was almost on the pavement outside when her tearful voice pleaded her case. ‘You cannot walk out like this…We made love last night—please talk to me.’
Which was a pretty good case to plead, Millie thought, as with a grim half-smile Levander excused himself and led the dark beauty to a corner of the lobby—leaving Millie to stand making polite small talk with the doorman. Her cheeks burned with humiliation—not just because of the paper tissue way he clearly treated women, not just because she was obviously the next one in the box, but because of the very fact she wasn’t walking away.
It was hell to watch.
Like some gory bit in a film, where you wanted to peek from behind a cushion, it was just horrible, listening to her plead her case, begging him for another chance, promising to change and more. But far worse for Millie was Levander’s response—not cool and detached, as she’d expected, instead he bordered on sympathetic, seeming understanding of her plight even as he patiently explained why he hadn’t returned her calls and reiterated what he had already told her—that it was over.
Still, when her glittering eyes fell on Millie, when a few choice words were said, his Latina lover must have crossed Levander’s questionable line of moral conduct—because he stalked off, taking Millie firmly by the arm and leading her out onto the street.
‘Levander…’ the brunette sobbed. ‘We need to talk.’
‘What is the point?’ Levander snarled, and never had his Russian accent been more pronounced as he bundled Millie into a taxi. ‘When you’re too drunk to remember what was said in the morning?’
‘I’m sorry you had to see that.’ They’d ended up at St Kilda Beach, and as they wandered along the foreshore it was the first time since the incident that either of them had spoken.
‘Perhaps it’s better that I did,’ Millie answered tightly—the sobbing spectacle had been a rather timely reminder of what she’d almost let herself in for.
‘We went out for a few weeks—but we were having problems…’
‘Clearly you weren’t having too many problems last night,’ she sniffed.
He had the nerve to laugh at her response. The bloody nerve to laugh!
‘Stop it,’ Millie demanded. ‘That’s completely irredeemable….’ Only it wasn’t; Levander was so unashamedly bad, his behaviour so utterly and completely reprehensible, that inexplicably after a moment or two Millie was laughing too. Oh, not out loud laughing—but a very reluctant smile was wobbling on her lips as he took her in his arms. The whole thing was so awful, so far from anything she’d ever experienced, it was either that…
…or cry.
‘Millie, I do not as a rule have…er…problems in that department. But Carla was wrong when she said we had made love last night.’
‘I don’t need the details…’
‘In fact, though last night wasn’t lacking in physicality, I could say that Carla and I, while we enjoyed each other, never “made love”.’
‘Please.’ Millie closed her eyes against his gaze—because that wasn’t the concern right now. Here she stood, with the most beautiful man she had ever met, listening as he told her, quite clearly, that he, unlike others, had no trouble separating sex from love—which should make perfect sense. After all, nestled in the club, feeling his legs pressing against her, all she had wanted was him, and love surely hadn’t entered the equation…
Love couldn’t have entered the equation because she barely knew him…
And yet…
Troubled eyes opened on his—and he was still there, still just as divine, still just as confusing.
‘I am sorry…’ His breath mingled with hers, his lips a mere fraction away, and she stiffened, terrified of the dizzying effect he had on her. But somehow she didn’t relax when he broke contact—when, extremely frustratingly, he became the perfect gentleman.
He talked politely as they walked towards the pier, occasionally taking her elbow when the moon dipped behind a cloud. Millie couldn’t decide if she was either totally misreading the signs and he didn’t fancy her a jot, if he was literally giving her a guided tour of Melbourne, or he was an absolute master in seduction. But by the time they neared the pier every cell in her body was quivering, every nerve taut with arousal. The skin on her bare arms flared as he took her forearm and turned her around. Surely now, Millie begged to herself, her lips aching with want, surely now he would kiss her. Only his simmering tease wasn’t quite over. Turning the burner down just a touch, even as Millie’s want bubbled near the edge, he guided her back into a public place.
It was the strangest place to bring someone.
A seamy café in the red light district of Melbourne—a rather odd choice for a date. But Levander, Millie realised, truly seemed to fit in anywhere. Whether at an exclusive bar or an all-night café, he had that supreme confidence combined with something else that Millie couldn’t quite define. The café’s owner greeted him by name as Levander guided her to a table and then went over to order. As she sat, anxious and awkward amidst the tired sex workers who were taking a well-earned break, the street kids trying to make one coffee last for ever, Millie wondered why the hell he’d brought her here. How anyone could relax in a place like this was beyond her.
‘The coffee is great here,’ Levander said, as if in answer, placing two steaming mugs and two large cakes on the table. ‘I come her sometimes when I cannot sleep—not for that reason.’ He smiled at her disapproving expression. ‘It actually reminds me of home. There was an all-night café opposite the…’He hesitated just a fraction and Millie frowned. ‘There was a café like this opposite where I lived. Sometimes when I cannot sleep I come here and watch the sun rise; it is a good place for thinking.’
‘But surely…?’ Millie started, and then stopped herself. But Levander clearly guessed what was on her mind—surely this was the last place a person could relax.
‘They are good people too, Millie. They have to work, like all of us. You should not be so quick to judge.’
‘I wasn’t,’ Millie answered indignantly, and then felt guilty—because that was exactly what she had been doing. She had looked around her with less than an open mind.
‘It is rare that anyone disturbs me—they value their time alone, and they seem to respect that I value mine. And, as I said, the coffee is good.’
‘So are these,’ Millie said, finally relaxing a bit now, biting into the pastry and closing her eyes as the cool sweet custard melted on her tongue. ‘So, what do you sit here and think about?’
‘At the moment—work.’
‘Because you’re so busy?’
‘Because I am thinking of leaving.’
‘Oh.’ Pastry forgotten, it hovered in her hand as Millie’s eyes widened. ‘What do your family say?’
‘I haven’t told them yet.’ He gave a small smile as her pastry dropped to the table when Millie realised she was actually the only person privy to this particular plan. ‘And it is not a prospect I relish. They will tell me I have commitments—they won’t want to lose me. I have saved the company from ruin and made them plenty of money since I came.’
‘How?’ Millie asked. ‘How did you save it?’
He didn’t answer at first—made no secret of the fact he was weighing her up, deciding whether or not he should answer. But after what seemed like a lifetime he nodded, inviting her a shade deeper into his magical circle, and Millie leant in gratefully—not so much for what she might hear, but because perhaps he had decided to reveal more of himself to her.
‘That is for another time.’
‘There can’t be another time…’ She almost wept with frustration at his tease,