rescue you. To save you from a lifetime of black marble. If you want saving. But you have to decide. Now… Tell me if I’m intruding. Robert says you’re busy.’
‘I’m always busy.’
‘See, that’s the thing I don’t understand,’ she said, licking a jelly-smeared finger with concentration. ‘You’re a billionaire already. You’re busy making money. Why? So you can buy more black marble?’
‘No.’
‘So what else do you want to buy?’
He stared at her. They were seated side by side but she’d pulled back as he’d sat so she was two feet away from him. Too far.
What did he want to buy?
‘A new bed for your veranda?’ he said cautiously. ‘A big one.’
‘Now you’re talking.’ She beamed. ‘What else?’
‘Maybe a jet. So I can commute.’
‘What, come home at weekends?’
‘Home?’
‘Home’s where I am, Marcus,’ she said softly. ‘I love you. Ruby says I should stop saying it, and let you figure it out for yourself, but I can’t. I love you so much that I can’t bear it a minute longer. I love you, I love you, I love you. And I love you so much that there’s no way I can accept your offer of a couple of weeks a year and a few weekends thrown in for good measure. I’d go crazy. That’s the life for someone who wants your position. But I don’t want the position, Marcus. I just want you.’
‘I can’t…’
‘I know. You can’t take it in. That’s why I’m here. Now don’t panic. I’m not here for ever. I’m just here for a little while to see… To see if there’s any possibility that it can work.’ She rose, crumpling her empty carrier bag and looking at it ruefully. ‘That’s lunch. Finished. But you’ve got things to do, places to go. I’ll meet you tomorrow.’
To say he was bewildered would be an understatement. He reached out to grasp her but she backed off fast.
‘Same time, same place?’ she said. ‘Bagels okay with you?’
‘No!’
‘I’m not eating caviar.’
‘You don’t have to eat caviar.’ He made a lunge but she was fast, dancing down to the next landing and laughing up at him.
‘See you tomorrow. Bye.’
It was a really long day.
Marcus went to his afternoon meeting but he had to excuse himself. He could think of nothing but Peta. Peta of the ragged clothes, the dancing eyes, the lovely voice…
People had said it before.
No one had meant it. No one like Peta.
All he had to do was step forward. Risk everything?
Risk what? His independence? His money? His black marble?
Halfway through the afternoon he left the building and made his way to Central Park. And walked. Never before had he walked as he walked that afternoon. He walked and he walked, unaware of where he was going, unaware of the people around him, unaware of anything but Peta’s lovely face and her dancing eyes and her words…
Such a simple thing. To take this step…
Fairytale heroes had never had it this hard, he thought ruefully. Find your Cinderella, marry her in all honour, install her in your palace and get on with your life.
His Cinderella had had the happy ending. The white lace and wedding vows. His Cinderella wanted more.
A friend? A friend as well as a hero?
And finally he found he was smiling. The longer he walked the more he smiled.
She was no Cinderella. She was his own lovely Peta. She’d sent back the white lace and offered him gumboots instead. He’d ignored her offer. So she’d followed him. She was doing her own rescuing. She was offering him…
He knew what she was offering him. The world.
The world his mother had taught him to believe in was a world where the white lace was everything. He’d rejected that, but he hadn’t seen that there was an alternative.
A lovely, lovely alternative called Peta.
Where was she?
She wouldn’t be staying at the same dangerous place she’d stayed at last time, he thought. No! Almost as soon at the thought entered his head he was in a cab heading across town.
She wasn’t there.
At least she wasn’t staying somewhere dangerous. The thought was a little comforting but not very.
Where the heck was she?
She’d meet him same place, same time tomorrow? Could he wait that long? Short of phoning every hotel in New York it seemed he had no choice.
Dammit, what was money for? He headed back to his offices, put his staff on to the job and together they phoned every hotel in New York.
No Peta. Where…?
He travelled across town to Ruby’s and then to Darrell’s apartments. Both of them were locked and deserted.
There was nothing else he could do. He just had to wait.
Or… Maybe there was something he could do. Maybe there were a few things…
CHAPTER TWELVE
SHE sat on the fire-escape and waited. To say she felt ridiculous would be an understatement. What was she doing? Sitting on a fire-escape with a bag of bagels, waiting for a New York billionaire to come and share them with her?
Waiting for him to figure out what she was trying to do. Waiting for him to see that it was important.
Twelve. Twelve-thirty. He was running late.
Running late? What, was she crazy? Late for what? Late for his bagel?
The door swung open. And it was Marcus. He’d obviously just come from a meeting of some sort-he was wearing the lovely Armani suit she’d seen the first time she met him.
He was carrying his briefcase. And a shopping bag.
‘Good afternoon,’ he said gravely and she gave him a tiny, faltering smile.
‘H…hi.’
‘Bagels again?’
‘I like bagels.’ She knew she sounded defensive but she couldn’t help it.
‘Can I sit down?’
‘Sure.’ She edged along on her step and eyed him sideways. ‘Be my guest.’
He sat. He propped his shopping bag against the railings, set his briefcase between the two of them and flipped it open.
‘I brought my contribution. I hope to heaven it hasn’t spilled. Sam assured me the container was safe.’
‘Your contribution?’
‘Clam chowder and corn flapjacks. I remembered that you like them.’
‘I do,’ she said cautiously and watched as he hauled two bowls, two spoons, two plates from his case. ‘You
