Born to be Bad (International Bad Boys Book 3) (9 page)

“You’re not happy though,” Catherine commented and Milly’s hand paused, mid stroke of the brush.

“Of course I am.”

“Milly?”

“I met someone,” Milly admitted. “He means an awful lot more to me than I do to him.”

“Maybe not.”

Milly smiled, she could throw away her mother’s rollers for ever if she told her mother, because it would certainly make her hair curl if she knew what Milly had been up to that night, and that she was still regretting that she hadn’t gone to him again.

Nothing took away the memory of Roman.

Lying in the bath, trying to brace herself to go to work that evening, she would have preferred a night spent at home, just to think of him. She knew he wasn’t going to be there tonight.

Simon had texted her during the week to tell her that Roman had checked out.

Milly hauled herself out of the bath and wrapped herself in a towel and wondered how she could possibly love a man who thought so very little of her.

When her phone rang Milly she picked it up hoping it was Simon to tell her that her shift had been cancelled, as often happened around this time.

It never entered her head that it might be Roman.

Until she heard the deep of his voice. “Milly?”

She didn’t respond at first. It would be easier, she knew, to simply turn her phone off, to block him, delete him, as her head told her to do.

Instead, she answered him with a question.

“How did you get my number?”

“Millicent Harper,” Roman said. “I watched you audition.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.” Milly burned in embarrassment that he had been there at the rehearsal, but was also touched that he had been there too.

How this man confused her, she wished he would let her go, leave her heart, let her carry on in the world without him. Yet now, he was dragging her back to the black vortex of his dangerous existence.

“How did you get my number, Roman?”

“I told my staff that I wanted you for one of my hotels and to head-hunt you and then give me your details.”

“You shouldn’t have done that.”

“By whose rule book? Anyway don’t your regular clients ring you?”

“Where are you?” Milly asked, evading the question.

“In Russia. So, don’t your clients call you?”

“Is it phone sex you want?”

Roman let out a low laugh. “Maybe later.”

“Well you’re out of luck, because I’m just getting ready for work.”

“What are you wearing?” Roman teased, but then his voice was serious. “I miss you tonight, I wish to God I was going to walk into Club and you were there.”

Milly wished for the same.

“Roman, what do you want? Are you drunk?”

“I’d love to be, but unfortunately I’m not. I just called Isaak on his honeymoon and told him that he really needs to think about visiting our father if he wants to see him before he dies.”

Milly sat down on the bed. “Do you think Isaak will?”

“I doubt it. He hates him.”

“Why did you visit him?” Milly asked.

“Am I being charged for this call?”

“You don’t have to pay to speak to me, Roman.”

“You’re not a very good business woman. Most charge by the minute.” He stopped teasing her then, he was simply too bleak. “I came to visit him because I wanted to know if he had a conscience. I always wondered if he would ever apologise for what he did to us. I never expected him to, but just now he did.”

Milly could feel tears pricking her eyes and safe that he couldn’t see her, she didn’t blink them back, they just quietly fell as Roman spoke on.

“He said, he would drink and then he would get more and more angry. He said that his temper would build until he beat my mother, or hauled us from our beds to do the same to us. I asked him why he got so angry and he told me today it was because he knew that we weren’t his sons.”

Milly said nothing, she was scared he might recognize that she was crying.

“Ivor, the man I always thought was my uncle, is our father.” He heard her sniff. “Are you crying?”

“I’ve got a cold,” Milly said. “Have you told Isaak?”

“Nope,” Roman said. “And I don’t know that I ever shall. I never wanted to be my father’s son, but there’s little solace when you find that the man you loved, was cheating with his brother’s wife . . . ”

“Roman,” Milly interrupted. “You don’t know the circumstances.”

“I don’t need to know them. So what, if Ivor sent for us when we were older? I always thought of him as our saviour. Instead, he left his lover and his own children to deal with boots and fists. I’ll never forgive him for that.”

“What about your father?” Milly asked.

“Boris or Ivor?” Roman asked. “I don’t know what to call them,” he admitted. “I don’t know who they were. I don’t know who I am.”

Milly sat silent—she simply didn’t know how to respond.

“Anyway,” Roman said. “That is not what I called you for. I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes?”

“About that night.”

She didn’t need to ask which one.

“I should have got around to this earlier,” Roman said. “But every time I think about that night, I only get so far and then something happens.” She heard the caress of his voice and very reluctantly Milly smiled as she realised he had moved from bereft to turned on. “Actually, it’s happening now.”

“Roman.” She wanted to tell him he was crude, disgusting, but she sat naked apart from a towel and she thought of him lying on a bed hard for her and all Milly was was turned on.

Just what did this man do to her?

“What are you wearing?” Roman asked and his voice had an edge that she recognized.

Milly said nothing.

“Can you lose whatever it is?” Roman asked. “Do you charge by the minute or by the come?”

Still Milly said nothing and Roman lay there smiling. She was the absolute reverse of Desdemona, for while she pleaded her innocence, Milly would rather have him believe she was a whore.

“Is this one for free?” Roman asked.

“Roman, please . . . ” Milly said, because over and over he messed with her head. “I have to go to work.”

“Fair enough. But before you go, as I said, I’ve been thinking about that night, and . . . ” Roman hesitated. How did he say it while letting her think he didn’t know her truth—that the evidence left on his sheet told him that it had been her first time? “There was a contraceptive malfunction.”

Milly frowned, she could remember putting the condom on, and really, these past weeks she had been just spinning from all that had happened.

“It tore,” Roman said. “I remember it rather well.”

Milly’s heart seemed to plummet, as her mind scrambled to do the math and remember when her last period had been.

Was it before Roman or after?

It was nearly three weeks since they had made love Milly realised and she was starting to seriously panic.

“Now, I just want to check you are okay, I’m not going to come in all heavy.” He hesitated. “Milly, after the disaster of my marriage you don’t have to worry that . . . ”

“I’ve got it covered,” Milly quickly said.

“Milly.” Roman was firm. “I just want you to know that if there are any repercussions from that night—”

“There aren’t.”

“You’re sure?”

“Very.”

“Good,” Roman said. “I can relax then.” He was lying on the bed in the most miserable hotel in the world after a draining day, and that he could lie there smiling to her voice was a revelation in itself. “You still haven’t told me what you’re wearing.”

Milly stared at the wall, her heart racing. “I have to go to work, Roman.”

“Stay home tonight. Get in to bed and we can talk for hours. Be with me tonight . . . ”

She could hear the slightly ragged note to his voice.

Her morals were gone with Roman.

She wanted to crawl into bed with wine, and be made love to over the phone. She wanted to lie back on the bed and follow every delicious instruction.

Had he not told her that she might be pregnant, then there was little doubt that she would have given him the contact he craved tonight even if killed her heart.

“Lose the clothes, baby,” Roman said. “Come to bed.”

Milly actually understood his need for escape now, because it would be so easy to lose herself now, to just run from her thoughts and hide under the sheets with Roman.

“What are you wearing?” Roman asked.

“A towel.”

“Drop it . . . ”

It had already fallen open.

“Lie on the bed.”

She already was, but only because she had to lie down as her head was reeling.

“Get on top of me, Milly . . . ”

She closed her eyes, to his breathless demands and so badly, she wanted to play his game, to lie there and touch herself to his fantasy. She wanted to escape with Roman, just one more time, to be with him in an intimate way as he faced the loneliest of time and before she acknowledged to herself the truth.

She might be having his baby.

Milly hauled herself back from edge.

“I have to go to work now.”

“Mill . . . .”

Milly cut him off mid-word. She simply ended the call and then turned off her phone and then stared up at the ceiling, and then did as Roman had asked and called in sick for work.

But instead of lying there and being caressed by his voice, Milly dashed to the shops and then came home and did what she had to.

Even before the indicator revealed its truth, Milly knew that she was.

Yes.

Milly was pregnant with Roman Zaretsky’s child, and, given all that had happened with Ava, she doubted that he’d welcome the news.

Boris Ivan Zaretsky died peacefully in his sleep with his sons by his side.

M
illy blinked back
tears as she read the obituary and knew some of the hurt behind the scant details.

First born son of the late Danya and Ivan Zaretsky. Husband of Annika (deceased) and brother to Ivor (deceased) Boris is survived by his sons Isaak and Roman.

Finally free.

Milly noted, the lack of the word
loving
husband and she knew some of the hell behind the words—finally free.

Yes, free from his demons perhaps.

Milly was proud of Roman and Isaak for somehow managing to be there for Boris in the weeks before he died.

Everything made her cry these days.

She knew that Roman had just returned from Russia—the newspapers had printed a small piece on him yesterday with a photo of him taken as he had arrived at Heathrow airport.

He looked terrible—unshaven and scowling he had almost hit the reporter who had asked if he had known that his wife wasn’t pregnant, or had the coroner’s findings been a surprise to him too.

Why couldn’t they just leave him alone, Milly thought?

It was as if they were goading him into some sort of a reaction. Couldn’t they see that he had already lost so much?

Milly put on her suit for work. The waistband was starting to bite and her top strained over her breasts.

It was her last night shift in Club.

Tomorrow it was the dress rehearsal and it was the opening night of Othello next Saturday.

They had been lovely when she had told them she was pregnant. Hannah, the wardrobe mistress had made her dresses a little looser, to hide any tell tale bulges and had assured her there was plenty of room to let them further out.

Milly was twelve weeks pregnant now and would be twenty weeks by the time the show was over, but the fact she wasn’t slim actually worked to her advantage, Hannah had assured.

Somehow, Milly knew, she had to find the courage to tell Roman that she was pregnant, but how? He was already trying to get over one wife who had trapped him with a false pregnancy. She truly couldn’t fathom his reaction when she told him that she was.

She shuddered to think what the press would make of it, Milly thought, looking again at the image of him and the caption beneath.

Lock up your wives, Roman Zaretsky’s back in town!

*     *     *

“They’re bastards,” Isaak
said when he rang his brother. “Just ignore them Roman, they want you to fight, they want your reaction . . . ”