Page 7 of A Nine-Month Deal With Her Husband

‘Mmm.’

Excellent. Staying wherever Benedikt stashed her would be a lot better than sharing a room with a stranger. Being one of the most influential business people in the country, Millie was pretty sure he would be able to find her a hotel room somewhere in the city. Hotel managers were always eager to do favours for someone who wielded as much power and financial clout as Benedikt did.

And, yes, a fancy room in an excellent hotel would cost her a lot of money, but she could afford it and she’d ride out the storm in comfort.

Millie released an audible sigh of relief and looked around the lobby to see Stefán looking at her. She gave him the thumbs up and he looked, momentarily, relieved. Then he turned back to talk to another guest and Millie knew he’d mentally crossed her off his to-do list and had moved on.

‘Where are you?’ Benedikt asked her.

Millie gave him the address of the hotel. ‘Okay, stay put. I’ll send my driver to pick you up. He’ll know where to take you.’

Millie shook her head. ‘That’s not necessary, Benedikt, I can order a taxi.’

Benedikt just stared at her and Millie sighed. She should dig her heels and be a little more vociferous in her arguments but a) that stare was pretty damn intimidating and b) she knew he had numerous personal assistants to do his bidding. It wasn’t as though he was going to personally run to her rescue—he’d send a minion to yank her out of her jam.

Millie nodded. ‘Okay, thank you, I’ll wait here for your driver. I appreciate your help. I’d also appreciate it if you could spare some time for us to meet. Obviously only when the blizzard is over and regular activities resume.’

‘I’ll be around,’ Benedikt assured her. She saw a ghost of a smile touch his lips and his eyes lightened to the colour of a deep, dark sapphire. ‘It’ll be...interestingto see you again, Millie.’

She managed a small smile and disconnected the call. She was looking forward to seeing him. Madness, since she rarely thought of the man. He was still, as he’d always been, on the periphery of her life.

Her husband. Sort of.

CHAPTER TWO

DÉJÀVU.

It felt like yesterday, but it had been twelve years since she last took this lift to Benedikt’s office. She’d been eighteen years old and she’d been quaking in her boots. At nearly thirty, she wasn’t quaking, but her stomach was definitely doing a number on her.

She looked at the tall man who’d followed her into the lift. When he walked into the hotel lobby earlier, he’d introduced himself as Einar Petersson, Benedikt’s assistant. He had, he explained, instructions to take her to PR Reliance International Headquarters.

‘Why did Benedikt ask you to bring me here?’ Millie asked. Einar said he spoke little English, but Millie suspected he understood a lot more than he’d let on. She’d asked him the same question earlier and then, like now, he’d spread his hands out, looked blank and lifted his shoulders.

Oh, well, it wasn’t as though she had somewhere else to go. She’d checked her weather app and the blizzard was supposed to start in a few hours. They were predicting very high winds—up to one hundred miles per hour in the north—and a massive snow dump, but the storm would only sweep in in a few hours. She had time to get to wherever Benedikt had arranged for her to go.

The lift doors opened and Einar guided her past an empty desk towards a long, wide office with floor-to-ceiling glass walls. She frowned and looked around. Extensive renovations had been done to the building. If she wasn’t mistaken, the walls between Benedikt’s office and the office Magnús had used had been knocked down to make a light and airy space with a huge desk and a seating area.

Einar opened the glass door and ushered her inside. He gestured for her to take a seat on one of the couches, but she crossed the room to the floor-to-ceiling windows. A wooden terrace ran the length of the room and lights flickered from a glass and steel building to the left. She recognised it as being the famous Harpa Concert Hall. It was a spectacular view at night, lights danced across the sea, but Millie knew Benedikt’s office views would be equally spectacular in daylight.

Millie ran her fingers along the back of a sleek, Scandinavian-inspired couch. A massive flat-screen TV dominated another wall and there was a telescope in the corner, its nose pointing at the sky.

She wondered if Ben could see the Northern Lights from here. As a child, she remembered taking a trip with her mum north and they’d stayed in a cabin in the woods somewhere. They’d spent four nights sitting around a fire, bundled up in their all-weather gear, watching the sky flicker with ribbons of green and yellow light. She’d been entranced by the depth of colour and never forgot the experience.

Her mum had promised another trip, but time passed and, before they knew it, their time together was over. Millie was determined to see them again—spent a lot of time watching videos on YouTube—and she wanted to see the full light show instead of the trailer she’d witnessed as a kid.

Einar walked over to a trolley in the corner of the room and Millie saw it held coffee cups and a modern, silver, coffee jug. The smell of excellent coffee drifted over to her and she wondered where Benedikt was. Judging by all the empty offices she’d passed, all his staff had been sent home already.

As Einar walked over to her, carrying a cup of coffee, she placed a hand on her stomach, hoping to still the butterflies flapping their wings renting space in there. She was nervous about meeting Benedikt and she shouldn’t be. He was nothing more than a man with whom she’d struck a deal a lifetime ago.

A marriage deal, but still a deal.

It was time to end it, to move on to the next chapter in her life. She’d have a family, even if it was one she had to make herself. She was so sick of living alone and rattling around her empty, quiet flat. She wanted a baby to love, someone who couldn’t be taken from her. She wanted hugs and laughter, someone to cuddle, to fill up her empty apartment and break the long silences.

She wasn’t a child any more, she was nearly thirty, for goodness sake! She’d done what she thought she should: she’d been to university, partied at Glastonbury and Burning Man, got her degree and established a career where she could make good money and set her own hours. She was financially secure and it was time to do something she’d been thinking about for years...

But as much as she wanted a child, as lonely as she was, she couldn’t trust a man to share her life and family with. When you realised your mum, the person you thought loved you more than life itself, had lied to you and kept you in the dark, it made trusting anyone else impossible.

That, and she’d witnessed Magnús’s possessive streak. He’d wanted her mum all to himself, all the time. He hated Jacq’s independent streak and resented Millie being in her mum’s life. Magnús’s love was tainted by a slick, destructive layer of control, sprinkled with obsession.

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