A PERFECT RENDEZVOUS

Five Minutes

Seated in the sunny solarium, Zayn worked his way carefully through the sheets of data that Liam had provided to bring him up to date on his financial holdings. Outside, beyond the glass walls that were tinted to prevent anyone from being able to see into the solarium, someone called his name, and he looked up, not to answer, but simply to luxuriate in being home again and to pleasure himself with the familiar view. On the other side of the glass, a lush expanse of green lawn sloped down to an enormous curving swimming pool with graceful Roman columns and marble statues. At the edge of the yard were guest pavilions in the same Roman architecture as the main house—all of them filled with people now. Zayn's tenants had kept his gardener on during his absence, and the results of the aging man's painstaking care were evident in the colorful flowers that bloomed ecstatically beneath carefully pruned shrubbery and shade trees.

The thick glass surrounding the solarium muffled the sounds of the party in full swing a few feet beyond, where a hundred people were cavorting in his pool, using his tennis courts, or sunbathing. The remaining three hundred guests would return tonight for the second night of festivities, and the caterers were already setting up beneath a white tent on the east edge of the lawn.

"Where is Zayn Malik?" a woman in a green string bikini called to her friends, without realizing Zayn could see and hear her. "I've been here all day and I still haven't laid eyes on him. I'm starting to think he's a legend who doesn't exist." It wasn't surprising she hadn't seen him, since this wing of the house was off limits to all but Liam and Meredith Payne. They were Zayn's only actual houseguests, the only people he permitted into his inner sanctum. For that reason, he scowled when he heard another woman's voice calling from the hallway just beyond the solarium, "Hey, has anyone in here seen Zayn?" He was going to have to put in an appearance out there, he realized, or that chant, which had been escalating for the last hour, would continue unabated until someone came to find him.

Behind him, Meredith Payne's soft, cultured voice laughingly said, "Have you seen Zayn Malik?"

"No, I'm afraid not," Zayn joked, politely coming to his feet.

"Everyone seems to be looking for him," she teased, putting her hand in his outstretched palm.

Zayn leaned down and kissed her cheek, slightly startled by the instantaneous affection he'd felt for Liam 's wife. Until he actually met her two days ago, Zayn had been inclined to dismiss most of Liam 's praise of his wife as uncharacteristic infatuation, but having met her, he was completely impressed. Meredith Bancroft Payne had the poise and beauty that the society columns always credited her with, but none of the cool hauteur Zayn had expected. Instead, she had a gentleness, a gentility, and an unaffected warmth that both disarmed and touched him. "I hear," he confided, "that Malik is an antisocial sort who doesn't particularly like big, sprawling parties very much, at least not this one."

She sobered, her eyes searching his. "Really? Why do you suppose that is?"

He smiled and shrugged. "I guess I'm not in the mood right now."

Meredith considered bringing up Harry Mathison, as she'd considered often during the last two days, but Liam had not only asked, he had instructed her not to mention Harry's name. "Am I interrupting your work?" she said instead, glancing at the thick folders on the table beside his chair.

"Not at all, I'd enjoy the company." Zayn looked around her for the Paynes' enchanting two-year-old daughter, who he rather hoped would come flying into the room with her usual demand for a hug from him. "Where's Marissa?"

"She's having a tea party with Joe before her nap."

"The little flirt," he said, glancing toward the antique Sevres china tea set he'd had his housekeeper put on the coffee table a while ago, "she promised to have a tea party with me!"