Modern Romance March 2015 Collection 2. Jane Porter

fluttered. ‘Why me?’

      ‘Sorry?’ Milly dragged her addled brain into some sort of functioning order and frowned.

      ‘You’re hopelessly romantic...’

      ‘Not hopelessly.’

      ‘Romantic enough for me to wonder why you would choose your first experience to be with me, under these circumstances. I’m curious as to why you didn’t sleep with the man you presumed you were going to marry but you were happy to hop in the sack with a guy you definitely won’t be ending up with.’

      ‘I haven’t sat down and analysed it but...I guess, maybe, I just needed...’

      ‘A tonic? A pick-me-up? And I happened to be the nearest suitable medication to hand? Wasn’t the ex man enough to entice you into bed?’

      ‘The ex didn’t fancy me,’ Milly said bluntly. ‘So he didn’t put much effort into trying.’

      ‘And you didn’t bother to try either.’

      ‘I...’ I was never the sort of girl to make the first move. Yet she had made the first move with Lucas, hadn’t she? Was it because she’d had nothing to lose? Or was it because she had never grasped the full meaning of lust until she’d met him?

      ‘I suppose I was waiting for the big night.’ In love with the thought of being in love, but she’d never fancied Robbie. Lucas had shown her that; lust and love were two separate things, miles apart. She stared at his lean, dark face for a few disorientated seconds. ‘You’re right. Stupidly romantic. This is real life. Maybe subconsciously that’s what I wanted, to connect with real life...’

      ‘A man could be hurt.’

      ‘I can’t picture you ever being hurt. I mean, so hurt that you wanted to cry.’

      ‘Oh, Milly. The things you come out with. So, ironically, we’re lovers for real but still on course for self-destruction...’ He brushed his fingers over her nipple, which hardened in fast response. ‘Shall we think about how we do that while we rediscover each other again...? Or maybe we’ll have to do the thinking after the rediscovery has finished...because I guarantee you won’t be thinking when we’re making love...’

      * * *

      Lucas pushed himself away from his desk and restively strolled towards the bank of windows that overlooked the city. He was back in London, back in his towering office, back in the thick of it. This was his reality. The two-and-a-half weeks spent with his mother playing Romeo to Milly’s Juliet had been a mirage, flimsy and insubstantial, easily blown away after a fortnight. Then, business as usual.

      So what the heck had happened?

      He raked fingers through his hair frustratedly and silently cursed himself for letting things get out of hand. It was a mess. They had returned to London, his mother none the wiser that their relationship, whilst it had become physical, was just a sham. Marriage was not on the cards. Longevity was not on the cards.

      But that was nearly two months ago and now...

      Entrenched. And in a place from which an exit had to be made. Accustomed as he was to making the most of a bad situation, Lucas decided that this was something from which a positive could be drawn. Perhaps it had been foolish to imagine that he could take Milly to Spain and, in the space of a mere week or two, manage to convince his very astute mother that their brief romance was drawing to its sad but inevitable close.

      Wasn’t it better this way? The relationship had lasted long enough for its demise to be more credible. They had got to know one another and unfortunately familiarity had bred contempt. His mother would not have witnessed the decline in their relations. It would be easy to report back that they were no longer an item. Disappointment all round, but that was life.

      He prowled restlessly through his vast office. It was late. He was probably the last man standing in the office. Milly, now settled into her new apartment and her new job, was having an evening out with her new colleagues. A drink at some pub somewhere with a meal to follow.

       What colleagues?

      Lucas impatiently pushed away any line of pointless speculation. It was good that she was making lots of friends. So what if some of them were men? It was to be expected. She had smartened up her act when it came to her dress code. He had, she had told him more than once, given her confidence in the way she looked, in her body. She had had a ritual getting rid of most of her old clothes, which, much to his amusement, she had insisted in showing him piece by deplorable piece. He had never seen such a vast collection of shapeless items of clothing in one place in his life before. Then she had dragged him out shopping.

      He gritted his teeth at the thought of some guy seeing her in some of the stuff they had bought together. The red dress with the plunging back; the tight black jeans; hell, some of the sexy underwear...

      He only had himself to blame for the situation he now found himself in. He had known from the very beginning that she was vulnerable. He had known that she was the sort of romantic who got lost in house and garden magazines and gazed longingly into the windows of bridal shops. She had a strong nesting instinct and was a home-maker by nature. She had loved cooking for him and he, who had never allowed any woman the privilege of cosy home-cooked meals in his kitchens, had found himself trying out new recipes and working while she sat cross-legged next to him, watching rubbish on television.

      Was it any wonder that she had fallen in love with him? Was it any wonder that she had risen to the futile challenge of trying to make him see that his teenage error of judgement was just a little something that ‘true love’ could overcome?

      Before she had even told him, he had known. She wasn’t good when it came to hiding things. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and he had seen it in her eyes but had chosen to ignore it because he enjoyed her company and the sex was better than brilliant.

      But he wasn’t going to marry her and just the thought of being the object of her love, just the memory of those hopeful, trusting, adoring eyes on him, filled him with a sense of claustrophobia.

      Love was for fools. He had learnt that the tough way. She knew that and if she had chosen to ignore it, then, hell!

      The long and short of it was that he had taken his eye off the ball...and now...

      He made his mind up, grabbed his jacket and left the office before he had time for any weakness to seep in.

      * * *

      He, of course, had a key to the apartment. It was his, after all; why wouldn’t he? On a couple of occasions, he had left work early and headed straight there, letting himself in and working until she returned.

      In a short space of time, she had made inroads into the decor. The perfectly cool, bland apartment now bore just the sort of homey touches that should have warned him that she was settling into it, just as she was settling into him.

      Pictures on the mantelpiece. Scraps of paper with handy recipe titbits pinned to the stainless steel American-style fridge-freezer with jokey magnets. Lots of flowers because, she told him, it had always been her grandmother’s habit to fill the rooms with things from outside. Good Feng Shui, apparently. He had laughed and drily told her that he had lived quite happily without such touches in his own place. She had suggested some kind of water feature; he had firmly squashed that idea, but he suspected that its absence was only short lived.

      He had to wait for over an hour and a half before he heard the turn of the key in the door and, in that hour and a half, his mind had been everywhere but on work. For once, the joys of deal making had failed in its duty to distract him.

      ‘Where’ve you been?’ was his opening question as she entered the sitting room and Milly started, then smiled as her breathing returned to normal.

      He had been on her mind all evening. So she had told him, just blurted it out; she hadn’t been able to help herself. She had fallen in love with him and it had been just too big a deal for her to keep inside. She didn’t