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Composing her face, she turned round to face her boss, her heart plummeting when she saw Vincenzo’s expression. It was a wily look she recognised and she needed to be on her guard because she knew how ruthless he could be. He might pay generously but he was a privileged tyrant and not for the first time she thought what a poisoned chalice this job could be. ‘Yes, Signor Contarini?’
‘So what was all that about?’ he questioned slyly.
She played the innocent, self-protection prompting her to field his veiled question. Because what else could she do? She couldn’t afford to lose this job. Not now. Not after everything she’d been through. Unflinching beneath his accusing stare, she fixed him with a look of mild bemusement. ‘I’m not sure I understand.’
‘Don’t take me for a fool, Grace!’ he spat out. ‘You know him!’
And in a way Grace was grateful that the old man’s accusation was so specific because it meant she could answer it with a certain amount of truth, though her voice wasn’t quite steady as she shook her head. ‘No,signor. I don’t.’
Because she didn’t know him. Apart from his name and the fact that he had taken her to heaven and back, she didn’t have a clue who Odysseus Diamides was, or where he’d come from, or why he was meeting with her employer.
But one thing was for sure.
She needed to find out.
CHAPTER FIVE
Odysseussippedhiscoffee and waited, keeping his gaze trained on the street leading to the little backwater café where Grace had suggested they meet. It was an out-of-the-way spot largely unfrequented by tourists and as he watched the locals coming and going, he was reminded that this wasn’t just a holiday destination of breathtaking beauty but a place where people lived normal lives. Two businessmen drinking wine together beneath a shady canopy. A working boat unloading crates to the back entrance of a small restaurant, to the sounds of whistling from within. A young child, walking with his mother, school finished for the day, smiling contentment on the little boy’s face.
And he wondered what it must be like to grow up like that…
By rights he should be high above the Adriatic on his private jet right now, thinking about the meeting which had just taken place between him and the grandfather he had been schooled to despise. His father had always been vitriolic about the old man, blaming him for his wife’s untimely death and reinforcing that terrible loss whenever he got the opportunity. Odysseus felt his jaw clench, remembering that the finger of culpability had sometimes pointed in other directions, too…
Yet, unexpectedly, his shock sighting of Grace working as some kind of maid in his grandfather’s house had temporarily driven the torturous past from his mind. Or maybe it was simply the realisation that Vincenzo Contarini was never going to express any remorse for what he had done—so why bother kicking against a locked door?
It had been easier to focus on Grace and the reaction which had flooded through him when she’d walked into the room with her hair scraped back, her slim body swamped by that ugly grey uniform. His disbelief at her dowdy appearance had warred with a vivid and visceral flashback of easing himself into her slick tightness and hearing her gasps of pleasure. Unusually compromised yet strangely turned on by the unspoken but apparent need for secrecy, he had pressed his business card into her hand, feeling the unmistakable shiver which had rippled over her damp palm as their eyes had met. Was that the moment when he’d realised how much he still wanted her?
But wasn’t the truth that he hadn’t stopped wanting her since she’d walked out of his hotel suite that morning, leaving him high and dry and aching?
His erotic recall cleared as he saw her making her way towards him, over a narrow bridge which crossed the canal. Small. Unremarkable. Straight brown hair streaming over her shoulders, though the sunlight revealed the occasional warm highlight. The drab grey dress had given way to jeans and trainers and some sort of raincoat, which was knotted tightly around her waist. He’d half wondered if she would show, after that stilted conversation when she’d phoned him, speaking in a stage whisper as if afraid of being overheard. But then he’d reasoned that of course she would. She couldn’t afford not to. Wouldn’t she want to know why he was meeting with her boss, as much as he wanted to know why she was working there?
She came into the café, said something in Italian to the man behind the bar and slipped into the seat opposite him. Undoing her trench coat, she hung it on the back of the chair and he could see the stiff set of her shoulders as she turned her face to his. Beneath the subdued artificial lighting of the café, her bare lips looked as though they were trying not to tremble and her hands were clasped together in her lap.
He narrowed his eyes, still trying to work it out, his usual cynicism banished by the intriguing riddle in front of him. Not one woman but three, he mused.
A virgin temptress.
A downtrodden servant.
But now…
Odysseus ran his thumb along the rough edge of his jaw. Now she was simply an ordinary, fresh-faced young woman who was radiating good health and vigour. Her eyes were shining and her lips were bare. Her eyebrows were thick and dark and her hair was spilling over her shoulders in a cascade of natural colour. Not his usual type at all. And then his attention was caught by a fragment of scarlet nail varnish, clinging to the edge of one fingernail, when all the rest were unpainted. She must have missed it in her hurry to erase evidence of last night’s ball, he thought, assailed by the provocative memory of those red talons stroking over the taut flesh of his straining erection. And, surprise, surprise, he thought wryly. It was happening all over again. Uncomfortably, he shifted his weight in an attempt to divert his attention from his hardening groin.
‘So.’ Swallowing against the sudden dryness in his throat, he leaned back against the wooden chair. ‘That was some entrance you made.’
Her amber eyes were bright and very direct and only the faint shadows beneath hinted at the fact that she’d had very little sleep last night.
‘Are we talking about last night, or this morning?’ she enquired.
‘We both know what I’m talking about, Grace,’ he snapped. ‘And it isn’t your skill in managing to close a pair of shutters under the obviously suspicious gaze of your employer.’
She pursed her lips together. ‘Thank you for not saying anything.’
‘What was I going to say? That I was pleased you’d found your way home safely at that time in the morning, or that I was sorry I’d made you miss out on so much sleep? I found your obvious need for secrecy…intriguing. And curiously tantalising.’ There was a pause. ‘Do you realise, I don’t even know your surname?’
‘Foster,’ she supplied unwillingly.
‘So, Grace Foster.’ He flicked his gaze over her bloodless cheeks. ‘Why did you look so scared when you saw me?’