not quite the person you think I am.’
For a few seconds, Milly thought that perhaps she had misheard him. Who on earth ever said stuff like that? Her mouth fell open and she stared at him in silence, waiting for him to enlarge on that enigmatic statement.
Lucas was taking his time. He walked slowly back towards her, maintaining eye contact.
‘And, before your over-active imagination starts casting me in the starring role of homicidal maniac, you can rest assured that it’s nothing like that.’ He sat down and continued looking at her thoughtfully, trying on the various options at his disposal for telling her who he really was and what he wanted from her. And why. Much as he loathed justifying his decisions to anyone, he would have no choice in this circumstance.
‘The Ramos family,’ he began. ‘This house...everything in it...doesn’t belong to them.’
‘Oh, please...’ Milly raised her eyebrows in rampant disbelief. ‘I don’t know where you’re going with this but I know for a fact that it does. You forget that snooty Sandra employed me to work for them. I was given all their details. Are you going to tell me that she made the whole thing up? That there are no such people? Plus, you’re forgetting that Mr Ramos paid me for my time here!’
She shot him a look of triumph at winning this argument, mixed with pity that he had chosen to come out with such a glaring lie. The combination felt good, especially after the way he had hauled her out of the café in front of everyone. Triumph and pity...she savoured the feeling for a few seconds and threw in a kindly but condescending smile for good measure.
Lucas, she noted, didn’t come close to looking sheepish.
‘Of course he paid you,’ he said, brushing aside that detail as casually as someone brushing aside a piffling point of view that carried no weight. ‘He paid you because I told him to.’
‘Because you told him to...’ Milly burst out laughing and, when eventually her laughter had turned to broken giggles, she carried on, very gently, ‘I think you might be delusional. I know you fancy yourself as some kind of hot shot just because you happen to work for loads of rich people and you probably have them eating out of your hand...’ Especially the women. ‘But the bottom line is that you’re still just a ski instructor’
Lucas kissed sweet, rueful goodbye to his very brief window of normality.
‘Not quite...’
‘I mean,’ Milly expanded, ignoring him, ‘it’s a bit like me saying that I own five Michelin-starred restaurants when in fact I just happen to work behind the scenes for an average hotel in West London.’
‘Worked,’ Lucas swiftly reminded her and she scowled at the reminder. ‘You worked at an average hotel in West London. Don’t forget that you’re now jobless.’
‘I hadn’t forgotten,’ Milly said through gritted teeth. ‘And I still don’t know where you’re going with this.’
Lucas sighed and raked his fingers through his hair, then he reached for his computer, which was on the glass table next to him.
With a start of surprise he realised that for the first time in a very long time indeed work had not been the overriding thought in his head. In fact, he had a backlog of emails to work his way through, emails to which he had given precious little thought. Dark eyes lazily took in the diminutive girl in front of him sitting in a lotus position, her long hair flowing in rivulets over her shoulders. Self-restraint with a sexy member of the opposite sex had clearly had an effect on his ability to concentrate to his usual formidably high levels.
He kick-started the computer and when he had found what he had been looking for he swivelled the computer towards her.
Milly looked at him sceptically. Did anything faze this guy? Whatever the situation, he was the very picture of cool. Chewing her out in the middle of an expensive café in one of the most expensive ski resorts on the planet: cool. Arranging for her to stay in the ski lodge: cool. Telling her a string of real whoppers about the extent of his influence: cool.
‘You’re not meant to carry on sitting there,’ Lucas informed her gently. ‘You’re meant to get close enough to the computer so that you can actually read what I’ve flagged up.’
Accustomed to having the world jump to his commands without asking questions, Lucas had a brief moment of wondering whether she intended stubbornly to stay put until he was forced to bring the computer to her. However, after a few seconds of jaundiced hesitation, Milly stood up and then sat on the sofa, back in her cross-legged position, so that she could read his extensive bio.
Lucas watched her. She didn’t have to say anything; her face said it all: calm and superior, morphing into frowning puzzlement, then finally incredulity.
Then she did it all over again as she re-read the article, which, fawningly and in depth, traced his lineage and every single one of his achievements, from university degrees to acquisitions of companies. Much was made of his background and the limitless privileges into which he had been born.
He had been personally interviewed for this article. It had come hard on the heels of his unfortunate experience with his gold-digging almost-fiancée, and he had not been predisposed to be anything but brusque with the glamorous blonde whose job it had been to glean some scintillating ‘heard it from the horse’s mouth’ titbits.
His coolness had not bothered her. She had practically salivated in his company and had crossed and re-crossed her long legs so many times that he had asked her at one point whether she needed to use the toilet.
At any rate, the finished article had been sent to him for proofreading before it had been put online, and he had been amused to note that he had somehow achieved a god-like status, even though he knew he had been borderline rude to the woman. Money: Was there anything in the world that talked louder and more persuasively?
‘I don’t understand.’ Milly sat back, drawing her legs up and looping her arms around them.
‘Of course you do.’
‘Don’t tell me what I do or don’t understand,’ she said automatically, because there was nothing worse than an arrogant know-it-all. But he was right. She understood. ‘You’re not a ski instructor at all, are you?’
‘Correct.’
‘In other words, you lied to me.’
‘I wouldn’t exactly call it a lie...’ Naturally he had expected surprise, incredulity even, but at the end of the day the ski instructor had been swapped for a billionaire. He had taken it as a given that his new status would do its usual job and bring a smile of servile appreciation to her lips. None of it. She was scowling at him, eyes glinting with anger.
‘Well, I would.’ Milly was struggling to contain her anger. How dared he? How dared he play her for a complete fool? But then, she was just Little Miss Sunshine, wasn’t she? Some comic relief for a man marooned in a ski lodge with her!
‘You made false assumptions,’ Lucas told her with barely concealed impatience. ‘I chose not to set you straight.’
‘In your world, that might be acceptable behaviour. In my world, that’s called lying!’ She sprang to her feet and stormed over to the window, stared out for a little while and then stormed back towards
