Or earlier … in the apartment.
Gracie frowned, feeling seriously confused. The lift came to a halt too soon and she looked at George, who just shrugged. They weren’t at the penthouse level yet. The doors opened to reveal Rocco standing there, hands on hips. Jacket off, tie loose and top button open. Immediately Gracie’s throat went dry and her heart beat faster.
‘We were just shopping for dinner,’ she blurted out. Why did she feel so guilty when he must know exactly where they’d been?
Rocco looked at George and took Gracie’s bags out of her hands, handing them to the huge man whose hands were already full. ‘Gracie will be up shortly. I have something to discuss with her first.’
Rocco led the way through a labyrinth of glass-walled offices and Gracie followed reluctantly, still feeling a little raw. She couldn’t believe now that she’d ever had the temerity to think she could just waltz into this building to see if Steven might be here. That night felt like an age ago.
Rocco was holding open the door to his office, waiting for her to precede him. Somehow that small chivalrous gesture made her feel even more vulnerable. Once she’d walked in she went into attack mode to disguise her feelings, turning to face him as he shut the door.
‘If you’re going to have a go at me just because we went to the shops then—’
Rocco put up a hand. ‘Have I said a word?’
Gracie shut her mouth and shook her head. She felt very shabby next to Rocco. He’d changed since this morning into a suit. Gracie watched warily as he went around his desk and sat down. And then she took in the full majesty of the awe-inspiring view.
Momentarily distracted despite herself, she went towards the window. ‘Do you always have the best views?’
Rocco’s voice was cynical. ‘Of course. Don’t you know that people are judged by how high they are and how far they can see?’
For some reason his words made Gracie feel sad for him. She ran a hand over the back of the sleekly modern chair that faced his desk and returned her gaze to him. ‘I wonder when it becomes impossible to be too high, or see too far.’
The weight of silence that stretched between them became almost unbearable and Gracie looked away, feeling embarrassed. Where had that little philosophical observation come from?
To avoid Rocco’s black gaze she took in the sleek furnishings and modern art that hung suspended on steel wires against the clear windows. Other staff, undoubtedly the best at what they did, were visible through the glass walls of their own offices nearby, but no one was looking up. They were all too busy. Making millions for Rocco and his clients, Gracie surmised grimly. Her brother had been one of those employees and yet he’d stolen from the people who trusted Rocco with their money. Her insides twisted.
She looked back to Rocco and didn’t want him to guess the direction of her thoughts. She hunted for something—anything—to say. ‘Don’t you mind?’
‘Mind what?’
Gracie gestured with a hand. ‘That everyone can see you? You’ve no privacy?’
‘This office is soundproofed, so no one can hear my private conversations. And this way I can see everyone.’
Gracie looked at him and his face was a bland mask, no expression. It made her feel prickly, wanting a reaction. ‘You mean, that way you can control everything.’
Rocco shrugged minutely. ‘I couldn’t control your brother’s scheming to swindle money from me and my clients.’
Gracie looked down and clasped her hands together. He’d just articulated her own thoughts. She heard Rocco move and glanced up to see him standing at his window with his back to her, hands in his pockets. For a moment his powerful physique looked completely incongruous against the cityscape, as if he should be outside, battling something elemental and natural.
He turned then, so abruptly that he caught her staring, and Gracie blushed.
‘I hope you’re not lying about your ability to cook dinner.
I won’t stand for any attempt at insolence, Gracie. Tonight is important to me.’
Pain lanced Gracie and she spoke before she could censor herself. ‘Because you’re entertaining your fiancée?’
Rocco frowned. ‘How do you know about that?’
If she could have swallowed her own tongue she would have, but she said miserably, ‘I saw a headline outside.’
For a long moment Rocco just looked at her, and then said, ‘She is not my fiancée yet. Not that it’s any business of yours.’
Gracie remembered what he’d said before she’d opened her big mouth and said rebelliously, ‘If I did serve up fish fingers you’d have no one to blame but yourself.’
Once again she had the curious feeling that he was holding back a laugh, but then he glowered at her. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
‘Was that all?’
He nodded curtly, and before Gracie did or said something she’d really regret she turned and fled.
Rocco watched Gracie’s slim back retreating through his offices. He didn’t miss the fact that she caught the eye of more than one male employee, or that it made his insides tighten. How did she have the singular ability to constantly make him veer off course and gravitate towards her?
Her observation about his offices being too transparent had never been made before—by anyone. He felt inordinately exposed, because only he knew that his preoccupation with being able to see all around him came from his early days and the constant need to watch his back. It was also why he surrounded himself with people when he knew most others in his position preferred solitude. On some level, because he’d grown up surrounded by so many, it was one thing he hadn’t been able to let go of, and she’d effortlessly spotted it. Albeit without understanding it.
Most people assumed it was an aesthetic thing. But it was as if she’d known there was more to it. And then that comment about always striving to be at the highest point. Literally.
She disappeared into the elevator and Rocco sat down and swung his chair around to the view, so no one could see him. For the first time he actually did resent the lack of privacy. He rested his elbows on the armrests of his chair and his chin on steepled fingers. In that moment a very illicit and long-buried feeling of rebellion stirred his blood.
Mid-afternoon that day, Gracie was neck-deep in preparing her menu for the evening. She was hot and sweaty when George appeared in the kitchen, holding out a big white box.
‘For you, from the boss.’
Gracie wiped her hands on her apron and took it. Her silly heart started to thump. Some rogue part of her brain seemed to run away with itself and she couldn’t help imagining a beautiful chiffon dress in delicate shades of pink. And for a moment she couldn’t help fantasising that dinner this evening was for her and Rocco.
She laid the box on the table and opened it up with unsteady hands. It only took a few seconds for those traitorous images to crumble to dust. She reached in and pulled out a black pinafore dress and a white apron. Sheer tights and plain black court shoes. A note fell out too. The arrogant scrawl said, ‘Please wear this later. R.’
Gracie alternately felt like laughing and crying. She’d never before allowed herself to daydream such fantasies even for a moment. Her life had been about gritty reality from day one. She’d had one boyfriend and he’d never given her anything—not even a birthday card. And suddenly she was indulging in Cinderella-esque dreams?
Disgusted with herself, Gracie stuffed the dress back into the box, childishly hoping it would get creased. She returned to her preparations and took a deep breath, curbing the desire to walk down to Rocco’s gleaming office and tip the sauce she’d been preparing over his smarmy head.
CHAPTER FIVE
PACING in his drawing room that evening, Rocco couldn’t remember the last time he’d been so tense. He’d come back to the apartment about thirty minutes before and had headed for the kitchen—only to find the door locked. He’d knocked on the door, to hear Gracie call from inside, ‘Go away. I’m busy.’
He’d
called through the door, ‘I hope you have everything in hand.’
‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she’d sung out sweetly. ‘I do. The fish fingers are almost done.’
Rocco had bitten back the urge to demand she open up immediately. He’d never been kept so consistently in an uncomfortable state of arousal in his life, and it had nothing to do with the woman due to walk in the door at any moment and everything to do with the woman a few feet away, behind the closed kitchen door. The woman related to the man who had set out to destroy his reputation and steal from him. The woman to whom he’d all but handed a sterling opportunity to humiliate him this evening.
A discreet knock on the door at that moment heralded his security man showing Honora Winthrop into the drawing room. The door opened to reveal the icy beauty looking predictably stunning in a black silk draped dress which managed the amazing feat of being completely modest while at the same time daringly see-through.
The immediately negative effect on Rocco’s libido was almost comical. She was effectively better than a cold shower. But, with smooth smile in place, Rocco went forward to greet her, pushing aside all visions of a red-haired temptress.
Gracie heard the voices outside in the drawing room and took a deep shaky breath. Much to her chagrin, the dress Rocco had sent was not creased. It was also about a size too small, proving to be a very snug fit around her breasts, bottom and thighs. At first she’d cursed him for doing it on purpose, but then had had to figure that it was far more likely to be because he had no interest in her body, therefore why would be have any notion, or care, what size she was?
She smoothed the small frilled white apron and tried once again to pull the dress down a little further to her knee. She tidied her hair, which she’d pulled back into a high bun, and picked up the tray that held two ice-misted glasses of champagne and a couple of small plates with crushed olive vol-au-vents and crab canapés.
When she walked into the room the voices died away. Gracie was burningly aware of two sets of eyes, one of which was dark and lingered, the other which glanced away again almost immediately. It must be the woman from the paper. Gracie was peripherally aware of a statuesque blonde beauty standing near Rocco at the window.
He surprised her by coming forward and taking the tray out of her hands. ‘Thank you, Gracie. We’ll eat in twenty minutes.’
She released the tray and tried to read the ambiguous look in his eyes, but couldn’t. So she turned and forced herself to walk away, when all she wanted to do was run. Back in the kitchen she laid her face against the door for a moment. She was shaking. Thankfully Rocco hadn’t expected her to hand out the drinks and canapés. She would have expected that he’d make the most of a moment like that and it was disconcerting that he hadn’t.
Pushing herself off the door, she went to finalise preparations for the starter and forced from her head images of Rocco and that woman toasting each other with the sparkling drink.
Rocco couldn’t get the image of Gracie walking into the drawing room out of his head. He felt as if it would be seared there for ever. Clearly the uniform he’d organised had come in a size too small. It was plastered to her petite lithe body, showing off the curves that were normally hidden. A button strained across her chest. The dress’s hem rested teasingly above her knee, revealing pale and slender legs. It was more like a French maid’s outfit for a hen night than the sophisticated serving dress he’d expected. And he had no one to blame but himself.
‘Rocco?’
Rocco broke out of his trance and looked at the woman beside him, one finely drawn eyebrow arched above perfectly made-up blue eyes.
He smiled tightly. ‘Forgive me …’
Gracie had just served the starter, and put her ear to the door to try and hear the conversation, or any observation about the food. She heard Rocco’s low voice, and then an irritating tinkling laugh followed by, ‘Oh, Rocco, you’re terrible!’
Gracie’s face burned. She felt paranoid, as if Rocco might come back through the door and hold up his plate with its linguine and truffle starter and say, Seriously? You thought this would be suitable?
But he didn’t appear. So Gracie got on with the main course.
After a suitable amount of time she went in to check the wine levels and saw that Rocco had finished his starter but Ms Winthrop’s was half eaten. The woman barely glanced at Gracie, just pushed her plate slightly towards the edge of the table, clearly indicating that she was finished.
Gracie curbed her tongue when she got a warning glance from Rocco, and replenished the wine and took the plates away, also curbing a cheeky urge to curtsey.
When she brought in the main course Gracie couldn’t help the dart of satisfaction at seeing Rocco’s eyes widen. The smell of the guinea fowl cacciatore was impressively aromatic. She deftly served them both, and left again. She was starting to get seriously annoyed with Rocco’s date’s complete lack of acknowledgment. At least in the bar where she’d worked—as rough as it had been—people looked you in the eye and not through you.
She started clearing up, valiantly ignoring the hum of voices and trying not to imagine what they might be talking about. Wedding plans? Gracie slapped down the tea-towel at the spiking of irrational jealousy.
Any kind of feelings for Rocco de Marco beyond antipathy and extreme wariness were so patently futile that—
Gracie heard a noise and whirled around to see George coming in through the other kitchen door, which opened out to the entrance hall. She’d given him an early supper of the same food she was serving Rocco and his guest because he’d finished his shift.
He had a big grin on his face and patted his enormous belly. ‘That was the singularly most amazing meal I’ve ever eaten.’
Gracie grinned. ‘Really? Oh, George, thank you!’ And she jumped up to give him a quick impetuous kiss, as much for his human affection and their growing friendship as anything else. Just then the other door opened and Gracie sprang back, cheeks burning.
Rocco stood there, looking like thunder, with his napkin in his hand. ‘If you’re quite ready? We’ve finished in here.’
George scuttled out as fast as he could for such a huge man, and Gracie leapt to attention, feeling absurdly guilty for no reason. Rocco stayed at the door, forcing her to go past him, and when her hip came into contact with his body she had to stop herself from flinching away. Even that small contact with his tall, hard-muscled body was seismic to her system. She cleared away the plates, glad for the first time that evening that the cold-looking blonde beauty wasn’t looking at her.
When she’d composed herself as much as she could, she went back in with the lemon torte dessert and coffee. Ms Winthrop was saying, ‘Darling, how on earth did you entice Louis away from the Four Seasons? Roberto must be simply livid! That meal was divine.’
A dart of satisfaction went through Gracie as she put down the tray on the nearby serving table. In the silence that followed she found she was holding her breath, waiting to see what Rocco would say. As the seconds ticked past it became incredibly important.
She was picking up the dessert plates and feeling sick inside when he cleared his throat. ‘Actually, Louis was indisposed this evening. So Gracie here, who is my temporary housekeeper, prepared our meal.’
Gracie walked over and put down the plates. She felt a little light-headed for a moment. She couldn’t believe Rocco had actually credited her. For the first time all evening the blonde shot her a narrow-eyed and very assessing glance.
‘Oh … how quaint.’
The words dripped with condescension.
That glance had obviously taken in a multitude of facts, because she looked back to Rocco and said, very deliberately, ‘I wasn’t going to say anything, but I thought perhaps Louis was on an off-night or had sent one of his sous-chefs. The guinea fowl did taste slightly odd. I do hope she knew what she was doing, I have an important family function tomorrow. I can’t afford to be ill.’
Gracie was rooted to the spot for a long moment. She co
uldn’t believe that this woman was picking apart her efforts as if she wasn’t even there. She registered a quick glance from Rocco, but was too stunned to look at him. She whirled around and escaped back to the kitchen, hearing his low tones as she went, but unable to make out the words.
Gracie was shaking—first of all with shock that Rocco had spoken up for her. She’d fully expected him to humiliate her by denying her contribution, but he’d sounded almost proud. And then shock morphed to anger at that woman’s downright rudeness.
She heard a laugh coming from the drawing room—her irritating laugh. To Gracie’s abject horror emotion surged, making hot tears prick at the back of her eyes as she looked at the chaos spread around the kitchen, the fruits of her hard labours.
She wasn’t sure what had happened, but at some point she’d started cooking for Rocco. George had told her where he was from in Italy, and that had informed her choices. Even whilst hating herself for her weakness, she’d wanted to impress him. Perhaps she’d hoped he would see that she wasn’t just some nobody who had nothing to offer except for a tenuous link to her brother?
She heard a door slam and flinched. No doubt that was Rocco and his date leaving for an exclusive club in town. Gracie wiped at her cheeks and set about cleaning up through a blur of tears.
She didn’t hear the door open, so when she heard a soft, ‘Gracie,’ from behind her she dropped a pan on the marble floor.
Gracie whirled around, too startled to remember how she must look. Her eyes cleared but her cheeks still stung. Rocco was standing there, his jacket removed and his tie undone and loose as if he’d yanked at it impatiently. The top button of his shirt was open and his hair was dishevelled.
Gracie took all this in in a split second. ‘I heard the front door,’ she said dumbly, wondering if he was some kind of mirage. ‘I thought you’d left.’
Rocco shook his head. His hands were deep in his pockets and even now Gracie had to fight the impulse to let her gaze drop.
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