The Real Romero(14)

                Milly laughed. To the point. Where her friends would spend literally hours analysing, he had cut to the chase in a few sentences.

                ‘And now shall we see how that food of yours is doing?’ Lucas stood up and stretched and Milly tried not to let her mouth fall open at the ripple of muscle discernible under his clothes.

                ‘Yes, the food; the stolen food.’

                ‘And I shall make a few calls; do something about this job of yours that’s disappeared under your feet.’

                Milly hadn’t forgotten about that but she had decided not to mention it again. People had a way of saying stuff they seriously meant at the time but five minutes later had completely forgotten. Sometimes she had been guilty of that particular crime. A wide, sweeping invitation to friends to come round for drinks only to realise afterwards that she would actually be at work on the evening in question.

                ‘You’re going to make a few calls?’

                ‘Two, in actual fact.’ He watched her cute rear as she preceded him into the kitchen. He knew more about her life after five seconds than he had about anyone he had dated in the past, but then he didn’t naturally encourage outpourings, and the women he dated were all too conscious of the fact that they had to toe the line. No outpourings. No long life stories. No involved anecdotes.

                Was it any wonder that he was frankly enjoying himself? He would never have imagined that being a ski instructor could be such a liberating experience. He wondered whether he shouldn’t become a ski instructor for a week every year just so that he could refresh his palate with a taste of normality.

                He disappeared, heading back to the sitting room so that he could make his calls as he stood absently looking down at the sprawling white vista outside his lodge.

                One call to his mother, to tell her that he might be staying on slightly longer than originally thought. The other to Alberto, to tell him that his chalet girl had arrived to find herself jobless and that he would be digging into his pocket to pay her what she was due, because she would be staying on, and that he should contact whatever agency he got her from and relay the message. Lucas could easily have afforded to pay her himself but on principle he saw no reason why he should pick up the tab. The man was grossly over-paid by his company for what he did, and Lucas suspected that he had told the agency that the deal was off at the last possible minute because neither he nor his wife would really have given a damn if their chalet girl’s nose was put out of joint.

                He sauntered into the kitchen, snapping his phone shut just as she was dishing out two heaped bowls of pasta.

                ‘Done.’

                Alone and away from his overpowering personality, Milly had had a little while to consider the prospect of spending two weeks with a man she didn’t know in a lodge that belonged to neither of them. The plan made no sense. Were they to deplete the contents of the fridge? Guzzle all the alcohol? Then leave with a cheery wave goodbye? Wouldn’t a bill catch up with her sooner or later? There was no such thing as a free lunch, after all, not to mention two weeks’ worth of free lunches.

                And, also, what if the ski instructor with the drop-dead good looks turned out to be dodgy? He didn’t seem the violent type but who was to say he was trustworthy? He could be a gentleman by day and a sex maniac by night.

                Bracketing Lucas and sex in the same thought brought hectic colour to her cheeks. Even if he was a closet sex maniac, there was no chance he would look twice in her direction. Robert, who had been nice looking but definitely not in Adonis’s league, hadn’t found her attractive. That, in a nutshell, said it all as far as Milly was concerned.