Modern Romance March 2015 Collection 2. Jane Porter

they had been in the sitting room.

      ‘Your mother’s really lovely,’ Milly admitted. ‘It’s going to be a shame when she has to face up to the fact that you’re so obnoxious that no one in their right mind would ever put up with you.’

      Lucas looked down to see whether she was joking, but her expression was thoughtful and earnest.

      ‘There are times when I can’t actually believe that I’m hearing what you say correctly.’

      Milly stopped and looked at him with a little frown. ‘Do you have any idea how arrogant you were when you led me to believe that you were someone you weren’t? I may only have been the chalet girl, but you just didn’t see why you should be honest with me. For a start, you assumed that I was the sort of low life who would be out to see what I could get if I knew you were rich, and then you just didn’t give a damn if you weren’t honest. You didn’t care about my feelings at all. I know you had one bad experience with a gold-digger but that’s no excuse to just assume that everyone falls into the same category, guilty until proved innocent.’

      ‘How did your feelings have anything to do with...anything at all?’

      ‘You barely apologised for having duped me,’ Milly told him flatly.

      Where had that come from? Lucas, frustrated, raked his fingers through his hair and stared at her, lost for words.

      ‘You just assumed that it was okay because you can do what you want to do without bothering to consider other people.’

      ‘Is this conversation going anywhere?’ he questioned in a driven voice. He glared at the maid, who seemed to be suppressing a smirk.

      ‘I’m projecting...’

      ‘You’re what? I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

      ‘I’m projecting ahead to when you mother sadly discovers what a selfish, self-centred guy you’ve turned out to be.’

      ‘I’m guessing she’s probably wised up to those traits a while ago,’ Lucas said drily, eyebrows raised. ‘And, while we’re on the subject of scrupulous honesty and caring about the feelings of others, have you mentioned to your grandmother what’s going on in this part of the world?’

      Milly flushed. ‘I didn’t see any point in worrying her by going into details.’ It wasn’t as though this was going to be a long-term situation. Two weeks—three, absolute max—he had told her when she had agreed to his plan. In those weeks, even if a dramatic break-up hadn’t been staged, they should have covered the important phase of their fairy-tale romance revealing shaky foundations.

      In those couple of weeks, he had privately thought, his mother would put to bed all ideas of trying to see him settled with the woman of her dreams. She would kill off notions of fairy-tale romances insofar as they pertained to him and she would resign herself to cheerful acceptance that what he wanted out of life, emotionally, was a far cry from what she thought would do him good.

      She was his mother and he indulged her but, at the end of it, it was his life and he would choose its outcome whether or not it flew in the face of her ideals. This exercise in harmless fiction would be a gentle learning curve for her.

      ‘I’m only going to be here for a short while and, when I return to London and my life’s all sorted out, maybe then I’ll let her in on some of the details.’

      ‘You honestly think your life’s going to be all sorted out when you return to London?’

      ‘You said that...’

      Lucas waved aside her predictable cry of protest. He had offered to have a formal agreement drawn up listing the conditions of this arrangement, what she would be given at the end of it, but she had airily told him that that wouldn’t be necessary.

      ‘I’m not talking about the job and the accommodation and the money, Milly. I’m talking about your blind faith in life always turning out for the best.’

      ‘I don’t have to listen to this.’ She turned away and felt his hand gently stay her.

      ‘If my mother’s long overdue a little learning curve, then you should take this opportunity to put in place one of your own. Reality doesn’t disappear because you decide that you’d quite like it to.’ He nodded to the maid, who had tactfully moved to stare through one of the sprawling windows on the landing, ears blocked to any conversation—although Milly didn’t think she spoke a word of English, so that probably was a step too far when it came to fulfilling her unspoken duties.

      Milly watched, mouth open in anger, as he sauntered off, once again speaking Spanish, once again making the maid giggle. The maid might have been an old retainer well into her sixties, but it was obvious that he could still work the charm offensive on her.

      Which was something he couldn’t be bothered doing in her case.

      How dared he think that he could bring his jaundiced views to bear on her life?

      Placid by nature, she could scarcely credit the fury bubbling up inside her as her brain began functioning once again, and she tripped along behind him, barely paying attention to the magnificent surroundings.

      The house was in the style of a rambling ranch. A short flight of stairs led up to the first floor, which, like the floor below, was wooden-floored, the wood gleaming from years of polish.

      The corridor opened out in places into small sitting areas and curved round in other places, leading to nooks and crannies, various bedrooms and sitting rooms. It should have been disjointed and higgledy-piggledy but in fact there was an attractive coherence about the honeycomb nature of the layout, something whimsical and charming.

      A lot of light poured in, thanks to large windows at regular intervals, a couple of which were fashioned of stained glass so that the bright sunlight was refracted into thousands of splintered shapes.

      Through the windows, as she marched along in Lucas’s wake, she could see extensive lawns and the bright turquoise of a swimming pool.

      She stopped behind Lucas as the maid disappeared into one of the bedrooms and she hovered, arms folded, still simmering.

      ‘Good news and bad news.’

      ‘Huh?’ Snapping out of her reverie, Milly focused on his swarthy, handsome face. He leaned against the doorframe, the very picture of cool elegance.

      ‘The good news is that it’s a vast bedroom, complete with two sofas. There are even twin wardrobes. The bad news is that we’re sharing it.’

      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