With the utmost reluctance Rocco had to concede that there was a strong possibility she wasn’t lying when she said that she’d had nothing to do with her brother’s plans. She’d looked far too shocked the previous evening when he’d mentioned jail, and if she’d known what he’d done she’d have to have been aware that jail was an option. Plus there was the fact she’d come to the offices in the first place.
Nevertheless, he’d learnt a lesson about trusting his instincts when it had come to her brother, so he’d be a fool to trust her for a second. Even if everything else had checked out once she’d told him who her brother was.
His security contacts had access to confidential information. She was listed as his sister, no criminal record—unlike her brother. No other siblings. No mention of parents. A grandmother appeared to have brought them up briefly and then Social Services had taken over. They’d come from one of the roughest parts of London, and without even knowing the details Rocco could close his eyes and imagine the scene. Disadvantaged areas were the same the world over.
Going through her pitiful personal possessions, he’d come across a file full of sketches and text. It looked like a mock-up of a children’s book and he had to admit it was surprisingly good.
He’d also come across a photo of what had to be her and her brother when they were kids. She’d been freckle-faced, with a huge gap-toothed grin, red hair in pigtails, her arm tight around her smaller brother, who had looked skinny and nervous, shy behind thick glasses.
Rocco felt his chest grow tight. His fists clenched. He would not let those huge brown eyes get to him. Or her apparent vulnerability. She was as tough as nails. Clearly out to protect her brother at all costs, whatever her involvement. He’d never really known what that kind of loyalty was like and didn’t like the sensation of envy which lanced him. It was further evidence of their bond, and he would watch her like a hawk until her brother resurfaced.
Rocco would not admit on any level that this desire to keep her close had anything to do with her enigmatic personality or her physical appeal. This was about seeing justice meted out. That was all. One million euros of it.
It was only when he looked at the leafy suburbs passing by outside the car that Rocco realised he hadn’t thought of Honora Winthrop once. Determined not to let the arrival of Gracie O’Brien derail his life any more than she already had, Rocco made a call and ignored the sense of claustrophobia that spiked when Honora Winthrop answered her phone.
Gracie woke from a fitful sleep at five the next morning. She was still disorientated at first, and a familiar knot came into her belly when she realised where she was. A grey dawn light was breaking over London. Her mind went over the previous day and evening. Thankfully she’d been in bed by the time Rocco had come home, and she’d only heard faint sounds as he’d moved around.
He’d made a curt phone call late in the evening to inform her that he’d be dining out and she’d made a face at the phone, hating herself for wondering who he was dining with. After Rocco had left the apartment that previous morning Gracie had looked wistfully at the apartment door and had even opened it—only to find a large atrium outside and a huge barrel of a man sitting at a desk which seemed to have a dozen monitors.
He’d stood up to an alarming height and asked easily, ‘Need to go somewhere, Ms O’Brien?’
Gracie had shook her head. ‘I was just having a look around.’
Perfectly friendly, the man-giant had said, ‘I’m George, and I’m here to take you wherever you want to go, so if you need anything just shout.’
Gracie had mumbled something incoherent. Evidently George was also there to make sure she didn’t go anywhere without him as her close companion. Exactly as Rocco had warned. She’d gone back into the apartment and made a phone call to the last housekeeper, who sounded like a pleasant older woman. She’d cheerfully outlined for Gracie the list of chores Mr de Marco would expect to be done.
Gracie had stood in Rocco’s bedroom and looked at the tousled sheets. His unmistakable scent had hung tantalisingly in the air. Musky and male. The indentation caused by his body had been evident, and Gracie had gone hot when she’d found herself wondering if he slept naked.
Feeling hot all over again, thinking of that bed and those sheets, Gracie registered that she was thirsty and got up. She stumbled out of the room, still foggy with sleep.
She was only belatedly aware that the kitchen light was on when she walked in and had to squint her eyes against it. When she saw a big dark shape move she screamed, suddenly wide awake.
Eyes huge, she took in the sight that greeted her. Rocco de Marco was standing in the kitchen, bare-chested and in nothing but a low-slung and very precarious-looking towel, which hugged his hips and barely covered his thighs.
A million things hit Gracie at once, along with a shot of pure adrenalin: he must have just showered as his hair was still damp; his skin gleamed olive in the light; his chest was broad and leanly muscled with a light covering of crisp dark hair that tapered down to that towel in a tantalising silky line.
He was more beautiful than any man had a right to be.
Realising all of those things, and also that she was looking at Rocco as if she’d never seen a man before, she tore her gaze away and blurted out, ‘You’re meant to be asleep.’
‘Well,’ he pointed out dryly, ‘I’m not. I always get up around now.’
Gracie refused to look at him, hovering in the doorway.
Her heart was still hammering from the shock. ‘Shouldn’t you … put on some clothes or something?’
Again with that dry voice he pointed out, ‘You’re equally undressed. I might ask the same of you but I’m not sure I want to.’
At that Gracie looked at him, and felt scorching heat climb up her chest to her face. Rocco’s gaze was dark and lazy, taking in her bare legs, the T-shirt which came to the top of her thighs, and then moving back up to her face. Gracie knew she must look a sight, with her hair all over the place and wild. She couldn’t for a moment dwell on the fact that she might have seen a predatory gleam in his eyes. She could remember the distaste on his face when he’d stood back from frisking her.
Her throat was so dry, but she fought the urge to swallow. It made her voice sound rough. ‘I just wanted to get some water.’
Rocco gestured with a hand. ‘By all means. Never let it be said that I deny my prisoners the basics.’
That sardonic delivery restored some of Gracie’s composure and she willed herself to move forward to the shelves. Very aware of her bare feet and Rocco’s lazy gaze, she ignored him and reached up to get a glass on a shelf far too close to him for comfort. And then … couldn’t reach it. Not even on tiptoes. She was very aware of her T-shirt riding up over her bottom and cursed silently, thinking of her very worn plain white knickers.
Suddenly a wave of heat emanated from behind her, along with a distinctive scent, and a very muscled brown arm was reaching up past her to pluck a glass down. His front was almost touching her back. Gracie knew if she stepped back she’d walk right into him, and felt weak at the strength of longing that rushed through her to know what it would feel like to have his arms wrap around her.
But then he put the glass down on the counter beside her with a clatter and moved away, taking that heat with him. Gracie gripped the glass and slowly turned around. For a big man he moved incredibly silently and gracefully. He was already on the other side of the kitchen island, sipping from a mug, regarding her as coolly as ever.
Gracie felt as if she was wading through treacle just getting to the sink to pour the water. The air had become dense with some kind of tension that was completely alien to her. She felt as if it was coiling deep within her, making her feel alternately light-headed and shaky.
‘There’s bottled water in the fridge.’
Gracie filled the glass and cursed herself for not going that route in the first place. ‘Tap water is fine. Bottled water is a waste of money.’ She turned around with her glass clutched in
both hands like a shield.
Rocco raised a brow. ‘Now you’re an environmentalist?’
Pride stiffened Gracie’s backbone. ‘I do care about the environment, as it happens.’
Before he could question her again, or make some acerbic comment, he put his cup down. ‘If you’ll excuse me I’ve got a busy day ahead.’
He moved towards the door with all the lethal grace of a jungle cat, and yet looked as suave as if he was fully dressed. Gracie’s eyes felt burnt just from looking at all that bared skin and taut musculature.
He turned at the door and said with a definite glint in his eye, ‘Remind me to show you how to do hospital corners. That’s how I prefer my bed to be made in the future.’
She looked at the empty door after he’d disappeared and it took a few seconds for his words to register. When they did, she wanted to throw the glass into the empty space he’d left behind. The arrogant so and so. She clamped her lips tight together. She would not let him get to her. She repeated this to herself as she went back to her bedroom, feeling very skittish.
Rocco stood under the punishing spray of a cold shower just a few moments later. Damn that woman. When she’d appeared in the doorway in nothing but that flimsy T-shirt and bare legs he’d blinked because he’d thought she was an apparition. He’d only just had a shower which he’d had to turn to cold because he’d woken from lurid dreams of stripping Gracie O’Brien bare and laying her out on his bed in all her pale glory.
When he’d realised she wasn’t an apparition the blood had rushed south and hardened his body with an embarrassingly immediate effect. Thankfully she’d been so shocked to see him he didn’t think she’d noticed.
He’d been unable to compose himself, as if confronted with a naked woman for the first time. He cursed volubly. What was it about her that turned him on so effortlessly? She was wild and untamed. As unsophisticated as you could get. Freckles, for crying out loud. All over. All down her legs and arms. And, he imagined, on her breasts, which would be so pale against his skin …
He cursed again when he thought of her stretching up to get that glass. His eyes had been glued to her smooth pale thighs and the pert curve of her bottom, that tantalising glimpse of white cotton. Never had such an unsexy fabric looked so sensual. Like a fool he’d moved closer, ostensibly to help her reach the glass, only to come so close that he had been able to smell the surprisingly sweet and clean scent of her shampoo. No perfume, just something faint, like wild flowers. More subtle and alluring than he would have imagined possible.
Her hair had brushed his bare chest and the nearly overwhelming urge to press close and slide his hands up and under that shirt, around to cup her breasts and feel their weight and firmness, had had him jumping back and away like a scalded cat to the other side of the kitchen.
Rocco shut off the shower and stepped out for the second time in the space of half an hour. He vowed at that moment to do everything in his power to find Steven Murray, so that he could draw a line under this incident once and for all and get this woman out of his head.
For two days Gracie managed to avoid Rocco by making sure she was up after him in the mornings and in bed before he came back to the apartment at night. Luckily, he seemed to be busy. She was congratulating herself on having evaded him for the third morning in a row when he suddenly emerged from the study in the apartment, issuing a string of expletives, looking seriously disgruntled. And absolutely gorgeous in faded jeans and a T-shirt.
Gracie couldn’t avoid bumping straight into him, and sprang back as if burnt, heat washing through her body like a tidal wave. She went hot and cold all at once. She could smell his scent on the air, musky and masculine. He glowered at her from his superior height and Gracie fought the urge to apologise.
To fill the silence and deflect him from her embarrassment she blurted out, ‘What are you doing here?’
Looking seriously disgruntled now, he said, ‘Sometimes I work from this office—if that’s all right with you?’
A little redundantly she found herself asking, ‘Is there something wrong?’
Rocco’s dark gaze swept over her and Gracie burnt up even more.
‘My chef has just rung to say he’s ill, and his replacement is busy. I have someone coming for dinner this evening and I didn’t want to go out, but now it looks as though I’ll have to.’ Rocco chafed at having to look at the reasons why he didn’t relish being seen out in public with Honora Winthrop, when just a few days ago he would have welcomed the prospect. The woman standing in front of him, who’d been avoiding him zealously for the past two days, was far too close to those reasons for comfort.
Something pierced Gracie’s insides as she wondered churlishly if this dinner was a date. His mistress, perhaps? Again, almost without thinking, she found herself saying, ‘I can cook if you like?’
Rocco smiled mockingly. ‘You? Cook?’
His obvious incredulity combined with her recent disturbing flash of something which felt awfully like jealousy made her say waspishly, ‘I can do better than baked beans and toast, if that’s what your tastes run to.’
His eyes darkened at that, and dropped again in a lesiurely appraisal, as if he was contemplating his tastes running to her. Gracie squirmed. He was just playing with her.
She drew back and stepped away, feeling seriously prickly, cursing herself and her mouth. ‘Look, forget I said anything. It was a stupid idea.’
She was almost past him when he caught her arm and stopped her. His entire hand wrapped around her bicep. The breath stopped in her throat and she swallowed painfully. Slowly, she turned and looked up. His expression was contemplative, and he didn’t let her go.
‘Can you really cook?’
Gracie nodded, and fought the urge to tug her arm free. She didn’t want him to see that he affected her. ‘If you give me a list of what you want I’ll do my best. How many is it for?’
A shadow crossed his face. He dropped her arm abruptly, as if he’d just realised he was still holding it.
‘Two.’
That curious pain lanced Gracie again. She crossed her arms. ‘I can manage two.’
He just looked at her for a long silent moment, until Gracie felt like screaming with tension, and then he nodded slowly. ‘Okay, then. I’ll give you the list and we’ll eat at eight—after champagne and canapés.’
Later that morning Gracie and George were returning to Rocco’s building after a visit to the shops. Rocco had issued her with a credit card and a list of dietary requirements not long after their exchange outside his study.
She’d scanned it and said faintly, ‘I’m not sure I can get mercury-free fish from Hawaii at such short notice. Is there anything you’re not allergic to?’
Rocco had grimaced faintly. ‘They’re not my requirements. I can eat anything. They’re my guest’s.’
‘Oh.’ Gracie hadn’t asked who his guest was. She’d just put the piece of paper down and smiled sweetly. ‘I’ll do my best to work within these narrow parameters.’
To her shock Rocco had looked as if he was holding back a laugh and she’d felt weak inside. But then the look had faded, and he’d just made some inarticulate sound and said, ‘Fine. See what you can do.’
It was only as she and George were about to enter the private entrance which led up to Rocco’s apartment that Gracie noticed the newspaper headline on the news kisok near them. Her feet stopped in their tracks when she read: ‘De Marco to wed society beauty Honora Winthrop …’
George saw her captivated by the headline and informed her, ‘That’s the boss’s latest companion.’
‘You mean his fiancée,’ Gracie corrected faintly. She didn’t know why, but she suddenly felt flat.
George murmured something else that Gracie didn’t hear, and then he was ushering her back into the building as the first few drops of a summer shower started to fall.
At the same moment on a floor high above them, back in his glass-walled office, Rocco was looking at the same headline. This w
as it. Another milestone moment on the way to securing his position in society. And yet the moment was curiously hollow and empty. He felt constricted, and he loosened his tie and opened the top button of his shirt without even being aware he was doing it.
All he could think about was Gracie’s face that morning, when she’d commented about the absurd menu requirements for dinner. He’d wanted to burst out laughing, sharing her moment of incredulity.
No one made him laugh.
It had taken all his control not to pull her up into his arms and plunder that soft pink mouth. To make her close those far too wary brown eyes. To forget everything but him.
She’d taken him by surprise, offering to cook dinner. In truth he almost hadn’t even registered what she’d said at first, he’d been so busy drinking her in. Not seeing her for the past two days had begun to seriously irritate him, and he’d only realised then that his decision to work from his study had stemmed in part from the fact she wouldn’t be able to avoid him in the apartment.
His thwarted desire to see her had also been at the root of his irrational anger over the mere unavailability of his chefs, which would never normally have caused him to flip out.
He could still feel the electrifying sensation of her petite form crashing into him. Arousal had been immediate and burning. His skin had prickled with desire as she’d stood there with that determined chin tilted, daring him to let her cook dinner when he’d been sceptical.
Something outside caught his eye then, and across the expanse of his office space he saw that his private lift was in use, the light ascending. It was probably just George or one of the other bodyguards, but even so his skin tingled. It could be Gracie. Before he knew what he was doing he had dumped the paper and was out of his chair, striding to the lift.
Gracie was standing beside George in the lift, still trying to figure out why the news that Rocco was engaged could be affecting her so much. She hardly knew the man, so how on earth could she be feeling … betrayed? He at worst hated her, and at best felt nothing for her. And yet she couldn’t help feeling that something intangible had drawn them together besides her brother. She couldn’t forget the heated intensity in his eyes the night they’d met.
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 361
