the opportunity actually to produce anything of her own...but she still didn’t care for him pointing that out to her.
‘There are always up sides to any situation,’ he told her, accurately reading the expression on her face and following her thoughts as seamlessly as if they were written in big, bold letters across her forehead. ‘You can waste time feeling sorry about yourself and moaning about the job you’ve lost...’
‘I wasn’t moaning!’
‘Of course you were. Or, you can see it as a good thing. So you no longer have to run around taking orders from someone you don’t particularly like in a job that was going nowhere anyway. And, getting back to your sweeping generalisation that I lead women on because I can, I think it’s wise for me to dispel that myth before it has time to blossom into another full-blown argument.’
His dark eyes were cool and Milly stiffened.
‘I’m not interested in—’
‘Well you’d better start working up an interest because, frankly, I wasn’t interested in hearing you compare me to the bum who let you down.’
Milly reddened because she knew that she had been unfair.
‘You were high-handed,’ she began weakly in her defence and the temperature in his eyes dropped a few notches from cool to glacial.
‘I’ve already told you that I would never sleep with any woman who was involved with someone else. Likewise, I would never sleep with any woman if I was involved with someone else. The thought of that disgusts me, so I couldn’t be further from the unprincipled bastard you got yourself involved with.’ He didn’t take his eyes off her face. ‘When I go out with a woman, she is safe in the knowledge that I’m not going anywhere else and I’m not looking anywhere else either.’
Milly shivered at the rampant possessiveness in his voice. She wondered what it would be like to have that possessiveness directed on her, to have this big, powerful man focus all his attention on her, to the exclusion of anybody else.
‘And yet you’re not a jealous guy.’ She moved on the conversation to dispel the alluring thought of him wanting her so badly that he literally didn’t have eyes for any other woman. Her skin tingled, as though he had brushed it with his fingers, and her whole body shrieked into heated response.
‘I’ve never had cause to be.’
‘Because all those women who come running when you snap your fingers wouldn’t dream of ever giving you anything to be jealous about?’ She thought of the way everyone had looked at him in that expensive café, on the street as they’d been leaving...
Something stirred at the back of her mind but she shoved it aside because she wanted to hear what he had to say.
‘Because I have yet to meet anyone I’m interested enough in,’ Lucas answered bluntly. He picked up his phone, searching for the signal that might or might not appear at any given moment. The lines were down but hopefully not for long. Like anywhere else where the weather could become suddenly and wildly unpredictable, there was no telling when normality would be restored.
The endless cry of the commitment-phobe, Milly thought. Men who could have whoever they wanted never had an interest in settling for one because why opt for one type of candy when there were so many jars and bottles to choose from? He could barely be bothered to have this conversation with her. He was searching his phone for a signal. She knew that. He was desperate for an outside line and connection with the real world. He’d already gone beyond the line of duty in putting himself out to stage a rescue mission for someone he happened to be stuck with.
‘Am I boring you?’ she asked and Lucas looked at her.
‘You’re the most demanding woman I have ever met in my entire life.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Milly bristled.
‘You’re still annoyed because I rescued you?’ Lucas had never done so much delving into any woman’s psyche in his life before. Even in his wild and misspent youth, when he had been gunning for the wrong woman, he had let sex do the talking.
‘Don’t start thinking of yourself as a knight in shining armour,’ Milly jumped in to correct him and he raised his eyebrows in an expression that was lazy and amused.
‘Ah. Still annoyed. Where has Little Miss Sunshine gone?’
In a flash, Milly had insight into what he thought of her. While she had been shooting her mouth off, confiding, losing herself in the thrill of being in the company of a guy who was actually listening to her...not to mention thrilling her with those dark, saturnine good looks...he had not been similarly entranced. The opposite. She had been a spot of comic relief with her ‘Little Miss Sunshine’ personality.
She turned away, hurt.
‘I apologise if you were embarrassed,’ he said gruffly. ‘I realise that, along with arrogant, I can be prone to occasionally lapsing into caveman tactics.’ When she didn’t say anything, he reached forward and, finger on her chin, turned her gently to face him.
Milly’s eyes widened and her body was suddenly, horrifyingly, excitingly, in meltdown. She could barely breathe. Her mouth parted. Her nipples stiffened, poking against her bra, sensitive as they scraped against the cotton. Between her legs, she was dampening.
‘Hell, you should be careful when you look at a man like that,’ Lucas said roughly. But he didn’t remove his finger. His libido had been in retreat for a while. Dealing with his ex had left a sour taste in his mouth and he had submerged himself in work because it was, frankly, blessed relief from the whining demands of a woman who didn’t want to go away.
Milly, with her disingenuous ignorance of who he really was, with her open, confiding nature and her easy laughter—despite having come through circumstances that would have knocked back anyone else—had stirred his interest.
‘Forget it. Not interested.’ She pulled away and stood up. ‘Just out of curiosity, when were you thinking of leaving?’
Lucas felt the reassuring buzz of his mobile as the outside world was once more connected. Normality could be restored within twenty-four hours. This unusual interlude could be left where it was and he could return to his formidably controlled and predictable life. Since when had he ever been a fan of surprises anyway? Since when had he ever been interested in exploring anything that came in an unpredictable package? Hadn’t he already been there? Done that? Got burned?
‘I’m considering my options.’
‘That being the case, I suggest we do our own thing. If I decide to go out skiing, then I don’t expect you to instigate a search party if I happen to be a couple of hours late.’
Lucas shook his head and briefly closed his eyes. ‘Demanding,’ he drawled. ‘And bloody stubborn.’
‘Would that be because I disapproved of you making an idiot out of me in a public place?’ She opened her mouth to fume a little bit more but his phone beeped with a series of incoming text messages, voicemails and emails.
Exasperated, she walked off towards the window where the furious snowfall was already showing signs of abating. Blue sky was doing its best to break through. By tomorrow, if not later in the day, the skiing would be good.
