’t reply to any of these. If you do, you can count on my presence at any interviews you conduct because, honey, I’l be there.”

Lilah swal owed the impulse to argue a point she was in one hundred percent agreement with herself. She did not want to end up at the mercy of some kind of kinky opportunist or worse, a reporter trying to generate another smutty story. “I don’t see how. You won’t be in Sydney next week.”

Zane strol ed toward his bedroom, unbuttoning his shirt and shrugging out of it as he walked. “For this, I’l make a point of it.”

Lilah dragged her gaze from Zane’s broad back, and the unsettling, undermining intimacy of watching him undress.

With an effort of wil , she squashed the impulse to walk up behind him, wrap her arms around his waist, lean into his heady warmth and breathe in the scent of his skin. “I don’t see why when you made it clear you don’t want anything more than a temporary arrange—”

“You want more than the one week time limit?”

Lilah tried to squash the heart pounding thought that they could extend their affair for weeks, maybe months. The reason she was keeping the time so short was to get the fixation with Zane out of her system. She couldn’t in al honesty enter into a marriage with someone else if she was stil attracted to Zane.

Although, she was already certain she had made a fundamental mistake. The desperate fixation
had
faded somewhat, but it had been replaced with something much more insidious.

She was beginning to
like
Zane. Neither her mother nor her grandmother had ever mentioned liking their lovers.

There had simply been the dangerously out-of-control passion, which had been dispensed with when the pregnancies had become apparent.

She avoided answering him and instead stared at the papers Zane had tossed down on the desk. On the top was the underwear ad guy. In reality, he was a forty-five-year-old, twice-divorced mechanic who had somehow managed to make his application from a minimum-security prison cel .

According to the detective firm Zane had employed, he was currently serving a two-year sentence for car theft. With time out for good behavior, he could be out in six months.

The sound of running water in Zane’s shower broke the heavy silence that seemed to have settled around her. She skimmed the information on the rest of the applicants Zane had blacklisted. Logging back on to the matchmaking site, she deleted them from her page. That left her with six applicants in total, one from her previous batch of applicants, and five new ones. Three were depressingly unsuitable, so she deleted them. That left her with three.

The sound of the shower stopped.

She tried to concentrate on the photos and profiles of the three remaining men on her dating list. Jack, Jeremy and John, the three J’s.

They were al pleasant, attractive men in solid jobs. John Smith, wearing a crisp, dark suit, looked like an ad for
Gentleman’s Quarterly
. Listed as the CEO of his own company, he fitted the profile she had put together for a husband perfectly.

The one applicant who had not deserted her fol owing the scandal in the newspaper, Jack Riordan, had been high on her list. He wasn’t perfect, but it was heartening that her top pick apart from Howard, who had not worked out, was stil on board.

Taking a deep breath she decided she needed to reward Jack Riordan’s loyalty for sticking with her despite the scandal, take the plunge and commit to an initial date.

She typed in a suggested meeting time and place and hit the return key. Her computer made a smal whooshing sound as the reply was sent. A split second later her message appeared on her page.

Stomach tight, pulse hammering, she stared at the neat print. After months of lurking online, reluctant to commit to anything more than a little window-shopping, she felt she was final y moving forward with her plans. She ought to feel positive that, while she wouldn’t have Zane in her life, at least she had the possibility of having
someone
.