George pulled her to his side again, his arm around her shoulders. “Canyousee the house from here? Because if you can’t see them, how can they see us?”
“If someone were to stand on the roof.” She could just see the cast stone balustrade on the edge of the parapet.
“At six in the morning?” He was highly amused by her worries. “Millie you’re a twenty-eight-year-old woman, you’ve already been married for ten years and nearly divorced, and it’s the twenty-first century. I think it’s all right if you have asex life.”
“Yes, but until we’re dating officially, this just looks like…” She didn’t know how to explain.
In reality, she was also not entirely at ease with the tentative nature of this relationship. Why couldn’t they date officially?
“Looks like what?” he asked, placing a soft kiss on hercheekbone.
She decided to change the subject. “And I’m not twenty-eight. I’ll be twenty-nine ina month.”
George stopped walking to look at her. A slow smile widened across his handsome face. “What would you like for yourbirthday?”
The respect of being acknowledged, of not being a secret girlfriend. She kept the thought to herself, but she underestimated him.
George turned her around to face him. The sea, clear blue, sparkled in the morning sunlight behind him. “Millie, what’s wrong?” His eyes searchedher face.
She didn’t want to answer; there was no way she could explain what she really felt without sounding whiny.
“Millie?” He stroked a finger down her cheek and tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear. “Whatever it is, you cantell me.”
“I’m not sure how to say it.”
“Say it whichever way. I’ll do my best to understand.”
“I sometimes feel—no, not sometimes, just the last day—I feel as if I’m having an affair, like I’m a secretmistress.”
The beautiful grey eyes sparkled silver. George pulled her into a fierce hug. “Oh, Millie Summers, you are going to be the death of me.” He laughed softly into her hair. “It is I who’s having the affair. Your divorce hasn’t come through yet.”
“Are youserious?”
“I don’t want to be the kind of man who takes a married woman from her husband. I’m not my father.”
Millie extracted herself from his arms. “You’re hardly taking me from him, and my divorce is done, bar theshouting.”
“Then I’d prefer to wait for ‘the shouting.’ When do you get your decreeabsolute?”
“Any day now.” She thought for a second. “Tenth of August,I think.”
George resumed walking, his hand warm on her shoulder, his thumb rubbing her collarbone under her sleeveless blouse. “So if it’s just a couple of weeks, I’d sooner wait. And after that, we’re free to date openly.”
“It’s a bit rich coming from you. Two days ago you had, er... other entanglements?”
“But I’m now untangled.”
“Yeah.” That other unknown woman was now nursing a broken heart. Millie could imagine all too clearly how losing George would break her own heart. “I’m sorry about that,” she said again, with feeling.
“Millie, you never stop surprising me. Why are you sorry?”
“You’re not the only one with scruples. I don’t like to break up someone else’s relationship.”
“You didn’t break us up. I did. I ...” A seagull flew up from the marina and landed on the wall in front of their feet. They stopped, waiting for it to fly away. “I have issues with women.”
She laughed. “Is this supposed to reassure me?”
He was staring at the seagull. “What I mean is, I have issues withneedywomen. I’m tired of always being the answer to someone else’s needs.”
