One Night: Denied (28 page)

‘Yes, let’s eat.’ My neck is grasped and we’re on our way without delay, leaving behind a casual outfit that I love but don’t care for now and a flurry of women reassessing Miller now that he’s changed. They still like what they see, which is a given. ‘Well, that’s half an hour of our lives together that we’ll never get back.’

I hum my agreement, trying not to let my mind wander too much, yet appreciating that no matter how much I pray, William Anderson isn’t going away, especially if he knows about my shadow.

‘It’s a good thing we’re no longer limited to one night.’

I gasp and twist my neck in his palm to see him. He’s staring blankly forward, not a hint of irony on his face. ‘I want more hours,’ I murmur, seeing blues full of recognition flick down to me.

He dips and kisses my nose chastely before straightening and leading on. ‘My sweet girl, you have a whole lifetime.’

Happiness bombards me and I slip my arm around his waist, hugging his side, feeling his forearm rest against the top of my spine so that he can maintain his hold while accommodating my demand for closeness. The chaos of Harrods is no longer registering. Nothing is, except memories of a one-night proposition and all of the events that have led us here. My fallen heart bursts with happiness.

Chapter Twenty-One

I flap the fleece blanket and let it settle on the grass, visiting each corner to get it as straight as possible in the hopes of reducing any obsessive need that Miller may have to fix it. ‘Sit.’ I point on my command.

‘Whatever was wrong with a restaurant?’ he asks, placing two M&S carrier bags on the grass.

‘You can’t picnic in a restaurant.’ I watch him lower himself awkwardly to the ground, pulling the tails of his suit jacket from beneath his arse when he sits on them. ‘Take your jacket off.’

Blue eyes hit me, awash with shock. ‘Why?’

‘You’ll be more comfortable.’ I drop to my knees and start pushing his jacket from his shoulders, encouraging him to pull his arms out. He doesn’t complain or object, but he
does
watch worriedly while I fold it in half and lay it as neatly as possible at one end of the blanket. ‘Better,’ I conclude, grabbing the carrier bags. I ignore the slight twitching that Miller’s body has developed. It requires no acknowledgment, because within a minute he’ll be rearranging his jacket to fit his compulsive need, whether I acknowledge the issue or not. I could iron it into position and it would still be wrong. ‘Would you like prawn or chicken?’ I hold up two containers of salad, just catching him quickly yanking his eyes from his jacket.

He tries his damn hardest to look unbothered and unaffected, flicking an indifferent look at me and then signalling between the bowls with a casual flick of a hand. ‘I really don’t mind.’

‘I like chicken.’

‘Then I’ll have prawn.’

I can see the muscles of his eyes pulling his blues in their sockets towards his jacket as I hand him the prawn salad. ‘There’s a fork in the lid.’ I pop the lid of my salad and settle on my haunches, watching as he inspects the container.

‘It’s plastic?’

‘Yes, it’s plastic!’ I laugh, placing my bowl on the blanket and taking Miller’s. I remove the lid, snap the fork into one, and plunge it in the array of salad and prawn. ‘Enjoy.’

He takes the bowl and has a little poke before taking a tentative mouthful and chewing slowly. He’s like a science project. The need to study him in action is overwhelming. I follow his lead and take my own salad and fork, popping a forkful in my mouth. It’s all done absent-mindedly, my desire to continue my engrossed examination of Miller too much to resist. I bet Miller Hart has never sat on his arse in Hyde Park. I bet he’s never eaten a salad from a plastic container, and I bet he’s never entertained the idea of disposable cutlery. It’s all very fascinating – always has been, probably always will be.

‘I hope you’re not overthinking.’

I’m pulled so fast from my musing by Miller’s declaration that I drop a lump of chicken into my lap. ‘Shit!’ I curse, scooping it up.

‘See,’ Miller says, his tone full of smugness. ‘That wouldn’t happen in a restaurant and you’d have a napkin.’ He pops a forkful of lettuce in his mouth and chews smugly.

I glare at him, unamused, and reach for the bag, pulling out a handful of disposable napkins. With precision and on a sarcastic hum, I wipe up the mayo smearing my floral dress. ‘Problem solved.’ I screw up the paper and toss it to the side.

‘And a waiter would be available to clear our litter.’

‘Miller,’ I sigh. ‘Everyone should picnic in Hyde Park.’

‘Why?’

‘Just because!’ I point my fork at him. ‘Stop looking for issues.’

He snorts and rids his hands of his salad bowl, then moves stealthily towards his jacket. ‘I’m not looking. They are quite apparent without the need to search for them.’ He collects his jacket and refolds it before placing it gently down. ‘Seasoning?’

‘Huh?’

‘Seasoning.’ He takes his place again, and his salad. ‘What if I required some extra seasoning on this’ – he glances down at the bowl doubtfully – ‘meal.’

I drop my bowl and collapse to my back in exasperation. The sky is blue and clear and I’d usually be captured by it, but the pleasant view is being hampered by a mind crammed with frustration. A picnic. That’s all.

‘What’s wrong, sweet girl?’ His face appears, hovering above me.

‘You!’ I accuse. ‘Quality time, that’s what you said, and this could be it if you’d stop being such a snob and enjoy the scenery, food and company.’

‘I
love
the company.’ He drops his mouth to mine and blindsides me with his worshipping, soft lips. ‘I’m merely pointing out the drawbacks of picnicking, the biggest drawback being unable to worship you.’

‘You couldn’t do that in a restaurant.’

‘I beg to differ.’ He cocks a suggestive eyebrow at me.

‘For being such a “gentleman”, sometimes your sexual etiquette is questionable.’ I wince at my careless words, but Miller doesn’t acknowledge them, choosing to nudge my thighs apart and cradle himself between them. I’m stunned. He’ll be a crumpled mess.

He clasps my cheeks and his nose meets mine. ‘For a sweet girl, sometimes your sweetness is questionable. Give me my
thing
.’

‘You’ll be all creased.’

‘I’ve asked once.’

I smile and waste no time embracing Miller’s momentary spontaneity
and
his body. Soaking up the weight of him, I inhale the fresh air that’s diluted by his scent. My eyes close and I bliss out completely, finally relishing in the quality time that I’ve been promised. He’s warm and soothing and all mine, and as I start to zone out, the hustle and bustle of Hyde Park fading into a distant hum, thoughts start tickling the edges of my contented mind – tickling for a nanosecond, before something so stupidly obvious wraps around my entire brain, leaving no room for contentment and making my relaxed body solidify beneath Miller. He senses it, because probing eyes are gazing up at me in a heartbeat.

‘Share with me,’ he says simply, smoothing my hair from my face.

I shake my head in his hold, hoping to shake away my uninvited thoughts.

And fail.

Miller’s face is close, but all I can see is a grubby, lost little boy. You can’t tell me that the child in the photograph ate like a king, and I know for sure there were no expensive threads adorning his young body, more rags instead.

‘Olivia?’ I detect concern in his tone. ‘Please, share your burden with me.’ There’s no evading him, even less so when he pushes himself up to his knees and pulls me to mine. We’re mirroring each other, our hands clasped and resting in his lap while he rubs gentle circles across my skin with his thumbs. ‘Olivia?’

I make a point of holding his eyes when I speak, searching for any mild reaction to my question. ‘Please tell me why everything needs to be so perfect.’

There’s nothing. No frown, no expression or telling signs in his eyes. He’s perfectly composed. ‘We’ve had this discussion before, and I’m certain we agreed that we’d exhausted that subject.’

‘No, you
told
me that the subject was exhausted.’ It wasn’t exhausted at all, and now my horrible thought process is stamping all over my conclusions. He’s ashamed of his upbringing. He wants to eradicate it all from his memory. He wants to hide it.

‘For good reason.’ He drops my hands and looks away from me, searching for something to do other than face me and my pressing questions. He settles on messing with his suit jacket, smoothing the already immaculately folded garment.

‘And what is that reason?’ My heart breaks when he glances at me out of the corner of his eye, caution on his handsome face. ‘Miller, what is that reason?’ I inch towards him slowly, as if approaching a frightened animal, and rest my hand on his forearm. He looks down, frozen in position, clearly in a muddle. I’m patient. I’ve drawn my conclusion, yet I’m unable to share it with him. He’ll know I’ve snooped, and I want him to volunteer this information about his history. Share it with me.

It’s merely seconds, but it feels like an eternity, before he shakes himself back to life and stands, leaving my hand falling to the blanket and my eyes looking up at him. He takes his jacket and slips it on, buttoning it fast before pulling at the sleeves. ‘Because it was exhausted,’ he says, insulting my intelligence with his pathetic brush-off. ‘I need to go to Ice.’

‘Right,’ I sigh, and start to collect the remnants of our brief picnic, piling the rubbish into a carrier bag. ‘Actually, no.’ I toss the bag aside and stand, getting up close and personal with Miller’s tall frame. I must look tiny and fragile next to him, but my resolve is huge. He’s constantly demanding I share my burdens, yet he’s happy to shoulder his own. ‘I’m not coming to Ice,’ I say, drilling holes into him, knowing he won’t go without me. Not after this morning. He wants to keep me close, which is fine by me, but not at Ice.

‘I beg to differ,’ he snorts, but his tone is lacking its usual confidence and in an attempt to show he means business, he takes my neck and tries to turn me.

‘Miller, I said no!’ I shrug him off, anger and frustration afflicting me, and hit him with burning eyes of determination. ‘I’m not coming.’ I sit down again, kick my flip-flops off and collapse to my back, swapping the blue of Miller’s eyes for the blue of the sky. ‘I’m going to enjoy some quiet time in the park. You can go to Ice alone.’ I’ll kick and scream if he tries to manhandle me.

I take my arms behind my head and keep my eyes on the sky, sensing him fidgeting over me. He doesn’t know what to do. He loves my sass, supposedly. Bet he doesn’t now. I settle in for the show, getting comfy, determined not to budge, and find my thoughts drifting back to what had my sass rearing its ugly head in the first place. Miller and his perfect world. My conclusion is simple, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. He had a poor upbringing, with shabby rags for clothes, and now he’s obsessive about wearing the finest threads he can buy.

How he came to have the money to buy the millions of suits of armour he possesses is irrelevant. Kind of. Not at all. My conclusion has only led to more questions – questions I dare not ask, not for fear of upsetting him, but for fear of what the answer might be. How did he come to be in ‘this world’? That house was a children’s home. Miller has spoken of no parents and confirmed there is only him. He’s an orphan. My fussy, fine, perfect Miller has been alone for ever. My heart’s breaking for him.

I’m so lost in my sobering thoughts I jump a little when a warm hardness is suddenly pressing into my side. My head falls to the side to find his eyes. He’s snuggled right in and after laying a gentle kiss on my cheek, he rests his head on my shoulder and slides his arm over my stomach.

‘I want to be with you,’ he whispers. His actions and his words have my arms relinquishing cushion duties for my head and wrapping around him where I can. ‘Every minute of every day, I want to be with you.’

My smile is sad, because having reached my assumption, I know that Miller hasn’t had a someone before. ‘Us,’ I confirm, squeezing some comfort into him. ‘I love your bones, Miller Hart.’

‘And I’m deeply fascinated by you, Olivia Taylor.’

I squeeze him harder. We lie on the fleece blanket for ever, Miller humming and painting pictures across my midriff with the tip of his finger, me just feeling him, listening to him, smelling him, and giving him his
thing
. It is quality time, and it’s the most blissful quality time imaginable.

‘This has been nice,’ he muses, pushing up onto his elbow, resting his perfectly stubbled chin in his palm. He continues to trace faint lines across my tummy, observing his tender motions thoughtfully. I’m happy to watch him. It’s unbelievably pleasurable, total heaven. We’re captured in our own private moment, surrounded by the ramblings of Hyde Park and the distant chaos of London by day. Yet totally alone. ‘Are you chilly?’ He looks up at me, then skates his gaze down my little floral dress. The evening is drawing in and a light breeze is whipping up. I look up to the sky and note a few grey clouds slowly drifting over.

‘I’m okay, but it looks like rain is on its way.’

Miller follows my eyes to the sky and sighs. ‘And London casts its black shadow,’ he muses to himself, so quietly I almost don’t hear him. But I did hear him, and I know there’s a deeper meaning to that statement. I draw breath to speak but think better of it, and he pushes himself to his feet before I can ask, anyway. ‘Give me your hand.’

I take his offering and let him pull me effortlessly to my feet. He’s creased as hell, but apparently not too bothered by it. ‘Can we do this again sometime?’ I ask as I gather up our half-finished salads and place them in a bag.

Miller sets about folding the blanket into a tidy bundle. ‘Of course,’ he agrees gladly, with no trace of unwillingness. He really has enjoyed himself, and that warms my contented heart further. ‘I really must stop by the club.’ My delicate shoulders sag and Miller spots it. ‘I’ll be quick,’ he assures me, moving in and dipping to brush our lips lightly. ‘I promise.’

Refusing to let anything more spoil our quality time, I link arms with him and let him walk us across the grass until we hit the pathway. ‘Can I stay with you tonight?’ I’m feeling guilty for my regular absence from home, but I know Nan’s not in the least bit bothered by it, and I’ll call her as soon as we’re back at Miller’s.

‘Livy, you stay with me whenever you choose. You don’t have to ask.’

‘I shouldn’t leave Nan alone.’

He laughs lightly, pulling my eyes up his chest to his face. ‘Your grandmother would put the most ferocious guard dog to shame.’

I return his amusement and rest my head on his arm as we amble along. ‘I concur.’

A strong arm wraps around my shoulder and hugs me to his side. ‘If you’d prefer me to take you home, then I will.’

‘But I want to stay with you.’

‘And I’d love to have you in my bed.’

‘I’ll call Nan as soon as we’re back at your place,’ I affirm, making a point to remember to ask her if she minds, even though I know for sure that she doesn’t.

‘Okay,’ he agrees on a little laugh.

‘Oh, there’s a bin.’ I rustle the bags in my hand and head over to the bin, but my stride falters when I spot a sorrowful-looking man slumped on the bench nearby. He looks tatty, dirty and vacant – one of the many homeless people who frequent the streets of London. My pace to the litter bin slows as I watch him twitching, and I conclude very quickly that drugs or alcohol are probably the cause. Human nature stokes the compassion within me, and when he raises empty eyes to mine, I stop walking completely. I stare at the man, who’s probably barely a man – late teens, perhaps, but life on the streets has taken its toll. His skin is sallow, his lips dry.