Born to be Bad (International Bad Boys Book 3) (5 page)

Milly could not know, he assured himself, that in that moment he had thought he might love her.

M
illy woke curled
into Roman with her head on his chest and her body wrapped in his arms.

She waited for regret to descend.

It didn’t.

So she waited for the self-recriminations to start, yet she had never felt more pleased with a choice in her life.

Lifting her head, Milly looked over to the bedside clock and saw that in was close to six. Roman felt her stir and pulled her back down trying to get them both back to sleep but Milly knew that staff would soon be arriving en-mass.

“I have to leave . . . ”

“Stay a bit longer,” Roman mumbled.

Milly was tempted to but she shook her head. She really didn’t want to be seen leaving Roman’s room. “I’m going to have a quick shower and then I really do have to go. When we spoke about being discreet . . . ”

“Go and have your shower,” Roman said. He didn’t want to discuss money, a part of him just wanted her to stay, but last night had been a brief escape campaign. It was back to reality now and it was clear that she wanted to go. “I’ll take care of everything.” He lay there as Milly got out of bed and headed to the shower. Yesterday was starting to come back in pieces. The funeral, the cemetery, Isaak’s bombshell that he was going to marry Kate in a fortnight.

Milly.

Shit. He’d told her an awful lot.

The memory of last night’s sex was starting to make itself known too. Roman did his best not to think about it—he was more than a touch uncomfortable with how intimate he had been with another.

Roman climbed out of bed and headed to the wardrobe, the internal light came on as he opened the wardrobe door and he punched in the code to the safe.

Roman pulled out an inordinate amount of cash.

God, but she’d been worth it, he thought.

He closed up the wardrobe and wrote a note on a pad and left it beside the cash and then got back into bed and drifted back to sleep.

*     *     *

Milly had on
occasion, while working in Club, taken evening drinks and canapés to certain guests in the presidential suite.

She had never in her wildest dreams thought she might ever stay there.

Milly went through to the lounge and picked up all her discarded clothing, blushing at how bold she had been. She took her clothes into the bathroom. There were gorgeous scented shower gels and moisturisers to choose from. Milly didn’t want to leave with wet hair and so she stuffed her curls into a shower cap and then stepped beneath the huge shower head and soaped herself. The water was refreshing, she was sore and swollen from last night but still all the memory of it did was make her smile.

Stepping out, Milly wrapped herself in a towel and took off the shower cap and tried to arrange her very wild curls into some sort of shape.

Dressing, she wondered how things would be between her and Roman this morning. She was prepared for a touch awkward, after all, last night had been incredibly intimate.

Would he ask her not to leave again, Milly wondered?

And if he did, what would her answer be?

Milly smiled at her reflection in the mirror and viewed herself with a far less critical eye than usual—he had made her feel beautiful.

She stepped out into the darkened bedroom and tried to find her shoes without making too much noise.

“It’s by the bed,” Roman mumbled and Milly looked down to the floor but couldn’t see her shoes.

“Where?”

“On the bedside table,” Roman said and tried to push himself back deeper into sleep, because really Roman didn’t like the financial exchange that was taking place for last night.

Milly frowned and glanced at the bedside table, wondering what the hell her shoes could be doing there and then she saw what she hoped she didn’t see.

Her heart pounding, Milly flicked on the bedside light and there, neatly placed, was a very thick wad of cash with a little note beside it.

As she read it, she tried to swallow down a building scream.

You were amazing

Roman

He thought her a prostitute.

Milly stood there actually shaking with both anger and revulsion as everything,
everything
from last night was reduced to a fiscal exchange.

She wanted to throw the money at him, to wake him with a slap and then leave and she would, Milly decided, she damn well would!

Roman never really slept. Even all these years on, he was still hyper-vigilant and as he dozed he heard angry breathing and felt fury enter the bedroom, but he was no longer a frightened child or teenager, preparing to be hauled from his bed. Roman’s eyes snapped open and he turned, catching the hand that was about to slam into his face and holding Milly by the wrist, attempting to get his bearings and make sense of what was happening.

As he caught her wrist, in that split second, Milly knew for certain that she was out of her depth. She wasn’t scared that he was about to hit her, but there was more rage and terror in his eyes than she could begin to fathom and Milly knew she had to get the hell out.

“What are you doing . . . ” Roman demanded, and Milly decided it might be safer to lie than for him to know her pain.

“I was just going to give you a kiss,” Milly said in a voice that was shaken and breathless. “I told you—I have to go.”

“No kissing,” Roman said, releasing her wrist, embarrassed at being seen like this, deciding he must have been dreaming, but he had been certain he was about to be attacked. “Play time is over. Take your money and leave.”

Milly walked towards the elevator, blinded by tears as she stuffed the money in her bag and tried to neither break down nor throw up.

She pressed the button to take her to the ground floor and willed the elevator to appear, she was actually considering taking the emergency stairs. Adrenaline was coursing through her and she simply wanted as far away from the hotel as possible.

Stepping into the lift she leant against the brass rail and rested her head in her hands as she recalled the way he had held her, had kissed her and the things he had said as they had made love—it had never entered her head that Roman had thought her a whore.

The elevator doors opened on the sixteenth floor and when Milly tried to right herself and stand, she saw Simon and, confused, Milly frowned.

“Whoops, caught!” Simon smiled and stepped in.

“Are you working . . . ” She looked at Simon, his uniform was rumpled and he was, for once, unshaven and realization hit. As she recalled him flirting with a pilot last night, what had taken place between her and Roman became all the more sordid. Milly felt as if she had entered a world that she hadn’t properly known existed, but minus the rule book.

“Milly, angel . . . ” Simon’s smile was wiped away when he saw her look of utter devastation. “What on earth has happened?”

She didn’t want to tell Simon, Milly didn’t want to admit, even to herself, what had taken place last night, but agony was bubbling to the surface and as the doors closed behind Simon, she gave him an answer.

“Roman.”

Simon took in Milly’s swollen lips, the chaos of her curls and the trouble in her eyes and that one word response told him all he needed to know.

“Bastard,” Simon said and put his arm around her and when the elevator came to the ground floor he led her out and walked her to a cafe near the hotel. “You sit there. I’ll go and get us some coffee.”

He returned a few moments later and the hot, sweet coffee actually helped calm her shaking.

“I should never have left you,” Simon said but Milly shook her head.

“It wasn’t your fault. Truly,” she said when Simon shook his head. “It could have been after my shift at the elevators,” Milly admitted. “I’m so attracted to him, sometimes I take the stairs just to get away from him.” She could see it more clearly now. “He’d just have had to crook his finger and I’d have jumped.”

She started to cry and Simon let her for a moment before he simply had to ask. “Did he hurt you?”

“No,” Milly shook her head. “Well, not in the way that you mean . . . ”

“Did he force you?”

Milly shook her head again.

“He was completely lovely to me,” Milly said and watched as Simon frowned. “Clifford was being his sleazy self and Roman suggested that he leave and they nearly got into a fight. After Clifford had gone, we danced and . . . ” Milly gave a helpless shrug, she really didn’t want to go into too much detail but she took a breath and told Simon just how lovely Roman had been. “He said he’d been crazy about me for ages, that he’d come back from the funeral because he needed to be with me. We went back to his suite and we made love . . . ” Still Simon was frowning. “I got up the morning and . . . ”

“He ignored you?”

Milly shook her head.

“He was rough?”

“Not at first . . . ” She opened her bag and took out the wad of money and the sticky note and handed her shame to Simon, trying not to break down again. “He left this by the bed.”

“Oh, Milly, of course he did . . . ”

Milly blinked, she simply didn’t understand.

And then, Simon let out a little laugh when he read the note. “Oh, Milly, I’d have this framed and hanging on my wall but you’re not like me are you . . . ” He took her hand. “When you said he wasn’t rough at first, what do you mean?”

“He was asleep,” Milly explained. “I went to slap him but he caught my wrist. I told him I was just going to give him a kiss, I didn’t want him to know how embarrassed I was . . . ”

“Good girl,” Simon said.

“He told me that he didn’t need a kiss, that playtime was over and to get out.”

The sordid details of last night she needed experienced help with, but the fear in Roman’s eyes, that was something she felt was very private, and so Milly chose not to share that part, even as Simon had her recall what had happened.

“He said he wanted normal?” Simon checked and Milly nodded.

“Isaak’s wild, or at least he was,” Simon said, referring to his brother’s upcoming marriage. “But Roman—he’s bad.”

“He’s not though.” Milly insisted, thinking how tender he had been and the way they had danced.

“Milly, there are reports in the papers that the neighbours have said that he had a terrible row with his wife on the night she died. What sort of a man sends a pregnant woman running to her car and driving off so fast . . . ”

“No,” Milly shook her head she simply couldn’t accept that. “He wouldn’t hurt anyone.” Milly believed it, she believed it at her core.

“Roman’s normal in the bedroom is rough,” Simon explained. “I’ve heard some of the stuff that goes on in his suite and believe me, you got away lightly last night. To someone as dark as Roman is, making love is kink.”

Milly gave a tired nod, remembering his words as they had danced in the club but then she shook her head.

“He told me things though . . . ”

“What sort of things?”

“I don’t want to say, but things that he surely wouldn’t what to get out . . . ” She was still trying to make sense of it. “I guess he was drunk,” Milly said, but Simon shook his head and rammed home to Milly how she knew nothing about the world she had unwittingly entered last night.

“He paid you,” Simon said. “What’s said between the sheets stays there, if you
were
a tart and went spreading gossip then you’d never work again. Milly, I know it’s awful but it’s just the way it is. You read far too much into things last night.”

“I don’t know how to face him,” Milly admitted. “I’m going to have to quit . . . ”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Simon warned. “Don’t give that arrogant bastard the satisfaction of knowing that he broke your heart. Take the money and pay your rent for the next couple of months and buy yourself something nice and if he tries anything, just tell him you’re already booked.”

“I can’t . . . ” Milly begged.

“I thought you were an actress.”

“I’m not that good.”

“Become that good then,” Simon said. “Big girl pants on Milly. I’m going to get you another coffee and then we’re going to have a long talk. You know how to act, well it’s time to act tough and I’m going to tell you how.”