information. He pushed open the car door and slung his long, powerful body out, then he leant down to prop himself against the window. ‘I will call you when I’m ready to be collected.’
‘Yes, sir.’
Which, Rocco figured, would be in under an hour. He had no intention of going over any books with the woman. That could be done in the comfort of his father’s office. No. He would simply prepare her for the possibility that all this community housing rubbish would come to a swift end should his father be unable to return to active work, leaving Rocco to take over to his satisfaction before he departed for New York. If the company wanted to donate to charitable causes, there were ways and means of doing just that, which would additionally bring in tax relief on the donations. Time, energy and manpower were to be spent on the profitable side of the business. Losi Construction was not an unofficial branch of the Samaritans.
With that objective firmly in his mind, Rocco pushed open the door to the office and stepped into a world he had not visited for a very long time indeed. The world of cheap furniture, threadbare carpets and seeming chaos. There was no reception area. Five desks were crammed into a room roughly half the size of his own office in New York and one entire wall was dominated by an intricate map of a housing estate, from an aerial view. Grimy windows had been flung open to allow some fresh air in and an overhead fan threatened to wreak havoc on any paperwork that wasn’t securely weighted down.
In this alarmingly basic atmosphere work was, however, going on, although it immediately stopped the minute he walked in, with five pairs of eyes focusing on him with unconcealed interest. Three men and two women, all in their twenties. Two of the men wore their hair scraped back into ponytails and conversely the women had short cropped hairdos.
‘I am looking for an Amy Hogan,’ Rocco said, moving forward so that several more details in the room sprang into unfortunate prominence. Such as the notice-board propped against the wall at the back, with messages tacked over every square centimetre of its surface, the wire bins most of which were full, and a box of tools whose purpose he could only guess at.
‘In the back.’ One of the lads stepped forward and eyed Rocco suspiciously, putting out one hand when Rocco tried to head in the mentioned direction. ‘Whoa! Where do you think you’re going, mate?’
‘I am here to see Miss Hogan.’
‘And you are…?’
‘Rocco Losi.’
The hand dropped and there was a heightened sense of interest now.
‘I have an appointment with Miss Hogan, in case she hasn’t mentioned it.’
‘Nope. She hasn’t. How’s your dad doing? Name’s Freddy, by the way, mate. Soz about the lack of welcome mate, but you can’t be too careful in these parts.’ Freddy held out his hand, which was surprisingly firm when Rocco shook it.
‘Off-licence was broken into a fortnight ago,’ one of the cropped-haired women interjected. ‘Three men just broke through the plate glass and hauled as much as they could, as cool as you like, never mind the alarm bells.’
‘Took the coppers a good ten minutes to get here…’
‘By which time, they’d scarpered…’
‘Old Mr Singh was pretty shaken up about it…’
‘I see you’ve met my staff.’ The voice was low, husky and threaded with amusement. Rocco looked up to see a woman standing in the doorway, dressed in the same casual style as everyone else seemed to be: jeans and a stripy teeshirt, with a pair of trainers. ‘I’m Amy Hogan and you must be Antonio’s son.’
The softening in her voice when she mentioned his father’s name stirred something inside him and Rocco met her open smile with a gritted one of his own. Five feet four, if that, straight brown hair, wide-spaced brown eyes, sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of a short, straight nose.
What, he wondered, had possessed his father to employ someone who looked so young to handle sums of money that a good many would baulk at? To fling about at her own discretion? A community centre here, a refuge there, a park somewhere else…?
He hadn’t actually seen her CV, but now that he had laid eyes on her he decided that he’d better check her credentials.
‘Perhaps we could go somewhere private for a talk,’ Rocco said, moving towards her.
‘My office is just at the back.’ God, he was tall. Amy could feel herself craning up to look at him. Tall and so incredibly good-looking that she had to wrench her eyes away or risk staring shamelessly. He was olive-skinned, with black hair and eyes so piercingly blue that even when she had looked past him she could still feel them boring into her.
Richard hadn’t told her what he looked like. She wished she had asked, so that she wouldn’t now be standing here, gaping.
Fortunately, he had told her everything else about him, paying particular attention to his arrogance, not that she could have missed it. It was stamped all over him like a handprint.
She plastered her brightest smile on her face. ‘Would you like something to drink? Tea? Coffee? Actually, scrap the coffee. We ran out a couple of days ago and no one’s got around to replacing it. So that’s tea or water.’
‘I’m fine. I’m just here for a little…chat…and then I will be on my way.’
Amy shrugged and led the way to her office, which was just another room, smaller than the first but in a similarly worn state. However, it did contain a desk, behind which she moved to sit, and a couple of chairs, one of which she indicated to Rocco.
He seemed to dwarf the room. It was an illusion, of course, but it was still unsettling. Something about the unhurried way he looked around him before finally settling his attention on her rattled her. Surprising because, in the sort of work she did, she came into contact with men who were really a lot more unsettling than Rocco Losi.
‘What can I do for you?’ Amy asked, smilingly polite although the smile was in danger of wearing a bit thin.
‘I believe I asked to see you at my father’s offices yesterday?’
‘I know. Sorry about that but I was really very busy and I just couldn’t find the time to get away. How is your father doing? We were all really worried when he was taken ill with pneumonia. He told me that he was just a little run-down. It was a complete shock to learn that he’d been taken into hospital. I’ve tried to get in to see him every day, but he was still so weak that I don’t think my presence there did much good at all.’
‘Let us get one thing straight, Miss Hogan. I am here for absolutely the least amount of time possible. In the time that I am here, I expect cooperation from every member of my father’s staff. That includes yourself, however distant your outpost appears to be.’
Amy stopped smiling and met his stare with one of her own. ‘Please accept my apologies. Now, perhaps you would like to tell me what I can do for you.’ Richard had been vague but ominous on the matter of Rocco’s visit and she hadn’t pressed him, assuming that he just wanted a quick run-down of the projects they had recently worked on and were currently undertaking. She was becoming uneasily aware that her blithe optimism might have been a tad misplaced.
‘What you can do for me is to tell me what your credentials are.’
‘I
