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Grace could see exactly what was going through his head and she was appalled. He’d insisted on paying for the two glasses of wine she’d had and for the tapas they’d shared. Had he thought that somehow that had entitled him to more than just dinner? Or had alcohol and perhaps nerves skewed his judgement? He’d gone from dull to insistent over the course of two and a half hours and he’d drunk an awful lot.
‘Don’t even think of outstaying your welcome,’ Nico grated in a dangerously low voice. ‘In fact, if I were you, I’d do the gentlemanly thing right now. I’d thank the lady for a terrific evening, wish her all the best and then head off into the sunset.’
‘Nico...’ Grace said again, mortified and suddenly overwhelmed with self-pity. Rescued by her boss. Wasn’t that what it came down to? The very boss whose disturbing presence in her life was the reason she’d been here in the first place, trying to galvanise herself into doing what women of her age should be doing. Going out...meeting guys...dating and having fun.
Instead, Nico had spied her from across a crowded room and decided to turn into a knight in shining armour.
How on earth had it come to this?
But, of course, Grace knew, and as she pushed back the tears of self-pity she had a piercing flashback to her life, to the events that had determined the course of it.
She thought back to her mum, now on the other side of the world. Wasn’t it, in some ways, because of her that she, Grace, was sitting here right now? Not quite knowing where to look, hating Nico for thinking he had to rescue her from an uncomfortable situation while reluctantly admiring him for the way he’d gone about doing it?
Cecily Brown, her mum, still young at forty-nine, was in Australia and on marriage number three. Cecily wasn’t her real name. Her real name was Ann but, as she had once explained to a very young Grace,Annwas such a dreary name. How could anAnnbe anything but dull? And Cecily had been very far from dull. Cecily had been a whirlwind of adventure, a gorgeous, gregarious red-haired beauty who had kicked out her first husband within three years of being married, only to see just sufficient of him over the remaining four years to get pregnant with another child before eventually divorcing him.
Somewhere along the line, she had married again, a marriage that had lasted a handful of months.
We all make mistakes.That had been her mother’s casual dismissal of husband number two. Fortunately, the divorce had left her richer than she had been post-divorce number one, rich enough for her to pack in the nondescript office job she had spent years hating to follow the siren call of the stage.
And Cecily had followed that siren call with boundless enthusiasm. Young, vivacious and with not a scrap of common sense, she had enjoyed life in the manner of a single woman with zero responsibilities.
Parenting, for Cecily, had involved putting on little plays in the kitchen. There had been pizza for breakfast and cake for dinner and, of course, there had been days upon days with only the kindness of friends to keep her and her brother, five years her junior, fed.
Cecily had alternately proclaimed herself better off without men while going to pieces if she happened to be between boyfriends. There had been times when she had climbed into bed and stayed there for days on end with the curtains drawn while Grace had kept the home fires burning and then out she would come, in a blaze of boundless optimism, to pick up where she had left off.
Grace had witnessed all her mother’s emotional highs and lows and every single one had determined the direction she wished her own life to take, and it wouldn’t follow her mother’s.
She had become independent from a young age and cautious beyond her years.
She had learnt that, while Cecily had been a fun mother,fundidn’t go the distance when it came to parenting.
Parenting involved taking responsibility and Cecily had adroitly managed to delegate all responsibility to other people, largely Grace, who had never complained at the burden on her young shoulders.
So now?
She never took chances. Nico, with his revolving-door love life, was the very essence of a guy who only wanted to have fun, and the crush she’d had on him was inconvenient because he was the last person on earth she should be attracted to, never mind the small detail that he was her boss and paid her salary.
Her glamorous mother had needed validation from good-looking, eligible guys. She, Grace, did not and never would.
So, crush or no crush, she’d kept her distance except now, with Victor dispatched and Nico still sitting at the table, with the chair swivelled into its correct position, she had never felt more exposed.
His head was tilted to the side and his dark eyes were resting thoughtfully on her, ablaze with questions that were none of his business.
‘What are you doing here?’ Grace asked stiffly. ‘Shouldn’t you be in New York?’
‘The guy bailed. His wife was rushed into hospital. Decided I’d spare myself a night in and come here instead.’
‘On your own?’
She was gratified to see him flush and for a few seconds, he looked discomforted, which was rare for Nico Doukas.
‘Actually, I came with someone.’
‘Where is she?’ Grace made a deal of looking around her, giving herself a chance to get her thoughts together, to distract herself from the horrendous awkwardness of the situation.
She’d put so much effort into making sure that there were clear boundaries between them.
Four and a half years of effort! Keeping her head firmly screwed on whenever he was around!
