slammed into her. Mr de Marco? This man she’d just been ogling was Rocco de Marco? From the way Steven had described him and his achievements she’d imagined someone much older. And quite possibly short and fat, with a cigar. Not this dynamic, virile man. She guessed him to be early thirties at the most.
The obsequious man who’d interrupted them melted away, and Rocco de Marco stepped closer to Gracie. Immediately his scent hit her, and it was musky and disturbingly masculine. He put out his hand and, still in shock, she lifted hers to let him take it. His eyes never leaving hers, he bent down and pressed a kiss to the back of her small, pale and freckled hand. Inwardly, even as her blood leapt to his touch, she cringed at how work-rough her hands must feel.
He stood again and let her hand go. He wasn’t speculative any more. He was all hot and seductive. ‘Don’t go anywhere, now, will you? You still haven’t told me who you are …’
And then after a searing look he turned and strode away into the throng. It was only then that Gracie breathed again. Unable to stop herself, she took in the sheer masculine majesty of his physique. He stood head and shoulders above most of the crowd, who were parting like a veritable Red Sea to let him through. A broad back tapered down to narrow hips and long legs. Physical perfection.
He was Rocco de Marco. Legendary financier and billionaire. Some people called him a genius. Wildly her glance searched for and found Steven, who was looking raptly to where Rocco now stood on a dais, commanding the packed ballroom.
Without even knowing quite why it was so important to get out of there, Gracie just knew she had to leave. The thought of facing that man again was frankly overwhelming. Her utter gaucheness screamed at her. The rough skin on her hands itched. Not one person in that room could be unaware of who he was. Except her. The sheer class of these people struck home—hard. The jewels the women wore were real, not like her cheap plastic baubles. She didn’t belong here.
She thought of how the most important man in the room had witnessed her filching canapés from the buffet, and when she had a scary vision of being introduced to him by Steven she blanched. Steven would be mortified if Rocco de Marco mentioned it. He might even get into trouble.
That well ingrained sense of responsibility kicked in and Gracie did the only thing she could do. She ran.
Rocco de Marco regarded the profile about him in the newspaper’s financial supplement with a disdainful twist of his lips. A cartoon depiction of his face made his features markedly more masculine and dark. A dart of satisfaction ran through him, however, when his eye went to the picture which had been taken of him with the glacially beautiful Honora Winthrop. He knew without arrogance that they looked good together—dark against pale. It had been taken at the De Marco Benefit in the London Museum the week before. The night he’d embarked on his campaign to seduce his way into respectable society for ever.
His smile turned hard at the thought of how eager Ms Winthrop had been to get into his bed. But so far he’d resisted her lures. He’d made the decision that night that the endgame would be to make her his wife, and in pursuing that aim he wouldn’t allow sex to cloud the issue. His smile faded when he conceded that it hadn’t taken much effort on his part to resist her.
As if to taunt him, the image of a petite, sparky redhead inserted itself mischievously into his mind’s eye. It was so vivid that it drove him up and out of his chair. He stood at the vast window of his office which overlooked London. The view went as unnoticed as the paper which had fallen to the floor with his abrupt move. Rocco’s jaw clenched in utter rejection of that image and memory. And the extremely uncomfortable reminder that after his speech he’d not gone straight to Honora Winthrop’s side but to look for the nameless stranger—only to find that she’d disappeared.
He could still remember his shock and surprise. No one—especially not a woman—walked away from him.
He didn’t relish the fact that not once before in the fifteen years since he’d left Italy had he ever deviated from his well-laid plans—not even for a beautiful woman. She hadn’t even been that beautiful. But she’d been something. She’d exerted some kind of visceral pull on him the moment he’d seen her across the room.
For that entire evening he hadn’t quite been able to stop his reflex to look for her. It burned him to acknowledge that he was still thinking of those few seconds of what should have been an unremarkable meeting. Especially when he was on track to achieving the stamp of respectability which would forever put him in a sphere far, far away from his past.
In an uncharacteristic gesture of fatigue Rocco rubbed the back of his neck. He put his momentary introspection down to the recent security breach in his company. It had been quickly discovered and sealed off, but had made Rocco realise how dangerously complacent he was becoming.
He’d hired Steven Murray a month ago—as much on a gut instinct as anything else, which was not normal practice for him. But he’d been unusually impressed with the young man’s raw eagerness and undoubted intellect, and something about the man had connected with Rocco on a deep level. So, despite the worryingly vague CV, Rocco had given him a chance.
Only to be rewarded just this past week by the same man transferring one million euros to an unlocatable account and disappearing into thin air. The party last week had been a high point—and now this. It was like a punch in the face to Rocco. A sharp reminder that he could never let his guard down for a second.
His skin went clammy when he thought of how the people he sought so desperately to be his peers would turn their backs on him in a second if he revealed himself to be vulnerable in any way. And if that happened how quickly Honora Winthrop’s gaze would turn disdainful if he even dared ask for her hand in marriage.
For so long now he’d been in absolute control, and suddenly he was chatting up random women in ill-fitting dresses and hiring people on gut instinct. He was in danger of jeopardising everything he’d worked so hard to attain. He was courted and fêted now because wealth made him powerful. It would be social acceptance that would secure his position for ever.
This chink in his otherwise solid armour made him wary. People were already curious about his past. He didn’t want to give the hungry English tabloids any excuses to dig even further.
The fact that his security team had failed to find Steven Murray yet was like an irritating splinter stuck in Rocco’s foot. He would not rest until the man had been found and questioned. And punished.
With a grimace at his own moody thoughts, Rocco turned from the view and picked up his jacket to leave his glass-walled office. Dusk was enveloping the city outside and the offices surrounding him were empty. It was usually his favourite time to work—when everyone had left. He liked the enveloping silence. It comforted him; it was so far removed from the constant cacaphony of his youth.
Just as he was almost out of his office the phone rang. Rocco turned back and picked it up. He heard what the person on the other end said and his whole body tautened. He bit out his words. ‘Send her up to me.’
Tension kept Rocco’s body tight as he walked to his lift and watched the numbers ascend. Someone was here asking for Steven Murray. There was a pause when the lift stopped, and in the split second before the doors opened Rocco had a prickling sensation of something momentous about to happen.
The doors opened to reveal the petite form of a woman dressed in a grey T-shirt, faded jeans, and what looked like a cardigan tied around her waist. Her form was lithe and compact, with small pert breasts pushing against the fabric of her top. A heavy coil of red hair lay over one shoulder, reaching almost to those breasts. Her face was pale and heart-shaped, her freckles stood out, and her eyes were
