‘No,’ Laura jeered, ‘because you’re bigger and stronger and infinitely richer. Am I on the right track here?’
‘Pretty much.’ He shrugged.
‘You can set up bank accounts, snap your fingers and make me do your bidding, force me to part with just about the only thing I possess to my name now that the house has gone.’
‘The house but not the contents,’ he reminded her. ‘And you still have the clothes you wear.’
‘Which you will doubtless decide to make me get rid of somewhere along the way?’ His failure to answer, in fact to look as though her jabbing attack had even remotely dented his formidable self-composure, was added fuel to the fire. ‘I may obey you,’ Laura said through gritted teeth, ‘and I may be grateful for everything you’ve done, but I’ll never like you.’
His only reaction was the tiny pulsing muscle in his jaw, an indication that her words were getting to him.
He would not rise to her bait. She could glower until the cows came home, Gabriel thought, but to no purpose because he was not going to indulge in a heated argument with her.
Besides, in a strange way, he knew how she was feeling.
He knew that her anger stemmed from her helplessness, from her sudden vulnerability. When she’d still had the house and the land and the decrepit sign announcing the riding stables that were no more, she’d still felt, psychologically, that she’d still had something. That ownership had passed to him, of all people, was therefore more than galling.
The sudden, startling insight into the woman fulminating not five inches away from him aroused a compassion he had no time for.
‘Let us go to the bank,’ he said in a tight voice, I want to go home.’
‘I know you do,’ Gabriel said gently. But then his face hardened. ‘And you will. Just as soon as we have sorted out our finances.’
An implacable wall, Laura thought. She could rail and storm and beat her lists against it, but it would never budge. Her shoulders drooped and she nodded in resignation.
‘And then,’ he announced with supreme arrogance as they walked the short distance to the bank, ‘we will go and buy you a car.’
The bank manager, who miraculously seemed to have a huge window in his day in order to jump to Gabriel’s commands, was as fawning and beaming as Phillip had been.
‘You,’ Laura said sarcastically, during the five-minute pause in the conversation during which the impressionable and youthful bank manager had seen fit to rush off and order his secretary to halt all his calls until otherwise told, ‘are obviously the most exciting thing that has happened to Tony Jenkins this year. If he bends over backwards any more, I think the back of his head will touch the ground.’ Gabriel looked at her appreciatively and grinned. He had forgotten how damned funny she could be when she tried. ‘Perhaps he is impressed by my good looks and winning personality,’ he commented drily.
‘Perhaps he’s even more impressed by all those numbers you’re giving him.’
‘Shallow man,’ Gabriel murmured in a low voice, his dark eyes making her go hot all over. ‘Someone should tell him that money is not everything.’
I hate it when people quote me.’ But she looked away quickly and was inordinately relieved when the subject of their discussion reappeared.
‘And now,’ Gabriel said as soon as they had stepped outside, Laura now in possession of so much money with which to commence this venture that her head was spinning, ‘for the car.’
‘There’s no need for that just yet, is there?’ she said, trailing powerlessly along behind him, reluctantly impressed by the awesome business acumen he had displayed over the past few hours, I mean,’ she continued breathlessly as she walked’ quickly to keep up with his easy, purposeful stride, I can sort of look around in the next few weeks...’
I have always found that it is best to strike whilst the iron is hot.’
‘And what if I don’t want to strike!’
Gabriel paused to look at her. God, but he was enjoying himself. In fact, he didn’t think that he had enjoyed a morning’s work quite as much as he had today. He had almost forgotten his long-term plan, the stakes he had begun planting that would reap their own reward, namely her acquiescence. When she stopped fighting him, he could almost begin to recapture that heady, pleasurable and utterly treacherous attraction he had felt for her. An attraction that went far beyond the physical.
It was a mistake he was not about to make. ‘Then, naturally, I will respect your wishes,’ he said smoothly.
‘As you would any of your employees’?’
‘I always listen to what others say,’ Gabriel confirmed ambiguously. ‘If you want to have a breather before you begin looking for a car, then by all means.’ He glanced down at his watch. ‘In fact, it is almost time for lunch. Why don’t we go somewhere and have a bite to eat? Mmm?’
Laura suddenly and inexplicably felt the sharp edge of panic rip through her. The sun was bright and hard and emphasised every angle of his face. And what she saw disturbed her. More than that, frightened her.
‘Don’t you have to get back to London?’ she asked nervously. He had an empire to run, for heaven’s sake! Surely he couldn’t spend all his lime swanning around up here in the manner of a country squire with nothing better to do?
As if he had read her mind, he said wryly, I am the boss. I can come and go as I please and there is still too much to do here for me to leave at the moment.’ But she was right. Sophisticated though communications were, he still needed to be physically present in his office some time soon and once there he would find himself bombarded with all the minutiae that he had hitherto enjoyed but which would take his mind off the business in hand.
He would have to speed things along.
He gave her a shuttered look. ‘What about that little Italian just at the corner over there?’ Very deliberately he placed his hand on the small of her back, and even though he felt her tense under the slight pressure of his touch, he didn’t remove it. In fact, his contact widened until he was guiding her across the road with his hand circling her waist.
A purely routine gesture, Laura thought frantically. They had just completed a huge deal by any standards and he was probably just trying to show some sign of friendliness. It was her fault if her body was reacting like dry tinder being set ablaze. He had a girlfriend already anyway. The thought of that steadied her and as soon as they had crossed the road she politely pulled out of his grasp.
They could carry on like this for ever, Gabriel thought suddenly. One small move on his part followed by five large steps back on hers. She had been warned off him from the start and any ceasefire between them was doomed to falter.
He snapped his teeth together in angry impatience. Biding time was all well and good but it wasn’t his style. By tonight, he promised himself. He would taste those lips by the end of the evening and then he would begin his assault on her senses.
‘Tell me,’ he said as soon as they were shown to a table, ‘what is the state of your love life?’
‘What?’ Flabbergasted, Laura looked at him in pure amazement.
‘Your love life,’ Gabriel repeated. ‘What is the state of it? By which I mean, do you have a lover?’
‘I know what you mean! I was just stupefied that you have the nerve to ask!’
‘Well, I do,’ he said calmly.
‘It’s none of your business.’
‘I wish I could be as phlegmatic about it as you are...’ He paused and Laura felt an unnerving tug of anticipation as she wondered feverishly where he was going with this one. Would he be jealous if she did have a lover? He had always had a jealous streak a mile wide and she couldn’t stop the sizzle of intense excitement at the thought of arousing his jealousy now, ridiculous though any such notion might be.
‘But it makes sense for me to know, as your employer. If you were... involved with a man, I would obviously try and curtail too many trips that necessitate overnight stays... Oh, come on, Laura, it is a purely
practical question.’ Dark eyes lazily inspected her face.
‘I ...well, at the moment, I’m not actually involved with anyone, so I would be free to overnight anywhere should the situation require it. Not that that was really any business of yours. I mean, I don’t ask you about Anna, do I?’
‘Anna?’ For a few seconds he had no idea what she was talking about.
‘Oh, don’t pretend to be all innocence, Gabriel.’ Let him say it, she thought viciously. Then this unwanted pull of attraction will go away under the burden of reality. ‘You know who I mean. The dusky bombshell you were cuddling up to at the house. I believe she goes under the title of your chartered surveyor!’
‘Oh, that Anna.’ He smiled slowly and positively purred with the satisfaction of having drawn her out into the open. ‘My cousin.’
The game was on. He was back in full control and ready to pounce.
CHAPTER SIX
‘Your cousin.’ Laura tried to give a snort of disbelieving laughter, but she was rapidly reaching the conclusion, the mortifying conclusion, that he was telling the truth. ‘Ha,’ she finished weakly.
‘You didn’t think ...no, surely not!’ Gabriel leaned closer to her. ‘I am shocked!’
He didn’t look shocked. In fact, he looked remarkably pleased with himself. Without too much effort, Laura could quite easily have hit him over the head with something very hard. Instead, she composed herself and stared at him haughtily. The man was playing games with her, which was bad enough. Worse, though, was the fact that, instead of her feeling insulted and outraged, the wicked glitter in those black eyes was shooting to the very heart of her, making her skin burn.
‘Men do have affairs with women who work with them. Or for them. It’s not unheard of.’
‘Ah, you do not give me sufficient credit.’ He sat back and continued staring at her as a waitress approached their table and took their orders of lasagna, which was the first thing that came to Laura’s head and Gabriel, without glancing at the menu, fell in line. All the better, she thought sourly, to get rid of the waitress so that he could continue his little pretence of nursing wounded feelings.
‘I have always made it a policy of mine never to get sexually involved with a member of staff,’ he said piously. ‘It can lead to all sorts of complications.’ He hoped she wouldn’t remember that when she was lying, spent and fulfilled, in his arms.
‘There’s no need to explain yourself to me,’ Laura mumbled ungraciously.
‘Anna and I have always been close. When she came to England to study and qualified as a chartered surveyor, I was delighted to be able to offer her a job with the company. In fact,’ he said confidentially, I am godfather to her little boy.’
‘Lovely,’ Laura said.
There was a fractional silence, during which she was tensely aware of him looking at her whilst she gazed own in apparent fascination at the tips of her fingers resting on the table.
‘You weren’t...’ he allowed the pause to drag on until she reluctantly raised her eyes to his ‘...jealous, were you?’
‘Of course I wasn’t jealous!’ Laura scoffed. ‘Why on earth should I be?’
Gabriel spread his hands in a flamboyantly Latin American gesture of bafflement.
‘I don’t have any claims over you, Gabriel, any more than you have over me. Yes, we were involved a long time ago. And yes, we’re involved now, but in a completely different way. This time, it’s all about business. You’re now my paymaster.’
He didn’t like that. Not one little bit. She could see it in the immediate narrowing of his eyes, ‘I do not care for that term paymaster.’ Laura shrugged, it’s the truth. You now are the lord and master of what used to be my home and you are perfectly entitled to bring anyone there you want to. You could bring an entire harem of women!’
She could feel him positively fulminating as they ate their lunch in virtual silence.
This was not how Gabriel had envisaged their conversation going. With every short, blunt, factual observation she had managed to distance herself from him in a way nothing he could say would have succeeded in doing. Now, as he broodingly cast his eyes on her face, down-turned as she half-heartedly toyed with some food at the end of her fork, as if debating whether or not she should eat any more, he could sense her getting more and more remote.
She was drawing lines between them and he knew that, once those lines were drawn, she would set them in cement. And, God, he didn’t want her behind any lines. He couldn’t understand it, but the threat of her remoteness was wreaking havoc with his composure.
He pushed aside his half-finished oval plate of food and sat back in the chair, watching her as she made sure not to look at him.
‘Is it not ironic that we are doing now what we should have done all those years ago?’ he asked softly, and she raised startled eyes to his.
‘What’s that?’
‘Sharing a meal.’
‘I told you, circumstances have changed.’ She went back to her labours with the food whilst inside her giddy little leaps were taking place.
‘You asked me before how it was that I had never married. Let me ask you now, how is it that you never married?’
Laura shrugged.
‘What does that...’ he imitated her shrug ‘...mean?’
‘It means that the opportunity never arose.’ She couldn’t stomach another mouthful. ‘What would you like me to begin with first, Gabriel? I mean, should I concentrate on fixing up meetings with people to try and regain business, or should I start working on the land to bring it up to scratch? You need to give me my list of duties so that I can—’
‘Dammit, woman!’ Gabriel exploded. ‘Would you stop behaving as though you’re ...you’re...?’ For the first time since he could remember, his cool power of articulate speech deserted him completely.
‘Your employee?’ Laura said helpfully. ‘But that’s exactly what I am.’
‘There is no need for you to put on this ridiculous act of bowing and scraping!’ he growled, realising that she had somehow managed to get him into a corner. How, he had no idea.
‘I’m not bowing and scraping. I’m asking you to define my duties in order of importance. Besides, I would have thought that it might have made your day to have me bowing and scraping.’
It damned well should have done, Gabriel thought ruefully. When he had picked up that newspaper and read about the riding stables, it had certainly been top of his aims to see the wretch in a position where the tables had been reversed.
Somewhere along the way, things had changed. He most certainly did not want to see her bowing and scraping.
‘Well, you are wrong,’ he told her brusquely, if you want me to tell you what I expect from you, then I will, but I would prefer that we discuss it together.’
‘You mean pretend that this is a normal situation and that you haven’t just bought me out lock, stock and barrel for the sole purpose of getting your own back?’
‘Dammit, Laura...’
I’m sorry. I’m just a little edgy because this deal has now been done and I’ve become a lodger in my own house, on my own land.’
‘You would have been in that situation anyway,’ Gabriel pointed out darkly. ‘The place had to be sold and chances are you would have got a lot less on the open market. And you would not have been living there. You would now be out searching for somewhere you could afford.’ He couldn’t bear the trace of sadness in her eyes even though he was honest enough to realise that he had been instrumental in putting it there. She didn’t see him as her rescuer, she saw him as her gaoler and it was like a knife twisting slowly in his gut.
‘I know.’
‘Then stop punishing me for offering you a good deal. And you are not a lodger in your own home, dammit, Laura. You belong there and you are to look on it as yours.’
‘But it’s not, is it?’
Gabriel counted very slowly in Spanish to ten. ‘Okay. ‘I think we ought to concentrate on getting
the house into a good condition first of all. It’s going to be the least time-consuming of the tasks and the most immediately rewarding. So what about we leave this place, head back to the house and then we can have a look around and decide what is to be done? And if you tell me that it’s up to me because I am now the owner, then I will personally throttle you.’
‘Oh, I’m quivering with fear, Gabriel.’ But the fight had gone out of her voice. She could feel him tiptoeing his way towards her, trying to make her see his point of view, and his sudden vulnerability was more moving than any of his aggressive thrusts at her had been. She raised her eyebrows in amusement and he offered her a crooked smile in return.
‘Good. That’s more like it.’
‘Oh, you approve of women quivering in fear, do you?’
He looked at her for so long and in such concentrated silence that she became aware of the subtle change in the atmosphere. From combatants to ex-lovers. The intangible electricity made her flesh crawl and Laura lowered her eyes quickly.
‘Let’s get out of here.’ He beckoned for the bill, paid it and then stood up.
All through the drive back to the house he made polite, surface conversation, asking her what improvements she would like for the house, but the undercurrent between them still rose and fell, until by the time he screeched to a halt outside the house he thought he would pass out from wanting to touch her.
So much for the master seducer, he thought ruefully. He couldn’t wait to leap out of the car so that he could try and clear his head. Whilst she ...she seemed utterly in control, barely speaking, occasionally glancing out of the window with a thoughtful expression on her face, which made him want to stop the car immediately and demand to know what she was thinking.
‘Shall we have a look straight away?’ Laura asked as soon as they were in the hall, if I know what you want, then I can get going first thing in the morning.’
The Millionaire's Revenge Page 9