‘Times aren’t quite that hard for me,’ Rocco murmured uncomfortably. He flushed as the reality of who he was collidedwith the person she thought he was…and yet this wasn’t game he was playing. For a moment in time, while he was here with her, he truly felt a different man—carefree and reckless, without the layers of control that, by definition, restricted a lot of his responses. It wasn’t going to last, of course. Reality was something he could never ditch, not that he would ever want to do that.
‘And when it comes to the sort of things I do to unwind…’
‘No gym.’
‘You remembered. No, that sort of regime doesn’t suit me. I do get away now and again, but this is the first time I haven’t been overly concerned about checking in to see what’s happening at…er…work…’
Skirting around the truth heightened his discomfort, and instead he told her with surprising honesty, ‘I’ve always been a very controlled person, even in my relationships with women. You…bring out a different side to me. Now, what’s happening about food? We could venture out and eat somewhere.’
‘I’ve already started doing something for us to eat.’
‘Sure you don’t want to be wined and dined?’ Rocco thought about how satisfying that would be—to take her out somewhere fancy, to impress her. Was this the road his uncle had travelled, step by step, until he couldn’t get off it? Had his problems started with an infantile desire to impress a woman unused to the seductive aphrodisiac of extreme wealth? This lack of self-control was so unlike him that he struggled to dismiss it as just a reaction to being in the unique position of a woman not knowing his worth.
His mind continued to play with the fantasy of her in his private jet, sitting in one of his many cars or being taken to one of his villas—one in Tuscany, one in the Bahamas and another on the outskirts of Madrid.
He looked around him at the quaint, rustic furnishings. The wooden beams on the ceiling matched the timber of the four-poster bed: old, weathered and gnarled. The windows were fiddly but, when they were open, the scent of the countryside poured into the bedroom, fragrant and heady.
There was noen suite. The one bathroom had an old-fashioned shower and a bath with clawed feet, as deep as a swimming pool. Filling it, which they had only done once, was a procedure that had to be commenced at least half an hour before they even thought about getting in.
This was a place the twenty-first century hadn’t quite decided whether to visit or not. And now Rocco could say, hand on heart, that his enjoyment of it was every bit as complete as his enjoyment of any one of his splendid, eye-wateringly expensive places scattered across the globe.
He frowned as he quickly replayed the many confidences they had shared, bit by bit, and the way he had relaxed in her company, so that now she felt familiar to him. He barely recognised the man who had opened up in ways he’d never done before. She’d awakened in his arms in the morning, warm and smiling, and there had been dreamless times at night when they had made love, both half-asleep, their movements slow, languorous and incredibly sensual. Rocco was alarmed now at how natural everything seemed with her.
‘This is perfect,’ he heard her say, all the while trying to analyse the road he had travelled down so quickly it was shocking.
‘Let’s stop talking,’ he growled, hand straying to part her thighs then cupping and rubbing the wetness between them until she was moaning softly and sighing, her body moving against his hand while she did some exploring of her own.
He slipped his finger inside her, then his hands and fingers caressed her until her soft moaning became the guttural groans of a woman on the point of orgasm.
‘Not so fast,’ he purred silkily when he knew she was on the verge of tipping over the edge.
‘Please…’
‘I love it when you beg,querida…but I need to be inside you…’ He fumbled, found the packet of condoms and was vaguely startled by the quantity left when it felt as though they’d made love a thousand times over the past few days. He was losing his touch in a million different ways.
He cleared his head and found his sweet spot, the place where niggling thoughts ceased to exist, found the comfort of touch.
‘We don’t have much more time together.’ The words had to be spoken; he knew that. Yet, they cut deep inside him. ‘Let’s make the most of it…’
Chapter Four
‘The Big Guy—and I meanMr Big himself—wants to see you right now, in the boardroom. And, before you ask, he’sspecificallyasked foryou.’
Ella was barely through the front doors of the department store, sodden, because she’d had to half-run from her car in lightly falling snow. She decided that her stress levels must surely have peaked with this.
‘Why?’
‘Believe me, I’m mystified as well—unplanned visit. I took a call from whatever assistant he’s brought with him asking for youby name. Now he has free rein of the store, the lawyers have been in. He’s been here since seven this morning. He’s yet to be seen by any of us lesser mortals. Easier to spot a leprechaun.’
‘Probably ashamed, turning the store into yet another office block and high-end apartments for yuppies who work in Dublin. And at Christmas too! What a time to tell everyone they’re being laid off so enjoy earning money while they can.’
‘It’s awful.’ Vera sighed. ‘But there’s nothing to be done and word has it that he’s been more than fair with everyone working here. Generous redundancies or new jobs in what’s going up, if they’re qualified for the placement. We all knew, even if we didn’t want to admit it, that things were going downhill. It’s not such a shock.’
‘So why does he wantme? I’m not involved in the decision making. I’m not a lawyer or an accountant so what have I got to say to the man?’
Ella finally got her feet to move. She noticed how old and tired everything looked as she took off her waterproof and shook it out. None of this was Vera’s fault, but once again hormones had taken over and directed her responses.
She was right. Once a proud bastion of high-end glamour and luxury, the store had been declining slowly over the years. There had been murmurings but nothing definite until, out of the blue, it was announced that the place had been taken over and would be restructured into a massive block of very expensive apartments, with the entire top floor given over to office space.
