Page 62 of Milo
I laugh. “I had enough of a job speaking English. Foreign languages were judged as something that might have been a step too far.”
He looks at me searchingly. “I’ll teach you.”
I shake my head. “Swear words, I suppose.”
He laughs. “Of course. Grab your bag and we’ll take them up to the rooms. Sofia has done supper and it’ll be ready in half an hour.”
I grab my bag and follow him up the staircase. I catch a glimpse of a huge wood-panelled room with floor-to-ceiling windows offering a glimpse of the mountains, a fire burning in a large stone fireplace and deep comfy-looking sofas and chairs surrounding it. Then Niall climbs the stairs and I hasten to follow him. The others split off at the first floor to their rooms, but I follow him up another set of stairs and gasp when I round the final one.
I’m in a room that seems to stretch across the top of the house. Ahead of me is a floor-to-ceiling window next to French doors that let out onto a patio on which a hot tub sits with steam rising from it. The mountains are in full view, dusted in snow and framed through the first lazily tumbling flakes of snow flittering down from the lowering sky.
A long and deep plum-coloured sofa is situated in front of the window and off to one side is a grey chaise lounge that’s big enough for two. It’s positioned in a nook formed by a smaller window and the wooden wall, and it’s packed with enough pillows and throws to earmark it as a perfect place to read. On the other wall, which is made of stone, is a massive bed big enough to sleep four. My lips tighten because it probably has in the past. It’s made up with grey and white striped bedlinen and fluffy pillows and a plum-coloured eiderdown.
I wander across the room and open another door as Niall follows me like I’m the Pied Piper of the Master Suite. I’m looking at a small sauna and the scent of hot wood billows out. Another door leads to a dressing room and then finally a wood-panelled bathroom with a shower that runs along one wall and a huge clawfoot bath which is positioned in front of another window.
I turn to find Niall looking at me almost anxiously. “Do you like it?” he asks.
I smile at him. “It’s so beautiful.” His shoulders relax, and I nudge him. “Did you actually think I wouldn’t like it?”
He laughs. “I don’t know why I doubted it. It’s made of wood and at the top of the house. Of course you like it. You’re like bloody Heidi.”
I laugh and then look around curiously. “Do you rent this out?”
He nods. “I probably couldn’t afford to keep it otherwise. But I mainly rent to friends and family and leave plenty of time to come out here myself.”
“But you’re always working.”
He smiles. “I said that I left time for me, not that I managed it.” I laugh, and he looks at the room assessingly. “I’m thinking of trying to spend more time out here, actually. Make a change and try to have a life outside of work.”
For a second I feel jubilation at the thought of being part of that, of coming here with him in all seasons. But then I grow cold again as I remember that this is nothing but an instructional set of hook-ups and at the end, he’s anticipating being able to go back to his footloose lifestyle.
I immediately change the subject. “Where am I sleeping?”
He gapes at me. “In here, of course.”
“With you?”
He frowns. “Of course. Who else would you be sleeping with? Is that okay?”
“Of course. But what about the others?”
“Milo, I may have been fond of company in my bed, but even I’m discriminating enough not to fuck six people at once.”
I stare at him. “So what? You’ll fuck me and then what? When we stop will you move back to my brother?”
He leans against the wall, staring at me as though I’m fascinating. “No, Milo,” he says quietly. “That door is closed and locked now.”
“Why?” The question sounds breathless because that’s how I feel. Like he’s just blown my words away.
He gives me a strange smile. “If I say just because, will you accept it?”
I cock my head to one side. “Of course,” I say simply.
He nods. “That’s why.”
Chapter
Thirteen
