Chapter 5

As the hours crept past into the lunch hour, and then on into the late afternoon, Angela was conscious that quite many people seemed to pass suspiciously slowly through the im­pressive reception area and steal a covert glance in her di­rection.

She held her head high, neck aching from that determined show of indifference.

She had her foot in the door, she told herself bracingly. Nick hadn't had her escorted off the building prem­ises.

Nick had not flatly refused to see her. And if he was very, very busy, that was only what she had expected, and she could not hope for any favours.

Curiosity would even­tually penetrate that arrogant, macho and bone-deep stubborn skull of his. Even Nick Romero had to be that human.

Despair was that she knew her trick . Nicolas James Romero was literally her last hope. And why should her fierce pride hurt?

No false pride had held her mother back from scrubbing other people's floors so that she could feed and clothe her daughter.

Just before five o'clock, the receptionist rose from behind her desk. 'Mr Romero has left the building, Miss Gracia.'

Angela paled to the colour of milk. Then she straightened her stiff shoulders and stood up.

She stepped into the lift and let it carry her back down to the ground floor. She would be back tomorrow to keep the same reason, she told herself dog­gedly.

She would not be embarrassed into retreat by such tactics. But, even so, she was as badly shaken as if she had run into a hard brick wall.

As she stood on the bus that would eventually bring her within walking distance of home, she realised that she had read the situation wrong. Nick was no longer the young guy she had once been so pathetically infatuated with: impatient and hot-tempered, with not a lot in the way of self-control.

The eldest son of two adoring parents, he had been the natural leader in his sophisticated social set of bored but gilded youth. And so beautiful, so heartachingly, savagely beautiful that it must have seemed like a crime to his unlovely friends that he should be matched with an unattractive and charm­less bride-to-be... like Angela

But now Nick was a fully grown adult male. An alpha male, subtly different from others of his sex.

Like her grandfather, he saw no need to justify his own behaviour. There had been no quiet announcement that he was unavailable. He had let her wait and cherish hope. That had been cruel, but she should have been better prepared for that tack.

The scent of cooking greeted Angela's return to the flat she shared with her mother. She hurried into the tiny kitchen and watched her mother gather her slim frame and turn with a determined smile to greet her. Her heart turned over sickly at the grey pallor of the older woman's worn face.

‘I thought we agreed that I do all the cooking, Mum.'

'You've been out looking for a job all day. It's the least that I can do,' Sylvia protested.

Later, as Angela climbed into her bed, she was consumed by guilt for the lies she had utilised with her mother.

But how could she have told the older woman what she had really been doing all day?

Sylvia would have been upset by the knowledge that her daughter had secretly got in touch with her grandfather, but unsurprised by the outcome. However, an admission that Angela had tried to see Nick Romero would have left her mother out of breath and a frank ex­planation of why her daughter had sought that meeting would have appalled her quiet and dignified parent.

But how much more shattered would her trusting mother have been had Angela ever told her the whole dreadful truth of what had happened in their home town eight years earlier? Angela had never told that story, and her awareness of that fact still disturbed her. Then, as now, Angela had kept her own counsel to protect her mother from needless distress...

The next morning, Angela took up position in the waiting area on the top floor of the Romero building three minutes after nine o'clock.

She made the same request to see Nik as she had made the day before. The receptionist avoided eye contact. Angela wondered if this would be the day that Nick lost patience and had her thrown out of the building.

At ten minutes past nine, after a mutually mystified con­sultation with another senior member of staff, Garry Martin approached Nick, who had started work as usual at eight that morning. 'Miss Gracia is here again today, sir.'

Almost imperceptibly the tycoon tensed and the si­lence thickened.

'Have you the Telcom file?' Nick then enquired, as if the younger man hadn't spoken.

The day wore on, with Angela praying that a pretence of quiet, uncomplaining humility would ultimately persuade Nick to spare her just five minutes of his time.

By the end of that day, when the receptionist apologetically announced that Mr Romero had again left the building, Angela had experienced such a violent surge of bitter frustration that she could have screamed.

On the third day, Angela felt huge source of attraction as she stepped out of the lift on to the top floor.

Before leaving home she would have liked to have filled a vacuum flask and made herself some sandwiches, but to have done so would have roused her mother's suspicions and her concern.

Since Angela had yet to admit to her mother that their slender resources were now stretched unbearably tight Sylvia fondly imagined that her daughter bought lunch for herself while she was out supposedly seeking employ­ment.

However, at noon, when Angela returned from a visit to the enviably luxurious bathroom on the top floor, she found a cup of tea and many biscuits awaiting her.

Her strained face softened with her smile. The receptionist gave her a decidedly conspiratorial glance in return. By then, Angela was convinced that just about every person of importance in the building had traveled towards the reception area to take a peek at her.

Sympathy from Nicolas's employees was not what she came here for she thought.

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