Chapter Two
Over dinner with me?
What a nerve! He was there to shadow her, follow her instructions!
Basically, when she thought about it, she was his boss for two weeks.
He was on a par with Claire and Sharon, the eighteen-year-olds who constantly had to be told off for giggling and trying on make-up when no customers were waiting to be served.
Admittedly, there were some differences…
Jose was thirty-two, wouldn’t know how to giggle if he took a course on it and was a drop-dead-gorgeous, sex-on-legs guy.
But she was still his boss for two weeks!
Which was why she’d given him a cool, amused, derisory look four days ago when he’d voiced that outrageous suggestion.
Nevertheless, she’d felt a tingle of awareness race through her at the thought of having dinner with him, of seeing him outside the confines of the store.
And, over the following few days, she’d been aware of him in ways that were scary and thrilling at the same time.
She would park him at a desk and point out what she wanted him to do but, instead of getting on with her own workload, she’d find herself sliding little glances across at him while her imagination ran riot.
When she showed him around the various departments, she was aware of how every single person in the entire store looked at him with interest and curiosity.
Ella knew he was dangerous. At least, dangerous for her.
Temptation happened on a daily basis: a murmured remark, a raised eyebrow, a slow smile…
Little ripples in her previously calm existence bit by bit were waking her up to a general dissatisfaction about her life which she had successfully managed to ignore since she’d returned to the family home.
The breath of something more out there that he had brought with him on day one didn’t fade as the days went by. It got stronger, stirring a restlessness inside her she couldn’t control.
She was beginning to find excuses to come in a bit earlier than usual and to leave a bit later. Was it her imagination or was he doing the same?
Ella glanced at her phone. It was Friday and it was five-thirty. She could have clocked off at five.
At the desk next to her, Jose was doing something diligent in front of the computer. He was proving to be surprisingly efficient at pretty much everything she threw at him.
‘Ahem.’ Ella cleared her throat and swivelled her chair so that she faced him.
Today he wore a pale-blue polo shirt and black jeans. Her eyes drifted to the bulge of his muscled forearms and the taut pull of the jeans over his thighs.
He turned his chair to face her and leaned back, arms folded behind his head. ‘Ahem?’
‘It’s okay for you to leave now, Jose. It’s Friday, and I’m sure you have lots of things planned.’
‘Why would you assume that when I’m new to the area? Takes time to make friends.’
‘You don’t seem to be doing too badly on that front.’
‘Have you been keeping tabs on me, by any chance?’
He grinned, and Ella reddened. ‘Of course not!’
‘It is your job, though, now that I mention it. You wouldn’t want me to accidentally delete something.’
‘That wouldn’t happen. There are back-up systems in place. I’m surprised you don’t know that.’
Was this the sort of Big Retail Store Experience Jose had envisaged when he had wrangled his fortnight here?
He never revealed anything. At first, she had vaguely wondered what he was doing here, when everything about him suggested a guy who could take on what life had to offer without anyone’s help, but she had shrugged away her curiosity.
He’d come via Sir Ron and it wasn’t up to her to start playing detective just because he didn’t look the part.
‘Anyway…’ She stood up and shuffled stuff on her desk, tidying things away and very much aware of his dark eyes on her. ‘I should get going.’
‘Big plans for the weekend?’
Did the cinema with a girlfriend on a Saturday count as ‘big plans’? Ella wondered. ‘Huge.’
‘Well, spare a thought for me.’ Rocco stood up, taking his time, flexing his muscles and not ungluing his eyes from her face.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘I’ll be on my own on my last weekend here, watching television and eating a boxed meal for one.’
‘I’m sure you could rustle up some company from the fan base you’ve made at the store,’ Ella said politely.
She hovered, unsettled by what he had said about this weekend being his last one here, which was a reminder that this strange excitement that filled her whenever he was around came with a deadline.
She considered her life beyond him with a sinking feeling of dread. Her heartbeat quickened and she licked her lips and continued to hover.
Rocco felt the blood rushing through his veins as he held her indecisive stare with lazy, shuttered intensity.
He fancied her. He had no idea why he did, when that had happened or how he had managed to surrender his self-control, because he’d never thought coming here on a fortnight’s recce would include this scenario.
He didn’t like complications and he especially didn’t like complications when they involved women.
Reality had no room for sentiment, and sentiment was the enemy of control—just look at his uncle.
That said, this was a different place, far removed from the usual concerns he would have in a situation like this.
Jose Rivero didn’t have an uncle who had squandered millions and nearly brought the family name to ruin.
Jose Rivero was free of those constraints.
Right now, Ella was hovering, waiting, for…what? Waiting for their conversation to continue?
Rocco felt the sharp excitement of adrenaline race through him. ‘I feel I should apologise,’ he said huskily and then held her gaze when she frowned with confusion.
‘Okay, feel free. Go right ahead, although I have no idea what you want to apologise about. Unless,’ she said, eyebrows raised, ‘You’ve done something wrong on the system and were too ashamed to tell me? I get the feeling that you don’t like being wrong but we all make mistakes.’
‘Thank you for being so magnanimous and understanding,’ Rocco said humbly. ‘But I don’t make mistakes when it comes to tech.’
‘Oh, really.’
‘Generally speaking, hand on heart, I don’t tend to make many mistakes.’
‘Can I say that that’s a very arrogant statement?’
‘Of course you can.’ He’d been spot-on with the body language interpretation, he decided. It was Friday, and the weekend lay ahead, but she wanted to be right here in a deserted office chatting with him. Where were her huge plans—awaiting postponement?
Dinner would be very satisfactory for both of them.
‘So, what do you want to apologise for?’
‘For asking you out to dinner a few days ago when I first met you.’
‘Ah. Well…’
‘You must have found that very offensive.’ He began gathering his bits and pieces, such as they were, not looking at her but aware of her with every nerve in his body.
Eventually, when he did look at her, she was blushing and still indecisively hovering in the same spot.
‘I…’ she began.
‘You must have thought me incredibly full of myself, which—and I’ll freely admit this—I have occasionally been accused of. Didn’t you just do that—accuse me of arrogance when I thought I was just being honest? I’m always mystified by other people’s assumptions.’
‘Naturally, it seemed…uh…a little surprising. Dinner…’
Rocco strolled towards the lift and was gratified when she fell into step with him.
‘For starters, I never even asked whether you were involved with someone…’ He looked down at her, at the way her shiny dark hair dropped in a straight sheet to her shoulders, at the economical grace of her movements as she walked and the swell of her breasts pushing against the pale-blue shirt primly buttoned up to her neck.
She was so different, so composed, so cool, so reserved…
He got a kick every morning when he came in to find her there, in her starchy outfits that did nothing to conceal her innate sexiness.
Now, his libido kicked into painful gear as he continued to stare at her.
They hit the lift button and when the doors opened he stepped aside so that she could brush past him.
‘Are you?’ he asked, leaning against the mirrored wall and gazing at her with interest. ‘Involved with someone?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘It is, because I would really like to have dinner with you, but obviously if you have a partner then I’ll back off. I’ve never been the sort of guy who treads on another man’s toes. So, are you involved with someone? Because if not then I’d like to take you out to dinner.’
‘Why?’
‘Sorry?’ Rocco was momentarily taken aback. He stepped out onto the ground floor and allowed her to precede him.
Here there were signs of life, although with only fifteen minutes till closing, there was the depressing atmosphere of the few customers there politely being ushered towards the exit.
Half the staff appeared to have vanished, probably getting ready to join the Friday evening stampede out.
Canned music added to the general air of a place just waiting for the axe to fall.
He could have left after day one from what he’d seen, but he’d stayed put. He was beginning to see why.
‘Why,’ she repeated as they left the store, ‘Do you want to take me out to dinner?’
‘Because.’
‘You’re going to be here for another week. Like you said, this is your last weekend, so it’s not because you want to get to know me better.’
‘You wanted to continue studying geography. You wanted a part in changing the world. You’re serious about climate change.
But you ended up here because your mother died and…
was there no one else to save the day? What’s wrong with wanting to find out a bit more about someone?
So, tell me, was it all on your shoulders? ’