Their eyes tangled, and for a couple of seconds there was silence as Rocco thought about what he was going to tell her and what he wasn’t.
Jose Rivero. Jose Rivero was the owner of a small outlet somewhere in Spain who had pulled one or two strings with the owner of this once-prestigious, now down-on-its-luck department store, ostensibly to see how a big store was run.
Maybe his home was in London and he was hoping to open somewhere there. How had he pulled those strings? What sort of place was he hoping to open? The details didn’t matter. He was just an ordinary guy who would be temporarily staying at a one-bed rented flat somewhere close by. An ordinary guy, a minnow who wanted to get in with the big boys, grateful to have cadged a favour. Smart, ambitious but with a long road ahead of him.
Earlier, when Rocco had sat having his espresso in the café opposite Hailey’s, he had felt oddly free at the thought of his modest, unassuming alter ego. He would have two weeks roaming through the store, under the guise of seeing how things were done, while casting his eye over everything and making sure that he knew just what would have to be done to the place when he bought it to convert into offices and high-end apartments.
For the first time in his life, in the guise of Jose Rivero, Rocco would cease to be the only heir to the great Mancini fortune.He would cease to be the billionaire who had grown up in a mansion, who owned multiple properties, a super-yacht and a fleet of eye-wateringly expensive cars.
It felt good. It felt good to be sitting opposite this small, sexy girl with the straight dark, shoulder-length hair with the big green eyes and skin that was as pale as milk and dusted with freckles. It felt even better to be with a woman who wasn’t interested in making a favourable impression on him.
Rocco smiled. He liked the way she blushed and tried to hide it. She was in her twenties but trying hard to maintain the stern demeanour of someone older.
‘Where to begin?’ Rocco mused aloud, without any intention of telling her anything of significance. ‘I’m just an ordinary guy who’s been lucky enough to get some work experience here for a couple of weeks. To see how life in a big department store is lived.’
‘You won’t be seeing how life islivedhere, Mr Rivero. You won’t be getting involved in a set of a soap opera. The email I received doesn’t specify a great deal but I’m presuming, from everything you’ve said, that you want to see how things are run?’
‘Correct, but please, for the record, my friends call me Jose.’
‘And please, for the record, I don’t believe we’re friends.’
‘Perhaps not yet, but I’ve always maintained the importance of good working relationships in an office setting. So, let’s start with my age. I’m thirty-two which, I gather from your reaction, wasn’t what you expected.’
‘The kids who come here are usually fresh out of school or earning money before they head off to university.’
‘And how often are kids shown around the store?’
‘I don’t believe that’s relevant, is it, Mr Rivero?’
‘It could be if I plan on opening something more ambitious than I currently have.’
‘Well, perhaps a handful a year. Summer time is popular and so is Christmas. We need the extra hands, and there are usually teenagers who want to earn a little money for the holidays.’
‘Can I say that you look remarkably young to be in charge of running a department here? Because you are, aren’t you?’
‘I…’
‘Not relevant. I know.’ He held up his hands up in mock-surrender. ‘Am I over-stepping my brief? I have a problem with that. So I’ve sometimes been told.’
‘I… I’m twenty-eight.’
Ella licked her lips. The harder she tried to be composed, the faster she could feel this man getting to her, getting under her skin. He had walked through her office door, tall, dark and crazilydifferent, bringing with him the enticing whiff of foreign shores and heady adventure. He’d reminded her of where she was—in a job she had never anticipated, living a life that had never been on her wish list.
A broken heart, her mother dying, her dad needing her…everything had fed all at once into bringing her here, back to Hailey’s, where she had worked every summer as a teenager and then for several years between A-Levels and university.
Where were the years taking her? She liked what she did and she was good at it. But time was drifting by and her life was drifting by with it and now this man, showing up here…
She was only twenty-eight! Something about the way those dark, amused eyes rested on her made her feel conscious of her shortcomings. More than that, he made her conscious of her sexuality in a way she hadn’t since she and Steve had crashed and burned. Since then, she had returned to the farm to help her dad and to process her own grief at the loss of her mother. That had happened shortly before she and Steve had broken upand put the sexual side of her into cold storage. The ice was beginning to melt just now and that was throwing her into a state of panicked confusion.
‘Not,’ she said in an over hearty voice, ‘That my age has anything to do with…anything.’
‘Of course not.’
‘I…’ She breathed deeply and wondered how possible it would be to dodge this job and hand him over to someone else. Vera had specified that she should show the man round because she knew so much about the store and because Pete, her boss, was off this week. But weren’t rules meant to be broken? She’d never actually gone down that road but the thought of battling feelings that were suddenly at war inside her was a daunting prospect.
‘I think you should fill me in on some basics if I’m going to assign you to the relevant department.’
‘I would rather several relevant departments as opposed to just the one. The more I can see, the better.’
