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 couldn’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.
His voice was tight. ‘Miss Winthrop has gone home, and she won’t be back. I must apologise for her rudeness. She refused to come in here and do it herself.’
Gracie’s mouth opened and closed like a fish. ‘You asked her to come in here? And apologise?’
Rocco nodded curtly. ‘I shouldn’t have even had to ask. She had no right to talk to you like that. And she was wrong. You served up an amazing meal.’ He shook his head slightly. ‘I had no idea you could cook like that.’
Half dazed, Gracie said, ‘One of my foster parents trained in Paris as a chef in the sixties. She ended up working as a cook in a school kitchen when she came back to England because no one would hire a female chef.’ Gracie shrugged. ‘I’m not that proficient, really … I picked up some basics and I like cooking.’
Rocco stepped further into the kitchen and Gracie gulped. He looked so intent. She moved back a step and her foot knocked the pan on the floor. She looked down to see that some sauce had leaked out and automatically bent down to get it. Suddenly Rocco was there, taking her arm and helping her up, taking the pan out of her hand.
He led her away from the spill. ‘No,’ he said, his accent thick. ‘Someone else will clean it up.’
Gracie just looked up at him. He was too close all of a sudden, his sheer physical presence more than overwhelming, and she was horribly aware of her red eyes. She hated that she had been so upset and was terrified Rocco would see it.
‘You don’t have to apologise. She’s the one who was rude.’
‘But I put you in that position. I let her speak to you like that.’
Gracie couldn’t keep the hurt from her voice. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘you did. I thought you did it on purpose. To get some pleasure out of seeing me squirm. Seeing me out of my depth.’
Rocco shook his head, and the look on his face made tendrils of heat coil up inside her—along with panic. She didn’t know if she could control her response when Rocco stood this close to her, touching her. And that awful uncontrollable emotion was rising again, that sense of how vulnerable she’d felt this evening. She hadn’t felt a need to impress someone for a long time—if ever.
Gracie spoke with a rush. ‘She looked through me, and then she looked at me as if I was dirt, as if she couldn’t believe that I’d actually handled her food.’