The Real Romero(55)

                The maid had vanished and Milly stared at Lucas, heat flooding her cheeks.

                ‘You told me that there was no way your mother was going to...going to stick us in the room together! You told me that your mother was very old-fashioned, that she hadn’t been brought up on a diet of sex before marriage. You said that she might know what you got up to but she’d always been adamant that you wouldn’t get up to it under her roof.’

                ‘I have a feeling that on those occasions when I showed up with a woman in tow she decided that the best way to avoid contributing to a loveless union   was to locate us at opposite ends of the house.’

                ‘Is that all you can say?’ Milly hissed as her anger headed a little bit further north.

                ‘At the moment, yes.’ He pushed himself away from the doorframe and strolled into the guest suite.

                Normally, he was given his usual room in the other wing of the house. He had barely noticed that they were being shown to a room in the opposite direction.

                ‘How is this supposed to work?’ Milly persisted, hands on hips as she followed him through.

                ‘You should shut the door. The last thing we need is for wagging ears to hear us at each other’s throats.’

                ‘I thought that that was supposed to be the whole intention.’

                ‘Not on day one. Now shut the door, Milly.’

                ‘Bossy,’ she muttered, stepping into the room with the unwillingness of someone entering a torture chamber.

                How was she supposed to share a room with the man standing in front of her? How could he look so cool and collected when she was suddenly a bundle of nervous tension?

                ‘You might want to freshen up,’ Lucas said neutrally. He nodded in the direction of the en suite bathroom, which she saw was as big as the bedroom, which was huge.

                ‘We can’t share a room.’

                ‘I won’t be breaking that to my mother at this point in time, Milly, so you might as well settle into the idea. What’s the problem anyway?’

                ‘The problem is that I don’t even know you...’

                ‘It wasn’t a problem when we were in Courchevel,’ Lucas pointed out with infuriating logic. ‘And frankly, thanks to your reckless habit of saying what you want and asking whatever questions you choose to ask, you probably know me a lot better than most.’ And that was a shocking revelation. But true. A certain, intangible unease snaked through him.

                ‘We weren’t sharing a bedroom there. We were sharing a mansion.’

                ‘But, on the upside, at least now you know that I’m not a homicidal maniac or a ski instructor on the lookout for a body to take to bed.’

                ‘I didn’t sign up for this.’

                ‘For what, exactly?’ His voice was silky smooth and those midnight-dark eyes watching her speculatively made her feel hot and tingly all over.

                All those forbidden thoughts that had crowded into her head from the very first moment she had laid eyes on him surfaced with frightening ease.

                Thoughts of him touching her, tasting her; crazy, stupid thoughts that were just the product of a fevered mind unbalanced by the trauma of a broken engagement.