‘That’s his medal,’ she explained, pointing towards the mantelpiece. ‘He saved people from a fire. Didn’t he, Mummy?’ Holly turned to Emma, who had followed her into the room, for confirmation. ‘But I never saw him because I was in Mummy’s tummy,’ she added, her little face becoming solemn for a moment.
‘Jack died two months before Holly was born,’ Emma told Rocco, seeing the puzzled look in his eyes. ‘He rescued three children from a house fire, but was killed when the roof collapsed and he was trapped in the blaze. He was posthumously awarded the Queens Gallantry Medal.’
So her husband had been Superman. Rocco felt a flare of guilt for his uninformed and, as it turned out, unfair assessment of Jack Marchant. For some reason he could not bring himself to look at Emma, and instead smiled at Holly. ‘Your papa was a brave man. You must be very proud of him.’
He was rewarded with a beaming grin as Holly offered him a sickly looking cake.
‘I chose you one with lots of icing.’
Rocco disliked sweet foods, but there was no question of disappointing the child. He bit into the cake. ‘Delicious,’ he assured Holly, who was watching him anxiously.
She was apparently satisfied with his verdict. ‘You’d better finish it before you drop crumbs on the carpet,’ she advised him seriously.
‘Did you say no sugar in your coffee?’ Emma murmured.
Rocco caught the glimmer of amusement in her eyes and gave her a wry look. To his surprise her mouth curved into faint smile, and he felt something kick in his gut. His initial impression of her had been that she was averagely attractive, but he had spent a restless night wondering why he could not dismiss her from his mind and now he realised that she possessed an understated beauty that drew his eyes to her again and again.
‘Grazie.’ He took the mug of coffee she offered him, his keen gaze noting that her hand shook very slightly. It gave him a measure of satisfaction to see that she was not as composed as she would like him to believe. ‘The cake has reminded me of why I’m here,’ he murmured. ‘I am taking Cordelia to have tea at the Royal Oak Hotel this afternoon, and we would both be delighted if you and Holly would join us.’
‘Oh, no—that’s very kind, but I don’t think so.’ Emma’s response was immediate, and edged with a flare of panic she could not completely disguise. Spending an afternoon in the company of a devastatingly attractive Italian playboy was not her idea of fun—especially when she was not at all confident she would be able to hide her intense awareness of him. ‘I … I have other plans, and I’m sure Cordelia would prefer to have you to herself—especially as she hasn’t seen you for so long.’
Rocco chose to ignore the last barbed comment. ‘My grandmother issued the invitation. She would very much like you to come.’ He paused, his sensual mouth curving at the corners. ‘And I am under strict instructions not to take no for an answer.’ His smile held genuine warmth and a trace of amusement, as if he knew the reason for her refusal. ‘I understand that the hotel has a collection of dolls’ houses which children are permitted to play with. Do you like dolls’ houses, Holly?’ He turned his attention to the little girl, who had been listening to the conversation.
‘That’s unfair,’ Emma muttered, in a voice meant for his ears only, as her daughter nodded enthusiastically.
‘Unfair to want to give an elderly lady an enjoyable afternoon?’ he countered quietly. ‘Cordelia is excited about a trip out, and she is obviously very fond of Holly. Could you not postpone the plans you mentioned until tomorrow?’
He could not possibly know that her plans for the day amounted to watching a new children’s DVD with Holly and then attacking the ironing pile.
‘Can we have tea with Nonna? Please, Mummy?’
Faced with her daughter’s hopeful expression, Emma stifled a sigh of resignation. Holly deserved a treat, and the Royal Oak was renowned for providing excellent play facilities for children and as well as superb food for adults.
She caught Rocco’s surprised look and explained, ‘Your grandmother suggested that Holly should call her Nonna because she found Cordelia difficult to say.’
It had been touching to witness the special friendship that had developed between her daughter and the elderly lady that was untroubled by the eighty year age gap between them. She forced herself to hold Rocco’s gaze, silently cursing the way her heart skittered as she absorbed the masculine beauty of his chiselled features.
‘Please tell Cordelia that we would love to accept her invitation.’
‘I’ll pick you up at three-thirty.’
‘There’s no need. I’ll take my car and meet you at the hotel,’ she said quickly. ‘I assume your car wasn’t seriously damaged last night?’ Even if it was in perfect order she had no intention of allowing Holly to travel in a sports car on icy roads.
‘Unfortunately the exhaust pipe was ripped from the chassis.’ Rocco grimaced when he thought of the several thousand pounds’ worth of damage that had been wrought to his Eleganza Classic. He could easily afford the repair bill, but the Classic had been one of the first cars produced by the company his grandfather had established fifty years ago. It was a personal favourite from his private collection of luxury cars—an exquisite piece of engineering which Rocco had lovingly restored. ‘Specialist parts will have to be sent over from Italy for it to be repaired, but in the meantime I’ve hired a car better suited to the wintry conditions,’ he explained, nodding towards the window.
Following his gaze, Emma saw a top-of-the-range four-by-four parked outside the cottage, its gleaming paintwork making her battered old vehicle look very much the poor cousin. What it was to have money, she thought wryly. Rocco was a multi-millionaire who lived a jet-setter’s glamorous lifestyle very different from her life as a single mother in a quiet Northumberland village. But what did it matter? Soon he would return to Italy, and she would probably never see him again. Surely she could survive one afternoon in his company without making a fool of herself.
‘We’ll see you at three-thirty then,’ she murmured, disguising her anxiety with a cool smile.
Holly was full of excitement at the prospect of having tea with Nonna and Rocco, and insisted on wearing her best dress that had been a Christmas present.
‘Goodness, you’ve grown,’ Emma said ruefully as she surveyed her daughter’s skinny legs, where the hem of the dress stopped above her knees. ‘Upwards, anyway—I wish you would grow outwards.’ The flu virus had left Holly painfully thin and pale. If only she could afford a holiday abroad, Emma thought, recalling her conversation with the childminder, Karen. But it was out of the question now that she had to find somewhere else to live.
Determined not to make a big deal out of spending the afternoon with Rocco, she decided to wear her jeans. But at the last minute she changed into the beautiful heather-coloured cashmere jumper her mother had sent for Christmas and teamed it with a fitted grey skirt, sheer hose and her only pair of high-heeled shoes. The Royal Oak Hotel was an upmarket place, and if she was honest it was nice to have a reason to dress up, she admitted, slipping on her grey wool coat as the doorbell rang.
‘We’re ready,’ Holly informed Rocco with a wide grin when Emma opened the door. ‘I’m wearing my party dress.’ She twirled around to show off her dress, clearly hoping for Rocco’s approval.
Once again Emma was surprised by her daughter’s eagerness to be friends with him. Holly had never known her father, and although both her grandfathers were alive she only saw them occasionally. Did her daughter wish she had a father, like her best friends the twins, Lily and Sara, had? she wondered. The thought had not occurred to her before, and it troubled her. She did her best to fulfil the role of two parents, but maybe it wasn’t enough.
‘You look very pretty,’ Rocco assured Holly with a soft smile.
Emma was grateful for his gentle patience, which was all the more surprising when he presumably did not come into contact with small children very often, but her heart gave an annoying lurch when he turned
his amber eyes on her.
‘Both of you,’ he murmured.
When they walked down the path she saw that Cordelia was sitting in the back of the car. Beside her was a child’s booster seat. ‘Up you come,’ Rocco said, lifting Holly into the seat and securing the straps. ‘You can sit in the front,’ he told Emma.
She would rather have sat in the back than next to him, but she could not say so without revealing that he unnerved her and so slid into the front passenger seat without a word. Fortunately Holly chattered non-stop to Cordelia for the entire journey to the hotel, so Emma did not have to make conversation, but she was supremely conscious of Rocco, and could not prevent her eyes from straying to him. He was still wearing the black leather jacket, but had exchanged the jeans and sweater for tailored black trousers and a black shirt, and he looked so devastatingly good-looking that she felt a dull ache of longing in the pit of her stomach.
His hands on the steering wheel were a dark olive colour, and she wondered if the rest of his body was as tanned. A series of erotic images filled her mind and she quickly turned her head and stared out of the window, her cheeks burning. It was going to be a long afternoon, she thought ruefully, and the most annoying thing was that her tension was self-inflicted. She did not want to feel this fierce attraction to Cordelia’s playboy grandson, but she did not seem to have a choice.
It was almost six o’clock when they returned to Primrose Cottage.
‘Thank you for a lovely afternoon.’ Emma’s smile briefly encompassed Rocco, before she turned her head to Cordelia in the back of the car. ‘Holly had a wonderful time. I’m not surprised she’s fallen asleep. I’ve never known her to talk so much.’
Despite her reservations, the afternoon had been enjoyable. Holly had been in heaven playing with the dolls’ houses in the charming family room of the hotel, where tea—comprising an extensive selection of sandwiches and cakes—had been served. Kept busy trying to persuade Holly to eat, and chatting to Cordelia, Emma had been distracted from her intense awareness of Rocco, and apart from a conversation when she had asked about his company and he had given her a brief history of Eleganza, there had been little verbal contact between them.
There had been eye contact, though, she remembered. Throughout the afternoon she had been conscious of his gaze resting on her, and on several occasions she had darted him a quick glance and blushed when her eyes had collided with his. His expression had been speculative, and when she had walked back to the table after playing with Holly he had subjected her to a bold appraisal which had made her breasts feel heavy and caused her nipples to harden into tight buds which mercifully could not be seen through her woollen jumper.
The memory of the predatory gleam in his amber gaze made her feel edgy, and she quickly released her seat belt and opened the car door.
‘There’s no need for you to get out,’ she told him. ‘You should take Cordelia home before she gets cold.’
‘I’ll leave the engine and the heater running while I carry Holly inside,’ he replied equably. ‘Go and open the front door, Emma,’ he bade her, in a tone that brooked no argument when she opened her mouth to do just that.
Irritating man, she thought as she marched up the front path and fitted her key in the lock. She had cared for Holly on her own for three years and she did not need his help. She glanced over her shoulder and saw that Holly had half woken, but instead of being alarmed to find herself in Rocco’s arms the little girl contentedly rested her head on his shoulder.
She didn’t feel jealous, Emma reassured herself. But it was hard to watch her daughter instinctively snuggle up to Rocco, as if he had already become a part of their lives. He wasn’t—and never would be. She certainly did not want Holly to become attached to him only to be upset when he returned to Italy.
She watched him carefully deposit the sleepy child on the sofa in the sitting room, and then followed him back into the hall. ‘Thank you again for a pleasant afternoon.’ She flushed, realising how stilted she sounded. ‘Holly … we,’ she corrected, ‘really enjoyed it.’
‘I’m glad you did not find an afternoon in my company too much of an ordeal,’ Rocco murmured dryly.
In the narrow hallway he was too close for comfort: six feet plus of big, dark, broad-shouldered male towering over her, emphasising the fact that she was slightly below average height. Emma closed her eyes in a vain attempt to lessen her awareness of him, but her other senses immediately became more acute, so that the scent of his aftershave and the warmth emanating from his body stole around her.
Her lashes flew open when she felt something brush her cheek, her eyes widening in shock when he gently tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear. The gesture was unacceptable from a man she barely knew. It was an intrusion on her personal space and she knew she should tell him to back off. Yet the feather-light touch of his fingertips against her skin was beguiling. It was so long since she had been touched by a man.
Since she had discovered the truth about Jack’s infidelity—or rather infidelities, she thought bleakly—she had built a defensive wall around her emotions. Was she going to allow that wall to be breached by a notorious playboy—a man who, if the reports she had heard about him were true, was even more unreliable than her husband?
The vulnerability in Emma’s storm-cloud-grey eyes took Rocco by surprise. His instincts told him that someone had hurt her in the past—what other reason could there be for her to shy away from him like a nervous colt whenever he came within a foot of her? But who had made her so defensive? He thought of the photograph on the mantelpiece of swaggering Jack Marchant, and his eyes strayed to her wedding ring, remembering how often she had unconsciously twisted it on her finger during the afternoon.
She must have loved her husband to still be wearing his ring three years after his death. But if not Marchant who was responsible for the haunted expression in her eyes? And why did he care? he asked himself irritably. For reasons he was damned if he could explain, he found himself wanting to slide his fingers into her shiny bell of hair and draw her close. Only the slight tremor of her lower lip held him back from dipping his head and slanting his mouth over hers. She intrigued and infuriated him in equal measure: one minute a brisk, ultra-efficient nurse, the next a sensual woman whose wary expression could not disguise her sexual awareness of him.
She stepped away from him and pulled open the front door. ‘Goodnight.’
He detected the faint note of desperation in her voice and took pity on her. ‘Ciao, bella,’ he drawled softly, his eyes lingering on her flushed face before he turned and strode down the path.
CHAPTER FOUR
SO he had called her beautiful! It meant nothing, Emma told herself impatiently. A man like Rocco probably called all his women bella, so that he did not have to bother remembering their names.
Not that she was one of his women, her brain pointed out, nor was she ever likely to be. She did not need a man in her life—certainly not a gorgeous, sexy Italian who changed his mistresses more often than most men changed their socks.
A faint smell of burning dragged her from her thoughts and she cursed as she lifted the iron and saw the singe marks on her new white blouse. This was ridiculous. For the sake of her sanity, not to mention the pile of clothes still waiting to be ironed, she had to put Rocco out of her mind. He had disrupted her day, but she was not going to allow him to disrupt her life.
After he had left to drive Cordelia home to Nunstead Hall, Emma had carried Holly upstairs to bed. For the second night in a row the little girl had been too weary for a bath and had fallen back to sleep within minutes of her head touching the pillow. As she’d watched Holly’s long eyelashes settle on her pale cheeks Emma’s heart had clenched with love. Her precious daughter was the centre of her life and there was no room for anyone else. How could there be after Jack? she thought bitterly.
The discovery of his betrayal had shattered all her illusions about love and trust, but he had died before she could confront him. She would neve
r know if he had planned to stay and be a father to Holly, or walk out on his marriage and his child as his mistress had insisted had been his intention.
But, whatever Jack might have planned, fate had intervened, and Emma had given birth to her daughter alone. From the start of Holly’s life it had been just the two of them. And that suited her fine, Emma reminded herself. She loved being a mother, she enjoyed a rewarding career and she had good friends and a supportive family. She was content with all that she had. So why tonight did she feel that something was missing?
The ironing had lost its limited appeal, and she stacked the board and the laundry basket in the utility room, promising herself she would finish it tomorrow. On Saturday nights after Holly was in bed she usually curled up on the sofa to watch a DVD and treated herself to a bar of chocolate. She duly slid a film into the player and settled down to watch it, determinedly ignoring the voice in her head that whispered insidiously that she was lonely.
The peal of the doorbell caused her to tense. Was it a sixth sense that warned the unexpected visitor was Rocco—or wishful thinking? But why would he have driven all the way back from Nunstead Hall through the sleety rain that had replaced yesterday’s snowfall? Common sense told her to slide the security chain across before she opened the door, and her heart flipped at the sight of her nemesis leaning nonchalantly against the porch, looking devastatingly sexy with the collar of his leather jacket pulled up around his face and a lock of black hair falling across his brow.
He took her breath away. She did not trust herself to speak and instead arched her brows in silent query.
‘I thought tonight would be a good time to discuss my grandmother’s living arrangements,’ he greeted her. His lazy smile did strange things to her insides. ‘And to share this excellent Pinot Noir,’ he added, holding out a bottle of red wine.
Emma shook her head. ‘Not now—it’s late—’
‘It’s half past eight on a Saturday evening,’ he interrupted her. ‘Admittedly Cordelia was going to bed when I left, but she’s eighty-three.’
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