She remembered how he had rushed to save her from herself and from Victor when he’d correctly clocked that she’d been in an uncomfortable situation. It had been an intuitive reaction. He had even dispatched his own date so that he could mount the stallion and charge to her rescue!
Did he actually care about her on some level that he wasn’t conscious of?
It was completely taboo to be thinking like this, but Grace couldn’t stop a shiver of forbidden pleasure from racing through her, like a dangerously addictive drug.
Belatedly she remembered Cecily and the eternal search for Mr Right. There had been so many times when optimism had trumped reality. Too many to count. Grace had always had to pick up the pieces when the bubble had burst and her mother had finally accepted that the guy who’d paid her tons of compliments and taken her out for two meals wasn’t going to be putting a ring on her finger. It had taken her even longer to realise that she was better off without that particular Mr Right. It had always been a long, slow process and watching hope die had taught Grace a thousand and one life lessons.
Never, in all the time she had harboured her secret crush, had she felt herself in jeopardy.
How could you be in any danger ofanythingwhen you were having secret fantasies about some guy who never spared you a second glance?
Except when asking whether you’d checked the company accounts for his most recent takeover. Or sorted those supply chains that were screwed up because of a boat being docked too long somewhere too far away because of bad weather.
So she’d woken up and realised that the secret fantasies had had their day and the time had come to try and find the real thing, a real, living, breathing guy with whom she could have a complete relationship. She’d accepted that Nico had been a useful, innocent distraction at a time when her life had been in turmoil.
But everything had been turned on its head and nothing was what it had been before. He had crashed through all the red tape andKeep Outsigns and now...
Her awareness was so close to the surface. She could sense the shift between them even though she’d done her best to return to where they had been before. When he came close to her, she could feel a thread of electric charge pushing between them, a low vibration that meant she was on red-hot alert every single second of every single day she was in his company.
This was no longer an innocent distraction.
Now her harmless crush felt dangerous.
Now, for the first time, Grace felt as though she was being called upon to test all those life lessons she thought she had learnt from her mother’s adventures.
She reined in her thoughts and returned to the matter at hand. ‘And why can’t your dad handle the situation? I know your mother’s recovering but surely the funeral arrangements can largely be done over the phone? From what I’ve seen of your mother when she’s been over here, I don’t think she’s going to go to pieces if she’s left on her own for a couple of hours. Do you? When they were over before I remember her telling him that there was no need for him to follow her everywhere...and how could he possibly be interested in what was happening in ladies’ fashionwear at Selfridges.’
Nico smiled, momentarily diverted as he thought about the dynamics between his parents.
If his uncle had gone off the rails, his father had done completely the opposite.
It had taken the joker in the pack to produce the King of Spades, needed to assume control and get things on track.
Maybe his father would have been the man he had become whatever the circumstances, but maybe Sander had done that. There had been a vacancy for someone strong to take the reins and his father had stepped up to the plate because, frankly, he hadn’t had much choice.
He had chosen his wife with his head. He had put his emotions to one side and opted for a woman from the same elevated, wealthy background who knew the ropes. No room for demanding hysterics, just calm support where it was needed. He couldn’t remember a single instance of his parents rowing. When his father had worked late, his mother had patiently been there, her role to take the pressure off and not pile it on by demanding he focus onher.
From his own experience, Nico could appreciate how important it was to marry a suitable woman.
You could have affairs with women who wanted to be the centre of attention, but those were affairs.
If he had ever thought that his father’s life might have been too regimented, his own fling all those years ago, when he had been prepared to give love and emotions a go, had taught him otherwise. Eva had wanted all of him. She had demanded proof of his devotion and insisted that work be delegated to the back burner. She was either everything to him or nothing at all. But at the helm of his own burgeoning business, which had demanded many long nights and gruelling commitments, Nico had come to realise that he was just too imbued with a sense of responsibility to ditch everything because a woman needed him to prove himself.
Now he accepted that he was a workaholic and, as such, when he decided to move from having flings to settling down, it would be with a woman who had no illusions about what she was letting herself in for.
A lifetime of having everything money could buy. In return, he would get a dependable woman who would accept his priorities and live with them.
His parents loved one another. It had been a good relationship and a wise choice because crazy emotions hadn’t been in charge, just common sense and goodwill on both sides.
From that had sprung just the sort of marital stability that worked.
‘I forgot about that. Of course, in normal circumstances my father could deal with all of this. Unfortunately, things are a little different in this case and I’ve asked you here urgently because this involves you. I will have to carry on working while I’m dealing with Sander’s situation, and I’ll need you there in a working capacity. I can’t afford to go off radar for a week. Aside from which, there will be certain business matters to handle when we get there. Not extensive but there’ll be business to be done and you know how my work suffers when you’re not around. I need you by my side or I become a nervous wreck and end up comfort eating.’ He shot her a disarming grin.
Of course, this boiled down to work, Grace thought bracingly. What else? Had she really believed that Nico had suddenly called her up because he’d wanted someone to talk to? To share with?
‘There? Where’sthere?’
‘The Bahamas,’ he said, sitting back in the chair, having finished everything on his plate. ‘And the reason this couldn’t wait is because time is of the essence. I hope your passport is in date because you’ll need to book me on the first flight to Nassau tomorrow and you can follow on Monday. I realise this might come as a bolt from the blue but...any questions?’