A Perfect Husband Read Free

eased some of his fierce tension. He didn’t think Lilah had had time to sleep with Lucas yet. Somehow that fact was very important. “Okay. I’l do it.”
    Lucas looked relieved. “You won’t regret it.”
    Zane wasn’t so sure.
    He wondered if Lucas had any inkling that he had just placed a temptation Zane had doggedly resisted for over two years directly in his path.

    Two
    Heart pounding at the step she was taking, her first bona fide risk in twelve years of careful y managed, featureless and fruitless dating, Lilah Cole boarded the sleek private jet that belonged to Ambrosi Pearls’s new owner, The Atraeus Group.
    The nervy anticipation that had buoyed her as she had made her way through passport control ebbed as the pretty blonde stewardess, Jasmine, seated her.
    Placing the soft white leather tote bag that went with her white jeans and comfy, oversized white shirt on the floor, Lilah dug out the discreet, white leather-bound folder she had bought with her. She had been braced for another stress-fil ed encounter with the dark and edgily dangerous Zane Atraeus, the youngest and wildest of the Atraeus brothers, but she was the sole occupant of the luxurious cabin.
    Fifteen minutes later, with the noise from the jet engines reaching a crescendo and a curtain of gray rain blotting out much of the view from her tiny window, Lilah was stil the only passenger.
    She squashed the ridiculous idea that she was in any way disappointed as she fastened her seat belt with fingers that were not entirely steady.
    Flying was not her favorite pastime; she was not a natural risk taker. Like her approach to relationships, she preferred to keep her feet on the ground. A stubborn part of her brain couldn’t ignore the concept of al that space between the aircraft and the earth’s surface. To compound the problem, the weather forecast was for violent thunder and lightning.
    As the jet taxied through the sweeping rain, Lilah ignored the in-flight safety video and concentrated on the one thing she could control. Flipping open the folder, she studied the profiles she had compiled.
    Cole women had a notorious record for fal ing victim to the coup de foudre —the clap of thunder—for fal ing passionately and disastrously for the wrong man then literal y being left holding the baby. Aware that she possessed the same creative, passionate streak that ran through both her artistic and bohemian mother and grandmother, Lilah had developed a system for avoiding The Mistake.
    It was a blueprint for long-term happiness, a wedding plan. She had found that writing down the steps she needed to take to achieve the relationship she wanted somehow demystified the whole process, making it seem not such a leap in the dark.
    When she did eventual y give herself to a man, she was confident it would be in a committed relationship, not some wild fling. She wanted marriage, babies, the stable, control ed environment she had craved as a child.
    She was determined that any children she had would have two loving parents, not one stressed and strained beyond her limits.
    Over the last three years, despite interviewing an exhaustive number of candidates, she had not managed to find a man who met her marriage criteria and appealed to her on the al -important physical level. Scent in particular had proved to be a formidable barrier to identifying someone with whom she could have an intimate relationship. It was not that the men she had interviewed had smel ed bad, just that in some subtle way they had not smel ed right . However, things were final y taking a positive turn.
    Lilah studied the notes she had made on her new boss, Lucas Atraeus, and a smal number of other men, and the points system she had developed based on a matchmaking website’s recommendations. She spent an enjoyable few minutes reviewing Lucas’s good points.
    On paper he was the most perfect man she had ever met. He was electrifyingly good-looking and used a light cologne that she didn’t mind.