to the imagination than the bodice. Another notch down in his estimation, no doubt. Ignoring the pain, she held on to the sides of the car and eased herself to her feet.
‘Too kind,’ she said, slipping her arms into the deep sleeves he held out and wrapping the navy silk jacket around her. He closed the door and clicked the remote key to lock it. Two beeps. One for every ten billion, she’d guess.
‘It’s not a problem,’ he said, every inch the uninterested chaperone.
She felt the weight of his world envelop her in heavy fabric and wide shoulders. It was as if gold had been spun into the cloth and wishes might fall out of the sleeves. Life was not fair. Not at all.
‘You’ve clearly done well for yourself, Marco. I think it was a beat-up farm truck I last saw you driving. Win a little on the slot machines?’
As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them. His father had been a compulsive gambler. Damn. She scrunched her eyes closed, remembering.
‘I don’t gamble, Stacey—in fact I despise it.’
‘I’m sorry.’ It was all she could say, and she felt the thrust of his anger. ‘I forgot.’
‘I can’t forget. We lost everything due to my father’s gambling. Everything.’
She knew. It had been the very thing that had bound them together at one point—Marco’s rapid fall from the elite ranks of Montauk society all the way down to the gutter. All the way, but not quite. He was a Borsatto after all.
‘If I had my way I’d shut down every toxic casino in this town. And the others.’
‘I’m glad not everybody sees it that way. I’ve made a living from them one way or another these past ten years.’
‘You’re entitled to your view,’ he said, as if it was the most stupid thing he’d ever heard. Then he turned and began to walk towards the building.
She watched his retreating back, outlined against the white marble.
So what if he’d lost it all? She’d never had it in the first place.
She started after him, her heels dragging on the gravel of the car park.
‘Not everyone who gambles is a loser, you know.’ She fired the words into his back.
He paused. ‘I guess not,’ he said, turning slowly, judging her.
In the smallest slide of his eyes he was telling her that she had been found completely and utterly lacking. He stood there, framed in the white-pillared entrance. Sheets of black glass wrapped around the building behind him. Sunlight sparkled.
‘But in my experience there are a hell of a lot more sinners than saints.’
‘More whores than Madonnas? Is that what you’re saying? Because I’m dressed like this?’
His mouth curved a little. He shook his head.
‘I was talking about the customers, Stacey. Not the staff.’
There she went again—jumping to conclusions and shooting her mouth off like an unmanned artillery gun. She threw him her worst possible look but he didn’t flinch.
‘You told me you don’t normally dress like that. So I assume it’s your “uniform” if you were working today?’
Before she got a chance to answer an immaculately presented woman in a sleeveless tailored dress and heels, with the most perfect hair Stacey had ever seen, clicked across the marble entrance, hand extended, smiling her Ivy League best.
‘Mr Borsatto, how pleasant to see you.’
‘Thank you, Lydia, nice to see you too. I’m afraid I haven’t got a scheduled appointment today, but I’d be obliged if you would arrange urgent scans for this lady.’
Stacey eyes flashed to the name badge which read ‘Executive Administrator’, whatever that was, even as the lovely Lydia arched her eyebrows then swept her with an all too familiar look. The one that said, What’s the likes of you doing with the likes of him? That said, You don’t belong here. The one that she’d endured over and over in her youth. That always ended with her losing her temper—because what gave them the right?
But then she looked at Marco, and for a moment she was right back in Montauk. Right back in the little café where she’d worked and where ‘the crowd’ had hung out. Where he’d keep his eyes on her in a long, intense stare, telling her he had her back.
Back then.
‘And we’ll need the best possible St Bart’s welcome, Lydia. Miss Jackson and I have had a minor traffic accident, unfortunately. But she’s kindly agreed to get herself checked out. Just to reassure me that she hasn’t done any lasting damage.’
Was she imagining it? Or was there a warning in those tones?
Whatever—the cold, calculating eyes of the other woman told Stacey that it didn’t make one blind bit of difference what Marco said. They both knew that she was a little plastic flower in his otherwise perfect garden. Here today, gone tomorrow. So don’t go getting any big ideas.
Stacey pulled Marco’s jacket round her shoulders. If the pink-faced, bull-headed Bruce Decker couldn’t get to her, there was no way on this earth that this pristine princess was going to.
‘Did you catch that, Lydia?’ she said, stalking right past her and slipping her a little of her best acid. ‘The. Best. Possible. St Bart’s. Welcome.’
STACEY LIFTED ANOTHER glossy magazine and began to flick the pages noisily. She took a sip of the pretty spectacular Italian coffee they’d served her and remembered again that money wasn’t everything. But it sure could gild the world in a million beautiful ways.
This may be a hospital, she thought, but it oozes more luxury than a five-star hotel.
Even the scornful Lydia had been as good as instructed, and it was ‘no trouble at all’ to get Stacey everything Marco had asked for. And it seemed he had asked for everything. She’d been scanned and quizzed and prodded and now she was back in a private room, surrounded by all manner of things to eat or drink or read while she waited for some kind of decision.
She flicked on, through pages and pages of fashion, jewellery, homes and gossip. Exotic locations in European cities and tropical beaches. Jaw-droppingly handsome men and sombre-faced stick-thin women. Make-believe worlds that some people actually lived in.
People like Marco.
She looked up from the magazine to see he had stopped pacing for a moment and was sipping on a tiny espresso. Framed by two giant palms and some expressionist art, he was the very image of the self-made superhero. He could slide right onto the pages of this magazine and the world would sigh and drool and smile indulgently at how one man could have just so much going on.
He turned to put down the cup and walked out to take a call, and of course her eyes landed on the
