CHAPTER NINE

MILLYSTOODIN the middle of Brandon's study, but felt as if she were floating outside herself. She trembled, trapped in the strange limbo—between sadness and shock and confusion—as the voices of her sister and her brother-in-law drifted around her.

‘Do you remember him, Brandon?' Lacey's voice whispered through the numbness.

‘Yeah, weirdly, I do remember that kid.' Brandon had collapsed into an armchair, and was running his fingers through his hair, looking more agitated than Milly had ever seen him. ‘He made quite an impression. How the hell he had managed to get into the executive suites at Cade Inc, I'll never know as there were three levels of security. But I don't remember asking to have him kicked out.'

‘Could what he's saying be true?' Lacey said, sitting beside her husband and pressing her hand to his knee. ‘That he's your brother?'

Brandon gripped Lacey's hand, then let out a heavy sigh, the ghosts of a childhood Milly knew he'd spent years dealing with flickering through his expression. ‘I never knew the names of any of my father's mistresses, so I never made the connection. But I wouldn't put it past the bastard to deny his own flesh and blood.' He sank his head into his hands. ‘No wonder Garner has aways hated me.'

Milly felt the murmured conversation—and what it revealed—like a physical blow.

Roman was Brandon's half-brother. And Alfred Cade was the man who had tried to force his mother to have an abortion. To ensure he didn't exist.

The agony in his face, when he'd turned to her in that moment, made total sense now.

She scrubbed the tears off her cheeks. She had to go to him. She could help him, soothe him, tell him how much he meant to her.

But as she lurched out of her shocked stupor, ready to run after him, Lacey leapt up and grabbed her. ‘Milly, where are you going?'

‘I'm going after Roman...he's hurting and he needs me.'

But instead of letting her go, her sister grasped her other arm and gave her a subtle shake, the expression on her face full of sadness and sympathy.

‘Yes, he is hurting. And what he revealed explains a lot. But you need to stop and think now, Milly. Think about why he came here. Why he was dating you. If anything, what we've just discovered about his past makes his motivations for being with you even more suspect.'

Milly shook her head, rejecting her sister's assessment in every aspect of her being. Lacey didn't know what they had shared over the last two and a half weeks, the sweetness, the wicked fun, the laughs, the excitement, the intensity not just of their lovemaking, but the companionship and the confidences they'd shared. She knew now why Roman had seemed so off as soon as they'd arrived. Knew why he had struggled with her close relationship to Brandon.

‘You're wrong,' she said simply. ‘About him, about us, about everything. You don't know him like I do.'

‘Please, Milly, don't do this. He used you, for whatever reason, surely you can see that now?'

‘No, he didn't. He wouldn't.' She yanked herself free of Lacey's hold, rejecting the statement categorically. ‘I'm a grown woman, and I'm going with him, Lacey. And you can't stop me.'

She rushed out of the room and ran down the corridor towards the gardens and the heliport—her sister's protests fading behind her. Until all she could hear was her heart punching her ribs and her heels landing on the marble floor of the summer gallery.

She would tell Roman she loved him. Everything he was and everything he had been. Right back to that neglected boy, he had taught himself to hate because the people who should have loved and protected him had rejected him.

And everything would be okay.

She finally located him ten minutes later, standing in a gazebo near the exit to the heliport, alone. And waiting... For her.

The buzz of conversation from the party on the other side of the garden walls helped to calm the pulse still thundering in her ears as she tried to calm her breathing.

He stood in the shadows, his body tense, his face lit by the last of the sunlight and the torches that dotted the gardens. His tortured expression made her heart swell.

‘Roman,' she called to him, stepping into the gazebo.

His head jerked up, and her heartbeat skipped into overdrive. Joy swept across his harsh handsome features, but it disappeared so swiftly, she wasn't sure if she had imagined it.

‘Milly?' He frowned, his expression becoming wary and guarded. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Coming with you, of course.'

She wrapped her arms around his waist and tried to smile at him. So sure of her feelings as she hugged him tight, she was surprised her heart didn't burst right out of her chest and land at his feet. She breathed in the delicious scent of salt and sandalwood and man, mixed with the fragrant aroma of jasmine and vanilla from the honeysuckle and clematis climbing the trellis.

But instead of smiling back at her, instead of looking pleased to see she had chosen him, he tensed, then lifted his arms, to dislodge her, and stepped out of her embrace.

‘Why?' he said, his hard expression as closed off as the sharp edge in his voice.

She refused to be thwarted though. Or denied. She had to tell him now, how she really felt. No holding back. So he would know. She trusted him. Always. And completely.

‘Why? Because I'm falling in love with you, Roman, and I know you would never use me, like they said,' she declared, putting every ounce of her new-found confidence into the words. ‘Although there's no pressure,' she added hastily, when his expression barely changed.

Had her declaration been a bit premature? Perhaps she should have kept that to herself? After all, he was hurting. She wanted to be supportive now, not needy.

‘I thought you should know, my feelings for you are pretty strong. And I... I still want to come to New York. I'm a little hurt you didn't feel you could tell me about your connection to Brandon. But I want you to know now, you can trust me too. I want us to have fun again. And enjoy each other's company.' She wiggled her eyebrows, desperate all of a sudden to lighten the mood and take that blank look off his face. ‘In all our favourite positions.'

But instead of his giving her the hot look she had come to love, his frown became a scowl, the sceptical expression making the words dry in her throat. Why had his expression tightened even more?

‘Really? Just like that? You think you love me? And you want me to trust you?' The harsh tone didn't register at first. But the hope died inside her at the irritation in his voice when he spoke again... ‘You're pretty na?ve, aren't you?'

The cruel words found the insecure and unhappy teenager she'd once been, standing beside her mother's casket as she listened to a man she didn't recognise inform her sister he really didn't have time to be a father to them.

‘I'm not na?ve, what do you mean?' she managed, around the blockage forming in her throat. The memory of that hideous, humiliating moment as raw and painful now as it had been on that rain-slicked November afternoon.

‘You've just told a man you've known for a little over two weeks you love him,' he said. ‘I'd call that na?ve, sweetheart.'

Sweetheart?Why was he calling her that? When he had never used that generic term before, which now sounded vaguely insulting. And why did she suddenly feel invisible? The way she had the day of her mother's funeral.

She shivered, the summer air chilling.

‘Roman, why are you behaving like this?' she asked. Unsure now. And a little scared.

‘You want to know what you really love?' The question sounded cynical, but then he cupped her cheek. She leaned instinctively into the caress, his touch possessive and addictive as his thumb stroked her lips. He pressed her back against the trellis, until she sank into the flowers, her body softening for him, yearning for his touch.

‘This is what you love, Milly,' he murmured, the tone still harsh, but his touch, so right, so seductive, so perfect.

Cradling her head with one hand, he tilted her face up to suckle the sensitive pulse in her neck. The tsunami of sensation built instantly, uncontrollably, as he dragged up her dress with the other hand, then pressed his palm to her panties, and slipped clever fingers under the waistband.

‘So wet for me, aren't you, Milly?' he murmured, still kissing and caressing her, knowing just how to touch her to provoke her response, and make her desperate for more.

Moisture flooded his hand as she bucked against his hold, and he worked the slick, swollen nub with ruthless efficiency.

‘Why don't you show me how much you love me, Milly?' he whispered, his voice demanding, and unforgiving.

She rode his hand, panting, sobbing, unable to hold back, even if she'd wanted to. But she didn't want to. This was who they were. This was what they did best. And she loved him for this, too.

‘Come for me. Like always,' he demanded.

The climax slammed into her. But as she shuddered through the last of the pleasure he eased his hand out of her panties and let her go.

She stood shaking, her knees trembling and her mind in disarray, the sound of his helicopter approaching becoming as loud as the punch of her heartbeat.

He sucked his fingers. ‘Sweet, as always,' he said, the strain in his voice unmistakeable.

But as she reached for him, to cradle the thick ridge she could see in his suit trousers, to make him shatter too, he grasped her wrist and dragged her hand away. ‘Don't.'

‘Why...? Wh-why not?' she asked, feeling exposed and raw again—and scared, the fear so huge it was choking her.

‘Don't you get it? That's all we ever had, Milly. You don't love me...you just love the sex.' She thought she heard regret in his voice, but even as she tried to hold onto it his expression became distant and intractable.

She felt the chill right down to her bones when he shouted over the deafening hum of the helicopter landing. ‘It was nice while it lasted, sweetheart. But all good things come to an end.'

He marched past her, heading through the garden exit towards the heliport. And she let him go. The desire to be seen, to be loved in return, morphed into the hideous kiss of pain. And humiliation, his intoxicating touch still reverberating in her sex.

She steeled herself against the brutal yearning, and wrapped her arms around her waist, to hold back the agony of loss as he disappeared through the gate.

But the tears streaked down her face regardless because, this time, the rejection hurt so much more.

As she watched the big bird lift into the sunset with a deafening roar, flattening the dress against her too sensitive skin, the sadness and emptiness swept through her on another wave of pain. And the questions that had battered her as a rebellious teenager shattered her all over again.

Why was she not enough? Why was she never enough?

She had opened her heart to Roman Garner. And he was wrong, she had fallen in love with him. This wasn't just about sex, not for her. But he'd thrown her love back in her face.

Silent sobs wracked her body as she finally acknowledged the brutal reality.

Lacey had been right all along. Roman had been using her.

She had thrown herself at him, like a fool. But he hadn't wanted her love, hadn't really respected or cared for her. The connection she'd convinced herself they shared had all been in her head. All he'd wanted was the sex, and the chance to confront Brandon in his own home.

He was a ruthless, cynical man. Probably because he'd had to be, from a very young age. But while she felt so much compassion for the boy, she had to cauterise her feelings for the man.

Because she knew now, he would never have been able to love her back. Nor did he want to. Not at all.