Chapter Two
Liliana Hamilton was not having the best of days.
Her dreadful manager had appeared over her computer screen and given her his lecherous smile. ‘I hear you’ll be wearing pink for the ball.’
Liliana’s back had immediately stiffened but eternally polite, she had smiled. ‘That’s right.’ Her reply was as short as she could make it without sounding rude.
‘It’s a beautiful gown, though try as I might, I can’t quite imagine you in pink.’
She glanced towards her friend and colleague, Margo, who gave her a wide-eyed look that told Liliana she understood her discomfort.
Simon was becoming an issue. A real one. She’d already pulled out of a couple of Christmas dos, pretending she had other plans.
Liliana should be living the dream.
She had been employed as a junior designer at a very high-end fashion house in beautiful modern offices in London—there were screens everywhere depicting endless catwalks, the news and gossip around the world.
But, instead of putting her talent and education to work with the designers, her time was mainly spent on the phone and computer, answering email enquiries.
Occasionally she would go out when they were doing a fashion shoot—but again, she was more the runner than anything to do with the designs.
While she knew everyone had to start somewhere, Liliana had known that four years ago when she’d accepted the job!
There were perks—she was party to some incredible discounts and was expected to wear her Sunday best each and every day.
The heating was hospital grade, and despite the dreary day outside, Liliana wore a flowery dress and high-heeled shoes, with her long strawberry blonde hair worn down.
There were some high-end functions too—a ball in spring where the staff got a chance to purchase the label at a huge discount.
But that perk had caused today’s discomfort: Simon, her manager, imagining her in the dress she would wear.
‘Creep,’ Margo mouthed as Simon moved off to take a phone call. ‘You are bringing…’ Margo motioned with her hand, clearly waiting for Liliana to finally spill her mystery man’s name. She didn’t. ‘Your boyfriend…’ Margo prompted.
‘Of course I am.’ Liliana nodded, and knew she had to give herself a little out, just in case. ‘If he’s still my boyfriend by then.’
‘Well, if you two break up then you’d better have found another, or you’ll be chasing Simon off all night.’
‘Noted.’
Oh, indeed it had been noted and was the very reason Liliana had lied and said she was seeing someone; it had got her out of a lot of uncomfortable invitations for coffee or a drink after work.
She gazed out of the window on a dreary December afternoon and knew soon the skies would be blue, the dress would be pink…and if she was going to stave off Simon, she somehow had to produce a date.
Her friends, and even Simon, had asked for more information about him but Liliana would offer her standard response: ‘I don’t like discussing my personal life.’
That part wasn’t a lie.
Liliana had never liked discussing her real personal life—even as a little girl she’d made stories up to explain her father’s long stretches of absence and occasional appearances.
Of course, her friends at an all-girls school had all too soon found out she’d been lying and then mercilessly teased her.
And later, when the real truth had come out, she and her mother had been shunned…
Yes, lying was wrong, but then again, she’d been born of a lie. Her father had had another life—one with a real family, a wife and two children. Liliana was the product of a prolonged affair, and not at all proud of that fact.
In most things she was a sunny, happy person but still struggled to open up and make close friends let alone date.
And so at twenty-six years of age she’d never been in a serious relationship.
Margo would fall off her seat if she knew that the slightly kooky, high-fashion woman sitting opposite her was a virgin, Liliana was sure.
So she’d decided to do something about it, not just because of Simon.
She wanted to grow in herself, and she’d started internet dating but was really having the most terrible time.
She took a sneak peek of her phone and saw that the gym guy who seemed a bit gym obsessed, had suggested they meet…
How about now? he suggested. He was finishing up at the gym.
‘Okay, everyone,’ Simon called as he came off the phone. ‘Lucky for you guys we’ve got a VIP client coming in who wants the place cleared.’
The peasants were being sent home early.
‘Hey, Liliana…’ Simon was making his way back over and she knew, just knew he was going to suggest they get a coffee or something, and it was then she made the decision—and said yes to meeting with gym guy.
She needed an escort for the ball, even someone with a sense of humour who would agree to play along. It couldn’t be worse than Simon, could it?
Actually, yes. It could!
Before her coffee had even made it to her lips, the gym guy had asked her a question so inappropriate that at first Liliana had thought she’d misheard or misunderstood.
No, indeed she’d heard right!
Picking up the huge bag she carried, Liliana had put down money to cover her beverage and she had walked out of the café, pulling on her trench coat as she made her way to the underground.
Clipping down the escalators, she was furious.
With work, with the world, with slippery wet streets and sudden showers that drenched, with a packed London underground and being jostled on the platform.
Oh, she was angry with many things, and especially she was angry with—
‘Please…’ A suited man stood, a very tall suited man, and gestured his hand towards the seat he had just vacated. ‘Have my seat.’
‘I’m perfectly capable of standing!’ Liliana snapped and then as the rather handsome, unusually polite gentleman gave her a curious look and retook his seat, she regretted her abrupt and rather rude response.
He was just being thoughtful and perhaps more importantly her stilettos were killing her.
But Liliana was especially furious with men—and right now that included the whole lot of them. Her boss, who kept her chained to the phone rather than designing, the manager who kept pursuing her, the appalling date she had just come from, her father…
While she might have listed him last, in her heart she knew on the list of men who had hurt her, her father should come first.
Liliana and her mother had always come a very poor second—his attention had been elsewhere.
She’d tried so hard to be good, to be nice, to be funny, to be invisible, to be polite…anything that might make him want to stay for Sunday dinner, or take her to the park, or come to the school play.
His constant rejection was the reason she didn’t stand up for herself in the real world, or on occasion burst in frustration and succumbed to the social equivalent of road rage, as she’d just done with the handsome man who’d offered her his seat.
Subtly she sneaked a look.
And her breath held in her lungs.
He was stunning.
Thick ebony hair was glossy from the rain and brushed back from a haughty, serious face, and his bone structure was perfection. His high cheekbones and straight Roman nose were perfectly offset by caramel skin and gorgeous silvery grey eyes.
Possibly she sighed.
Yes, utterly stunning, but what the hell was someone in tens of thousands of pounds worth of coat and suit doing on the tube? Oh, she knew that suit was a bespoke one. The stitching along the lapel was divine, and as for his coat—how perfectly it had fallen when he’d stood and offered her his seat.
He could have tried a bit harder, Liliana thought, albeit unreasonably.
Offered his seat twice.
Insisted that she sit down.
And then she let out a little laugh at her own thoughts. The trouble was, she laughed out loud.
Gosh, he must think her both rude and a little mad.
As the tube stopped at the next station the seat next to him freed up. On pointless pride still she refused to sit down, but when the beginning sting of an emerging blister made itself known, she took a seat by his side.
His scent tickled at her nostrils—woodsy, with a citrusy ting and a fragrance she couldn’t quite define; she just knew it was a little too exotic for an early Friday evening.
Even seated her feet were killing her and she would love to dive in her bag and take out her ballet flats, but her manners were too ingrained for that.
So ingrained that, blushing furiously, she turned her head to apologise. ‘I’m sorry about before.’
‘Before?’
That frown on his smooth brow was there again; their teeny tiny encounter clearly hadn’t been an unforgettable experience for him. ‘You offered me a seat.’
‘You declined.’ He nodded and she was treated to the beauty of a very slight smile. His voice was deep with well-schooled English, yet there was a rich tinge of accent. ‘If I remember correctly, you said you were perfectly capable of standing.’
She laughed. ‘I’m having a bad day,’ she admitted. ‘Not that that’s any excuse, it’s just been a tricky one.’
‘Indeed,’ he agreed. ‘Apology accepted.’
And that was that.
Not quite.
The vision of him remained in her mind, and in that brief exchange she’d glimpsed his perfect full mouth and the dusky shadow on his strong jaw…
only it wasn’t enough. She ached to turn her head and steal another peek and could feel that she was blushing for no reason.
No reason at all, other than that she was overly aware of his thigh aside her own, and when the tube jolted, she braced herself for brief contact from his arm…
It never came.
Despite his proximity, despite his considerable height, not once did they make physical contact, yet somehow merely sitting beside her, he managed to invade every last inch of her personal space.
Nicely so.
When she should still be stinging from that insult of a date, instead she was enthralled and completely aware of this man who sat silently by her side.