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Nico flushed darkly. ‘I’m not cold,’ he growled, but then he lightened up and sipped some wine. ‘You’d be surprised at the number of women who think just the opposite.’
Grace refused to back down even though the heat rushed through her like a torrent. ‘I’m sure there are hundreds of them who think just that and have always been more than happy to let you know,’ she countered wryly. ‘Haven’t I dealt with some of them over the years? Crying down the end of the phone, receiving extravagant flowers...because you’ve decided that you’ve had enough of them and it’s time for your heat to warm someone else up?’
‘I always tell the women I date that my heat has a timeline before it burns out. I don’t do permanence and I’m upfront about that, so why would I take responsibility for breaking hearts when they’ve been duly warned to keep their hearts intact?’
‘That’s not what I’m talking about, Nico.’
They stared at one another and Grace met his gaze steadily, and, with a barely contained sigh of impatience, eventually he shrugged.
‘I know,’ he muttered gruffly. He huffed an exaggerated sigh. ‘Okay. You win.’
‘Sorry?’
He smiled and raised both hands in a gesture of surrender. His smile was so sincere, so oddly boyish that for a few seconds Grace felt the ground move under her feet and she expelled one long, shaky breath. She was seeing behind the façade that could be so charming and yet so remote at the same time. He lowered his eyes and her heart flip-flopped inside her.
‘I’ll...talk to them. Listen to what they have to say instead of...’
‘Treating them like chess pieces to be manoeuvred into place?’
Nico grinned, burst out laughing and then said, with laughter still in his voice, ‘Is that how you think I treat people?’
‘When it comes to business, yes.’
‘Never got chess. I don’t think I ever had the patience to sit it out.’
‘That’s a shame because you’re probably a natural.’ She could have added that the way he treated women was hardly any different, but she knew he would have been offended because, in his eyes, he was the soul of generosity. He was capable of lavishing everything on the woman he dated and what he’d just said confirmed what she had always suspected. He was a commitment-phobe who entered relationships with no intention of any of those relationships outstaying their welcome, and that was just fine because he was a decent guy who laid his cards on the table from the very start.
But she felt a small sense of victory that he would chat to Sander’s employees, who would all have some kind of story to tell, she suspected. It would be a shame if he left with that one-dimensional picture of his uncle still ingrained in his head. She ruefully thought that she might have had a bit of a life, been a bit more selfish with her choices, if she’d been able to see her mother as a one-dimensional figure instead of someone lovable but flawed, a parent in need of parenting herself and with a daughter all too willing to take on the role.
‘But we were talking about tomorrow.’ Grace returned to the safe topic of work. ‘I can transcribe everything discussed at the meetings today and have them ready for you by tomorrow.’
‘Very efficient.’
‘I can actually head in now and get started?’
‘That’s efficiency beyond the call of duty, Grace.’
‘Isn’t that why I’m here?’
‘Today was full on. Yes, you’re here to work but I’m not a slave driver and I’m guessing that you haven’t been to this part of the world before. Have you?’
‘Well, no,’ Grace answered awkwardly.
‘Thought not. So you were asking about tomorrow? Time off.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You’re going to have a little time off to enjoy the island. It’s very beautiful.’
Grace smiled slowly, too thrilled by that suggestion to press her case for doing what she was being paid to do.
‘I have a driver at hand and at our disposal.’
Her smile slipped a little. ‘That sounds wonderful.’
‘I need to be in town so we can head off first thing in the morning and I insist above everything else...’ he leaned towards her and said in a low, conspiratorial voice ‘...that you visit some of the shops. The choice might be limited but you should find more suitable attire there.’ He leant back and waved one hand. ‘Not,’ he stressed with vigour, ‘that I’m telling you what to wear. Like I said, far be it from me to dictate your choice of clothing. That would be downright tyranny. But if you’ve just come equipped with stuff you’d wear to work in London on a mild summer day, then you’re going to be very uncomfortable in this heat while we’re here. And before you say anything...it’s all on the company. After all, you’re only here because of me.’
CHAPTER SIX
