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Gracie’s head was too tangled up with fear and shock for her even to try and persist in making Rocco de Marco believe she wasn’t related to Steven. His casual mention of jail had decimated her defences completely. Any faint hope she’d been clinging onto that there must be some kind of mistake had also gone. Gracie knew with a defeated feeling that Steven wouldn’t have run if it wasn’t true. He must have been trying to play for stakes way outside his league. Was that why he’d gone for the job in the first—?
‘Gracie!’
Her feverish thoughts stuttered to a stop and she looked up at Rocco. Her name on his lips did funny things to her insides. For a moment she’d forgotten she was under his intense scrutiny. Illicit heat snaked through her abdomen, and in the midst of her turmoil she couldn’t believe he was affecting her so easily.
Taking a deep breath, she stood up, her legs wobbling slightly. ‘Steven is not my lover and I’m not his accomplice … He’s my brother.’
‘Go on.’
Rocco’s voice could have sliced through steel. He’d crossed his arms again and her gaze skittered over those bunched muscles.
Gracie shrugged minutely, unaware of how huge her eyes looked in her small face.
‘That’s it. He’s my brother and I’m worried about him. I was looking for him.’ She wasn’t sure why, but she didn’t want to let Rocco know that he was her twin brother. That information suddenly felt very intimate.
Rocco’s jaw clenched, and then he said slowly, ‘You expect me to believe that? After everything I’ve just witnessed and after I saw you at the benefit last week? You were both cooking up this plan together.’
Gracie shook her head. ‘No. It wasn’t like that, I swear. I only went with Steven because—’ She stopped. She couldn’t explain about her brother’s inherent insecurity and how badly he needed to fit in. And also she’d realised now why he’d been so abnormally anxious for the past few weeks—way more than she would have expected for new job nerves. She felt sick.
Rocco filled in the silence, ‘Because you and he had a grand plan to do some inside trading and make yourselves a million euros without anyone noticing.’ He emitted a curt laugh. ‘For God’s sake, you couldn’t even help yourself stealing food from the buffet!’
Gracie flushed bright red. ‘I took that food for my next-door neighbour. She’s old and Polish, and always talks about when she used to be rich and go to balls in Poland. I thought they would be a nice treat for her.’
This time Rocco did laugh out loud, head thrown back, exposing his strong throat. Gracie burned with humiliation, her disadvantaged upbringing stinging like an invisible tattoo on her skin.
Rocco finally stopped laughing and speared her with those dark eyes again. Gracie fought not to let him see how much he affected her. It scared her, because ever since her mother had left them, and then their nan had turned her back on them, leaving them to the mercy of Social Services, Gracie had allowed very few people close enough to affect her—apart from her brother.
Becoming slightly desperate, she flung out a hand. ‘I barely passed my O-level Maths. I wouldn’t know
a stock from a share if it jumped up and bit me. Steven is the smart one.’
‘And yet,’ Rocco went on with relentless precision, ‘you were with him last week, flaunting yourself in front of me. You knew who I was.’
Gracie sucked in an outraged breath that had a lot to do with the memory of how transfixed she’d been by him that night. ‘I was not flaunting myself. You came over to me.’
At this Rocco de Marco flushed a dull red, and for the first time Gracie had a sense that she’d gained a point. But any sign of discomfiture was quickly erased and his face became a bland mask again. Bland, but simmering—if that was possible.
Quickly, before he could launch another attack, Gracie admitted reluctantly, ‘I was with Steven because he was self-conscious about going alone.’
Rocco’s lip curled. ‘I have yet to believe that you are even Steven Murray’s sister. Why does he have a different surname?’
Gracie shifted uncomfortably and knew she must look pathetically guilty. She looked down. ‘Because … because he fell out with our father and took our mother’s maiden name.’ It wasn’t entirely untrue.
‘Not to mention the fact that you look nothing like him.’
Gracie looked up to see Rocco’s dark gaze travelling up her body, over her chest to her face. She could feel the heat rising. ‘No,’ she snapped. ‘I know I look nothing like him. But not all—’ She stopped abruptly, realising she’d been about to say twins. She amended it. ‘Not all families resemble each other. He looks like my mother and I look like my father.’
She crossed her arms too, feeling ridiculously defensive, and knew it was only because for her whole life she’d wondered if she’d looked more like their mother would she have loved her the way she’d loved Steven? Would she have stayed?
The fact that she’d eventually abandoned them both was little comfort and a constant source of guilt for Gracie. She could still remember the long nights of hugging her brother as he’d cried himself to sleep, wondering where their mother had gone.
For a long time she’d felt it had been her fault, because her mother hadn’t wanted her. It was only with age and maturity that she’d realised their mother had had no intention of ever taking Steven—too wrapped up in her own problems and her own dismal world.
After a long moment of glaring at Rocco, Gracie could feel herself sway. Her vision blurred slightly at the edges. Just as she was inwardly cursing her own weakness Rocco emitted something unintelligible and came towards her, putting a big hand on one arm. She stiffened at his touch, hating the incendiary effect he had on her, but at the same time aware of how close she was to collapsing. Like some Victorian heroine in a swoon. Pathetic.
She tried to pull away, but to no avail.
Rocco said, from far too close, ‘When was the last time you ate, you silly woman?’
