Breaking The Playboy's Rules - Melanie Milburne
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS THE first time in her life Millie had asked a man to meet her for a drink and now she was going to be late. Seriously, embarrassingly, late. But this was no ordinary date. This meeting with hotshot celebrity divorce lawyer Hunter Addison was not for herself but for her mother.
Her mother collected ex-husbands like some people collected coins. And, sadly, it was going to take an eye-watering amount of coins to get rid of husband number four—money that Millie could ill afford to lend her mum right now. Hunter Addison wasn’t the cheapest divorce lawyer in London, but he was reputed to be the best.
And, for her mum, Millie wanted the best.
Millie walked as quickly as she could towards the wine bar where she’d asked Hunter to meet her after work. She hadn’t spoken to him in person, only via text message. The thought of talking to him on the phone after their disastrous blind date two months ago was too confronting. So too was the prospect of meeting him again in person but this wasn’t about her—it was about her mother’s welfare. She could not bear to see her mother screwed over by yet another self-serving, narcissist ex.
Millie pushed open the front door of the wine bar and stepped inside, quickly scanning the room for any sign of Hunter. Couples and small groups were sitting at the various tables in the front section but there was no sign of a man sitting by himself. Of course, it would be incredibly rare for a man as good-looking, wealthy and sophisticated as Hunter ever to sit in a bar by himself. He had a reputation for being a fast-living playboy. Hardly a week went past when he wasn’t snapped by the paparazzi with yet another gorgeous supermodel-type woman draped on his arm.
Interestingly, in the couple of months since their blind date, there had been nothing in the press about his sexual antics. Maybe Millie’s immunity to his attractiveness that night had bruised his overblown ego. Not flipping likely. Men like Hunter Addison had industrial-strength egos. Trying to put a dent in his ego would be like trying to crack a brazil nut with a feather boa. Not going to work.
‘You’re late.’ A deep and crisp male voice rich with censure spoke from behind her.
Millie spun round and, even though she was wearing vertiginous heels, she had to crane her neck up, up, up to meet Hunter Addison’s whisky-brown eyes. It was hard not to feel a little flustered coming face-to-face with such arrant masculinity. Such heart-stopping male perfection. Broad-shouldered and tall, with a lean and athletic build, he exuded strength and potency. At a virile thirty-four, he was in the prime of his life and it showed.
And every female cell in her body sat up and took notice. ‘Yes, I know. I’m sorry but—’
‘Something wrong with your phone?’ The smile that wasn’t really a smile matched the cynical gleam in his eyes.
Millie mentally counted to ten, trying to control her desire to snap out a biting retort. What was it about this man that made her feel so prickly, on edge and so...so combative? Her experience around men was limited. She had only ever had one lover and, since her childhood sweetheart Julian had died three years ago after a long battle with brain cancer, she hadn’t dated again.
Well, apart from the wretched blind date with Hunter, which had been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. But then, she had wanted to sabotage it. She had done everything in her power to give him the cold shoulder and hot tongue routine. She was not going to be set up by friends to ‘move on’. She was not going to be flirted with and charmed by a man who hadn’t heard the word ‘no’ from a woman his entire life.
But now she needed Hunter’s help and she had no choice but to swallow the choking lump of her pride. And boy, oh, boy did it taste sour.
Millie straightened her shoulders and forced herself to hold his gaze. ‘There was, actually. I forgot to charge it overnight and it ran out of battery just after I left work. Then there was some sort of security incident involving the police on my way here and I had to take a six-block detour.’
In flipping sky-high heels and a tight-fitting pencil skirt, she wanted to add, but managed to restrain herself.
It was hard to tell if he believed her or not. His