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‘Well, that’s the thing about dreams, isn’t it? They don’t always turn out so well in reality. All the money in the world didn’t save our marriage, did it?’ Millie found it hard to think about that time. She turned to stare out of the window, trying not to think of how ecstatically happy she’d been. ‘It wasn’t real, was it? Those early days when we first met—it was like living in a bubble. We got married in a hurry without thinking through what we both wanted.’
‘I knew what I wanted. I thought you did, too.’
‘I suppose I didn’t know what it was all going to involve.’
‘Did it occur to you to talk to me about how you were feeling?’
‘When?’ Millie looked at him. ‘You were always working. And when you weren’t—well, you weren’t that approachable. You were stern—’
‘And intimidating—yes, I got that message.’ Leandro seemed unusually tense. ‘Just for the record, I had no idea you found me intimidating,’ he said gruffly. ‘Is that why you scurried out of the shop like a fugitive when you saw me arrive?’
‘Partly. I wasn’t expecting to see you.’
‘You need notice?’
Millie touched her jeans self-consciously. ‘I would have dressed up.’
His gaze slid down her body. ‘You have fantastic legs. You look sexy in those jeans.’
Her heart danced. ‘I—I thought you’d prefer me in a dress.’ And she didn’t wear dresses any more.
‘You look sexy in everything. And nothing.’ His velvety remark brought a blush to her cheeks and she felt slightly sick because she knew something that he didn’t.
‘What were you doing in the shop, anyway?’
‘Looking for you.’
‘Why not just wait for me in the house?’
Leandro drew in a breath. ‘I had no reason to believe you’d be returning to the house.’
‘You thought I’d run?’
‘Yes.’ He was characteristically direct. ‘Do you blame me? It’s what you did the last time. It’s understandable that I’d be concerned that you won’t do it again. Maybe it’s time I introduced a little gentle bondage into our relationship,’ he said softly. ‘You were so innocent when I met you, I never did introduce you to the possibilities of velvet handcuffs. They might come in useful.’
A disturbingly erotic vision played across her brain and Millie felt the slow burn of awareness inside her. Everything she knew about sex, she’d learned from him. And he was a master. ‘I’m not innocent any more. You took care of that.’
‘We’d barely begun, agape mou.’ Leandro relaxed in his seat, a dangerous smile playing around his mouth. ‘But things will be different this time. This time we’re going to talk.’ He studied her, his dark eyes resting on her curling hair and then sliding to her faded jeans and her scuffed trainers. ‘Today you look exactly the way you looked when I first met you.’
That bad?
Millie opened her mouth to apologise and then stopped herself. She’d spent a year trying to accept the way she was and she wasn’t going to let him undo all that good work. She wasn’t going to let being with him hammer holes in her confidence.
Self-conscious, she lifted a hand to her hair and then let it drop because she knew that it was going to take far more than a few tweaks of her fingers to turn her into a svelte groomed version of herself. She didn’t need a mirror to know that her hair was curling wildly, falling past her shoulders in ecstatic disarray, as if relieved to have been given a break from her endless attempts to tame it.
It was a good job he worked so hard, she thought, biting back a hysterical laugh. It had taken her almost an entire day to tame her hair into the sleek, groomed look, apply her makeup, choose the right outfit.
‘I’m dressed like this because I was shopping with the baby,’ she said defensively. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you.’
‘It’s lucky for you I found you…’ Leandro stroked his fingers down the back of her neck ‘…or you’d currently be trying to talk your way out of shoplifting charges.’
‘How did you find me?’
‘My security team have inserted a tracking device into Costas’s pram.’
‘They what?’ Millie looked at him in astonishment. ‘Are you mad?’
‘No, I’m security conscious. Which is more than you are.’ Leandro’s mouth tightened. ‘Maledizione, do you ever think, Millie? You are my wife. And you’re walking around the streets pushing this baby in his pram. This baby with whom the whole world appears obsessed.’
