The Legend of de Marco
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For so long now he’d been in absolute control, and suddenly he was chatting up random women in ill-fitting dresses and hiring people on gut instinct. He was in danger of jeopardising everything he’d worked so hard to attain. He was courted and f^eted now because wealth made him powerful. It would be social acceptance that would secure his position for ever.
This chink in his otherwise solid armour made him wary. People were already curious about his past. He didn’t want to give the hungry English tabloids any excuses to dig even further.
The fact that his security team had failed to find Steven Murray yet was like an irritating splinter stuck in Rocco’s foot. He would not rest until the man had been found and questioned. And punished.
With a grimace at his own moody thoughts, Rocco turned from the view and picked up his jacket to leave his glass-walled office. Dusk was enveloping the city outside and the offices surrounding him were empty. It was usually his favourite time to work—when everyone had left. He liked the enveloping silence. It comforted him; it was so far removed from the constant cacaphony of his youth.
Just as he was almost out of his office the phone rang. Rocco turned back and picked it up. He heard what the person on the other end said and his whole body tautened. He bit out his words. ‘Send her up to me.’
Tension kept Rocco’s body tight as he walked to his lift and watched the numbers ascend. Someone was here asking for Steven Murray. There was a pause when the lift stopped, and in the split second before the doors opened Rocco had a prickling sensation of something momentous about to happen.
The doors opened to reveal the petite form of a woman dressed in a grey T-shirt, faded jeans, and what looked like a cardigan tied around her waist. Her form was lithe and compact, with small pert breasts pushing against the fabric of her top. A heavy coil of red hair lay over one shoulder, reaching almost to those breasts. Her face was pale and heart-shaped, her freckles stood out, and her eyes were huge and brown, flecked with gold and green.
Instant recognition, shock, and something much hotter slammed into Rocco as he reached in and clamped his hands around slim arms almost as if he had to touch her before doing anything else.
He breathed out incredulously. ‘You!’
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU …’ Gracie echoed faintly, still reeling after the lift doors had opened to reveal … him. In a haze she asked, ‘What are you doing here?’
Rocco de Marco’s hands pulled her from the lift, forcing her legs to move and she heard the faint swish of the doors closing again behind her. Her heart was thumping, and shock choked her at being faced with this man again.
His hands were on her arms like vices. ‘I own this building,’ he ground out, dark eyes blazing down into hers. ‘I think the more pertinent question is this: why are you here, looking for Steven Murray?’
Dimly Gracie realised that he recognised her from that night they’d met a week ago. But there was no comfort in that. Adrenalin was pumping through her at seeing Rocco de Marco again, but from one look at his face she could take a wild guess and assume Steven was far away from this place. And in big trouble.
She couldn’t speak. She could only look up into the most arrestingly handsome features she’d ever seen for the second time in just over a week.
His grip tightened. ‘Why are you here?’
Gracie shook her head, as if that might force oxygen to her malfunctioning brain. ‘I just … I thought he might be here. I wanted to find him.’
Rocco’s mouth tightened into a flat line. ‘I think it’s safe to assume that Steven Murray is in any number of locations now—none of which are close to here if he’s got half a brain cell. He’s done what most criminals do: they go underground.’
Gracie’s heart stuttered at hearing her own fears so baldly spoken, but her innate protectiveness surged upwards even as her conscience protested. ‘He’s not a criminal.’
One of Rocco’s brows arched up. ‘No? Then what would you call stealing a million euros?’
If Rocco de Marco hadn’t been holding her arms then Gracie would have fallen down. A million euros?
‘What is he to you? Your lover?’ He almost spat the words out.
Gracie shook her head and tried to back away—a futile exercise while he still held her arms. Paramount was the need to protect Steven at all costs as she tried to assimilate this mind-boggling information.
‘I’m just worried about him. I thought he might be here.’
De Marco all but snorted. ‘He’s hardly likely to return to the scene of the crime. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to try and steal another million from the same source.’
Gracie felt trapped and claustrophobic, but fire surged up. ‘He’s not stupid!’
With a desperate wrench to get away that had more to do with this man’s intensely physical effect on her than anything else, Gracie finally freed herself from his hands and whirled around, wildly searching for escape. She spotted emergency doors in the distance and sprinted, hearing a faint curse behind her. Just as her hands were about to touch the bar her shoulders were caught and she was twirled around, landing with a heavy thud against the doors. Rocco de Marco was glaring down into her face, hands either side of her head, effectively trapping her.
On some rational level Gracie knew she shouldn’t have run, but the shock of hearing what her brother had done was too much. She realised now that she’d just made herself look as guilty as Steven.
As if reading her mind, Rocco de Marco breathed out and said in a chilling voice, ‘You’re obviously in this too—up to your pretty neck. The question is: why did you come back here? It must have been to get something important.’
She shook her head, her anger fading as fast as it had risen and leaving her feeling sick. ‘Mr de Marco, I swear I’m not involved. I’m just worried. I came because I thought Steven might be here. I don’t know anything.’