A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Confession

It was after 10 P.M. when Harry woke up with a confused start, a sofa pillow clutched to his chest. A slight movement off to his left caught his attention, and Harry quickly turned his head at the same time an amused male voice remarked, "A nurse who abandons his patient and falls asleep while on duty does not get paid his full rate."

Harry's "patient" was standing with his shoulder propped casually against the fireplace mantel and his arms crossed over his chest, watching Harry with a lazy smile. With his hair still damp from a shower and a cream chamois shirt that was open at the throat and tucked into fawn-colored trousers, he looked incredibly handsome, completely recovered ... and very amused about something.

Trying to ignore the treacherous leap his heart gave at the sight of that enthralling, intimate smile, Harry hastily sat up. "Your friend—Dominic Sandini—he didn't die," he told him, wanting to put his mind at ease about that immediately. "They think he's going to be all right."

"I heard that."

"You did?" Harry said cautiously. It occurred to him that he might have heard it on the radio while he was dressing. If not—if he remembered Harry telling him that—then it was mortifyingly possible he might remember the other things he'd said in those unguarded minutes when he thought Zayn was beyond hearing. He waited, hoping Zayn would refer to the radio, but he continued watching Harry with that smile tugging at his lips, and Harry felt his entire body grow warm with embarrassment. "How do you feel?" Harry asked, hastily standing up.

"Better now. When I woke up, I felt like a potato being baked in its own skin."

"What? Oh, you mean the bedroom got too hot?"

He nodded. "I kept dreaming I'd died and gone to hell. When I opened my eyes, I saw the fire leaping around me, and I was pretty sure of it."

"I'm sorry," Harry said, anxiously searching his face for any sign of lingering ill effects from his exposure to the elements.

"Don't be sorry. I realized very quickly that I couldn't really be in hell."

His light-hearted mood was so infectious and so utterly disarming that Harry reached up to lay the back of his hand against Zayn's forehead to test his body temperature without realizing what he was doing. "How did you know you weren't in hell?"

"Because," Zayn said quietly, "part of the time, an angel was hovering over me."

"You were obviously hallucinating," he joked.

"Was I?"

This time, there was no mistaking the husky timbre in his voice, and Harry pulled his hand away from his head, but he couldn't quite free his gaze from Zayn. "Definitely."

From the corner of his eye, Harry suddenly noticed that a porcelain duck was turned the wrong way on the mantle beside Zayn's shoulder, and he reached out to straighten it, then he rearranged the two smaller ducks beside that one.

"Harry," he said in a deep, velvety voice that had a dangerous effect on his heart rate, "look at me." When he turned to look at Zayn, he said with quiet gravity, "Thank you for saving my life."

Mesmerized by his tone and the expression in his eyes, Harry had to clear his throat to stop his voice from shaking. "Thank you for trying to save mine."

Something stirred in the fathomless depths of his eyes, something hot and inviting, and Harry's pulse tripled even though he didn't attempt to touch Harry. Trying to switch the mood to one of safe practicality, Harry said, "Are you hungry?"

"Why didn't you leave?" Zayn persisted.

Zayn's tone warned him that he wouldn't allow a change of subject until he'd gotten answers, and Harry sank down onto the sofa, but he looked at the center-piece on the table because he couldn't quite meet Zayn's searching gaze. "I couldn't leave you out there to die, not when you'd risked your life thinking I'd drowned." He noticed that two of the white silk magnolias in the centerpiece were bent at awkward angles and he obeyed the automatic impulse to lean forward and fix them.