She glanced up at him, and saw only genuine concern in his eyes. ‘The staff reinforced my thoughts on you using me for sex—for a child, for an heir.’ Marco’s frown deepened. ‘I had to get out of the penthouse to clear my head—and it did help, though not in the way I expected. It helped me to understand how my parents must have felt when they were chased everywhere by the paparazzi.’
‘This is the first time you have spoken about them.’
‘Yes. Like you, I suspect, I’ve pushed the past behind me for so long it isn’t easy to speak about it to anyone. But even all these years after their deaths, I feel guilty.’
‘You too,’ he murmured.
‘I was so unforgiving when I was a teenager. All I could see was that my parents had abandoned me when I was small...’ She stopped, noticing how tense Marco had become. ‘Did I say something to upset you?’
He didn’t speak, but a muscle worked in his jaw. She guessed he felt as she did, that years of practised silence couldn’t be undone in one night.
‘There’s something else,’ she said as the elevator doors swung open.
‘What?’ Marco said.
‘I can help you.’
‘You can help me?’ He stared at her incredulously as the elevator headed for the penthouse floor.
‘You don’t have time to handle everything, which is how you ended up with those people working in your home—’
‘And your suggestion is?’ he demanded.
Marco wasn’t used to people challenging him. Too bad. She had something to say and he wasn’t going to stop her. It was crucial that he could trust people who worked in his home. ‘You must try to hire more people like Maria and Giuseppe. If you’ll let me, I’ll help you find them.’
When Marco shook his head with amusement, she added, ‘Just think how much more effective you’d be if you could delegate more. Maybe you wouldn’t be so distant—you could make a start with your staff, and then try the same with me.’
She should take the look he gave her as a warning to back off, but instead, she stared straight back at him.
He had to admire her cheek. After her experience in the park he might have expected Cassandra to be shaken and thinking about no one but herself, but she was always thinking about other people—not that he would allow his feelings to run away with him where she was concerned. ‘Are we going to stand outside the door all day?’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ she reminded him. ‘Do you want my help with recruiting staff?’
‘There’s no need. I will be vetting staff personally in future.’
She cocked her head to one side to stare up at him. ‘Would I have made it through your selection process?’
Her question silenced him. He stared at her, realising the answer was probably no.
Was that what made him make one small concession?
‘It must be boring for you, sitting around the penthouse all day. You needed to rest, but now you’re well enough I can see that you need something to do. I’ll ring round tomorrow—make some enquiries about part-time work for you.’
She shook her head. ‘That’s very kind of you Marco, but there’s no need.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I rang the embassy. To be more accurate, I rang the ambassador’s private number. He gave it to me at the party. I thought about what you said, and I realised that I wouldn’t be using him, and that I actually had something to offer him—I’d be giving, not taking. I’d be doing a fair day’s work, and I would be prepared to work in the embassy gardens for nothing, though he wouldn’t hear of that. He said I would make a very welcome addition to the embassy’s gardening team.’
‘You’ve got a job?’
‘Yes, Marco. I have.’
His protective instinct flared into life. ‘After today’s experience, you’re happy to go to work each day with the paparazzi shadowing your every move?’
‘I thought you were going to ring around to try to get me a job?’ Before he could answer, she added, ‘And it won’t be every day. The work at the embassy is part time.’
‘If I had found you a job it would have been different.’
‘In what way would it be different?’ she challenged.
‘I would have made sure of the security first.’
‘You know as well as I do that the gardens at the embassy have security so tight I couldn’t slip a worm in there unnoticed, let alone a pack of hyenas. This is the perfect solution, Marco. No one will get within a mile of me,’ she added confidently.