Free The Legend of de Marco by Abby Green Page B

woman beside him, one finely drawn eyebrow arched above perfectly made-up blue eyes.
    He smiled tightly. ‘Forgive me …’
    Gracie had just served the starter, and put her ear to the door to try and hear the conversation, or any observation about the food. She heard Rocco’s low voice, and then an irritating tinkling laugh followed by,
‘Oh, Rocco, you’re terrible!’
    Gracie’s face burned. She felt paranoid, as if Rocco might come back through the door and hold up his platewith its linguine and truffle starter and say,
Seriously? You thought this would be suitable?
    But he didn’t appear. So Gracie got on with the main course.
    After a suitable amount of time she went in to check the wine levels and saw that Rocco had finished his starter but Ms Winthrop’s was half eaten. The woman barely glanced at Gracie, just pushed her plate slightly towards the edge of the table, clearly indicating that she was finished.
    Gracie curbed her tongue when she got a warning glance from Rocco, and replenished the wine and took the plates away, also curbing a cheeky urge to curtsey.
    When she brought in the main course Gracie couldn’t help the dart of satisfaction at seeing Rocco’s eyes widen. The smell of the guinea fowl
cacciatore
was impressively aromatic. She deftly served them both, and left again. She was starting to get seriously annoyed with Rocco’s date’s complete lack of acknowledgment. At least in the bar where she’d worked—as rough as it had been—people looked you in the eye and not through you.
    She started clearing up, valiantly ignoring the hum of voices and trying not to imagine what they might be talking about. Wedding plans? Gracie slapped down the tea-towel at the spiking of irrational jealousy.
    Any kind of feelings for Rocco de Marco beyond antipathy and extreme wariness were so patently futile that—
    Gracie heard a noise and whirled around to see George coming in through the other kitchen door, which opened out to the entrance hall. She’d given him an early supper of the same food she was serving Rocco and his guest because he’d finished his shift.
    He had a big grin on his face and patted his enormous belly. ‘That was the singularly most amazing meal I’ve ever eaten.’
    Gracie grinned. ‘Really? Oh, George, thank you!’ And she jumped up to give him a quick impetuous kiss, as much for his human affection and their growing friendship as anything else. Just then the other door opened and Gracie sprang back, cheeks burning.
    Rocco stood there, looking like thunder, with his napkin in his hand. ‘If you’re quite ready? We’ve finished in here.’
    George scuttled out as fast as he could for such a huge man, and Gracie leapt to attention, feeling absurdly guilty for no reason. Rocco stayed at the door, forcing her to go past him, and when her hip came into contact with his body she had to stop herself from flinching away. Even that small contact with his tall, hard-muscled body was seismic to her system. She cleared away the plates, glad for the first time that evening that the cold-looking blonde beauty wasn’t looking at her.
    When she’d composed herself as much as she could, she went back in with the lemon torte dessert and coffee. Ms Winthrop was saying, ‘Darling, how on earth did you entice Louis away from the Four Seasons? Roberto must be simply livid! That meal was divine.’
    A dart of satisfaction went through Gracie as she put down the tray on the nearby serving table. In the silence that followed she found she was holding her breath, waiting to see what Rocco would say. As the seconds ticked past it became incredibly important.
    She was picking up the dessert plates and feeling sick inside when he cleared his throat. ‘Actually, Louis was indisposed this evening. So Gracie here, who is my temporary housekeeper, prepared our meal.’
    Gracie walked over and put down the plates. She felt a little light-headed for a moment. She couldn’t believe Rocco had actually