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Gracie told herself she shouldn’t be surprised. She’d pushed Rocco too far. He’d never forgive her for making him spill his guts. He was too proud.
She stood up slowly and tried to match his cool reserve, even though she shook on the insi
de. ‘I’m ready to go.’
Rocco held up a piece of paper in his hand. ‘Do you want to explain this to me?’
Gracie frowned and glanced at the paper. ‘What are you talking about?’
Rocco held it up and read aloud in flat tones. ‘“Steven, where are you? Are you okay? Please contact me, I have so much to tell you. I need to know you’re all right. Please, just let me know where you are. Send me a number so I can call you. We need to talk—I can help you.”‘
Gracie blanched. ‘How did you get that?’
Rocco’s eyes were black, and he bit out, ‘It’s his work e-mail address. I have someone checking Steven’s inbox around the clock.’
Gracie’s belly cramped. She felt guilty even though she had no reason to. ‘I didn’t tell you yesterday because you seemed so angry when you came back to the apartment. But I would have told you that I’d tried to contact him.’
Rocco arched a brow in a way Gracie hadn’t seen him do for days. She wanted to hit him.
‘You had a whole evening to tell me. This e-mail reeks of collusion. You were trying to warn him to stay away, or to arrange a meeting somewhere.’
Gracie swallowed. She could see how, in a certain frame of mind, it might read like that. If you mistrusted the person who wrote it—which Rocco patently did. She straightened her back and tried to ignore the feeling of her heart aching.
‘That’s how it might read to you. It’s not how I meant it. I meant exactly what I said—I’m worried about him and want to know where he is. When I said I could help him I meant just that—if he gives himself up I intend to help him through whatever repercussions emerge from his actions.’
Rocco lowered the paper and smiled harshly. ‘So noble—and such lies. I think you were going to tell him you’d inveigled your way into his boss’s bed and fed him stories designed to gain sympathy. Perhaps you wanted to be sure to corroborate each other’s stories before he came forward like some penitent?’
Inveigled your way into his boss’s bed. Stories. The words dropped into Gracie’s head like poison-tipped arrows. He thought she’d set out to seduce him? The idea was laughable. She thought of the private things she’d shared with him. The fact that he saw them now as mere stories to gain sympathy nearly made her double over with pain.
She shook her head. It whirled dizzily. ‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘No,’ Rocco said harshly. ‘What’s ridiculous is that I’ve seriously underestimated you for so long. You’re a conniving thief, just like your brother, and the lengths you’ll go to to protect him are truly unbelievable.’
Gracie was shaking in earnest now. ‘Need I remind you that you seduced me?’
Rocco’s face was drawn from granite, the lines harsh. It was as if he couldn’t hear her. ‘From the moment we met at that function in London you’ve been playing me. You and your brother. He messed up and you’re cleaning up his mess.’
Gracie looked at him. A numbness was spreading through her body. Rocco was immovable. A million miles from the raw, emotional man of last night. She wanted to accuse him of lashing out at her because she’d gone too deep and too far and exposed him. But she’d already exposed herself enough. If she displayed the emotion she was feeling it would show him that she felt something for him, and right now she would rather die than let him see that.
So she drew inwards, deep inside, to the place she’d always retreated to for years. Whenever things got really bad. When her mother had left, and later when her nan had handed them over to Social Services. When her first lover had stood there and called her a slut for giving him her virginity. And when Steven had been taken to jail and she’d been alone.
She drew into the place where Rocco’s words couldn’t touch her any more and said woodenly, ‘You seem to have it all figured out. What more is there to say?’
She looked at him but didn’t see him. She only saw pain and anger at her own folly for thinking for a second that last night meant anything. For thinking that any of this meant anything.
His voice was clipped, harsh. ‘There’s nothing more to say. It’s time to go.’
The journey back to London was a blur. Gracie had slept in the bedroom on the plane alone, tortured by vivid dreams of looking for Steven only to find Rocco waiting around corners with a savage expression on his face.
As Rocco’s car pulled up outside his building in the cool dark night Gracie acknowledged that the effort to keep up her icy control was fading fast, and was being replaced by a flat, empty ache all through her body. She resolutely ignored Rocco when he joined her to step into the building.
For a split second she looked longingly at the empty street, and then felt her arm taken in a harsh grip. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Gracie wrenched her arm away and glared up at him, her fire returning. ‘Don’t touch me. I’m not going to leave my brother to your mercy now.’
They were silent in the lift going up to the apartment, but to Gracie’s chagrin, with the dissipation of the icy control she’d wielded all day, emotion was creeping back, and she had to consciously stop herself from remembering Rocco’s tangible pain the night before, and the awful picture he’d painted of his life in Italy. He didn’t deserve her sympathy. Not for one second. Especially not now.
When they got to the apartment George was there to greet them. Gracie felt like running into his huge barrel chest and blubbing all over him, but she didn’t.
