She saw the whole first—tall...male...impossibly handsome...
She noted the clothes—expensive...casual...dark trousers and a perfectly tailored designer polo...
She saw the flowers...well, in truth she’d seen better...
Then her brain tallied all those impressions and she flew back, eyes wide.
‘What areyoudoing here?’ Automatically Grace barred entry to the house by standing in front of the door, blocking him from sweeping past her.
‘I’ve come...look, here. I got these for you.’ Nico thrust the flowers at her and in response Grace looked at him coldly and folded her arms.
So...had he realised, after his bountiful gesture that she could leave without working her notice, that having an empty space with no one efficiently handling so much of his workload was going to be a bit harder than anticipated? Had he met his blonde bombshell and retrospectively realised that he would have to make his personal arrangements himself because it would take time to train up her replacement in the finer art of booking expensive, atmospheric restaurants? Not to mention sourcing just the right goodbye token when the time came. Come to think of it, why wasn’t he clinking champagne glasses over a candlelit dinner with the bombshell, looking forward to a night of fun between the sheets? Never mind. Not her business. Whatwasher business was the fact that he was planted in front of her door and she didn’t want him there.
Had he shown up with a bunch of less than average flowers in the hope of wooing her back behind her desk?
Grace shuddered at the very thought.
‘Shouldn’t you be at an expensive French restaurant with your latest conquest?’ she couldn’t resist asking and he flushed.
‘Will you let me in?’
‘No.’
‘Because you’re busy entertainingyourlatest conquest?’ Nico asked, his mouth twisting cynically, although his hot, brooding eyes were saying something she wasn’t sure she quite understood.
‘Who I’m with is none of your business, Nico.’ She looked at the flowers and was filled with sudden rage. ‘And if you think you can renege on your promise and get me back into the office to do my time because you’ve realised you can’t cope with the hassle of finding somebody else, then forget it. And the flowers? Not up to scratch, Nico. If you’d told me in advance, I would have ordered a much more expensive bunch for myself to plead your case. Although my answer would have been exactly the same!’
Nico edged closer and Grace, in turn, feeling the heat from him and the stirrings of her own treacherous body, toughened her stance, stood straighter, her back ramrod straight.
‘Grace...’
About to tell him that he needed to go, Grace was interrupted before she could open her mouth by Tommy calling her, asking who was at the door, his voice high and cheerful and then the sound of his slow steps heading towards the front door to join her.
She glanced over her shoulder and there he was, pausing to stand in the small hall, his head tilted to one side. So blond, so angelic and so...so present at exactly the wrong time.
‘Tommy, please, could you go and wait for me in the...er...kitchen? I’ll be with you in a sec.’
‘Tommy?’ Nico shifted closer to peer over her shoulder.
‘Who’s that?’ Tommy flagrantly ignored Grace’s request and padded over so that he was standing directly behind her. She could feel his warm breath on the back of her neck although her eyes were riveted by Nico and the dark, disapproving flush spreading across his handsome face.
‘Please, Tommy...’ She half turned to her brother, who was grinning at her, eyebrows raised. He looked as though he might launch into a conversation she didn’t want.
‘Tommy? Pleased to meet you.’
Grace was aghast as Nico reached past her, brushing her arm, to encourage her brother towards him, and she half closed her eyes when they shook hands, which proved awkward considering she had remained standing between them.
Her heart was hammering inside her like a sledgehammer. Her secrecy about her private life now made her burn with discomfort. She had kept her private life to herself as a self-defence mechanism! And what a good idea that had been, all things considered! But now it felt sly and overblown. Now, she wished she had confided in him. He would have listened. He would have given her sensible advice. He would have told her what Tommy had just told her...that she needed to stop playing full-time carer. He would have braced her for something that had come as a complete shock.
She wished she’d shared. She’d given him everything anyway, everything that really mattered. What had been the point in holding back the little details?
Nico, shifting awkwardly to inspect his competition, noted the guilty pinkening of Grace’s cheeks.
Tommy?
Since when was she someone who abbreviated other people’s names? Everyone else called James, the sales manager, Jimmy, and it had always amused him that she had never used that abbreviation. In fact, thinking about it, hadn’t she once told him in that sexy, prim, husky voice of hers that she didn’t have time for the annoying tendency people had to shorten anything and everything?
So...Tommy?