Marco had simply taken her hand and sat down with her. And much as she found this peculiar feeling of dependence unsettling, his calm strength had finally seeped into her.
Now, with the sun blazing down on them, she felt almost at peace.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“Fine.”
He turned his head and smiled wryly. “How are you really feeling?”
She snickered. He read her too well. “Better. The sunshine helps. I’m not in a hurry to go for a paddle again, but it’s a start.”
“You’re the bravest person I know, Pippa Rowantree.”
His unexpected declaration suffused her with warmth, the tenderness in his voice making her throat catch. “Hardly.”
“When you make your mind up to do something you don’t let anything, even fear, stop you. That to me is bravery at its highest.”
Her fingers played with the hem of her denim shorts, uncomfortable with this sort of conversation. “It’s not bravery, it’s necessity.”
“Why do you always put yourself down?”
“I find it’s best to get in early.”
“There you go again,” he said, exasperation starting to lace his voice. “When your father kicked you out of the family home, you could have fallen straight into the gutter…”
“Actually, he didn’t kick me out—I left.”
“Really? I always believed it was the other way round.”
“You and the rest of the world. In fairness, it was only a matter of time before he did throw me out. He’d been threatening it since I was eighteen. ”
“So why did you leave?”
She stared at the brilliant blue sea, trying to compose her thoughts. She had never discussed this with anyone.
It occurred to her that he knew her better and knew more about her than anyone, a thought that made her feel decidedly skittish.
“One morning when I was twenty I woke up in a police cell and with the most dreadful hangover. My memory of the previous night was a complete blank. I could not remember a single thing about how I got there. My hands were shaking so badly that when I got home I couldn’t play my piano.” She blew out a breath and shook her head. “Have you ever had one of those moments of pure clarity, when you look into the future and you can see exactly how it’s going to turn out?”
He stared at her quizzically but said nothing, waiting for her to continue.
“Sitting at that piano, unable to hit the correct keys… I knew right there and then that if I didn’t stop drinking, in a few years’ time I would be unlikely to be capable of playing at all. My music means everything to me. It’s always been my comfort blanket.”
“So you stopped drinking just like that?”
“Yes. It truly was an epiphany. It was like looking into a vision of my future and it scared the hell out of me. I was throwing my life away and I wanted it back.”
“So why did you leave home? Surely it would have been easier for you with support?”
She made a face at him. “Support? From my father? Maybe Amelia would have supported me, but her priority is my father and she would never go against him.” She shook her head. “Besides, my father was part of the problem. Try living with someone who can’t bear to even look at you. It hurts.”
Hunching her knees up to her chin, she removed her hand from Marco’s clasp and hugged herself. “I left home and straightened myself out.”
“How could you afford it?”
“By getting a job.” She laughed. “How else do people support themselves? Oh, I know people expect me to have a nice healthy trust fund, but it doesn’t exist. Generations of Rowantrees frittered the inheritance away. My father inherited the estate and title but little else. His wealth is all his own.”
“His wealth is enough that he could have paid for a decent lawyer for you.”
She grimaced. “Even if he’d wanted to, I would never have let him. I will not be indebted to him or anyone. I pay my own way.”
“Even if the money could keep you from prison?” His tone was merely curious but she heard the underlying despair in it, a note that made her heart expand.
“I would much rather my innocence kept me from prison. Anyway, can we change the subject, please?”
“But surely you’re worried?” he persisted, his eyes searching her face.
“Of course I am,” she whispered. “Actually, I feel more frustrated because it’s out of my hands, but until I meet with my new lawyer there is nothing I can do.”
“Have you made the appointment?”
“Yes. I see her next Wednesday.”
He fell silent beside her. She heard him drag air into his lungs and half-expected him to insist on accompanying her.
“So, how many jobs have you had?” he said after a full minute had passed in a strange silence that could have been considered companionable were it not for the ache that stretched between them. “It seems every time I pick up an English tabloid there’s a picture of you waitressing in a new restaurant or café. Or being sacked from one.”
Mentally she counted them out, glad for the change of subject. “About a dozen. A few of the snooty ones sacked me because of the adverse publicity.”
“Really?”
“It didn’t matter too much. There was always another restaurant ready to hire me in the hopes of getting the extra customers because of the adverse publicity.”
“And how many times have you had to move because of all the attention?”
“Only a handful. Most of the other residents in the dumps I lived in were happy to see the back of me—my tinny piano playing got on their nerves, so the publicity thing was always a good excuse for them to kick up a fuss to the landlord.”
“One thing I don’t understand,” he said slowly, “Is why you never pursued your music when you got yourself together.”
“It’s private. I have no intention of the press comparing me to my mother and finding me wanting, ridiculing me over that as well as everything else.” Talking about her music with Marco made her feel antsy. “Anyway, that’s quite enough about my sordid past. Your turn.”
“You have more talent in your little finger than most people have in their entire beings. You can’t pretend the subject doesn’t exist.”
“Watch me,” she said. “So, city boy, how did you end up in a place of tranquility like this?”
For a moment she thought he was going to press the subject and readied herself to walk away. She didn’t want to argue with him, not now, not when there was such curious harmony between them.
“What do you mean?”
“You were such a city boy, I always imagined you living it up in the penthouse suite of a swanky apartment in New York. Moving here…it’s like you went into hiding or something.”
“Nothing that dramatic,” he answered. “Most of my employees and factories are in the States, but I can personally work anywhere. I do have a home in San Francisco, which I live in whenever I’m in the States, which averages around six months a year, and yes, it is a swanky penthouse apartment.”
“But why here? What made you move to Grand Cayman?”
“I was brought here a few years ago by an associate who knew I was looking for some worthy businesses to invest my cash in and was desperate for my help. As soon as the plane landed, I knew I had found my home.”
“I can see why. It’s beautiful here. Even if the sea is right on your doorstep.”
“It is.”
And then she found the courage to ask the question that had been playing on her mind for days, and hoped the answer would not be like lancing a boil. “Why did you and Angiolina split up?”
Chapter Thirteen
That was the last question Marco had expected from her. “Where did that come from?”
Pippa hunched her shoulders and gazed out at the sea. He could not begin to describe the pride he felt watching her do that.
“Your house. It’s so big for one—or two if you count Joycy. I keep wondering why
you never married and filled it with bouncing babies.” She sighed. “I guess I feel responsible for you two breaking up.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” He could not be more emphatic.
She peered at him, her eyes a cloud of doubt. “Why did you split up, then? Are you saying it had nothing to do with the press coverage?”
Had he really implied that? Had he really thought an eighteen-year-old girl responsible for the failings in his relationship?
He wrapped his arm around her waist and pulled her to him. He was only a little gratified when she didn’t resist.
“Angiolina was under great pressure from her father. Between her own suspicions that something had happened between you and me, the constant press intrusion, and her father’s relentless raging at the entire situation, she decided she could no longer trust me and called the whole thing off. Once she had made that decision, her father pulled out of his investment with me.”
He heard her take in a breath. “So it is my fault you two split up.”
He hugged her closer. “Angiolina was a typical daddy’s girl. His influence on her was enormous. If our relationship had been strong enough and if she’d had an ounce of your backbone, we would have weathered it.”
She relaxed a little against him. “I’m sorry.”
He nuzzled her hair, breathing in the light, honeyed fragrance he found so comforting. “I can’t deny that I did blame you. For a long time I blamed you for denying me the family that Angiolina and I would have had but believe me, it wasn’t your fault.” If he hadn’t felt so much damned resentment toward her he would have understood that sooner.
“Why didn’t you ever marry anyone else?”
His mind flashed back to that night seven years ago, the inexplicable longing he had experienced when he had laid eyes on her, the anger he had felt when she had become so drunk she could not stand up straight. Those violent reactions that had left his blood simmering had been inexplicable, put aside as a one-off, never to be experienced again until a certain white-blond woman with a tongue that could cut a grown man at the knees reentered his life.
Pippa made his blood sing. She made him laugh. She infuriated him. There were times when he would gladly throttle her. Through it all, one constant remained: he would walk on broken glass for her.
And she still probably wouldn’t let him, he thought, suppressing a sad burst of mirth.
“I guess I never met a woman I felt enough for to take that step with.”
A silence hung between them like a tangible entity.
“Are you hungry?”
“A little.” She looked away. “Shouldn’t you be going back to work?”
He reached for her chin, twisting it, forcing her to look at him. “Pippa, I’m not going anywhere.”
…
Pippa was in the midst of her first proper cooking lesson under the stern supervision of Joycy, who had been horrified to learn she could mangle a salad.
“Something smells good.” Marco came into the kitchen, having been holed up in his home office since their return from the beach. They’d walked back together with his BlackBerry buzzing for England, the drone annoying her so much she had made him check them. There had been one particular message that had stopped him in his tracks. When she’d asked about it, he’d brushed her off, but his whole stance had practically zinged with fresh energy.
“It’s papaya stew and it smells good because Joycy’s done it all.”
“I’ve put you in charge of stirring,” Joycy piped up, grinning.
His lips twitched a fraction but he wisely made no comment.
Unnerved by the way he was just standing there looking at her with the strangest expression on his face, she asked, “Is something wrong?”
He shook his head. “Everything is right.”
Both women stared at him.
“I’ve just been on the phone to a friend who works for the CPS,” he said, referring to the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.
Pippa’s eyes narrowed.
He took a step back and raised his hands. “I promise you, I have not interfered, I simply asked her to keep an eye on your case and give me a heads-up when there were any developments.”
“Whatever,” she dismissed, “What did she tell you?”
“That the charges against you are being dropped.”
“Really?”
He nodded. “Really.”
Blessed relief flooded through her entire being, enough to make her grip the edge of the workbench to keep upright.
“Did they give an official reason?” she asked, needing to know if her name had been cleared.
“At the moment it has been dropped due to lack of evidence.”
The hesitation in his voice caught her attention. “Has he been charged?”
“Not yet.”
That explained the hesitancy.
She sighed. Unless her boss was charged, there would be nothing to stop people speculating that she was indeed guilty and that she had used her family’s wealth to buy her way out of trouble. That particular accusation never failed to rile her. Maybe her new lawyer would have some ideas on how to handle her ex-boss and his lack of accountability.
Marco cleared his throat. “Unofficially, the police are launching a fresh investigation into your boss’s misdeeds. It appears two previous members of staff have come forward alleging sexual harassment.”
“That is wonderful news,” Joycy said, beaming, abandoning her chopping board to smack kisses on Pippa’s cheeks. “I always knew you were innocent.”
“I’m glad someone did.” Intending to throw a pointed look at him, she stopped short when she saw the stark longing in his eyes. There was something else in that longing too, something more subdued and wishful.
Whether or not Joycy sensed they needed time alone together, she came up with an excuse to disappear into her basement flat, telling Pippa to keep stirring until she returned.
“I suppose I should be angry with you for interfering again,” she said, watching his reaction closely as she stirred.
“Only if you look at it as interfering.”
“Then what was it?”
He laughed savagely. “Trying to help someone who has been wronged?”
“You believed me then?” She held her breath. Suddenly his answer was desperately important.
“Not fully. Not at first. I fully believed you had been assaulted—and believe me, I wanted to kill the bastard. I still do. But I couldn’t quite shift my disbelief that you were as innocent as you protested—I thought it had to be some kind of flirtation that had got out of hand.” He shrugged but his liquid gaze remained steady. “But that was then. When Caitlin gave me the good news, I already knew.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I just can’t see you carrying on with a married man.” He threw his hands in the air. “Dammit, cara, when are you going to realize that I care about you and am on your side? I allowed your history—our history—to cloud my judgment when you first arrived here, and for that I can only apologize. But I won’t apologize for getting Caitlin to keep tabs on your case because I would have done the same for anyone I care about. At the speed these courts move, there was every chance it would have been days if not weeks before you were given official notification of the decision, and I didn’t want it to be hanging over your head any longer than necessary.”
“You really care for me?”
“How can you doubt it?”
She swallowed back the stupid tears that were threatening to break free again. Abandoning the stew, she walked over to him on legs that were decidedly shaky and placed her palm on his chest. “I know I’m rubbish at expressing gratitude. I know I have trouble accepting help. But thank you. For everything.”
Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips, snaking his free hand around her neck and pulling it to rest against his chest. She could feel the strong beat of his heart drumming against her ear and felt the oddest desire to crawl into his skin. Why was she even b
othering to fight it anymore?
Heated words exchanged in fear or anger mattered for nothing when compared to deeds and actions. Marco was right. How could she deny that he cared for her?
Just like she cared for him. Cared for him with a desperate yearning that made her pulse skitter and her heart ache.
The gold in his black eyes melted and swirled as he dipped his head and claimed her lips in a kiss.
Sweet, bubbling heat enveloped her and she sighed into his mouth, hungry for his kisses. Hungry for him.
A sigh of protest escaped from her throat when he broke away, palming her cheeks with his large hands and rubbing his nose against her. Greedily, she inhaled the heady warmth of his breath.
“Stay with me tonight?”
She raised a hand and cupped his cheek in turn. “Yes,” she breathed. “Yes, I will.”
…
Pippa was as skittish as a colt.
What had she agreed to? To share Marco’s bed? To allow him to make love to her? To make love to him?
Over the course of the day, there had been a tangible shift between them that both terrified and thrilled her in equal measure.
Despite the fact that they had already made love before, this felt different. It was as if she were a virgin anticipating her first time. Yet she had not been bothered when she had lost her virginity. Admittedly, she had been drunk that night long ago and the details were only sketchy, but looking back, she could see she had been determined to get it over with, to prove to herself that she really was over Marco.
By unspoken agreement, there was no further touching between them, just a swirl of tension that followed wherever they went. Sweet, sweet desire, seeping into her bones. She could almost taste it.
She showered before dinner and took extra care over her appearance, brushing her hair until it shone and selecting a simple yet elegant cream shift. For the first time since her arrival, she even applied a little makeup.
His gleam of appreciation made her toes curl.
If Joycy noticed the lingering glances between them, for once she kept her mouth shut, excusing herself straight after dinner, kissing them both soundly on the cheek as she bade them good night.
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