His mother started, “But-”
Again he interrupted because this wasn’t her fault at all, and his brother had been a bad person, not her. “Mom, I’m getting some money transferred to you.”
“Don’t. You need it.”
“I need you, Mom. You’re all I have when I’m trying to appeal.”
She sighed. “I’ll always be with you, even when I’m not here physically anymore.”
“You’re my only character witness now. I need you.” She didn’t need to die. Not today. His voice deepened. “When I get you help, you will take it. I have to go, Mom.”
“Help yourself first, Rocco.”
They both said, “Goodbye.”
He closed his eyes and listened to the breeze that brushed against the newly formed leaves emerging on an oak tree near the staff’s entrance.
The one vacation he’d ever taken in Vegas had turned out to be five years in prison when Roger tried to clean out the hotel’s bank, using Rocco’s identity and now that was likely a lifetime in jail now that he’d escaped to ensure his mother took care of her health.
No one cared when he’d said he was innocent. His appeals remained unanswered.
But that was a past he couldn’t change. He needed his mother to not give up, no matter the odds. Like Mica.
He let out his breath slowly, drawing out the peaceful moment.
The birds sang so sweetly in the tree he’d put their nest in.
Then the voice of an angel called out, “Are you okay?”
Money for money's sake was evil, but now that had to take precedence over anything else. He met Mica's gaze and knew better than to wish for what he’d never be able to have.
He glanced at the door. “I’ll be inside in a few minutes to read, Mica.”
“We’ll be waiting.” She motioned with her hand to follow.
If things were different, he’d follow her anywhere. But she deserved to be with a man who was worthy of her. He was too tainted, even if she offered more. All they had was now.
Chapter 9
Jacob fell asleep in Mica’s arms as she sat at her office desk in her suite upstairs. Her glass desk and white leather chair were identical to what she had in her New York offices, not that the décor mattered.
Her mind drifted to remember her son’s brown eyes which were hypnotizing and beautiful.
This, her and Jacob together, had been enough for her for months.
The idea of having this boy kept her strong when she’d been so weak throughout her pregnancy, her determination to keep this baby meant finding a treatment for the poison Ali had tried to kill her with.
But she was lucky. She had the resources to have state-of-the-art everything.
Rocco, the man downstairs who stirred her heart, hadn’t had the best at his fingertips. And he needed his mom just as she needed Jacob.
She stood, carefully put Jacob in his crib in the adjoining bedroom of her suite and started to relax when her phone rang from where she’d left it next to the computer.
Mica quickly grabbed it and saw her secretary's name, and a text about legal. Now she’d do everything to ensure he had the chance to reunite with his mother.
Luckily Jacob stayed asleep. Mica sat in her chair, glancing out of her large bay window. Rocco had gone back outside again. He’d spent the afternoon near the tree, and the birds.
Her heart whispered to help. Maybe she was wrong and it would be intrusive but she ached to do something. “Julie, legal wants to talk to me?”
Julie sounded like she was typing, as always, and said, “Yes. Let me connect you to Steve Cardona, your senior lawyer on this case, but first I want to say I’m sorry for what I said earlier about Rocco. I read his file and his life sounds… sad. I should only speak after knowing facts.”
Mica’s heart constricted. Her knees pressed together under her desk and turned the computer on to read the report. “You didn’t say anything bad. Not really. I’m downloading what you sent now. Let me talk to legal.”
“Of course.” Julie clicked a button and for a second silence echoed back to her.
Mica read everything fast in the one-page report and then twenty-five pages of fact-finding documentation.
Her attorneys had concluded that the trial had serious issues in the records. A click sounded, then a male voice. “Ms. Murphy?”
Right. Mica was the billionaire business woman who ran a hotel empire, not a woman of leisure who did whatever she wanted. Her gaze went to Rocco, sweeping the front steps. Most of the snow had melted from the path but a blizzard was predicted for tomorrow.
Her instincts were right.
The brown-haired man had worry lines she could erase. She asked her lawyer, “This is Cardona, who wrote the report on Rocco Hellsworth?”
Steve Cardona’s brief meant she wasn’t completely crazy. He said, “Yes, ma’am. Now we need to know what you want us to do.”
Fix it. Free Rocco. Mica sucked in her breath and asked, “If I wanted to help, what could you do?”
“He’s an escaped prisoner on the run right now. That’s not helping his case.”
“Can he be cleared without having to go back to prison?”
“You must be personally invested in this…if he were to be found with you, you could be indicted for aiding and abetting a criminal.”
Good thing no one but Julie knew her whereabout at work. “That won’t happen as you’re my lawyer. Now, what can you do?”
“We’ll file an appeal, get an injunction, and I’d get the case thrown out pretty easily,” her lawyer said. “There’s enough evidence in the trial transcripts to get this entire thing declared a mistrial, and with his brothers dead they’d have a hard time bringing more charges. His attorney in this seems almost complicit with sending him to prison.”
Too much legalese for her. The tree swayed from a breeze and standing beneath it was a good man. She stood, pressed her head to the glass plane and said, “Do it.”
Her lawyer asked, “What, ma’am? We need precise instructions.”
If he asked for a repeat of what he'd said, she couldn’t pull it off. Her voice caught in her throat but she spoke with command, “Clear… clear Rocco Hellsworth’s name. Ensure he’s a free man as fast as possible.”
Cardona immediately asked, “Will you want us to file a wrongful imprisonment case as well for civil restitution? I can also gather information on his lawyer’s malfeasance for the bar.”
Money wasn’t an issue for her, but he could use some for his mother. Anything she could do, she’d try. “Yes. I want to help Rocco and I need you to do everything in your power to right this wrong.”
“I’m on it, Ms. Murphy,” Cardona answered, then hung up. Mica closed her computer.
She’d been gone a while, settling Jacob. Hopefully she could talk Rocco into coming back inside now.
Soon she’d show Rocco this file and tell him what she’d done. First she needed to admit who she was and how she had this power.
Her son called out to her so she rushed back to the bedroom and picked him up.
Jacob’s skin was soft and warm. She hugged her boy and said, “Jacob, sometimes it’s important to help people just out of the kindness of your heart. I want you to learn that it’s good to wield your power for others and not just the family bank account.”
Her son just clutched her shirt in his tiny fist.
He was so sweet that she crooned to him as they made their way downstairs.
The kitchen smelled like the stew her parents’ French chef made for her as a girl.
Tonight’s beef stew must be done, or at least her stomach said it should be. She bounced her baby in her arms and headed outside.
A cold wind whipped in her face so she just waved from the threshold of the backdoor of her patio toward Rocco. “Come in.”
Rocco straightened and wiped his pants like he’d get the dirt off that way as he made his way toward her.
Strong muscles had never stirred anything inside her
that resembled desire until Rocco.
Every other man, including her prince who'd tried to kill her, had been skinny in comparison.
Rocco took the door from her and held it as she headed inside first.
Jacob cooed like he was happy to be back inside the house as she said to Rocco, “How did the conversation go with your mom?”
He reached into his back pocket and placed her phone in between her fingers that held the baby. “Fine. I should delete the contact from your phone.”
She shrugged, but juggled her baby onto her shoulder and opened her phone with the other hand as they headed to the kitchen table for staff and said as she read her screen, “I’ll do it… you only talked to her like twenty minutes.”
He returned to the sink and washed his hands. “Yeah. I tried to keep it short.”
She pushed her phone in her back pocket. “It’s getting dark and cold again and you don’t have a heavy jacket.”
He turned off the faucet and dried his hands. “I needed to think.”
She headed over to the sink and stood next to him as warm goosebumps rushed over her arm that brushed his as she asked, “About?”
Despite the heavy subject, Rocco smiled at Jacob. “Money. My mother said she can’t afford-”
“Send her to my doctors,” she interrupted, and then pressed her lips together as his face seemed pinched. She bounced her son but stood beside Rocco as she added, “They saved my life and I’m sure they can help her.”
He didn’t step away but said, “That sounds… expensive.”
She bumped her shoulder into his. Rocco made her trust in humanity, and in him. “Don’t. You’re helping me. I’ll help her.”
Rocco looked at her son on her hip. “I’m not doing much other than cooking. But I wanted to talk to you about working for you in exchange of the cost for my mother’s care.”
“Food smells delicious.” She wished he understood how peaceful he made her. “And we’ll figure out the details together. I already said I’d pay.”
This calm in her world was worth its price in gold. Peace wasn’t her life. At any minute she might need to run her baby to her helicopter and fly him away from bad people who wanted her and her son dead. Knowing that Rocco was at her side gave her an added layer of safety.
He shook his head. “But cancer treatment seems much more expensive.”
Right. She licked her lips and met his eyes as she took a second to find the words as her heart raced. Finally she settled on what she meant to say and prayed she didn’t scare him off. “You’ve restored my faith in men and I… want to help you, if you allow me.”
He lowered his head and his cheeks turned slightly red before he nodded, “Thank you. My mother’s health is something I’d sell my soul for.”
She didn’t require that, but would make it happen. Mica opened the refrigerator and took out a bottle for her son. “So, go take a shower and get dressed. The smell is making me hungry.”
He saluted like she’d given him an order. “I’ll make sure dinner is ready.”
“I’m sure you will.” She put the bottle in her son’s mouth and imagined getting dressed herself soon. Something pretty.
Rocco, on his way out, paused at the kitchen door. “I will try to never disappoint you, Mica. You’ve been hurt enough in the past.”
She took a step toward him and lowered her head as memories rushed in of when she’d been half-dead but flew herself out of Ali’s castle in the middle of the night to find treatment. If she hadn’t had her plane in the vicinity, she’d be dead. She met Rocco’s kind gaze and said, “I think you’ve been through worse.”
She hadn’t been falsely arrested, and never wanted his experience. He returned to her. Mica put her son in his playpen so he could eat properly as Rocco said, “No one tried to kill me.”
Her heart pounded in her chest so much she almost trembled—when she never usually reacted. “Your brother Roger was a killer--he didn't try to hurt you?”
Rocco pointed to a small, hardly noticeable spot on his forehead. “He gave me this scar above my eyebrow when I was a boy, but he never hurt me as a man.”
She went on her tiptoes and inspected his face. The scar was very small, but she kissed it and went back down to her soles. “I’ve never had to prove my strength as a man.”
He crossed his arms and admired her figure. “No, as a woman, which might be harder.”
Mica had her post-pregnancy body, but inside her skin she was still the girl she’d always been. “Why do you say that?”
His muscles flexed like they had a mind of their own. "You run your own company, had a baby, fly airplanes-“
“And helicopters,” she said. Granted, it wasn’t the most impressive thing, but they were her favorites.
He smiled brighter. “And helicopters, but your mother kept introducing you to bad men. I don’t get how a smart, independent, strong, and beautiful woman might ever think she needed that.”
Her mother would probably disapprove of how Mica’s body ached for this man’s touch, but she had no choice—Mica wanted him. “She didn’t know Ali would try to kill me…and we all need someone to trust.”
“I suppose.” He leaned against the small kitchen table. “But if you were a man no one would question your abilities to run the company without a male at your side.”
She wrapped her arm around his back, wanting to be more than friends. “I knew I liked you, Rocco.”
He stood taller and stepped away. “I’ll go and get dressed now.”
She called out to his backside, “Running away?”
He stopped and faced her with confusion. “I’m doing what you want.”
She ignored the zip in her veins as she took a step closer to him and looped her finger in his belt loop at his hip. Maybe this was too much but her heart raced and she licked her lips as she asked, “What I want?”
“Yeah.” He nodded but didn’t pull away.
She directed her attention at his lips. This wasn’t her, not really. It was only here with Rocco that she could be so direct. “Then kiss me again.”
For a moment she feared he’d hate her or leave or run. She was never this, well, bold. But then his lips claimed hers and it was like fireworks in every cell of her body.
Rocco was the first man she’d ever wanted like this, ever.
Chapter 10
Breaking News. The police manhunt has been called off. More information will be available later.
Rocco’s heart stopped fast in his chest. What had he just heard?
If he was ten years older, he’d probably be dead from the words.
Off? That made no sense.
Unless this was a trap.
The police must know where he was and any second he’d be carted back to prison.
Why else would there be such a lie on the radio?
Behind him Mica clapped. He turned as she said, “Well, that’s good news.”
The zaps in his heart were more like warning shots now. The danger being over for him couldn’t be true. He swallowed. “Why do you say that?”
Her black dress clung to her long legs in all the right ways as she strode toward him. This time the spike in his pulse was entirely her doing. Her high heels clicked against the marble floor. She reached the counter and let her hand fall right beside his. “They probably caught who they were looking for or realized their own mistake. Either way we’re not going to be bothered, so let’s turn it off.”
Mistake? He’d stormed out of the prison. He’d waded through the sewer after digging a tunnel, and none of that was on accident.
If he stayed much longer in one place, chances of him being caught rose greatly.
If he left, did he walk right into their trap?
His mind raced. Maybe it was better to stay and enjoy his last moments at the chalet with Mica.
Since arriving here, his life felt like it had turned around, like Mica was his personal angel, when that was impossible.
She didn’t know the
truth about him. She wanted him physically from what she’d said and done, but he’d avoided that because he didn’t want to disappoint her when she discovered his secret.
He placed both hands in front of him and glanced at the floor. “Mica, there is something I should tell you.”
“Confessions are for dessert.” She patted him on his muscular chest covered in a gray Armani suit.
At least he’d wear nice things for the rest of his time here. He picked up the bowls of beef stew and walked them into the dining room, but as he looked around, he didn’t see the baby. “How’s Jacob?”
If he stayed at the chalet, he might as well enjoy his next few moments, however long they stretched out to be. So he passed her and brushed against her sexy shoulder as she said, “He’s sleeping. Personally I think he’s cute, but I’m super biased… what are you doing?”
He flipped the radio to FM and played with the tuning as he said, “Finding the right… here, this will work.” A woman’s voice with a slow song. Perfect. He’d dream about this night for the rest of his years behind bars. He returned to Mica’s side and held out his hand. “Will you dance with me?”
She clutched his palm and flipped her hair. “You want to dance?”
In school and in the movies, one hand went to her side and one hand was out holding her palm. He was always good at imitating. “You have me all dressed up and it might be nice to build up an appetite before we eat.”
A huge smile grew on her face and she beamed at him like he’d offered her an ice cream sundae at some afternoon children’s party her parents had sent her to, mostly so the adults could discuss business. “Okay. I’d like that.”
Mica’s kindness was embedded in her soul. She was a good mother and a good woman that any man would be proud to have. Spunk and a zest for living were the best qualities a woman might offer and Mica had that and more.
If only he could…but he wouldn't entertain the fantasy. “What are your hobbies other than running a business and now being a mom?”
Hidden Rocco (Hidden Alphas Book 5) Page 8
