The Legend of de Marco

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.’