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CHAPTER SEVEN
‘WHAT is going on, Eva? Bob informs me he finally got a reply from Delisantro’s agent and the guy told him Delisantro not only wants nothing to do with this company, but he specifically doesn’t want anything to do with you.’
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Crenshawe.’ Eva gripped the polyester weave of the seat cushion and hunched into the seat, the pain as fresh and raw as it had been a week ago. Sweat pooled under the armpits of her tailored suit. ‘I had hoped Mr Delisantro would be more willing to cooperate with Bob,’ she mumbled, the jagged little shards of agony piercing her chest at this renewed evidence of Nick’s contempt.
Hadn’t she suffered enough for her foolishly reckless and fanciful behaviour a week ago?
She’d confessed to her boss, Henry Crenshawe, that her trip had been a failure as soon as she’d got back from San Francisco. Mr Crenshawe had subjected her to a ten-minute lecture on her appalling lack of people skills, and then taken her off the account, which she’d been pathetically grateful for. She didn’t want to have to contact Nick again.
But she’d been far too humiliated by her gross lack of judgement and professionalism—not to mention the presence of those jagged little shards that came back every time she thought of Nick—to admit the whole truth to her boss or anyone else. That she’d got carried away by some ridiculous flight of fancy and the nuclear blip to her usually tame libido as soon as she’d set eyes on Nick Delisantro—and lost sight of everything that was important in her life in the space of one night. Her responsibilities to Roots Registry and to her job hadn’t even entered her head. And for that she felt not just guilty and embarrassed but so angry with herself she wanted to scream. She’d put a job she adored in jeopardy. But what upset her more was the knowledge that Nick’s contempt still hurt so much, a week after he’d kicked her out of his apartment.
How foolish was she to have believed that he might have reconsidered? And decided that she wasn’t such a terrible person after all? And why should it even matter? She was never going to see him again.
‘Yeah, well he isn’t cooperating.’ The irritation on Henry Crenshawe’s face made it quite clear she wasn’t going to be given any slack. ‘What exactly is it that Delisantro has against you? Because if we knew that, we might be able to fix it. Get back in his good graces. The company needs this commission—it’s prestigious as hell. The publicity is priceless. Alegria has three other heir-hunting companies that I know of looking for his heir. And we’ve got the jump on them. Because we’ve already located the guy.’ Crenshawe yanked at his collar, his pudgy face going a mottled red. Eva’s heart, the jagged little shards still prickling, sank to her toes.
She would have to tell her boss the truth. ‘It’s a private issue, between myself and Mr Delisantro,’ she mumbled, desperate to stave off the inevitable.
‘Private how?’ Crenshawe demanded. ‘You were only in San Francisco for one night. I know your people skills are non-existent,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘But even you couldn’t have annoyed him that much in one night.’
She could hear the incredulity in Crenshawe’s voice, and knew what he was thinking. How could his quiet, timid and inconspicuous researcher even have been noticed by a man as dynamic as Nick Delisantro, let alone have made enough of an impression on him to annoy him to this extent?
The realisation triggered something inside her—and the jagged little shards of misery were obliterated by a surge of anger.
Eva straightened in her chair, and her gaze lifted to the man who had always regarded her with benign contempt. Mr Crenshawe wouldn’t expect Nick Delisantro to notice her, because like most of the people she knew, he had never really noticed her either. Henry Crenshawe had always taken her work completely for granted, had never given her the credit she was due.
Roots Registry hadn’t located the Duca D’Alegria’s missing heir, she had—after weeks of painstaking research on the historical data, most of which had had to be translated from Italian. It had been a mammoth task, checking marriage records, tracing the movements of every young bride within a fifty-mile radius of the Alegria estate in the year in question and then correlating the birth certificates of the babies born to them.
And it wasn’t the first time her concentrated and creative investigation of the known facts and her diligent attention to detail had pulled in a major account. Even so, she’d been the only one of Crenshawe’s researchers not to be considered for a promotion when the company had expanded a year ago. She was paid less than all her male colleagues and she’d only had one modest bonus in three years. While she adored the job she did at Roots Registry, she’d always shied away from any contact with her boss, because she knew he was a sexist blowhard who didn’t understand or appreciate the work she did… Except when it came to the bottom line.
What made her temper spike, though, was the fact that Crenshawe’s scorn towards her and her efforts had been partly her own fault, because she’d never once stood up for herself.
Until now.
Yes, she’d made a mistake sleeping with Nick Delisantro. But his negative reaction to the news of his grandfather’s existence had not been caused by their night together. He’d clearly already been aware of his illegitimacy before she’d said anything. And the deep-seated resentment there had nothing whatsoever to do with her.
But more than that, Crenshawe was wrong about her. She wasn’t the mouse he clearly thought she was. Not any more.
Nick Delisantro had noticed her. She hadn’t been invisible to Nick. And while it might have been
better for her employment prospects if she hadn’t had sex with him, she was through feeling guilty or ashamed about what she’d done. She didn’t deserve Henry Crenshawe’s contempt, any more than she deserved Nick Delisantro’s.
‘I slept with Nick Delisantro that night,’ she announced, pleased with the firm tone and her refusal to relinquish eye contact when Crenshawe’s eyebrows shot up to his receding hairline. ‘And he misconstrued my motives the following morning.’
‘You did what?’ Crenshawe yelped, the sheen of sweat on his forehead glistening. ‘You… You…’ His double chin wobbled with fury, the mottled colour in his cheeks turning scarlet. ‘You stupid little tart.’
He was going to fire her. She could see it in the vindictive light that came into his beady eyes as he stomped around the office, gesticulating wildly and throwing out a series of increasingly personal insults about her and her work.
Her fingers released on the seat cushion and she kept her chin thrust out, more than ready to take the blow, an odd sense of calm and detachment settling over her.
Well, what d’you know? Mr Crenshawe has noticed me at last.
Nick tapped the parting line of dialogue into the template on his computer. Then paused to reread the scene he’d spent all morning sweating blood over. And groaned.
His detective hero sounded like someone with a borderline personality disorder. He ran his fingers through his hair, then stabbed the mouse to close the script window on the laptop.
Getting up from the desk, he crossed to the window, glared down at the street below which was all but deserted in the middle of the afternoon on a workday. Maybe if he got out of the apartment for a few hours, took a ride on his bike and blew the cobwebs out of his head. But as soon as the thought registered he dismissed it.
The bike was out. He’d gone for a ride yesterday, and somehow ended up on the Marin Headland, the memory of Eva Redmond’s lush body plastered against his back and the high-pitched whoop of her laughter as they’d crossed the bridge reverberating through his subconscious every inch of the way.
