CHAPTER SIX
THE BIDDING WAS over and everyone had left the table. Most of the charming older people had left, Cass discovered when she scanned the glamorous main salon. The networking she’d planned to do wasn’t so easy when the people who were left behind didn’t want to talk to her, and those who had gone were too nice to touch up for a job. She had just wanted to talk to them and enjoy their company.
Spotting Marco across the room, she thought now might be a good time to ask him to introduce her round. But, contrary to his earlier, sympathetic manner, when she had lusted after the Hockney sketch, his back was like a wall against her when she turned up, as if he regretted his brief display of almost being human, and was once again the aloof billionaire, untouchable and cold.
She hovered for a little while, uncertain. People moved around her as if she weren’t there... She wished she wasn’t there. This was a world she had avoided and had no desire to become part of again—a world where people said one thing and did another.
She moved into the shadows of a corner where she could observe, without being observed, and that was how, in a brief lull in the general conversation, she heard Marco say, ‘That girl in the blue dress, sitting next to me at dinner? She’s no one.’
Shock chilled her, but what he’d said was true. She wasn’t anyone—not compared to all these rich and influential people. She was an amateur gardener—an enthusiast who had taken a summer vacation job on Marco di Fivizzano’s country estate. When she returned home, she would be back stacking shelves at another supermarket.
Hearing Marco say what he had was actually a welcome wake-up call. She had nothing in common with anyone here. She must have been mad to think she could network.
But then her fiery nature kicked in. What he’d said was true, but he shouldn’t have said it to another guest. How would Marco like it if she had dismissed him like that?
Working her anger out, she kept on moving around his guests without stopping to talk to anyone. She’d lost her confidence to speak to anyone, thanks to him. Finally, locking herself in the bathroom, she stared at the face of a stranger in the mirror—a woman with false eyelashes and rouged cheeks...an actress playing a part.
Exactly. She was playing a part. And therefore she could do this. Even if she was no one, on a scale of ambassador to prince, she could still hold her head high and go back to the party to do exactly what she’d been paid for.
And that was what she did. She guessed that the same driver who had brought her here would take her back to the hotel, and meanwhile, as the last guests began to think about leaving, she set about doing what she could to tidy up. She had always felt compelled to tidy up, maybe because the last time she had seen her mother alive, her mother had been stumbling about amidst the squalor of spilled ashtrays, discarded needles and upended champagne bottles. Since then Cass could never leave the debris of the night before until the next morning.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
She froze as Marco roared at her. And then she fired up. His manner was insufferable. Why had he paid her to come here at all? She was a member of his staff, and she saw no reason why she couldn’t make a start on tidying up.
‘Leave it!’ he insisted. He was at her side in a couple of strides. ‘I have staff to do this.’
‘Are you going to make them work through the night?’ she demanded, shaking his hand from her arm.
‘Of course not,’ he exploded.
The last thing he had expected was for her to answer back, Cass suspected as they glared at each other.
‘My staff will be here in the morning,’ Marco informed her brusquely.
And meanwhile they were alone...the last guest had left. And so far there was no sign of Marco’s driver.
‘What are you so angry about, Cassandra?’
She wasn’t angry. She had just realised the compromising position she had put herself in. ‘You think you can insult me and I won’t feel anything?’
‘Insult you? What on earth are you talking about?’
‘You,’ she fired back. ‘You talk about your staff as if they’re robots programmed to obey. You promised to introduce me round. You said it would be a great opportunity for me to network, and I thought so too, but you ignored me all night. I’m not sure why I’m here at all.’
‘There were plenty of opportunities for you to network. It was up to you to take them. Everyone was here.’