Born to be Bad (International Bad Boys Book 3) Read Free

brutal man, Roman didn’t know.
    He just did.
    Isaak and Roman’s mother, Annika, had died years ago. They now paid for their father to have the best care. As Isaak said, it was far more than the man deserved. It just pained Roman to think of him sitting in a home all alone.
    Roman sat with his drink and dark thoughts. There was another couple at a nearby table. They were clearly here on their honeymoon and they were talking and laughing. They stood to go and then left The Club holding hands.
    For a second he envied them, because they looked as if they were in love.
    There was no such thing as love, Roman reminded himself.
    He could well remember his own honeymoon.
    It had been a very quick wedding, even though Roman wasn’t sure that was what he had wanted, but Ava had insisted that she didn’t want their child born out of wedlock. The honeymoon had been miserable—Roman, already feeling trapped, had spent half the time warning Ava that, given she was pregnant, she should not be drinking. Hell, he’d even gone off the vodka in an attempt to support her, but the way Ava had been knocking it back . . .
    Roman closed his eyes at the deceit of his late wife.
    Milly was wrong. He did not grieve Ava and he did not grieve their baby, for it turned out that there had never been one.
    Ava had faked a pregnancy to trap him, and soon, when the coroner’s report was released, the news would be all over the press.
    His life would become fodder for the masses again.
    Roman wanted the pain to stop. He wanted to know how he could grieve a baby that had never even existed. He gestured to his glass, but Milly had her back to him and Simon, who was busy flirting with a pilot who had just checked in to the hotel, pretended that he hadn’t seen.
    Roman wanted company.
    Of a sexual kind.
    He took out his phone and scrolled through it. There were many women he could call, yet, as he looked through the names, none appealed.
    He put the phone down—he didn’t know what it was that he wanted tonight.
    Or, rather, he did.
    Affection, conversation, tenderness, these were the things Roman wanted tonight, which was so far removed from his usual style. God, any one of those women in his contact list would take it as a sign he was more serious about them, and Roman was never serious about anyone.
    Milly got on with her evening—serving the guests, filling up their glasses and making sure that everybody was comfortable.
    There was a small buffet area where guest could help themselves to hors d’oeuvres but for the regulars, such as Roman and Clifford, Milly would often take a selection over.
    Milly arranged some food on plates for Clifford, and then Roman, and put them on a tray and headed first to Clifford.
    “Oh, Milly.” He licked his lips. “You do know how to look after me, don’t you . . . ”
    “It’s my pleasure,” Milly duly answered, but then Clifford’s face fell because he had looked at the selection when he came in. “No mini beef wellingtons?”
    “Sorry,” Milly said. “We’ve run out.”
    She headed over to Roman with a rather more carefully selected array of food for him. Roman conceded a smile when she took a plate from the tray and he saw that he had not one, but two mini beef wellingtons.
    She knew they were his favourite.
    “That’s called passive aggression, Milly.” Roman said in his low, deep voice.
    “Is it?” Milly smiled.
    “If you want him gone,” Roman offered, nodding in Clifford’s direction. “Just say.”
    “If I need a guest removed, then I’ll call security,” Milly said and watched him squint as he took in the ring on her finger.
    “You’re engaged?”
    “Wrong hand.” Milly smiled. “An engagement ring is worn on the left.”
    “Not in Russia. Well, in saying that, there we don’t really give engagement rings, or that was what I said to Ava when she complained she didn’t get one . . . ”
    God, he must be pissed to be talking about his late wife, Milly