The Legend of de Marco. ABBY GREEN

       www.millsandboon.co.uk

       This is especially for Haze, you’re a doll. Thanks for being my friend since we were spotty teenagers with dodgy hair styles. Point Break Forever! x

      CHAPTER ONE

      ROCCO DE MARCO felt contentment ease into his bones as he took in his surroundings. He was in a beautiful room in a world-renowned museum, right in the heart of cosmopolitan London. It had been designed by a famous French Art Deco designer in the 1920s and drew afficionados from all over the world to see its spectacular stained-glass windows.

      The crowd was equally exclusive: high-ranking politicians, erudite commentators, A-list celebrities and billionaire philanthropists who controlled the world’s stockmarkets with a flick of a finger or the raising of a brow. He was in the latter category, and at the age of thirty-two was surrounded by hushed and awed speculation as to how he’d achieved his untouchable status in such a short space of time.

      At that moment he caught the eye of a tall, elegant, patrician blonde across the room. Her glossy hair was pulled back into a classic chignon, and her haughty blue gaze warmed under his look. He did notice, however, that not a tinge of real colour came into those carefully rouged cheeks. She was dressed head-to-toe in shimmering black, and he knew that she was as hard as the diamonds at her throat and ears. She smiled and raised her glass to him in a small but significant gesture.

      A sense of triumph snaked through Rocco as he raised his glass in a mirror salute. The prospect of wooing the immaculately bred and oh, so proper Ms Honora Winthrop flowed like delicious nectar through his veins. His gut clenched hard. This moment was it. He was finally standing at the pinnacle of everything he’d fought so hard for. Never had he dared to imagine that he would be in such a position—hosting a crowd such as this, contemplating becoming an indelible part of it.

      He was finally standing far enough above and away from the degradation of his young life in the slums of a poor Italian city where he’d been little more than a feral child. With no way out. He’d been spat upon in the street by his own father and he’d watched his half-sisters walk past him without a single glance at their own flesh and blood. But he had clawed his way out, with guts and determination and his infamous intelligence. And to this day no one knew of his past.

      He put his empty glass on the tray of an attentive hovering waiter and declined another one. Keeping his wits about him was as ingrained in him as a tattoo on his skin. For a second he thought of the crude tattoo he’d borne for years, until he’d had it removed. It was one of the first things he’d done on his arrival in London almost fifteen years ago, and his skin prickled now at the uncomfortable reminder.

      He shrugged it off and went to stake his claim on Ms Honora Winthrop. For a brief second a sense of claustrophobia rose but he clamped down on the sensation. He was where he wanted to be, where he’d fought to be.

      Composing himself, and irritated that he felt the need to do so, he found his eye snagged and caught by a lone figure. A female figure. He could see immediately that she was not half as polished or alluring as the other women in the room. Her dress was ill-fitting and her hair was a long, wild tangle of vibrant red. It suggested that there was something untamed about her, and it called to him on some deep level.

      Rocco’s mind emptied of its original purpose. He couldn’t look away from the enigmatic stranger.

      Before he had even registered his intent he’d veered off course and was moving in her direction …

      Gracie O’Brien was trying to look nonchalant. As if she was used to being a guest at glittering functions in London’s most prestigious venues. When in fact she was more used to being a waitress … in far less salubrious surroundings. The kind of places where men habitually pinched her bottom and said crude things about her lack of ample assets.

      She gritted her jaw unconsciously, acknowledging that in today’s economic climate a hard-won yet paltry art degree didn’t count for much. She had a dream. But unfortunately to finance her dream she needed to work and to eat and survive. And the only jobs available to her right now were on the menial end of the scale.

      She mentally shook herself out of the uncharacteristic introspection. She could handle the menial end of the scale. She couldn’t handle this. She was clutching her bag to her belly. Where had Steven gone? She’d only come tonight as a favour to him. Her mouth compressed. Tension gnawed at her in this kind of surroundings—along with the habitual anxiety she felt for Steven.

      Gracie forced herself to relax. This annual charity benefit thrown by the company her brother now worked for signified a huge turning point in his life—which had to explain his moody humour and nerves lately. That was all it was. She had to stop worrying about him. They were twenty-four now, and she couldn’t go on feeling responsible for him just because she’d taken on that role from as far back as she could remember, when she’d been the one who had inevitably stood between him and some bully. She still bore scars of the scrapes she’d been in, protecting her little brother—younger by twenty fraught minutes.

      Their mother, before she’d abandoned them, had never let Gracie forget that her beloved son had almost died, while Gracie had had the temerity to flourish with rude health. Her mother’s parting words to Gracie had been, ‘I’d take him with me and leave you behind if I could—he’s the one I wanted. But he’s too attached to you and I can’t deal with a screaming brat.’

      Gracie pushed down the surge of emotion she felt whenever she thought of that dark day, and sighed when she finally caught sight of her brother in the distance. Her heart swelled in her chest with love for him. Despite their abandonment, and so much that had happened since then, they’d always looked out for one another. Steven’s inherent weakness had meant that even Gracie’s strength hadn’t saved