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A broad male figure loomed in the kitchen doorway. Adrenaline flooded her. Her heart clawed up into her throat. She gripped the knife harder.
The figure raised his hands very slowly in a gesture of non-aggression and then he backed all the way down the hallway and out of her house until he stood on the other side of her screen door. Only then did her pounding brain recognise who it was that stood on the other side. Rico D’Angelo. Her new boss.
Her heart didn’t stop hammering. Her hands didn’t unclench.
Rico raised a hand and knocked. She didn’t hear it. Undoing her fist enough to reach out, she turned off the radio. ‘Quiet, Monty!’
Amazingly, the animal obeyed her.
‘Neen, I’m sorry I frightened you.’
She suddenly realised she was still holding the knife. With burning eyes she threw it into the sink. She gripped her hands together at her waist and tried to stop their shaking, tried to swallow the lump lodged in her throat. The lump dislodged itself to settle in her chest.
‘Mr D’Angelo.’ The shaking wouldn’t stop. ‘I...uh...come in.’
He shook his head. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. I just wanted to drop this off.’ He held up a sheaf of papers.
Monty promptly started barking again and her head throbbed in time with each booming sound. God, how to explain? She pressed her shaking fingers to her temples.
‘How about a walk? I take it that’s Monty, there? It sounds as if he could do with one.’
Gradually, little by little, her heart rate started to slow. ‘I’m sure you’re busy.’
‘I dropped by so we could discuss a few things and to get your signature on the contract.’
The normality of their conversation after her over-the-top reaction finally returned her pulse to normal.
‘I know I should’ve rung first, but I had an appointment in the area so I thought I’d drop by on the off-chance you’d be home.’
She needed to get out of the house. She needed to find a sense of equilibrium again. ‘If you’re sure you have the time?’
‘I have the time.’
‘I’ll just get Monty’s leash.’
She clipped the lead to Monty’s collar, led him through the house and locked her front door. She averted her gaze from the carport opposite and her car, with its four slashed tyres. She hoped her enigmatic employer hadn’t noticed them. She bit back an oath, her hand tightening on Monty’s lead. Mr D’Angelo must think he’d employed an utter fruitcake!
‘I’m pleased you accepted the position of cafе manager, Neen. I have great hopes for the cafе and I know you’re the perfect person to head this up.’
His smile was too kind, too compassionate...too knowing. His tone too well modulated. She bit back a sigh. ‘You saw the tyres, didn’t you?’
Monty chose that moment to try and yank her arm out of its socket. Without a word, Rico reached across and took the lead from her. He smelled of cold air and peppermint.
‘It happened today?’
She folded her arms and nodded. ‘Which begs the question, why was I so careless as to leave the front door unlocked, doesn’t it?’
‘Monty?’
She bit back a sigh. ‘It was all I could do to stay on my feet when I returned from the supermarket. Monty is always so...so delighted to see me.’ She could have sworn that she’d locked the screen door, but she mustn’t have. So foolish.
She closed her eyes and hauled in a breath. Ever since she’d received the news that Grandad’s will was being contested, her head had been in turmoil. Not to mention her heart. Her concentration was shot to pieces. It had to stop! She had to start paying attention again. She had to.
‘Have you reported the incident to the police?’
‘Yes.’ She swallowed and risked glancing up at him. ‘Mr D’Angelo, I’m very sorry for...um...’ Her stomach churned. What if she had stabbed him? ‘I’m a bit jumpy at the moment.’
She made him stop when they reached the end of the block.
‘Monty, sit.’ The dog stared up at her with his big dopey eyes. She made a hand signal. ‘Sit.’ He continued to stare at her. She folded her arms and looked away. Eventually he sat. ‘Good boy.’
She fondled his ears and then nodded to Rico. They set off across the road and then turned right towards the park and Bellerive beach.
‘He’s improving,’ she murmured, more for something to say than anything else.
‘Look, Neen, I’m the one who should apologise. I shouldn’t have come in like I did and I’m sorry I startled you.’
His eyes were dark, almost black. She didn’t doubt his sincerity for a moment.
‘I knocked and knocked, and I could see you at the end of the hallway. I called out...’
‘But between Monty and the radio—’ and her own too-busy thoughts ‘—I couldn’t hear you. It’s not your fault, Mr D’Angelo. You don’t need to apologise.’
‘Rico,’ he ordered.
The name suited him in one respect, with his dark Italian good looks, but Rico sounded breezy and carefree. She wasn’t sure she’d ever meet anyone less carefree in her life. He was a man on a mission—an important mission. And, like most do-gooding types with a quest to save the world, he carried that world around on his shoulders.
They might be broad shoulders, but nobody could carry around that kind of weight forever.
He suddenly stopped and swung to her. Monty strained on the lead. It could pull her completely off balance, but it barely seemed to register with Rico.
‘Look, I couldn’t help noticing that yours were the only tyres slashed. Is something up, Neen? Is there something I ought to know?’
A weight pressed down on her chest when she realised she’d have to tell him—in the interests of his staff’s safety. It grew heavier when it occurred to her that in their interests he might in fact retract his job offer.
For a moment she could hardly speak. The sun that glinted off the expanse of water in front of them dimmed. Finally she gestured to the remaining distance between them and the beach. ‘Let’s go down there and let Monty tire himself out.’
When they reached the sand Rico’s hand hovered uncertainly on the lead’s catch. ‘Are you sure he won’t run away?’
No, but... ‘He’ll stay on the beach,’ she promised. She’d learned that much.
Without further ado he released Monty and the giant dog charged helter-skelter straight into the water, spraying it in all directions.
Rico shook his head. ‘You’re going to have sand everywhere when you get home.’
‘Sand is something I can vacuum up. And it’s preferable to him chewing the furniture. An hour of this and he’ll be a relative lamb for the rest of the afternoon.’
He turned to her, hands on hips. She shrugged. There didn’t seem much point in delaying the inevitable conversation.
‘The slashed tyres aren’t an isolated incident. The police are aware of the situation but there’s not much they can do.’ She pulled in a breath. ‘Four months ago I broke up with a man who, it appears, can’t take no for an answer.’
‘And he’s persecuting you? Threatening you?’
She lifted one shoulder. ‘I have no proof that today’s tyres are his handiwork.’ But she knew in her gut it was. ‘I’ve taken a restraining order out on him.’
And she still couldn’t believe she’d left her front door unlocked!
CHAPTER TWO
‘NEEN?’
Rico touched her arm and Neen started. He immediately backed up, his eyes darkening. She wanted to reach out and tell him it wasn’t him, but...
But what? Was she going to let Chris turn her into a timid mouse? Was she going to let his behaviour rule her life?
She leaned across and clasped Rico’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. I was a million miles away.’
Beneath the crisp cotton of his business shirt, his arm was firm and warm, vibrant, and her fingers were curiously reluctant to release him. For a few precious seconds the solid feel of him reminded her there was more in this world than her worries and troubles.
And while she continued to focus so closely on her troubles she was missing out on a lot of those other things—on laughter and friendship and...and simply being young. She’d applied to manage Rico’s cafе hoping it would provide her with some much-needed distraction. Eventually Chris would get bored and give up. She crossed her fingers.
In the meantime she would not sit around and spin her wheels while she waited to see what the outcome of Grandad’s will would be. She’d get experience, she’d become even better at her job and...
She swallowed. And she wouldn’t focus on her sense of betrayal. That was what.
Rico watched her through narrowed eyes that saw too much. She tried to find a smile. ‘It’s been a while since there’s been an...incident. I’ve obviously become careless.’ She frowned. ‘But...’
‘But?’
In the spring sunshine his hair gleamed dark, but she could pick out the deep auburn highlights that threaded through it. While he’d shrugged out of his business jacket, his tie was still perfectly knotted at his throat. She shoved her hands into her pockets to stop herself from reaching out and loosening it.
‘Let’s walk for a bit,’ she suggested, because standing there staring at him seemed suddenly absurd. Besides, the sand was packed tight from the outgoing tide. He shouldn’t get too much sand in his beautifully polished leather shoes.
He fell into step beside her. ‘What were you going to say?’
She shrugged, trying to replay that moment when she’d returned home from the supermarket. She’d unlocked the door...Monty had barrelled into her...she’d pulled the screen door shut so he couldn’t escape and...
‘It’s just that I’m pretty certain I did lock the screen door.’ It was an action that had become second nature.
‘How certain?’
‘Ninety per cent.’
A second passed. Rico’s hands clenched. ‘You think someone picked the lock?’
Her mouth dried. ‘I’m probably being paranoid, that’s all.’ She pressed her hands together and prayed that was all it was. ‘About a week after Chris and I broke up I came home after work one night to find my entire apartment open—front door, back door and every single window. He must’ve still had a key. That was the first time I moved. The second time was after I woke one morning to find the house I’d rented splattered with red paint. I don’t want to run like that again.’
She would not be turned into a fugitive.
Rico’s right hand formed a hard, tight fist. She stared at it for a moment before glancing back out at the water.
‘I have deadbolts on all the doors and windows, but not the screen door. Normally I don’t leave the doors open, but it was so lovely and sunny today, and I...’ For heaven’s sake—it had been the middle of the day and broad daylight!
‘You should be able to leave your front door open without fear of reprisals.’
He spoke fiercely and a lump lodged in her throat. She closed her eyes, counted to three and then shoved her shoulders back before turning to face him.
‘I have been distracted today, though. I was offered the job.’ She flashed him a smile that was meant to reassure him, but it didn’t seem to do the trick. ‘And I have a dinner this evening that I’m really stressing about. I need it to go well.’ If it didn’t... Her gut clenched. ‘It’s why I banished Monty to the courtyard. I just needed thirty minutes to get the dinner preparations sorted. I was trying to work quickly and I was focused on chopping and quietening the dumb dog.’
‘And after the slashing of the tyres you were understandably jumpy.’
He didn’t make reference to her over-the-top reaction. He didn’t have to. It hung in the silence between them. But for several terrified seconds this afternoon she’d thought she’d have to fight for her life. Her mouth dried all over again at the memory. She hadn’t realised how spooked she’d become.
She clenched her hands. She would not allow Chris to do this to her. She might not be able to control his actions, but she could control her own. She had no intention of letting her guard down again, but she’d allowed her life to shrink. That had to stop.
There was just one last thing...
‘The incidents had become fewer and fewer. I thought perhaps Chris had finally given up. And, honestly, it’s illegal for him to come within twenty metres of me. The moment he does I can throw the book at him, and I doubt very much he’d risk that. However, as he obviously hasn’t given up would you prefer it if I stood down as your cafе manager?’
He halted and planted his hands on his hips. ‘Why would I do that?’
She didn’t say anything, just let him come to the same conclusion she had.
He frowned. ‘You think he might start targeting your place of work?’
‘I don’t pretend to know what goes through his mind. It’s a possibility, though, isn’t it?’
‘I’m not letting some sociopathic freak of a bully determine who I will or won’t employ!’
Just for a moment she glimpsed something in him beyond the self-possessed, preoccupied executive. Something dark and dangerous that should have had her backing away but actually had her wanting to edge closer.
‘I know you’re the right person for this job.’
She stared at him, at the fire in his eyes, and the weight of his expectation slammed down on her shoulders, making them sag.
‘But for heaven’s sake, Neen, what possessed you to go out with a jerk like that in the first place?’
She hugged her arms about her waist and started walking blindly up the beach again. She’d been searching for love. She’d ached for it. That was why she’d fallen for Chris. He’d focused all his attention on her in a way nobody in her life had before—except for Grandad—and she’d lapped it up like a starving woman. Like the stupid, weak woman that she was.
It was only later that his possessiveness and jealousy had come to light. Or at least that she’d recognised them for what they were. If she hadn’t been so needy she might have realised sooner and she could have ended the relationship then. But she hadn’t, and now she was paying the price.
‘I made a mistake,’ she said when she was sure of her voice. ‘Haven’t you ever made a mistake?’
She glanced up, but his face had frozen into a dark mask.
He gave one hard nod and a curt, ‘Yes,’ and then swung on his heel and set off back the way they’d come.
She glanced around—Monty was still splashing in the water beside them—and then dashed to catch up with Rico. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make that about you.’
