by Abby Green
Gracie shook her head even as her traitorous mind was screaming yes! She needed space for a moment. ‘I think I might sit out here for a bit.’
He shrugged. ‘As you wish,’ he said, and went inside. Gracie couldn’t stop her eyes greedily devouring his lean form as he went. When he’d disappeared she sighed and pulled the robe tight around her, drawing her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself. The rain had stopped and the clouds had moved off. Stars were twinkling again. The humid air was sucking up all the excess moisture. It was as if the storm had materialised just to accompany that mad passion, and now that it was over the storm was too.
She saw the detritus of what had just happened around them. The colourful shimmer of her dress at the bottom of the pool. Her coral-coloured panties floating on the surface of the water along with Rocco’s shirt. His trousers and briefs strewn on the ground. She groaned and dropped her head to her knees. One minute she’d been standing there, telling him she didn’t normally do this, and within seconds she’d been ripping his shirt off like a woman possessed.
He was right. It was insane. She didn’t doubt that with his other women—his usual women—he was a lot more civilised and restrained. None of this messy passion.
No wonder he resented it.
She’d seen the look on his face just before he’d jumped into the pool, as if he were battling with something inside himself.
Gracie felt a yearning welling up inside her. She didn’t want Rocco to resent this—or her. She wanted a chance to make him change his mind about her properly, not just this tenuous sliver of trust that could break at any moment. She wanted to persuade him that she and her brother weren’t just some opportunists who came from a dubious background.
She heard a noise and looked up to see him re-emerging from the suite. He had a fresh towel wrapped around his waist and was rubbing at his hair with another towel. Gracie felt exposed all over again, as if he might read that awful yearning on her face.
Brightly she asked, ‘Nice shower?’
He nodded, and then smiled wickedly. ‘Would have been nicer with you in it.’
He came and sat down on the lounger next to hers and his clean scent washed over her, making her belly tighten with a shaft of need. Inexplicably Gracie felt dirty all of a sudden, when she recalled their explosion of passion.
She glanced away, feeling prickly. ‘I like it out here.’
His voice was wry. ‘You can’t stay out here all night.’
She shrugged minutely. ‘To be honest, the suite … the hotel … it’s all a bit intimidating. I feel like I’m tainting it with my presence.’
Rocco went still. ‘That’s crazy … what are you talking about?’
She glanced at him. and then away again when she saw him frowning. ‘It’s like I’m not meant to be here. When I was about nine one of our foster parents took Steven and I to a stately home.’ Gracie smiled and said self-consciously, ‘She was one of the good ones … It was a grand old house. We had to get the train from London. It had these huge rooms—so beautiful, full of antiques and paintings. After a while I got lost. The group had gone on and I couldn’t find them. I wandered into a room full of tiny porcelain dolls.’
Gracie grimaced a little, remembering.
‘Obviously the people who owned the house had some kind of collection. I was fascinated, and picked one up to look at. Suddenly I felt a hand on my shoulder and I got such a fright I dropped it and it smashed on the ground. This woman was standing over me, shrieking about how I was a common little thief and to get out.’ She shivered at the memory. ‘I was so terrified I ran and ran, and finally found the group. I kept expecting to feel that hand on my shoulder again.’
Gracie felt embarrassed. Why on earth had she even started telling this story? But Rocco just looked at her, his face obscured in the dark.
She shrugged again, properly embarrassed now. ‘Earlier, when we came in, and at the function too, I felt as if a hand was going to land on my shoulder at any moment and someone would ask how I’d got in.’
A little roughly, Rocco said, ‘You have as much a right to be in these places as anyone else.’
Gracie half smiled. ‘Well, I don’t really. But it’s nice of you to say.’
Rocco stood up then, with a hand outstretched, as if to leave and take her with him. Gracie stood up too, about to take his hand, but then she stopped. His closed-off expression made something rise up within her—a desperate need for him to understand, and see.
‘Wait. I want to tell you something else.’
He dropped his hand, his jaw clenched. ‘Gracie, you don’t need to tell me these stories.’
His clear reluctance galvanised her. ‘They’re not stories—and, yes, I do need to tell you.’ She continued before he could protest. ‘Steven … my brother … we’re twins.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Non-identical obviously. I’m older by twenty minutes—he nearly died when he was born. When we were small he was puny and had big thick glasses. I got used to protecting him from bullies. He was never able to deal with things like I could. He never got over our mother leaving us …’
Gracie’s voice shook with passion.
‘He was too smart, too quiet. He was always a natural target. It might be hard to believe because of his actions, but he never wanted that life … to be in a gang, to get involved with drugs.’
‘So why did he, then?’ Rocco almost sneered.
Gracie flinched minutely but stood tall. Emotion constricted her voice. ‘They beat him down—literally. One day he got so badly beaten that he almost ended up in hospital. They broke him. It was easier to go along with what they wanted than to fight it. Even though I did my best to stop him. We were only fourteen. They had him hooked on alcohol within months. Drugs came soon after. He dropped out of school. Gave up.’
‘And yet you defend him even now?’
Again Rocco had that slightly sneering tone. Gracie looked at him, feeling a little disembodied. How could she even begin to explain the rich tapestry that bound her and her brother together?
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes, I defend him—and I would defend him for ever. Just like he defended me.’
Rocco frowned, impatience palpable in his lean form. ‘What do you mean? Defended you from what?’
Gracie knew her words were going nowhere, but she couldn’t stop now. ‘There was one foster home—it was miraculous, really, that we got to stay together all the time.’ She took a deep breath. ‘There was a man in this home. He used to look at me, and touch me when no one was around. Nothing serious at first—just a pat on the bottom or a pinch on my arm. But then one night he came into my room when his wife was away.’
Gracie could feel bile rising and forced it down.
‘He sat on my bed and started telling me what he wanted to do with me. Steven was in the room next to mine with another boy. I was on my own. I was so scared I couldn’t move or speak. Just when the man was about to get into bed beside me Steven came in. He didn’t say anything. He just waited for the man to get up and leave, and from that night until we left that house he slept in my bed, even as his own life was falling apart. He never left me alone. Not once.’
Rocco looked at Gracie’s pale face. Her words were like atom bombs detonating in his head and body. He wanted to rant and rage—throw the terrace furniture out over the balcony. He wanted to hug Gracie close and never let her go ever again. He trembled with it. Emotion was thick and acrid, gripping him by the throat. To think of that man touching her. And to think of her brother and what he’d been through. That he’d been beaten viciously enough to give in to that awful wasted life. Even now Rocco could see her brother’s face, clear and burning with eagerness in his office, impressing him with his zeal because it had reminded him of his own hunger to succeed.
And yet her brother had still turned around and made a fool of Rocco’s gut instinct, had betrayed him.
Rocco had been through the same trials … worse. And he hadn’t given in—never. He clung to
that assertion now, like a drowning man finding a piece of floating wood in a choppy ocean. He couldn’t touch Gracie right now. If he did he felt as if the emotions seething in his gut would overwhelm him completely and throw him straight back to where he’d come from, what he’d left behind all those years before.
With a huge effort Rocco thrust down the thick, cloying emotion and stepped back from Gracie and those huge eyes.
He heard the words coming out but wasn’t really aware of them. ‘This changes nothing. All evidence points to the fact that he hasn’t changed one bit. Don’t try my patience telling me these things.’
Rocco turned and strode back into the suite, feeling as if his insides were splintering apart into a thousand pieces.
Gracie looked at Rocco walking away and felt numb with hurt and rejection. She realised now why she’d told him more than she’d ever told anyone else. Not even Steven had ever mentioned out loud what had almost happened that night so long ago. It had been too horrific to contemplate. Yet Gracie had just told Rocco as if it had cost her nothing. But it was costing her dearly. Because she knew now what lay beneath this self-destructive desire to expose herself to him no matter what the consequences.
She was falling in love with him.
Rocco wasn’t surprised when he was still tossing and turning an hour later. What he wasn’t prepared for was the ache in his gut and the way the vast emptiness of the bed beside him was affecting him. He drew back the covers and sat up, his parting words to Gracie ringing in his head. He cursed her. But even as he did he cursed himself more.
All he could see in his mind’s eye now was that picture of Gracie and Steven when they’d been small. Her brother’s scared-looking little face with those huge glasses and Gracie looking so strong beside him. Like a little warrior. He found himself feeling jealous—of her brother. That she cared so much for him. That they had such a bond.
It had been easier to hurl those words at her and walk away than deal with the emotion. It opened up far too many chasms. And yet he couldn’t go on like this. He felt as if he was missing a limb.
Rocco went outside to the patio. He could see her curled up shape on a sun lounger in the dim moonlight and he felt the ache in his chest intensify into a physical pain. Damn her. He walked over and saw that their clothes were neatly folded and piled up. Her dress was a damp stain of colour against the ground. He looked at her, steeling himself for the inevitable effect.
Her face was relaxed, her hair rippling around her, looking very red against the pale cream lounger. Legs drawn up in that foetal pose she liked. His gut clenched when he thought of how her brother had protected her, and Rocco realised that he was jealous even of that.
He fought the urge to turn and walk away again. He bent down and scooped her up into his arms. She woke up and braced herself against him, resisting him.
‘Wait …’ Her voice sounded sleepy and sexy.
Rocco was already responding. He gritted his jaw and said, ‘Enough. You’ve made your point and I’ve made mine.’
He set her back and looked into those huge eyes, and felt that falling sensation again.
‘I didn’t mean to be so sharp.’ He shook his head and forced the tender feeling from his belly. ‘You don’t have to tell me anything, Gracie. It doesn’t change the situation we’re in regarding your brother.’
Her hands were on his chest. Her voice was husky with emotion. ‘You mean you don’t want me to tell you anything because you’re not interested?’
Rocco felt that tenderness inching back, together with a need to reassure her, and crushed it, feeling more ruthless than he’d ever been in his life. He concentrated on remaining immune to Gracie’s appeal.
‘Why your brother has done what he has is irrelevant to me. I deal in concrete things and he stole money from me. You, however, are far more relevant right now, and I don’t want to talk about your brother or your past any more. Deal?’
Gracie was wide awake now, and could feel Rocco’s intensity reaching out and sucking her in. He desperately wanted her to say yes. She could feel it. Even now, in spite of the hurt and rejection, she could fool herself into thinking she saw something deep in his eyes. Something vulnerable and exposed. She wanted this man with a hunger that shamed her. Even as she desperately wanted to be able to reject him, to inflict pain on him the way he’d done to her. But she couldn’t.
Hating herself, and the feeling of inevitability that washed through her, she said with a small voice, ‘Deal.’
To her relief Rocco didn’t grin with triumph, or—look mildly pleased with her capitualtion. He just looked intense and serious as he picked her up in his arms and took her back into the bedroom.
Landing in New York two days later was a different experience from landing in Bangkok. Far below them was a sea of grey buildings as far as her eye could see, vastly different from the lush green paddy fields.
Rocco was working across the aisle from her, a frown between his eyes as he studied papers.
She looked back to the view. Since the other night it had been as if a proper truce existed between them. They were careful to talk only about neutral topics. Rocco had even taken time off from his meetings to take Gracie to Bangkok’s stunning Grand Palace, and she’d wandered around in complete awe at the designs of the buildings with their vast marble terraces.
The style of the palace was eclectic: soaring Palladian arches and columns mixed with traditionally ornate Thai roofs. There was an entire temple devoted to a tiny Emerald Buddha which was placed high on an altar above the crowd. There was also a large model of the Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat, one of the places that had always fascinated Gracie.
She’d spent long minutes going round and round it, and had looked up to find Rocco leaning on a nearby wall just staring at her. She still felt weak inside when she thought of that look.
He’d woken her very early the previous morning and had led her, grumbling and sleepy, outside the hotel. She’d only noticed then that he was casually dressed in shorts and T-shirt. To her delighted surprise there had been a Tuk-Tuk waiting to take them to one of the floating markets, where they’d got into a boat and seen Buddhist monks in their distinctive orange robes accepting alms from the locals.
Gracie had been deeply moved by Rocco surprising her like that with a dawn visit to the markets before the hordes of tourists arrived, and the ride back through the city with the kamikaze Tuk-Tuk driver had been exhilarating.
‘What are you thinking about?’
Gracie jumped and looked at Rocco, and her heart turned over. She’d refused to let her mind go back to her revelation that she was falling for him. Far too dangerous. If she didn’t think about it, she thought weakly, perhaps the feeling would go away.
She forced a smile now, and said lightly, ‘I was just thinking that the last woman you took to Bangkok probably didn’t enjoy the Tuk-Tuk ride half as much as I did.’
Rocco said nothing for a moment, and he sounded almost surprised when he admitted, ‘I’ve never taken anyone to Bangkok with me before.’
Gracie’s heart swelled dangerously in her chest. As if to counteract it she said lightly, ‘I’m sure you’ve brought them to New York, though.’
Rocco looked straight at her, as if sending her a warning. She was straying into dangerous territory. Very clearly he said, ‘Yes, of course I’ve brought women to New York. I’m here much more frequently.’
Rocco looked away from Gracie and back to his papers. He’d been pretending for nigh on an hour now to be engrossed in work, when all he’d been aware of was each minute movement she made. He almost laughed out loud at the notion that any of his previous lovers would have got into a motorised rickshaw even if he’d paid them to do it. But Gracie had loved it as it had swerved and barrelled through the chaotic Bangkok traffic. And he’d loved it too. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d just taken time off to look at the sights. To enjoy a place. Never, came back the succinct answer.
Going into the Grand Palace
, the staff had been strict about the dress code. Gracie had been wearing a vest top over shorts. The staff had a facility to make sure everyone was dressed appropriately, so she had had to put on a huge billowing plaid shirt and skirt to cover up her arms, shoulders and bare legs.
He’d braced himself for a fit of feminine pique, but she’d just been worried that she’d offended the staff and then, when assured that she hadn’t, she’d giggled at how ridiculous she must look. She hadn’t looked ridiculous at all. He’d ached to pull her behind the sacred wats and do very unsacred things with her.
Rocco welcomed the skyline of New York coming closer and closer. In this city he would feel safer around Gracie, and he would keep her at a distance if it killed him. Bangkok had been a mistake. It had been way too raw.
Just thinking of that made him picture Gracie jumping into the pool in that dress, and with a barely stifled curse Rocco forced himself to concentrate until the page he was looking at blurred.
Gracie was very aware as they drove into the city of Rocco being distant. He was more businesslike than she’d ever seen him. She refused to let his mood upset her and stared in awe at the famously iconic skyline of New York as they crossed one of the many bridges into Manhattan. As they drove onto the island and the buildings soared up around them she saw all the yellow taxis and was enraptured.
Famous designer names glittered at her on Fifth Avenue, and then the green trees of Central Park materialised. With the park to their right, the car pulled up outside an Art Deco style building with a huge awning over the pavement. Gracie was helped out of the car by a smiling doorman in a uniform and the summer heat hit her. It was totally different from the heat in Thailand, but just as intense—even in the morning.
The doorman was greeting Rocco. ‘Welcome back, Mr de Marco, it’s been too long!’
They walked through a cool lobby to where the concierge was waiting with the lift doors open. They stepped in and the lift smoothly ascended and came to a halt. The doors opened straight into a private corridor and the penthouse apartment. Gracie thought she’d seen pretty much everything by now, but this was palatial and stupendous on a whole new level. Everything was cream and gold. Carpets so thick you literally sank into them. Abstract oil paintings on the walls showed Rocco’s taste for mixing the old with the new again. Antiques perched on small, elaborately designed tables. Huge cream couches were piled high with cushions.