The words were barely out of his mouth when Millie started laughing again. She slipped out from under his arm and ran a few steps ahead, startling the seagull into flight. Then she sat down on the wall, stilllaughing.
“I’m sorry,” she said between giggles. “This is so sad.”
“I can tell; your whole body is shaking with gigglesof grief.”
“Sorry, nervous laughter.” She wipedher eyes.
He went over and joined her, sitting on the edge, both their feet hanging a little above the water. “I’m glad my dating troubles amuse you.”
“It’s just that you throw sunflower seeds at the ground and wonder why big yellow plants come up in May.” She leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his lips. “If you will insist on offering help, on rescuing ladies all the time, how on earth are you going to attract self-sufficient women?”
“I don’tinsiston helping.” He didn’t. Did he?
Millie tilted her head. “Think of the first day we met. You were rushing to catch a flight, but you spent half an hour ordering me tea and parking my car. The second time we met, you advised me not to sleep in the sun and carried me off a rock.”
“You’d have preferred me to let you fall face down, Isuppose?”
“The time after that, you offered me legal assistance. You wanted not only to take Henry to the cleaners but to kill him. And when I was late in Blue Sage Bay, you dropped everything and came looking for me.”
He hit his forehead with the heel of his hand in aeurekagesture. “I had no idea I behaved so badly. What an arsehole? You should leave me immediately.”
It produced the desired effect. She reached up and kissed him again, another of her quick kisses. But this time, before she could stop, he grabbed her and held her closer.
The woman had the most kissable lips in the world. He parted them with the tip of his tongue and tasted her mouth. That’s why he’d stayed another day. That’s why he’d cancelled two flights and kept his office waiting. Because she tasted of sunlight, and morning and spring and summer and, he deepened the kiss—she tasted of love andhappiness.
She pulled away with a nervous glance behind her towardsthe house.
“Why are you so worried about being seen with me?” he joked, but a part of his mind was stuck on the thought. Love and happiness? Did he really just use the L word? What was happening to him?
“No, it’s not you.” Millie’s voice brought him back from the uneasy thought. “It’s just—what will they think?”
“Who?” he asked, glad to change the subject.
“Mrs B, Joanie,everyone.”
“Everyone in the house isn’t going to be so rude as to question you or me about something we have not chosen to tell them. It’s ourbusiness.”
“I couldn’t bear it. Please, George. I couldn’t work with your father knowing he thought me some floozy who slept with her boss’s son behind his back. And no”—she touched her fingers to his lips to stop the words he was about to speak—“before you say anything else, please, accept that itishow I feel even if you don’t understand it.”
Actually, he did understand it. He understood it very well, and it was his fault. He was confusing her with his delaying excuses about waiting for her divorce. True, he never wanted to be another Du Montfort who slept with other men’s wives, but this was hardly the case here. And it wasn’t the real reason he didn’t want to make a publicstatement.
What he wanted to do—and he’d lain in bed thinking about it half the night—was take Millie with him to London. Not something to jump into lightly before silencing his doubts. Not doubts about Millie; he trustedhercompletely. It was himself he doubted.
Was he acting on impulse? Getting carried away? He’d already broken many of his carefully constructed rules. Too many. What if he was wrong, acting under the influence of lust and infatuation? What happened when he woke up and discovered he didn’t love her after all? Book her a ticket back to the island so she could pick up her old job again? Go back to taking orders from his father as if nothing had changed?
What he needed was a couple of weeks away from this incredible, beautiful woman who made him see life through her eyes. He needed time and distance to think, to be sure he knew hisown mind.
He never made promises unless he knew he would keep them. So, for now, no promises, no public announcements.
“George?” His name in her mouth sounded like a kiss. “You’re quiet. Have Iupset you?
She didn’t mean to upset him, but if she hadn’t broken the kiss, God only knew what they’d bedoing now.
“You could never upset me. I was just…” His gaze lingered on her lips in a way that was very dangerous. Then he looked away at the distant horizon where the sea met the sky. “I was just thinking about what you said. That I rescue womentoo much.”
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s very nice, but maybe by being so helpful, so responsible,you are…”
“A bastard?” He nudged her foot lightlywith his.
