Читать книгу Modern Romance March 2015 Collection 2 - Кэтти Уильямс, Jane Porter, Cathy Williams - Страница 18

CHAPTER TEN

A WEEK AND a half later, Milly could still scarcely believe that she had shown such fortitude in the face of the groundswell of misery that had been gathering at her feet.

So she had hung on to her pride, but at what cost? He was on her mind twenty-four-seven. She thought of him when she was working, when she was relaxing, and she dreamed of him when she was asleep.

He hadn’t argued with her when she had conceded defeat. He had wanted out and she hadn’t fought to bar him from the exit he was desperate to take. But he had been as quick to rush through the open door as she might have expected. He had continued the conversation: had told her in a cool, detached voice that he had never been in it for the long term; that he had warned her that commitment was off limits for him; that she should have known that after everything he had told her. His voice had been thick with accusation.

She had agreed with him.

‘Off the cards and especially with someone like me,’ she had obliged him by pointing out. All the time, her heart had been beating so hard and so fast that her breathing was short and raspy.

‘With anyone. I’m not interested in a long-term relationship and I should never have allowed myself to be swept into something with a woman who was vulnerable and in search of a life partner.’

‘I may have been vulnerable but I was not in search of a life partner! And I may have fallen in love with you, but has it occurred to you that I’m not as ditzy as you think I am? Has it occurred to you that I know we’re not suited?’

Of course it hadn’t occurred to him.

‘We’re different people from different backgrounds,’ she had persisted. ‘And that might not make a difference, but we’re also like oil and water. You’re darkness to my light. I’m not suspicious and distrusting of everyone; I like giving people chances. And I know you think I’m naive and stupid because I should have learned from Robbie and what happened but maybe, just maybe, that makes me a happier person than you, Lucas! You had one crappy experience and you’ve let it dictate the rest of your life! How does that make sense?’

‘So you’re prepared to carry on as we are with no expectations?’ he had mocked. ‘You’re fine if I tell you that I’m more than happy to take you to my bed but that’s all there is to it?’

Naturally she wouldn’t have been fine with that and her brief hesitation had given him all the answer he had needed.

But what if she had agreed? What if she had buried her feelings under the sort of hard veneer that he would have been able to deal with? What if she had taken up his proposition and shut away the side of her that had wanted more, that would always want more? Would that have been a better decision than the one she had made? She wouldn’t have spent the past week and a half thinking about him whilst staring at the walls of his apartment and thinking that she would have to move out sooner rather than later.

She almost, but didn’t quite, regretted that she hadn’t thrown his stupid job and his stupid free apartment right back in his face but common sense had thankfully kicked in because she would have been in an even worse position than she was now. She would have been hurting emotionally, and positively haemorrhaging financially, because a cursory glimpse at the ads for jobs in the catering industry had told her that there were no jobs to speak of. She would have been on the first train back to her grandmother, and there would have been no jobs there either, so she would have ended up doing something and nothing just to make ends meet.

It had left a sour taste in her mouth because the last thing she had wanted to do was to accept the terms and conditions of the proposal that had so roundly backfired in her face. But sometimes pride just had to take a back seat, and she was very glad that it had, because she loved her job and loved living in the heart of London, such a far cry from her former digs.

Her friends had all been mightily impressed as well, although she had omitted to tell them the details of how she had landed up where she had.

She had simply said that she had been lucky enough to have found herself in the company of a guy who had felt sorry enough for her to have lent her a helping hand. It was bad luck to have found herself at the ski chalet without the job she had anticipated, but it had been extremely good luck to have found herself there in the company of the guy who actually owned the ski chalet, along with a whole load of other stuff; a guy who had heard her unfortunate story and had been kind enough to lend a helping hand.

Ha. She had nearly choked when she had expanded on his kindness. She had turned him into a benevolent, avuncular, father-figure type, which couldn’t have been further from the truth!

If they had been a little curious as to why she had suddenly decided to become the stay-at-home type who no longer needed to talk incessantly about her misfortunes, they had not said anything, and she knew they figured that she was just experiencing the aftershocks of what had happened with Robbie.

In time, she would confess all, but right now she needed time out from...everyone.

She had just showered and climbed into a pair of baggy joggers and an even baggier T-shirt—because she had lost the desire to wear tight and sexy clothes now that she was back to being on her own—when she heard the ring of the doorbell, and she froze, because there could be only one person who would ring that doorbell, having got past Eddy, the porter who manned the desk downstairs.

Lucas.

He had a key to the apartment, which made sense bearing in mind it belonged to him, but he always used the doorbell, only letting himself in if he knew that she wasn’t going to be in.

Her mouth went dry and she gulped in deep breaths because the thought of seeing him again filled her with pleasure and trepidation at the same time.

In the length of time it took her to traverse the wooden floor from sitting room to door, she had dissected, dismissed and re-dissected a hundred possible reasons for this unexpected visit.

In the starring role on her wish list was the tiny ray of hope that he had miraculously decided that they were suited after all, that he had made a terrible mistake. Or even, she was ashamed to concede, that he had missed her and would she climb back into bed with him? She would say no, she was pretty sure of that, but it would do her a power of good just to think that he, in some small way, missed her as much as she was desperately missing him.

Her heart was preparing to soar and she had to school her features into just the right level of indifference as she pulled open the door.

‘My dear!’

‘Antonia...’ Milly forced a smile but she was taken aback to find his mother on the doorstep. She hadn’t spoken to Antonia since the split, and she felt guilty now about that, because they had developed a strong bond in the short time they had been in each other’s company. ‘I...eh...have been meaning to get in touch with you...’

‘You look a little peaky, my dear.’

‘Please, come inside. I... What brings you to London? I didn’t think that you would be okay to travel overseas...just yet. Can I offer you something? Tea or coffee?’

‘I thought I might surprise my son with a visit,’ Antonia confided. ‘And a cup of coffee would be lovely, my dear. Decaf, if you have it. Caffeine any time after six in the evening ruins my sleeping patterns.’

‘That reminds me: well, I guess you’ve come... I would have called...’ To further compound your disappointment by filling in all the gaps Lucas might have left in the saga of why we had broken up? Added to the story of personality clashes, simmering rows and different hopes and dreams?

‘It’s even nicer seeing you face to face, Milly, my dear. I’ve missed having you there at the house. It felt rather empty and quiet after you and Lucas left. Of course, I was in tremendous spirits, but nevertheless... How quickly we become accustomed to having pleasant company around us.’

Milly could feel her face getting redder and redder and her body hotter and hotter.

‘Well, you look amazing,’ she said truthfully, even though the tremendous spirits may have taken a recent battering.

‘I feel it. I guess I’m just buoyed up by Lucas’s turnaround.’

‘His turnaround...?’

‘Finally coming to his senses and seeing the value of settling down.’

For a confusing few seconds, Milly was appalled at the question that had instantly sprung into her head: Who was he planning to settle down with? How fast could one man move when it came to women?

‘So—and I know I’m being an interfering old witch here—but I came over so that I could sit you both down together and find out when I can start looking forward to the big day...’

* * *

‘The big day, Lucas...and I’m quoting here. So what in heck’s name is going on?’

Milly had finally managed to get hold of Lucas, who was personally protected from hassle with anyone he might not wish to talk to by an army of people in charge of security checks. She actually had his direct line but, the second she had been redirected, she had had to engage in the usual barrage of questions from his guard dogs.

She was in a filthy temper by the time she actually heard his dark drawl at the other end of the line, which was possibly why her stomach didn’t instantly go into nervous knots.

For the first time since he had walked out, Lucas felt alive at the sound of her voice and that, in itself, was bloody infuriating.

‘I have no idea what you’re going on about, Milly. You can’t commence a conversation in mid-sentence and expect me to instantly be clued up.’

‘You know what I’m talking about! Guess who I just had a visit from?’

‘Can’t think. No time for guessing games.’

‘Your mother!’

Lucas sat up and digested this piece of information. ‘My mother...’ he said slowly.

‘Strangely,’ Milly all but shrieked down the end of the line, ‘she seems to be under the impression that we’re still an item!’

‘Where are you?’

‘Where do you think I am, Lucas?’

‘How would I know?’ he answered with silky smoothness. ‘It’s after seven on a Friday evening and you’re a single woman...’

‘I’m at home.’ How could he think that she would physically be able to go clubbing when she was in love with him? Or was he just judging her the way he judged himself? He would have no problem doing that. If he possessed a heart instead of a lump of cold where a heart should be...

‘I’m on my way.’

Milly fought the temptation to get a little more dolled up than she was. Maybe swop the baggy jogging bottoms, which she knew he loathed, for something a little more attractive. He could take her as he found her, she decided. He could explain why his mother was still in the dark and then he could be on his way.

She was as cool as a cucumber until the doorbell went half an hour later and there he was. All dark, tall and broodingly, sinfully gorgeous. Just the right side of dishevelled with the sleeves of his white shirt rolled to the elbows and his jacket slung over one shoulder. A sight for sore eyes and she just wanted to stand there and stare.

‘So...’ She pulled open the door and stepped away from him, not trusting herself. ‘Mind explaining...?’

Lucas couldn’t peel his eyes away from her. She was wearing just the sort of outfit he had always teased that she needed to wean herself away from. It hid every delectable curve, and yet she was still so enticing, still so damned sexy.

He’d missed her. It was as simple as that. He hadn’t been able to focus, had lost interest in deals that should have netted all of his undivided attention, could not even be bothered to rifle through his little black book for other women. And he had told his mother nothing because...

‘I need a drink. Something stronger than a cup of tea.’

‘You need a drink? This isn’t a social call, Lucas.’ Milly finally looked at him and her treacherous eyes skittered away. She clasped her arms around her body, hugging herself.

‘No. It’s not.’ He headed straight for the kitchen, directly to the cupboard where he knew she kept a practically full bottle of whisky, and he poured himself a hefty glass, keenly aware that she had padded in behind him. He imagined her arms were still folded and her full mouth would be pursed in a moue of frustration.

She loved him. She had loved him. Did she still?

‘I intended to tell her...’

‘But somehow you didn’t manage to get round to it? Even though you speak to her every other day? That titbit just managed to get lost amidst the chit chat?’

‘No.’

‘Okay...’ She looked at him hesitantly, picking up vibes which, for once, he wasn’t bothering to hide. He had sat down at the kitchen table and was nursing his drink, not looking at her—again, a little weird, because it smacked of the sort of indecision not associated with him. She felt in need of a stiff drink as well but instead made do with a glass of juice from the fridge before sitting opposite him at the chrome-and-glass table.

‘I could have told her but...I needed time.’

‘Time for what?’

‘Time to come to terms with the fact that we were really no longer an item.’ He looked at her with serious intent and swallowed a mouthful of the whisky, not taking his eyes from her flushed face. ‘I thought...when you told me that you loved me...’

‘I don’t want to go there.’

‘We don’t have a choice.’

‘We do!’ she cried. ‘I said what I said and there’s no point going over it!’

‘I’ve never believed in love.’

‘I told you—I get that.’

‘You don’t. You don’t because, as you said, I let one crappy experience dictate my future where you, my optimistic Milly, would never have allowed that to happen. So, no, you didn’t understand. Not really.’

He shot her a crooked, hesitant smile.

‘Do you know that you were the first person I ever told about Betina and my youthful error of judgement? And I knew that every time you raised the subject, which was often, you were trying to come to terms with the way I thought, because it was so unlike the way you would think. I should have been enraged at having that one confidence thrown back in my face time and again. I wasn’t.’

He looked at his glass, circled the rim with his finger.

‘We’re all creatures of habit to some extent. My habit lay in the way I thought, the way I conditioned myself to think. For me, marriage would be about something that made sense because love made no sense. My head told me that you made no sense. You were just so damned young, you wore your heart on your sleeve, you were looking for the same happy-ever-after ending my mother believed in—the same happy ever ending I had no time for. I had built my box and I had no intention of stepping out of it, even though I knew you wanted me to. Am I losing you?’

He shot her the ghost of a fleeting smile that made her world tilt on its axis.

‘I’m following you and you’re right—I didn’t understand, not really. Plus I was, well, I’ve never been that secure about my looks and I was...’

‘Jealous?’

‘No. Yes. Maybe.’

‘Just maybe? Because I’ve been eaten up with jealousy thinking about all those men you might have been seeing behind my back in the last week or two.’

Milly’s heart soared. She wondered whether she was hearing correctly. She half-leaned forward just in case she missed something and that devastating smile broadened as he read her mind.

‘You can’t let go, and I’m sorry about that, but...but you don’t have to explain.’

‘I do, my Milly, because I find that I let go a long time ago. I never realised it because I was just waiting in a holding bay for the right woman to come along and mess with my heart.’

The silence stretched between them. When she finally extended her hand along the table and he linked his fingers through hers, she experienced a rush of so many emotions, all vying for prominence, that she felt faint.

‘I ran scared when you told me how you felt. I didn’t know how to deal with it, Milly. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to tell my mother that it was over between us. I had the strangest feeling that if I said it out loud, if I vocalised it, then I would find myself in a place of no return. I couldn’t face the thought of losing you but I didn’t know how to make it right between us. My head was still waging war with my heart. The fact is, I love you. I was falling in love and I didn’t even recognise the symptoms because I was so stubbornly and arrogantly convinced that I was immune.’

He absently played with her fingers in a way that was thrillingly intimate. ‘You came into my life and you woke me up, Milly of the not-red hair, and my life is nothing without you in it.’

‘And I love you,’ Milly said with wrenching earnestness. ‘I never loved Robbie, but you knew that, didn’t you? When I think of what my life could have been if I hadn’t found out the truth...’ She shivered. ‘I didn’t want to fall in love with you either,’ she admitted. ‘I know you think I’m a hopeless romantic...’

‘You are and I thank God for that.’

‘But I still knew that you weren’t a good bet and I was still fighting my own silly demons; still thought that you were just, well, that you’d never look at someone like me. Even though...’ she dimpled at him ‘...you cured me of that.’

‘Would you have felt that if I had continued being a harmless ski instructor?’

‘You’re never harmless and why, out of interest, didn’t you tell me your true identity from the start?’

‘It was liberating. You had landed there, like someone from a different planet, no airs, no graces and no knowledge of just how wealthy I was. You fascinated me from the very first moment I met you. And now, here we are. You are the love of my life, Milly, and I can’t imagine life without you in it.’

‘Okay.’

Lucas laughed. ‘Is that all you have to say? When you’re usually a woman of so many words?’

Milly grinned. ‘I’m full of surprises.’

‘And I want to be the one to find them all out, every day, for the rest of my life. Will you marry me? I’m asking that on behalf of both me and my mother...’

Milly laughed and rose, moving to sit on his lap so that she could feel his arms around her, holding her close, never letting her go.

‘In that case, since you’ve brought your mother into the equation, what can a girl do but accept?’

* * * * *

Read on for an extract from THE SHEIKH’S SINFUL SEDUCTION by Dani Collins.