Breaking The Playboy's Rules - Melanie Milburne Page 0,1

expression was now largely inscrutable and yet there was something about the way his eyes drifted to her mouth for the briefest of moments that made the backs of her knees tingle.

‘Come this way. I have a table in the back where it’s more private.’ His tone had a commanding edge that made her want to insist on a table out front instead. He probably thought she regretted giving him the brush-off. He probably thought she wanted a rerun of their date.

But no. No.

This was not a cosy little tête-à-tête. This was not a date in any shape or form. This was a meeting to convince him to act for her mother. But she found herself—meekly, for her—following him to the table in the quieter back section of the wine bar.

Hunter waited until she was seated before he took the chair opposite. She was conscious of his long legs so close to hers under the small table and kept her knees tightly together and angled to the right to avoid any accidental touching. Millie was also conscious of the way her heart was beating—deep pounding beats that echoed in her ears as if her blood was sending out a sonar warning. Danger.

Hunter picked up the drinks menu and handed it to her across the table. ‘What would you like to drink?’

Millie took the menu and gave it a cursory glance before handing it back. ‘Just mineral water, thank you.’

He made a soft sound of amusement and a sharper glint appeared in his eyes. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve gone teetotaller on me?’

Millie could feel a hot blush stealing over her cheeks. She had drunk three glasses of wine during their date, as well as a lethally strong cocktail, in an effort to get through the ordeal. The day of their disastrous date had been the anniversary of Julian’s death, and each year she struggled to get through it—which was why her friends had organised the blind date with Hunter, hoping it would distract her and help her to move on. It had distracted her all right. Everything about Hunter Addison was distracting, back then and now. Especially now.

But it wasn’t grief that had made that day so hard for her.

It was another G-word. Guilt.

Millie aimed her gaze to a point above his left shoulder rather than meet his probing gaze. ‘No. I just don’t feel like alcohol right now.’

Hunter signalled the waiter and ordered Millie’s mineral water and a gin and tonic for himself. Once the waiter had gone to fetch the drinks, Hunter leaned back in his chair with a casual ease she privately envied. He was dressed in a smart grey suit and snowy-white business shirt, the top button undone above his loosened, finely checked grey-and-white tie, giving him a chilled out, laid back air. He was devilishly handsome with short black hair, a straight nose and a sculptured mouth—the lower lip fuller than the top one. His late-in-the-day stubble shadowed his chiselled jaw and around his mouth, and he had a well-defined philtrum between his nose and top lip.

A sensual mouth...

Millie sat up straighter in her chair, shocked at her errant thought. She wasn’t interested in his mouth. She was interested in his professional expertise. And the sooner she engaged it, the better. But right now it was almost impossible to get her brain into gear, to be logical and rational and stay on task. Every time he looked at her, flutters and tingles erupted in her flesh, as if he had closed the distance between them and touched her with one of his broad-span hands.

One thing she knew for sure—she must not let him touch her. That would take her pretence of immunity way out of her skill set.

‘So, here we are. Again.’ Hunter’s gaze went on a lazy perusal of her face, and something in her stomach turned over. And the way his voice leaned ever so slightly on the word ‘again’ made the roots of her hair tingle, as if tiny footsteps were tiptoeing over her scalp.

Millie licked her suddenly too-dry lips. She smoothed her skirt over her knees with her hands and tried to ignore the way her pulse was leaping. ‘I feel I should apologise for how I behaved the last time we met.’

She chanced a glance at him and found him looking at her with studied concentration. Was that his lawyer face? The steady and watchful legal eagle quietly assessing his client. Reading between the lines of what his client said and