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As Milly fell silent to take note of the waiter hovering, Lorenzo frowned and voiced their selections while also ordering wine.
‘How many times did you stand in for her?’ he asked bluntly when they were alone again.
‘The day of the accident would have been the fifth time but a couple of the times she used me it was simply a matter of me being seen entering or leaving a shop she was publicising,’ Milly revealed, worrying anxiously at her lower lip with her teeth. ‘But the last time? That was a big deal for me because I was to stay hidden in the hotel room she had booked for six days, which meant that I had to quit my job.’
‘I’ve since learned where she was planning to go,’ Lorenzo volunteered as the first course was delivered to the table. ‘Brooke was flying to Argentina.’
‘Argentina?’ Milly gaped. ‘Why Argentina?’
‘Presumably to meet up with Scott Lansdale, because he was filming on location there,’ Lorenzo supplied very drily.
‘Scott Lansdale themovie star?’ Milly whispered in a feverish hiss, both incredulous and ironically impressed by that famous name. ‘But he’s a married man!’
‘She was having an affair with him, probably in the belief that he would put her name forward for a part in his next film,’ Lorenzo explained flatly. ‘Brooke didn’t sleep with men out of love or lust. She picked men she expected to advance her career. If they didn’t deliver, she moved on.’
‘You say that as if it happened more than once during your marriage,’ Milly muttered with a frown, pushing away her glass when the wine arrived and opting instead for water.
‘It did. Sex was only another weapon in her arsenal. After the first time I caught her out and she lied about it, I never slept with her again. We were living entirely separate lives by the time I started the divorce,’ he completed.
‘So, the rumours about other men weren’t just gossipy stories like you first said they were?’ she pressed in dismay.
‘No, they weren’t,’ he confirmed steadily. ‘At the time I didn’t want to upset you by telling you the truth about our marriage...well, about my marriage with Brooke.’
Milly dropped her head, suddenly understanding so much more about Lorenzo. He had gone for a divorce as soon as he saw that his marriage was beyond saving. She could easily understand why he had initially steered clear of any further intimacy with her. ‘Why on earth did Brooke marry you in the first place?’ she pressed.
‘Her trust fund didn’t run to the designer clothes she adored and my wealth gave her unlimited spending power. Our marriage also propelled her up the social ladder, which gave her more opportunities to meet influential people in the film and television world.’
Milly swallowed hard. ‘You think that she never loved you, that she just used you for what you could provide?’
Lorenzo shrugged and thrust his big shoulders back into a more relaxed position. As he shifted lithely his jacket fell back from his chest and the edges parted to display lean muscles rippling below the fine shirt and Milly’s mouth ran dry as dust. ‘She betrayed me so early in our marriage that she couldn’t possibly have loved me. I never saw anything in her that made me think otherwise. I have to be truthful with you on that score. I didn’t hate her, I certainly didn’t wish her dead, but by the end of the first year when the marriage had died, I had few illusions about her character.’
As the main course was delivered, Milly breathed in slow and deep and thought of the way Lorenzo had looked after her after the accident, refusing to allow his own feelings to influence his attitude. That had taken an immense force of will and self-discipline that in retrospect shook her. But his strength and protectiveness had been powered purely by the mistaken conviction that she was his wife and deserving of his care.
‘I’m glad that you felt that you could finally tell me the truth,’ she confessed, wondering how the heck they had strayed so far from her intent to tell him that she was carrying his child. However, she didn’t believe a public setting was suitable for such a revelation and resolved to tell him only when he had taken her home again.
‘Hopefully that’s cleared the air. Now, perhaps you’ll tell me what was toopersonalto discuss with my lawyers,’ Lorenzo murmured smoothly.
Her heart started beating very fast inside her chest, depriving her of breath, but she shook her head vehemently. ‘I’ll tell you as soon as I get home.’
His ebony brows pleated. ‘Why the secrecy?’
‘I don’t want you to feel constrained by our surroundings,’ she admitted stiffly.
When they stepped out of the restaurant, immediately flashbulbs burst all around them, blinding and startling her. As shouted questions were aimed at them like bullets by the paparazzi, Lorenzo curved a protective hand to her spine and urged her unhurriedly in the direction of the car.
‘For goodness’ sake, we shouldn’t have come out together in public!’ Milly gasped, stricken, in the back of the limousine. ‘Why did you risk it? Before you know it, I’ll have been identified.’
‘And so what if you are?’ Lorenzo incised impatiently between clenched teeth. ‘Neither of us has done anything wrong and nobody knows what happened between us. It’s nobody else’s business either. But I do believe that it’s past time for this relationship to come out of the closet and be seen.’
Taken aback by that far-reaching statement that suggested that they stillhada relationship, Milly climbed breathlessly out of the limo and accompanied him into the lift. He leant back against the wall, all lean, sinuous male, his beautiful dark golden eyes intent on her, and desire clenched low in her pelvis, dismaying her because she had believed that she had better control than that.
‘I’m not used to you keeping secrets from me,’ he confessed. ‘You were always very open.’
Milly recalled how she had told him that she loved him and barely restrained a wince at the recollection of how trustingly naïve she had been in those early days. ‘I haven’t changed but maybe I’ve learned a little more discretion,’ she parried.
They emerged from the lift into the shadowy foyer of the apartment. Lorenzo strode ahead of her to hit the lights. Milly forged on into the lounge, leaving him to follow.
‘So now...’ Lorenzo drawled with wry amusement. ‘I gather it’s finally time forthe big reveal.’
