Page 26 of Hidden Rocco
He didn’t look like his brothers, and he’d said they were different. He cared for his mother, and his brothers hadn’t.
Her heart whispered to trust Rocco.
Drat. Even if Rocco was related to Roger and Harry, for once she needed to trust herself. She wasn’t always wrong. She swallowed and pushed down the impulse to grab Jacob from him. “I’ll be right back. I need to touch base with my assistant. Can you watch Jacob?”
The last question hurt. She’d been tempted to grab her son, but Rocco’s brown eyes as he gazed at her hit home. She’d already trusted him with Jacob. And herself.
He picked up the book from where he'd left it beside him. “I’ll guard him with my life though we’re just going to read.”
Moby Dick was a fun one, and Jacob would listen to Rocco’s voice as he read in his soothing tone. She made a promise to herself to read to Jacob more. She held up her finger and prayed she was making the right choice. “I just need two minutes.”
“Not a problem.” Rocco began to read more about Captain Ahab.
Her mind swirled with memories of how Rocco had saved those birds, fetched her medicine, and stayed in his room without a fight. He had the strength to overpower her. But his use of ma'am, and his unwillingness to take advantage of her, told her that
Rocco was a good man.
If she was scared of him, it would be different. But she wasn’t, and had never been.
She’d been nervous near Ali, even when they’d slept together, but she’d put that off as being out of her element in a foreign country.
With Rocco, nothing like that happened.
She flung open her bedroom door, grabbed her cell phone, read the news feed about Rocco’s supposed crimes, and called her assistant. Without even a hello when she answered, Mica said, “Julie, I need you to get my legal team to work on a criminal case.”
“Criminal?” Julie asked, and stopped typing.
Mica glanced out the window and the stillness of the trees with the snow on their tips somehow made her calmer but she stood taller as she recalled the rap sheet she’d just read as she said, “Yes. I want them to investigate Rocco Hellsworth's arrest two years ago.”
Armed robbery of a bank didn’t fit in with what she’d seen. Julie asked, “The guy who tried to kill you?”
“No. That was Roger and his brother, Harry. I’m talking about his other brother.” She curled her hand above the waistband on her jeans, her stomach tight.
The more she thought about Rocco, his demeanor, his sweetness, and his kiss, the more she knew she was right.
She’d bet her life and her son’s life on his innocence.
“Okay, so he was arrested and you want the legal team to find out what exactly? His conviction?”
His entire life, but her secretary didn’t need to know that. Her legal team best get to work. “I want to know everything they think about his case. And I need this resolved as soon as possible.”
Hopefully her instincts were still intact because something seemed off. The rap sheet on Rocco had one crime and it didn’t make sense.
She probably had more cash than the bank tucked around this hotel, but he’d been wary of the designer jeans she’d given him. He didn’t seem motivated by money, except for when it came to his mother.
Julie typed fast. “Okay. Anything else?”
Hmm. Yes. How to get Rocco to trust her, and tell her the truth? She nodded and dropped one hand to her side. “Yes. I need a black dress for a cocktail party.”
Julie asked, “You’re going out?”
No need to answer as no, she wasn’t. But she was planning a date and she hadn’t packed for more than the basics for her and her son. She opened the bedroom door and headed down the hall. “I need you to send a gray shirt and pants with a blue tie in the same size man’s clothes I ordered earlier.”
Julie continued to take notes as she said, “Well, this sounds nicer than anything criminal.”
She pressed the button for the service elevator as that was closest to the library and ignored that comment. Once she’d been a good business woman who made all the right choices. She’d made billions of dollars and that part of her brain was sure. Rocco was a decent person. “Last thing… Julie, please send a strawberry whipped cream cake.”
“On its way.”
