As far as work sentences were concerned, so far, hers had been a breeze. She almost felt guilty, and it occurred to her with a flare of conscience that crashing into him had possibly been the best thing she’d ever done. She was so used to long work hours, that taking care of his home, so far, had been the easiest job she’d ever had. Granted, she wasn’t earning any money, and she didn’t have a car at her disposal, but after a few easy hours in the morning of wiping the counters, running the vacuum and straightening up, the days were hers.
So far, she’d spent them catching up on her sleep, taking long hot baths, and watching scads and scads of cable television—something she’d never had access to before on a regular basis.
Of course, she’d used the computer to Google him. His name was the first thing she’d put into the search engine. She hadn’t found out as much as she’d expected, mostly information about his bank. It was a family entity, started by his grandfather in the early days after the Second World War. Its home base was in New York, making her wonder why he made his home in Houston. The major stockholder was Marco, who inherited the majority holding when his paternal grandfather had died. His own father had been killed, in a plane crash alongside his mother, when Marco was a boy of nine. Natalie silently winced for him when she had read that he had been orphaned at such an early age. He seemed to be basically alone now, although he had numerous cousins and a few aunts and uncles spread around the world. He was thirty-two years old, his middle name was Rafaele, but she couldn’t find any information on his private life.
She’d given up that endeavor when she’d become frustrated from lack of information and from the sorrow his childhood circumstances caused her. She’d pushed it from her mind and gone back to exploring.
She’d explored the penthouse from top to bottom, and had found the lovely and very private rooftop balcony. The area was designed strategically to block off any high winds, and she’d spent a few pleasant hours here and there working on a suntan she’d never had time for before. She hoped he never caught her during her moments of leisure, but surely she wasn’t supposed to be working twenty-four-seven? There wasn’t possibly that much work available for her to do.
All and all, except for being nervous around him, she was content with her temporary life, if only it weren’t for the nagging guilt that she shouldn’t be having such a restful time. She didn’t have to worry about anything. Not bills, not food, not her mother’s boyfriend trying to sneak into her room in the middle of the night.
Marco had only called her on the cell phone he had given her twice—the two times he wanted to eat in. And now, inactivity making her claustrophobic, she slipped the phone into the pocket of her shorts and laced her tennis shoes. It had been too long since she’d gotten any real exercise, and surely a building as nice as this one had a gym?
She grabbed the extra key card from the entryway table and took the elevator down. In the two weeks she’d been living here, except for the rooftop, it was the first time she’d been out of the penthouse. Suddenly, she was itching to see the world again and decided to take a brisk walk instead of looking for the gym.
Natalie smiled at the concierge as she walked past, and then again at the doorman. She had a ten-dollar bill in her pocket, just in case, and she set out walking at a brisk pace. It was the noon hour, and the sidewalks of Downtown were full of business-type people. She made a mental note of the corner she started from, and made a quick decision to turn right and take off from there. She quickly caught on to the ebb and flow of traffic; how the lights would change, and the wave of people would cross in front of the stopped cars. She walked up and down the streets rapidly for about half an hour before she became out of breath.
She was hot and sweaty, needed water or a Coke, and decided to head back. There was a commuter train that ran just a few blocks from Marco’s building, and she decided it would be fun to ride it. It only took a few minutes standing on the platform before the train arrived and she was able to board. The train was comfortable, and she watched the sights as they sped by.
She hopped off when she thought she’d gone the correct distance and looked around to get her bearings. She didn’t see anything even vaguely familiar and a tiny sense of foreboding hit her, but she refused to panic. She had her phone if she became lost, and anyway, it was still early in the afternoon.
As she wandered around, she wished she could call her cousin, but knew he wouldn’t be home for weeks. She didn’t know anyone else in the city except Marco, and she wasn’t quite that desperate yet.
She strolled up and down the block. She seemed to be in the hospital district, and wandered around for another fifteen minutes, trying to figure out what to do. The train that had been so easy to catch before didn’t seem to be coming back around, and she didn’t think the money she had would be enough for a cab ride back to her building.
She was waiting at another crosswalk for the next wave of cars to pass when a sleek black Audi pulled up beside her. The window lowered silently. “Get in.”
A mild sense of shock hit her that Marco would appear at the exact moment when she needed him, and the hows and whys of it didn’t occur to her immediately.
She opened the door and slid inside. “What are you doing here?” she asked him.
The light changed, he accelerated and then his eyes briefly left the road and touched on her. “Buckle up, Natalie.”
She did as he said with fingers that trembled and after a few minutes of silence as he drove, she tried again. “How did you happen to be there?”
He didn’t answer immediately, and when he did, his voice was curt. “Coincidence.”
But he didn’t explain further, and she lapsed into uneasy silence, her mind working on the problem in her brain. She didn’t for one second believe it was a coincidence. He had known she was there. And it didn’t take her long before she came up with the only answer there could be to the equation of how he could have happened upon her in a metropolis of over four million people. He was tracking her with her cell phone.
He expected her to do a runner, and the angry tension on his face confirmed it.
But she was innocent of that, and she didn’t want to argue with him. She also didn’t want him to know she’d figured out what he was doing. She wasn’t brave enough to call him on it, and if it was ammunition in her arsenal against him, then all the better. “Thanks for finding me. I was about three minutes away from panicking.”
“Why were you out?” he asked through teeth she could see were clenched. Another wave of apprehension took flight in her stomach.
It was best to stick to the truth. After all, she hadn’t done anything wrong except for assuming she didn’t have to work for him twenty-four hours a day. And somehow she knew that her work schedule wasn’t the problem he had with her leaving the building. She’d tell him the exact truth, all except for the part about knowing he had a GPS locater on her. “I had some extra time and needed some exercise. At first I was going to look for a gym in the building, but the day was so pretty I decided to take a walk.”
“You walked all the way to the hospital district?”
“No, I walked awhile and then tried to take the train back. But it went the wrong way, I guess. I was basically lost when you found me.”
He pulled the car into the underground parking garage of his building and cut off the engine. The light was dim down there, barely permeating the area, and silence enveloped the interior of the vehicle. He turned in his seat to face her, not making a move to get out of the car. That didn’t surprise her. It was too early for him to be home from the bank, anyway. She swiveled to face him as well, putting her back against the door.
He watched her in silence for a moment, his expression held tightly in lines of disapproval and something else she couldn’t quite identify, but nonetheless, had her trembling inside. “You know how dangerous the city can be?” he asked in a voice that only barely contained the menacing anger she knew he was feeling.
Her eyes held hi
s with concentrated effort. “I was never in any danger,” she replied softly, her nerves jumping wildly.
“You think not?” He asked silkily, his hand coming up behind her to land on the back of her seat, trapping her even closer to him and paralyzing her throat with tightness.
“No,” she managed.
“It wouldn’t have taken two seconds for someone to grab you and drive away.” His words were controlled, but with an edge of threat, as if daring her to disagree.
Her breath became shaky, her heart jolting from the smoldering flame in his eyes. “I think you’re exaggerating,” she maintained slowly, licking her dry lips.
His eyes dropped to her mouth. “Do you?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“I don’t think you recognize when you’re in danger.” He dropped that softly and it landed like a loaded time bomb between them. Silence pulsed within the confines of the vehicle as she realized what he was saying. Her heart beat erratically and her breath came harder as his eyes left her lips and clashed with hers and refused to release her from his hold.
Her eyelids began to shut, attempting to close him out, and his hand shot out and wrapped around her wrist, denying her even that simple means of escape. Her heart began banging viciously in her chest. “Marco—”
“Shall we conduct a quick experiment?”
She tried again. “Marco—”
“Do you have any fucking idea how beautiful you are?” His voice was pained, and an unbidden image of how it would be if they were to make love crept stealthily through her mind.
Shocked at both his question and the image in her mind, she stammered, “I’m—I’m not.”
“Yeah, Natalie—you are. And you need to be careful. All. The. Time.” His fingers tightened around her wrist, his thumb swirling over her pulse point. “I’d sincerely appreciate it if you’d start taking better care of my twenty-thousand dollar investment.”
A rock lodged in her throat; her feelings were hurt at his blunt assessment. “Twenty-thousand dollar investment,” she repeated flatly. “That’s what I am?”
“You want to be more?” He retaliated quickly, his voice lethally low, his rapier glance passing over her, coming to a halt on her chest, which was rising and falling in agitation.
Her heart banged heavily in her chest as he watched her steadily, waiting for a reaction. She couldn’t form an answer. Her thoughts were disjointed, all over the place. She swallowed hard and tried to still the blood that was pumping so heavily in her ears that speaking seemed impossible.
His eyes moved to study her lips and Natalie could feel the tension pouring from his large body looming too closely over the console. “Say the word, baby,” he intoned slowly, in a voice that both dared and begged her at the same time.
Her eyes flared at his tense statement and butterflies took flight in her stomach. Dear God, was he saying what she thought he was saying? Or had her fevered imagination only conjured those words up? She couldn’t deal with this—not yet, not now. She pulled on her wrist, attempting to retrieve it from his hold, and tried to defuse the intensity swirling around the enclosed space. “I was lost, Marco—that’s all.”
His eyes narrowed on her, but finally, he released her wrist, while his expression remained tight with strain. “Good thing I found you then.”
She let out a breath, thankful the subject had gotten back on track, away from the dangerous course it had taken moments before. “Yes, thank you.” Her words were polite, but way too stiff. She tried to loosen up the knot of tension in her throat so she could maintain a tone of normality. “Is there a gym in the building?”
A cloud settled over his features and he answered her shortly, “Yes.”
“Do you think it would be okay if I use it once in awhile?”
His eyes were completely remote, gleaming like dark volcanic rock while he studied her within the confines of the car. “I don’t see why not,” he said slowly.
His answer rang false; it seemed to her as if he couldn’t think of a reason fast enough for why she couldn’t use the gym. Curious and alarmed at once, Natalie pasted a fake smile on her face that she hoped he couldn’t see through. “Thanks again. I’ll get back to work. Are you coming up?”
“No, I was on my way to a meeting across town, I’m late as it is.”
Liar. She didn’t believe him for a second; she’d bet her last dollar he’d only left the bank to track her down. “Okay. I’ll see you later.” Natalie reached down and pulled the handle to release the door but it was locked. Still uneasy under his scrutiny, she shot him a questioning look. He held her eyes for the beat of five seconds and then he released the locking mechanism. The second it clicked open, she pulled the handle and jumped from the vehicle.
Chapter Four
Two hours later, Natalie had showered and fixed her make-up and hair. She’d slipped into her favorite pair of jeans and a loose t-shirt. She was absentmindedly running a dust cloth over the furniture, her mind on the very probable tracking device in her phone and wandering what else he might have been capable of. Had he screwed with the computer he’d lent her? Were there nanny cams around the apartment?
Just as she was looking around, trying to do it inconspicuously, in case she was being watched, the intercom buzzer rang.
She pressed the button. “Yes?”
“I’m sorry to intrude on your day, Miss Lambert, but Miss Wallace has something she’d like to bring up. May I send her up?” the concierge asked.
Natalie had no clue who Miss Wallace was, but whoever she was, she didn’t sound threatening. “Sure. And thank you.”
“You’re very welcome, Miss.”
Twenty seconds later, the elevator doors opened and a tall, blonde female dressed to the nines strolled in as if she owned the place. She glanced once at Natalie, and then dropped a box on the entry table before turning her penetrating stare on her completely. “That’s for Marco. Who the hell are you?”
“Natalie Lambert—Marco’s housekeeper.”
“Bullshit.” High-pitched venom laced the word.
“I’m sorry?”
“Marco hasn’t had a housekeeper since I’ve known him. He guards his privacy at all times and uses a cleaning service once a week, but that’s it.”
Natalie had no idea who this woman was, but she was getting the feeling that she was ‘the one who took care of that aspect of his life for him’. She steeled her nerves to answer. “I’ve worked for him for two weeks now.”
“And you call him Marco? That seems terribly disrespectful.”
Who the hell did this woman think she was? Natalie shrugged her shoulders at the question. “It’s the way he wants it,” she replied in an even tone.
“Are you here more than once a week?”
“Yep.”
“How often?”
“I’m a live-in.” As she said the words, Natalie knew the woman wouldn’t like her answer.
And she was right. Arrows of pure evil radiated from the woman’s eyes. “Are you fucking him?”
Natalie took a step back from the fury blasting out at her. “No. I just clean for him. And do the laundry.”
That answer seemed to calm the other woman down but only marginally. “Why would he need a housekeeper all of a sudden?” She asked the question almost of herself.
Natalie felt bad about the white lie she was about to tell even though she didn’t owe this woman anything. She and Marco had never discussed if they would or wouldn’t tell anyone about their ‘deal.’ She didn’t particularly want anyone to know she was his unpaid servant. “I don’t really know. I just know he hired me, and I clean for him. He’s rarely home.”
The other woman preened like a cat that had gotten the cream. “Yes, I know. He’s either at that stupid bank of his, or he’s in my bed, getting his brains screwed out.” Her face became shadowed and she frowned at Natalie as if something had just occurred to her. “How long did you say you’ve been working for him?”
“Two weeks.”<
br />
The frown intensified. “Just so you know, he’s mine. We’ve been dating for two years, and we’re getting married soon.”
Natalie felt a small stab of something she couldn’t identify. “Congratulations.”
“Yes, well, don’t congratulate me yet. I haven’t gotten him to commit completely. But he will.”
“That’s great.” Yes, just peachy.
“Call me Tanya. And I’ll call you Natalie?”
Natalie smiled and tried not to make it brittle. “Yes, of course.”
“Good. We’ll be seeing each other a lot because I’m here all the time. We’ll get along fine, just as long as you don’t try to take him. Not that you could. You’re not at all his type. Marco likes tall, beautiful women. And you aren’t that, are you?”
“Nope, no one could ever call me tall. Or beautiful, for that matter.” As soon as the words shot from her mouth, Natalie remembered what Marco had said earlier in the day—and the way he said it. A small shred of guilt crawled up her throat, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. She didn’t know if he really believed what he’d said, or if he was trying to make some kind of point, but he’d certainly sounded as if he believed it. But the fact was, Natalie had never thought of herself as beautiful. Her mother was beautiful; she wasn’t.
“Well, you’re not so bad, you know. Okay, see you later. You’ll give him the box, right?”
“Yes, of course. It was nice to meet you.” Not.
“You too.”