The Real Romero(36)

                ‘You might be a little...surprised by what I’m about to tell you.’

                ‘Then don’t tell me,’ she said promptly. ‘I hate surprises. They’re never good.’

                ‘Well, that’s one thing we have in common,’ Lucas murmured, momentarily distracted. He stood up and she followed the easy, fluid movement of his long body with something close to compulsion. He walked across to the window and stared out and, even with his back to her, she could tell that he wasn’t really seeing what he appeared to be staring at. She could sense his distraction and that made her nervous because, and she could see this now, there was something so intensely focused about him. Distracted was not his normal frame of mind.

                He spun round, caught her staring at him and allowed himself a small smile which immediately made her glower. And that was why he was just so damned arrogant, she thought. Because women followed him with their eyes, irresistibly drawn to mindless gazing.

                ‘I’m 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.’