The Real Romero(22)

                She had made sure to keep that to herself. She knew, from listening to her friends, that they would all have read the writing on the wall and would have known that his only half-hearted attempts at touching her, and her cheerful acceptance of that situation, did not augur a healthy relationship. They had all been born and raised in London and they were streetwise in ways she couldn’t hope to be.

                She fell asleep to images of a dark, swarthy, sexy face. He wasn’t replacement therapy, but he was a distraction, and maybe that was exactly what she needed right now: a harmless distraction.

                The following morning it was snowing when she awoke. She hadn’t drawn the curtains and from the bed she could look straight across to ceiling panes of glass to the winter wonderland outside. She itched to put on her skis and get out there.

                Before she did anything, she telephoned her grandmother to tell her that she arrived safe and sound but that the family in question had had a slight change of plan, after which she managed to avoid directly lying about her new circumstances, about sharing the lodge with a stranger. Then she texted her friends, brief texts telling them that she’d arrived. No more.

                Once changed, she went downstairs and after prowling through the lodge finally located Lucas in a big, airy room behind a desk. She came to a halt outside the door and looked at him. There were papers spread around him and he was peering at a thin laptop computer, frowning.

                ‘You’re going to express concern that I’m sitting here without due respect for the owner, aren’t you?’ he said, without looking away from the computer.

                He had had time to question his motives in offering her the use of his ski lodge. She was a young girl recovering from a broken relationship. In short, she was vulnerable and vulnerable, along with married, was something he didn’t do.

                Was he so jaded that he was prepared to try and take something simply because it made a change? And was a change as good as a rest? Yes, she was refreshing, as was the fact that she had no idea who he was or what he was worth, but was that any reason for him to amuse himself with her?

                In any equation where ‘vulnerable’ appeared, hurt was always its companion.

                He was immune but she wouldn’t be. He knew what it was like to have complete control over the outcome of his emotional life, whilst she clearly didn’t.

                And yet...he couldn’t escape the tempting notion that it would be utterly relaxing to spend a couple of days in her company. He could look without touching. It was called restraint and, whilst it was something he had never had any need to practise, it should be something that he could manage.

                He needed to take time out from the combined stresses of his mother, who would not let up on reminding him that he needed to settle down, and an ex-girlfriend who was still texting him in a way that was heading dangerously into stalker land. The fact that she knew his mother, albeit remotely, had foolishly led her to believe that their fling was more significant than what he’d had in mind.

                He needed to take time out from being Lucas Romero. It was an elevated position he had occupied for his entire life. He had been born and bred to manage the family fortune and to add to it. He had never known what it felt like to be a normal person, with normal concerns. Wariness, suspicion, caution: those were the bywords in a life that was as wealthy and as powerful as his was.

                ‘How did you know?’ Overnight, Milly had wondered whether exhaustion and a build-up of stress were responsible for her exaggerating Lucas’s overwhelming physical impact.

                Not a bit of it. He was sprawled in front of his computer in all his devastatingly good-looking glory.