now bordering on the barely legal. She squirmed, and this time when she looked up his eyebrow had shot up again and his lip was distinctly curled.
‘Life’s been all right—thanks. I get by,’ she said, tugging the dress back into place as best she could.
‘You could have stopped the traffic even without throwing yourself at it. Good job the lights were just changing.’
‘I don’t normally dress like this—I was leaving work,’ she added defensively, but her words were muffled in a gasp of pain as the car hit a pothole.
‘No need to explain yourself to me,’ he said quickly. His voice was calm—and all that quiet control that she remembered was now laced with deep overtones of firm command.
‘And don’t worry—I’ll take care of anything that needs taking care of.’
Let me take care of you.
Stacey turned quickly to the window. The jolt of memory jarred like whiplash. Marco had been so kind to her once. He’d said those words. But she’d taken the kindness he’d offered and thrown it back in his face. Because girls like Stacey didn’t mix with the Marcos of this world. She wasn’t dumb enough to believe in fairy tales. In her world handsome princes disappeared, or turned into lazy, abusive, beer-swilling toads.
‘How long has it been?’ she asked. ‘You were—what?—nineteen last time I saw you in Montauk?’
‘Yes. Nineteen. Just before I hit the road. And you—you were still in high school?’
‘Yes, I was sixteen. Thought I knew it all.’
She’d been sixteen. She’d been a mess. She’d come home that night to find that her mother had sold the car—their last remaining luxury. She’d been fired from her part-time job for using her mouth against a customer who’d insulted her, and she’d learned she’d been given the Tramp of the Year award by her classmates. Yeah, she’d been a mess, all right. So when Marco had caught up with her and asked her if the rumours were true she’d laughed in his face.
Of course they were true. Did he think he was special?
He’d turned his back on her and she’d done what any abandoned daughter would have done. She’d gone looking for Daddy.
‘We all thought we knew it all,’ Marco said. ‘Comes with the territory. Refusing to listen and making the wrong choices. Isn’t that what growing up is all about?’
She rolled her eyes, remembering.
‘Are you talking about the night I left home?’
‘Not especially. But I reckon it kind of fits the bill,’ he said, smiling.
‘Okay, so hitch-hiking wasn’t my best plan—but how was I to know that my mother would mobilise everyone with a torch and a conscience. I was only gone three days.’
‘I know. I was there. Torch. Conscience. Ticket to Rio burning a hole in my back pocket.’
Stacey cringed, remembering. It had been the worst weekend of her life. She’d bounced like a boomerang from one disaster to another. Her hare-brained scheme about finding her dad had spectacularly backfired and she’d come home with no money and absolutely no illusions that he was anything other than a sorry, selfish excuse for a man.
‘Sorry I delayed your trip. But you made it to Rio in the end, right?’
He shook his head.
‘Not that year—change of plan. But it didn’t matter. I would have gone anywhere as long as it wasn’t Montauk.’
Stacey nodded. She knew exactly what he meant.
‘If I never see the End of the World, Long Island, again it’ll be too soon,’ she said.
They travelled for the next few minutes in silence, to the outskirts of town and the start of more exclusive addresses. Places where Marco would be right at home and where Bruce’s name probably wouldn’t cut it.
He turned the car into a lushly planted car park. A red cross and the words ‘St Bartholomew’s Medical Center’ in deeply etched silver writing warned in hushed tones that this was the domain of the elite. Exclusively. The building itself was solid and secure, white stone, and for a moment a sense of calm descended. She felt it. She sat. Still. Silent.
‘I don’t think this will take too long. Then you can be on your way. But if there is any damage don’t worry—I’ll cover it.’
‘Thanks,’ she managed to say. ‘Good of you.’
She reached for the handle.
‘Stacey. A moment.’
She swallowed, then turned—carefully. He was sitting back in his seat, one elbow on the armrest, one hand on his knee. The picture of easy, moneyed charm. Like a warm, sunny welcome after the grim, gritty night. Sure and solid and secure. Exactly how she’d once felt in his company. Safe from the never-ending stream of her mother’s suffocating worries.
Yes, he’d had it all back then—he’d even had a heart. Unlike most of his friends, she’d never thought him shallow. Or smug. Or arrogant. On the contrary. Somehow he’d made her feel—valuable. That she had as much to offer as any other human being. But it turned out that had all been in her imagination. Because at the end of the day as soon as he’d thought she was anything less than perfect he’d cast her aside faster than yesterday’s trash.
She took a second—took him in. God, but he was handsome. He had lost all the soft traces of boyhood and taken on the harder mantle of manhood. His eyes, dark and deep, were fixed onto hers. She’d always had a thing for dark-eyed men, and now she remembered this was where it had all begun. But no one had the full package like Marco—eyelashes short and thick, and long, wide brows that framed his dark, enigmatic look so perfectly. The blue-black shading of his stubble perfectly outlined his mouth and the blunt cut of his jaw.
She couldn’t draw her eyes away. The air in her lungs suddenly seemed to be completely lacking. His lips—those fabulous full lips that she remembered—parted. Then there was nothing but the shadow between them, the beat of her heart and the anticipation that rocketed all the way to throb between her legs.
‘Marco...’ she breathed.
He moved not a single muscle. There was just the flick of his eyes as they roamed across her face. He didn’t reach across to grab her, didn’t accidentally brush up against her leg—he even managed to keep his gaze above her jaw. He was completely and utterly impassive. And, worse, she felt that he was mocking her.
‘Put my jacket round your shoulders before we go inside. You’ll feel more comfortable.’
He opened the door and she hissed out the breath she’d been holding in. What a fool. What a fool! She had actually contemplated kissing him—kissing him! And—worse—she’d thought he was going to kiss her too. She must be out of her mind. After all this time? That bump had definitely gone to her head. She had to get her game on or she was going to let herself turn into a pile of mush.
And a woman with no home, no job and no money could not afford to be mushy.
Marco
