A Perfect Husband by Fiona Brand Read Free Book Online Page B

garage-style door, her cheeks warming as she saw the down-at-heel building through Zane’s eyes. A converted warehouse in one of the shabbier suburbs, she had chosen the building because it had been cheerful, arty and spectacularly cheap. The ground floor apartment included a huge light-fil ed north-facing room that was perfect for painting.
    Zane, thankful y, didn’t seem to notice how shabby the exterior was, a reminder that he had not spent al of his life in luxurious surroundings.
    Unlocking the door, she stepped inside the nondescript foyer, with its concrete floors and cream-washed wal s.
    Zane slid the door to enclose them in the shadowy space. “How many people live here?”
    “A dozen or so.” She led the way down a narrow, dim corridor and unlocked her front door. Made of unprepossessing sheet metal, it had once led to some kind of workshop.

    She stepped into her large sitting room, conscious of Zane’s gaze as he took in white wal s, glowing wooden floors and the afternoon sun flooding through a bank of bifold doors at one end.
    “Nice.” He closed the door and strol ed into the center of the room, his gaze assessing the paintings she’d col ected from friends and family over the years.
    He studied a series of three abstracts propped against one wal . “These are yours.”
    Her gaze gravitated to the mesmerizingly clean lines of his profile as he studied one of the abstracts. “How do you know that?” She had gotten the paintings ready for sale, but hadn’t gotten around to signing them yet.
    Faint color rimmed his cheekbones. “I’ve bought a couple at auction. I also saw your work in a gal ery a few weeks back.”
    A smal shock went through her that he had actual y bought some of her paintings. “I usual y sel most of what I paint through the gal ery.”
    He straightened and peered at a framed photograph of her mother and grandmother. “So money’s important.”
    Her jaw firmed. “Yes.”
    There was no point in hiding it. Fol owing the recent finance company crashes, her mother’s careful life savings had dissolved overnight, leaving her with a mortgage she couldn’t pay. Subsisting on a part-time wage, which was al her mother could get in Broome, money had become vital.
    Lilah hadn’t hesitated. The regular sale of her paintings supplemented her income just enough that she was managing to pay her mother’s mortgage as wel as cover her rent, but only just.
    Her failure to present her resignation to Lucas the previous evening was, in a way, a relief. Resigning from Ambrosi Pearls now would not be a good move for either her or her mother.
    A crashing sound jerked her head around. Dropping her bag on the couch, she raced through to her studio in time to glimpse a young man dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, a camera slung over his shoulder, as he clambered out through an open window. A split second later, Zane flowed past her, stepped over a stack of canvases that had been knocked to the floor, and fol owed the intruder out of the window.
    Zane caught the reporter as he hung awkwardly on her back fence. With slick, practiced moves he took the memory stick from the camera and shoved what was clearly an expensive piece of equipment back at the reporter’s chest.
    The now white-faced reporter scrambled over the fence and disappeared into the sports field on the other side.
    While Zane examined the fence and walked the boundary of her tiny back garden, Lilah hurriedly tidied up the col apsed pile of canvases.
    Her worst fears were confirmed when she discovered a portrait of Zane she had painted almost two years ago, after the disastrous episode on the couch. Zane had practical y stepped over the oil to get out of the window. It was a miracle he hadn’t noticed.

    Gathering the canvases, she stacked them against the nearest wal , so only the backs were visible. She’d had a lucky escape. The last thing she needed now was for Zane to find out that she had harbored a quiet, unhealthy little obsession