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Over the past few weeks, the lines between them had taken a knocking and while she knew that Nico was oblivious to those subtle changes, it wasn’t so for her.
She noticed every time the conversation between them veered even slightly off-piste. He had asked her, in passing, whether she had been out with anyone else and how could she refuse to answer when that door had been opened?
If she had thought that being more open might have ushered in a more normal state of affairs for her, then she had been mistaken, because closing some of the distance had only made her all the more conscious of her attraction to him and of the pointlessness of it.
What he saw as normal office banter, she saw as a threat to her composure. When he perched on the edge of the desk and asked her casually about her weekend, all she could feel was the racing of her pulse as she tried to ward off the suffocating effect his proximity had on her.
So right now, jeans and a tee shirt and a bomber jacket felt all wrong as she pushed open the glass doors to the building, flashing her official card to the security guard, who knew her anyway and just smiled and waved her through.
Nico was waiting when, exactly an hour after he had called her, she pushed open the door to the office.
He had never seen her here, in these surroundings, in anything other than a suit of some kind so he did a double take at the jeans and tee shirt and the old leather jacket slung over her shoulder.
In fact, for a few seconds, he was lost for words. First a flowered dress with strappy sleeves and now faded jeans and a bomber jacket...?
How much more wrong could he have been about her? More to the point, how much more egotistic could he have been in vaguely thinking that when she wasn’t within the confines of these office walls, she somehow remained prim, prissy and mysteriously clad in skirts and blouses?
‘Good timing.’ He stood up and flexed his muscles, easing away some of the tension that had been building ever since the call from his father. ‘The food has just arrived. We can eat and...talk.’
He strolled towards the floor-to-ceiling window and remained there for a few seconds, watching as she ditched the bomber jacket, admiring the ballet-like gracefulness of her movements, so much more noticeable in what she was wearing. The faded jeans fitted her like a second skin, emphasising the length and slimness of her legs, and the tee shirt clung invitingly to breasts that were just about a handful.
He had to tear his eyes away, tell himself to focus.
He nodded towards the sitting area that adjoined the office, where the food was still in neat black and gold containers, bearing the crest of one of the go-to restaurants he used when he wanted food brought in for him.
She preceded him through to the little table and hovered, waiting for him to take the lead and no nearer to figuring out what exactly was going on.
‘Italian,’ Nico said, settling into the chair facing hers, separated by the squat, rectangular glass-and-chrome table between them.
He flipped open the lids of the containers and nodded to her to help herself.
‘There was no need for anything fancy, Nico, or anything at all.’
‘Least I could do for dragging you out of your house.’
‘You still have to tell me what this is all about.’
For once, Nico’s natural assertiveness abandoned him and Grace saw a shadow of hesitation. Her curiosity was piqued. Hesitant was the very last thing her boss ever was. A charging rhino displayed more hesitancy than Nico Doukas.
For a few seconds he didn’t answer, just took his time dishing out food and then strolling to the concealed fridge where he kept several bottles of wine for clients. He lifted one and she shook her head.
‘I’ll never be able to concentrate if I have a glass of wine,’ she said politely.
‘In which case, you’ll have to excuse me if I don’t follow suit,’ he returned wryly as he poured himself a glass and handed her some water. ‘I got a call from my father today.’ There was a dark flush etched across his sharp cheekbones and Grace stilled and looked at him with a slight frown.
‘Is everything all right? Is it your mother?’ she asked quietly, already braced for bad news. He had gone to Greece previously to visit them and she knew that his mother had recently had a bout of ill health. Nico rarely touched on the subject of his parents, but she had seen from the look in his eyes when he had told her of the reason for his week away from the desk that he cared deeply about them. When he had returned, it had been business as normal. Her enquiries about how things were with them both had been met with a polite but unembroidered response and she had got the message that that was an area that he wished to keep to himself.
He put so much out there in the public domain and yet so much was carefully concealed.
‘My mother is doing well. Improving by the day but still in need of rest after her operation. No, this is about my uncle.’
‘You havean uncle?’
‘It’s not that unusual,’ Nico said wryly, ‘although the use of the present tense doesn’t apply in this instance. My uncle died two days ago and, with my mother still recovering, it’s fallen upon me to wrap up his affairs.’
‘Nico, I don’t understand. I’m, of course, very sorry for your loss, but I’m not sure why I had to rush over here on a Friday evening so that you could tell me this.’ Grace was genuinely confused, yet there was a thread of pleasure underlying her bewilderment.
Had she been the first person he’d chosen to call to share this heartbreaking news with?
