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The hot liquid spilled over his arm and he cursed fluently, hopping backwards and glaring at her.
‘Don’t you dare use bad language in front of my child,’ Millie snarled, but she was shaking so badly she could hardly speak. And she had no idea what to do. The crowd was building by the minute and she was trapped.
Seeing the determination in their eyes, she did the only thing she could do.
Still holding Costas protectively, she dragged her phone out of her pocket and called Leandro.
She’d expected him to be furiously angry with her for leaving, but instead their interchange was brief and to the point as he demanded to know her exact location and then ordered her to stay where she was and not move.
Looking at the pack of journalists pressing in on her, Millie gave a strangled laugh. Move? How?
Leandro arrived shortly after, the fact that he was unshaven simply adding to the aura of menace that shimmered around his muscular frame as he strode into the small coffee shop.
Radiating power and authority, Leandro said something to the journalists that she didn’t catch, but it clearly had an effect because they fell back and a few of them melted away into the station. Millie thought she even heard one of them mutter an apology, but she couldn’t be sure.
Wishing she had a morsel of Leandro’s presence, she stood up shakily and lowered Costas into the pram, still shielding him from the cameras with her body.
‘Is this all you brought?’ Leandro picked up her bag, his handsome face taut and unsmiling as he gathered her things.
‘Bag, pram, car seat,’ Millie muttered, wondering whether she should have just taken her chances with the journalists. ‘I’m not coming home with you.’
‘We’re not discussing this here.’ He scooped up the car seat in his other hand and stood aside to let her pass. ‘Let’s move, before we attract any more attention.’
‘Is it possible to attract any more attention than this?’
Her remark drew a faint smile from him. ‘Believe it or not, yes.’
‘I didn’t think they had much of a story,’ she murmured, and Leandro looked at her with naked exasperation.
‘You just gave them a story, Millie. Don’t you know anything about the media?’
‘No. Just as I don’t know anything else about your life. Now do you see why our marriagewon’t work?’ Angry with herself for doing something so stupid, humiliated and close to despair, she stalked towards the entrance. Only then did she see the four bulky men from Leandro’s security team positioned there.
Wondering why he’d tackled the journalists himself instead of using the heavyweights he’d brought with him, Millie walked through them with as much dignity as she could muster. Which wasn’t much.
For a woman who didn’t want any attention, she wasn’t doing very well, she thought miserably, her face flaming with embarrassment as, protected by a circle of male testosterone, she moved through the now crowded station.
People stopped walking and stared and she could almost hear them wondering why a woman who looked like her required an entourage to keep her safe.
As she walked through the front of the station she would have paused but Leandro’s palm was in her back, urging her towards the sleek dark car parked in the no parking zone.
As she slipped inside, the doors locked and the driver pulled away, the security team following in a different vehicle.
Millie braced herself for confrontation, but Leandro said nothing. Instead he drew his phone out of his pocket and made a single call, speaking in rapid Greek.
Moments later the car sped through the gates of his drive, through the private courtyard and straight into the garage. From there they were able to walk into the house without being seen while Leandro’s driver used the car lift to take the car down to the basement garage.
Millie stood in the stunning double-height entrance atrium, lit by the skylight far above. She felt small and insignificant and wondered how Costas could possibly still be asleep after so much drama.
Leandro put her bag down in the hallway, left his staff to deal with the pram and gave instructions for the nanny to take charge of the baby. Then he propelled Millie into the beautiful conservatory that wrapped itself around the back of his enormous house.
The room was full of exotic plants, but Millie was too despondent to derive any comfort from the beauty of her surroundings.
‘You left again.’ His tone was raw and she flinched, wondering why he even cared.
‘I didn’t leave the baby,’ she muttered. ‘I left you. You want me to overlook the fact that you’re going to have affairs, but I won’t do that, Leandro. I won’t grow old and grey watching while you play around with other women. Maybe that’s what other Greek wives do, but I couldn’t live like that.’
‘Play around with other women? When did I say I wanted to play around with other women?’ He looked stunned by the suggestion and she lifted her chin defensively.
