Chapter Three
Would she regret it? Could she trust him?
He’d smiled that slow, lazy, utterly charming smile and she’d blinked away all her doubts.
She’d forgotten her vows to be careful after Steve.
She’d relegated to oblivion all her resolutions about only letting any man into her life when she knew that he could be trusted.
‘You should take a few days off,’ he’d said, as they’d left the restaurant hand in hand, heading for the place he had rented on the outskirts of town. ‘I want you to myself while I’m here and shadowing you is going to get in the way of that. Unless there are private cubby holes where we can hide…?’
‘You can’t do that!’
‘Why not?’
‘Because…you’re here for a fortnight! You’ve signed up to work.’
‘I’m not on a pay roll.’ He’d shrugged. ‘And I’m okay with trading some of my time here for more pleasurable pastimes.
Live on the wild side, Ella—forget about duty for a minute.
’ He’d pulled her against him and kissed her, and that kiss had been devastating.
He’d looked her in the eyes, sifting his fingers through her hair and cupping her face.
‘And that means not finding excuses to be careful all the time. I’m not as poor as you think, even if I happen to be your slave for a fortnight. ’
‘Hardly a slave!’
‘Don’t knock it. I like the thought of you giving me orders. Take the rest of the week off. I’ll book us somewhere—a cottage. We can play house until I leave next weekend.’
‘Play house?’
‘By that,’ he’d clarified quickly, ‘I mean lie in bed all day and only get up to shower or eat.’
He’d rented a cottage… What had he expected?
He’d taken time out with women before—a five-star hotel somewhere in a bustling city.
He travelled extensively and occasionally had a woman travel with him.
If she disliked falling in line and taking second billing to his work commitments, then nothing had ever been said, because he’d lavished her with expensive gifts and taken her to classy restaurants. Money was always a great persuader.
Now, though… He’d had his EA find a suitably rustic cottage buried in the countryside. She’d emailed a picture of it and Rocco had given her the go-ahead. It was nothing Rocco Mancini would have contemplated in a million years, but as soon as they’d reached it, it had felt right.
Two days on, it still felt right. There were no expensive shops, no expensive restaurants, no expensive gifts bought. There was just a cottage in the middle of nowhere, nestled in rolling green hills.
‘Need a hand?’
Rocco was sprawled on the deep, old-fashioned sofa watching as Ella busied herself in the kitchen.
They were playing house. It wasn’t something he’d done before in his life but he was doing it now and enjoying it.
Outside, the fading sun was casting the last shadows over a garden bursting with wild flowers.
Inside, the furnishings were cosy and worn, with lots of throws on the chairs and sofa, wooden beams on the ceiling and a central stone fireplace that dominated the living area.
Ella looked across at Rocco lying on the sofa, ankles loosely crossed and one hand behind his head, the other dangling to the side.
It was a little after six and her body still tingled from when they had made love only a couple of hours before.
She felt dampness spread between her legs and knew from the slow smile he shot her that he could read exactly what she was thinking.
I want you. Ella couldn’t believe how far she’d come from the cautious girl who had resented having someone rearrange her work pattern by showing up without warning in her carefully ordered office to the girl she was now: open, free and trusting.
She’d taken one look at the cottage he had rented for the week and had known that this was a guy who got her.
‘What would you like to help me with?’ she teased now, strolling towards him with a knife in one hand and an onion in the other.
‘I can’t have a conversation with you when you’re approaching me with a knife. A man can get a little edgy around a woman with a knife.’
Ella burst out laughing. Yes, he got her. Got her in ways she had never expected. He made her laugh with his dry wit and listened to her with dark, pensive eyes that encouraged her to confide, confide, confide.
‘Would you know how to cook a meal?’ she smiled, moving to sit next to him and then curling into him as he adjusted his big body so that she could fit neatly into him.
‘I can rustle up something edible if I have no choice.’
‘Honestly, Jose, for a guy who lives on his own, I’m shocked that you’re not more proficient in front of a cooker. I guess you get women to cook for you?’
Now and again, Ella noted little things that made her think, like ripples quietly disturbing the calm surface of a lake.
Such as the fact that she knew precious little about him aside from the basics.
Of course, she reasoned, she didn’t need someone’s entire back story to know that they were right for her; that they were kind, good and fair.
He’d told her to have an adventure, to live in the moment, and that was what she was doing.
She was following his lead, stepping out of her comfort zone and enjoying it.
Except…time was moving on and now, nestled against him, feeling his heartbeat through his tee shirt, she wondered where things were going. Time felt in short supply and suddenly she had a pressing urge to find out more about him, to make the connection between them stronger.
Maybe to know whether there was room for them to develop what they’d started after he left…?
Her heart fluttered. She’d told herself that she was in control of a situation that brought her physical satisfaction without emotional entanglement, because her head told her he wasn’t the sort of guy she was looking for. Not as a long-term proposition.
After Steve, she told herself she would be careful.
She based her benchmark on her dad, who was quietly strong, reliable and kind, a man of few words who knew what it was like to devote his life to the woman he loved.
He and her mother had adored one another.
He’d been her rock and had been there for her through the many years of uncertain health.
That was what she was looking for. Not a guy who made her body sing, who took her to places she’d never imagined possible but who was also the essence of charm, easy wit and stunning self-assurance.
Yet…she couldn’t quite imagine life without him in it, and that scared her. Was there a connection there for him as well? He wasn’t taking a risk like she was. So was this just another every-day fling for him? Or more than that?
‘I don’t, actually.’
‘So you cook for yourself? Tell me what you like to cook.’
‘That’s a lot of questions.’
‘I want to find out more about you. You know so much about me. I’ve never confided in anyone the way I’ve confided in you, and I’m not even sure how you’ve managed to get me to tell you so much.’
‘I’m a persuasive kind of guy,’ Rocco murmured.
‘I can’t actually believe I’m here with you.’
‘Yet how hard was it to tell your manager that you wanted a few days off? And I’m still not sure why you had to skirt around the reason for that by saying I’d had to cut short my stint there, and you needed a break to regroup from having your routine put out of sync by my unexpected presence.’
‘People have a way of gossiping.’
‘Does it matter what people think?’
‘It does to me.’
‘Why?’
‘I suppose,’ Ella said thoughtfully, ‘That it’s just the way I’ve always been.
I’ve always been quite restrained. Like I’ve told you, Conor was the one who took up all the oxygen.
He demanded attention and, the more he demanded, the more I retreated into myself.
Especially with Mum—having to deal with health issues that cropped up time and again.
I felt like the last thing my parents needed was the headache of two kids testing the boundaries. ’
‘Did you ever resent that?’
‘Until I met you, it wasn’t something I’d ever confronted. It was what it was. You’re the only one who knows just how awful my experience with Steve was. I lost a future I thought I might have with him, but it was more than that. Because of what he did, I lost my friend as well.’
‘People like that don’t deserve your friendship or your love.’
Rocco could smell the sweet, floral scent of her hair and, as he breathed it in, he felt the tight, grim throb of rage when he thought about the guy who’d let her down, because she hadn’t deserved that.
It wasn’t jealousy. He didn’t do jealousy.
He never had. But, in a way, it was worse than jealousy, because it was a sort of possessiveness and that was alien to him.
He almost wished he’d been around at the time to protect her from a guy who should have been kicked out of her life before he’d got his foot through the door.
What was that about? Why wasn’t he more concerned at how intimate they had become in such a short time?
He was a man who guarded his emotions, who never encouraged women to over-share and who was happy to have sex as the motivator behind relationships, safe in the knowledge that when the time came to take a wife he would only ever consider one who logically fitted the bill.
Emotion would play no part in his choice.
But this unusual freedom…life in the guise of someone else, intimacy…didn’t feel like a threat. He enjoyed her soft murmurings as she confided in him, told him things that were close to her heart. It made him want to talk to her as well.
‘Have you ever lost your heart to someone?’ he heard her ask.
‘Not my style.’
‘You’re in your thirties and you’ve never lost your heart to anyone?’
‘I…’ Rocco hesitated, knowing that there was a limit to what he could tell her but also knowing that, within those limits, there was a lot he could confide, and it shocked him just how much he wanted to do that.