by Sue Horsford
Then the door opened and Gabriel stood there, and I was jolted out of my complacency. The Gabriel who had been in my thoughts for the past week, firstly as the object of my desire then as the object of my disdain, the Gabriel who had become almost insignificant by the mere act of my willing it so, was nothing compared to the reality of Gabriel. His physical beauty, his very presence caused something to leap inside me as if I’d almost stepped off the edge of a cliff.
The feeling was so overwhelming I was forced to admit to myself that this was a lot more than just a vague crush. Was I falling for him? That was ridiculous. I wasn’t even sure whether I liked the man. One thing I did know for sure—after tonight, I was going to have to do everything in my power to avoid him.
Gabriel shook Paul’s hand and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. I smelled cedarwood and the warm scent of his skin, and my traitorous pulse quickened.
I smiled then swept past him into the living room where Ginny sat curled up on one of the leather sofas.
Her white broderie anglaise dress was simply cut and fell modestly to just below her knees. Her feet were bare. She didn’t seem to be wearing any makeup, and with her cropped hair, she looked like a virginal young girl.
I stared at her aghast. What I was wearing, my hair, my makeup, it was all too much. I looked like a painted whore beside her natural beauty and all I could think was, Well done, Ginny, you’ve upstaged me again.
She stared up at me open-mouthed. “Oh, my God!” was all she said.
I couldn’t tell whether that was meant as a compliment or an insult, and I suddenly wanted to run home, wipe off my makeup, brush my hair into its usual frizz, put on my most sensible shoes and throw this dress that was meant for a beautiful woman into the bin. Was it too late to plead a headache?
Before my self-esteem disappeared altogether, Gabriel came to my rescue. “That dress is incredible, Faye. The color really suits you.”
Paul chimed in. “I still can’t get over how different your hair looks.”
“You should always wear it like that,” Gabriel said.
Much as I wanted to take Gabriel’s compliments and shove them where the sun didn’t shine, at this moment they made me feel better and, besides, my husband seemed to be in agreement. Wow! Two men complimenting me. How weird was that? I turned to Ginny, meaning to pull a funny face to show her how weird I thought it was. But the expression died on my face as I saw my little sister was not smiling.
“Can I get you a drink?” Gabriel said. He went over to a cabinet at the back of the room and Paul followed him.
I sat by Ginny on the sofa. “Is something wrong?” I said.
“Why didn’t you warn me you were going to get dressed up?” she said, pouting. “Now you’ve made me feel as though I haven’t made an effort.”
“My God, Ginny, you could wear a bin bag and look sensational. I’ve never been able to compete with you.”
“Well, you’re certainly trying your hardest tonight.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Was she really so insecure?
“I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed,” she said, her mouth so small and tight each word was fired out like a bullet, “but I’ve never tarted myself up when I’m socializing with you. I’ve always considered your feelings.”
My mouth dropped open, but I was saved from having to answer by Paul putting a glass into my hand.
“Here you go, gorgeous.”
I got up from my seat next to Ginny and joined my husband on the opposite couch, where I crossed my long legs to show them off to their best advantage. I’d show Ginny, cheeky bloody cow!
“I hope you like spicy food,” said Gabriel, sitting next to Ginny and casting a swift but appreciative glance at my legs. “I’m doing some Brazilian dishes.”
“Wow,” said Paul. “I don’t think I’ve ever tasted Brazilian food.”
“My last girlfriend was Brazilian. Bit of a head case, but she taught me how to cook some great food.”
“That was useful,” said Paul. “You must get Ginny to show you the recipe for her famous spaghetti hoops on toast.”
Ginny’s antipathy to cooking was a standing joke in our family and, normally, she took the ribbing in good humor, but this time all we got was a tight smile.
“Excuse me,” said Gabriel, “I just need to check on the food. Do you want to give me a hand, Ginny?”
Left alone, Paul and I exchanged a glance. “What’s up with her?” he asked. “You don’t think we walked into something, do you?”
“I think it’s me she’s annoyed with. She just told me that I’ve made her feel underdressed.”
Paul smirked. “Told you she’d be jealous of you looking like that, didn’t I?” He put his hand on my knee and I squirmed inwardly. He could say what he liked. I wasn’t the one he was collecting pictures of on his laptop. Then the door opened and he moved his hand as Ginny came in.
“Do you want to come through?”
We followed her to a large formal dining room with deep red walls, where a huge table was set with plain white crockery, heavy silver cutlery and crystal wine glasses, their many facets refracting the light from the candles, which covered every surface, so the whole table flashed with fire. Music played softly in the background, a deep pulsating beat that was both exotic and sensual, and my heartbeat joined in with the rhythm.
The food looked delicious—baskets of bread, bowls of colored rice, some sort of greens glistening with olive oil, then Gabriel came in bearing a huge dish of what appeared to be meat and beans.
“Feijoada,” he said. “A sort of Brazilian bean stew. Help yourselves.”
The meal tasted as good as it looked, the cabernet sauvignon was superb and Gabriel made sure our glasses were never empty. He was a charming and attentive host and by the time we retired to the living room, I was starting to unwind and my resolve to hate him was fading fast.
Gabriel opened yet another bottle of wine and Paul started stroking the fabric of my dress.
“I really do like this,” he said. “Any time you want to go shopping with Steph again, feel free.”
“Oh, so Steph chose it,” said Ginny. “Now it makes sense. I didn’t think it was your style, Faye.”
“Who’s Steph?” asked Gabriel, with a sharp look at Ginny, which reassured me that I wasn’t imagining things. She was being catty.
“She’s my best friend,” I told him.
“Bit of an oddball,” added Paul, “but a heart of pure gold.”
“She’s an ex-junkie,” said Ginny, pulling a face.
“Ginny!” both Paul and I said in unison.
“What? I’m only stating a fact.”
“I didn’t know you could be so judgmental,” said Gabriel, a hint of a chill in his voice.
“I don’t know why you’re leaping to her defense,” she shot back. “You don’t even know her.”
“She’s Faye’s best friend,” he said. “That’s a good enough recommendation for me.”
Ginny put her glass down very carefully on the table. “Do you know what, I’ve got better things to do than talk about Steph. I’m going to bed.” She jumped up and almost ran out of the room.
Half-concerned, half-marveling at how quickly she was treating his house like her own, I got up to follow her, but Gabriel motioned for me to sit back down.
“Let her go,” he said.
He seemed irritated, and Paul and I exchanged an awkward glance.
“Well, maybe we should be off, too,” Paul said.
“Please don’t,” said Gabriel. “If you leave now, I’m going to go upstairs and tell Ginny off for being rude, then she’ll have a go at me for whatever I’m supposed to have done and I really don’t want to end the night on an argument.”
“Well, if you put it like that,” said Paul, “this is very good wine.”
Poor Gabriel. He’d had dinner with us twice. I’d been a bitch on the first occasion and now Ginny had behaved like a spoiled brat. What must he think
of us?
We chatted for a while, then Paul said, “So, do we get to hear you play the piano, Gabe?”
“If you really want to,” answered Gabriel. He was looking at me as he spoke and I nodded.
“I’d love to hear you play.”
I didn’t recognize the first piece he played. It was something beautiful, slow and bluesy and sad, but I recognized the second tune, Stormy Weather, and I bit my lip to suppress a guilty smile as I remembered exactly what I’d been doing as I lay awake during last Saturday’s thunderstorm. As he played, head down, an expression of concentration on his beautiful face, his long fingers stroking the keys, my breath caught in my throat. I wanted so much to hate him, so why did his piano playing make me want to cry?
He finished playing and turned around on his stool. “Had enough?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “I could listen to you all night.”
He grinned. “I think Paul’s had enough.”
I turned to see Paul with his head back and his mouth hanging open. I removed the wine glass from his hand.
“I’m sorry about this. Is it okay to leave him for a little while? He’s terrible to wake up when he falls asleep drunk. Or are you wanting to go to bed?”
Gabriel smiled, and I bit my lip.
“You can leave him where he is,” he said. “Shall we go through into the kitchen and put some coffee on for when he wakes up?”
I followed him along the hall to a huge, very professional-looking kitchen, the sensation of being alone with him making my heart pound with the thrill of danger. He put coffee beans in the grinder, his every movement fluid and filled with animal grace, as a panther stretching its limbs in the sun before pouncing on some poor hapless mammal.
I glanced around the room, searching for something that would be safe to talk about, anything to dissipate the sexual tension, and I came face to face with a pair of beady eyes regarding me from a cage on a small wooden table in the corner.
“You must be Hamelin,” I said.
“AKA Satan.” Gabriel came over to stand beside me. He was so close the heat from his body seemed to scorch me and I had to fight the desire to lean my head on his shoulder.
“You never did answer my question, did you?” he said. “Just why would you think I’d have a rat called Satan?”
I flushed. Trust him to remember that. “I must have thought there was something a bit devilish about you.”
“Why thank you, ma’am,” he said in a slow, sexy southern drawl.
Damn the man. Were we flirting again? Why couldn’t I resist him? Why did his mere presence turn me to mush?
“It wasn’t actually meant as a compliment,” I said, trying to sound cross, but failing.
“Really? I’ve always quite liked the word myself. Devilishly handsome, devil may care and so on. Anyway, if you didn’t mean it as a compliment, how did you mean it?” He drew his eyebrows together into a look of mock sternness and my knees trembled. “Were you trying to say I’m wicked?” He held my gaze for a moment, his dark eyes alight with amusement, then his lips curved upward in a lascivious smile, finishing me off. Oh, he was well aware of the effect he was having on me.
I turned away to break the spell. Time for a change of subject. “I hope Ginny’s okay.”
“Why shouldn’t she be?”
“She doesn’t seem her usual self. Is everything okay?”
Gabriel looked surprised. “I suppose so.”
“It’s just you seemed a little off-hand with her.”
“That’s just the way I am,” he said. He went back to the grinder and began to transfer the coffee grounds into the machine. “I told you. I don’t get emotionally involved.”
“And does Ginny know that?”
“I did tell her, yes.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Before or after?”
Gabriel sighed. “I was about to drop her off at her flat but she invited me in for coffee. There wasn’t a lot of conversation after that.”
“Okay, that’s a bit too much information.”
“You did ask,” he said reasonably. “Anyway, as I was leaving, she asked me not to say anything to you, so I assumed she’d only wanted a one-off.” He shrugged. “Then she phoned the next night and asked me out for a drink. We’ve seen each other a couple of times and she stayed here last night. But, like I said, it’s not serious, so you’ve nothing to worry about.”
I lifted my chin and glared at him. “Why would I be worried?”
He crossed over to the fridge. “Milk or cream?”
“Milk.”
He turned back to face me. “I thought you might be worried about your little sister. You needn’t be. She’s quite capable of taking care of herself.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “You’re not what she’s used to. Ginny usually has men falling at her feet.”
“Why?” said Gabriel, sounding genuinely baffled.
“Well, because she’s so beautiful, I suppose.”
He frowned. “Beautiful? You use that word lightly.”
“You don’t think she’s beautiful?”
What was wrong with him? Was he blind?
“She’s very pretty,” he said. “Extraordinarily so, but I wouldn’t use the word beautiful.” He paused and regarded me intently, his eyes dark and inscrutable. “Now you, you’re beautiful.”
“Oh, don’t talk rubbish,” I snapped. Sweet-talking was one thing, but there were limits to my gullibility.
“I mean it,” he said, “and don’t react that way when someone gives you a compliment. It’s ungracious and it’s rude.”
He was scolding me as if I were a child who had forgotten her manners. If Paul ever spoke to me like that, I’d give him a piece of my mind, but something deep within me responded to being corrected by Gabriel. The stiffness drained away from my body, leaving me meek and compliant and my voice was soft as I accepted his rebuke.
“I’m sorry. It’s just I’ve always been the plain one compared to Ginny.”
“Then stop comparing yourself. True beauty lights up a woman from the inside out and Ginny doesn’t have that. But you…” He lowered his voice to a murmur, and my insides turned to liquid. “I thought you were beautiful last week, even though you were hiding yourself away in a dress meant for a woman ten years older, but tonight, you’re incandescent.”
My heartbeat quickened at his words, but I had to harden myself. I shook my head at him. “My husband’s in the other room, my sister’s upstairs in your bed and you are a horrendous flirt, Gabriel.”
It was meant as a stern reproach, a clear message that I was on to him and he’d better stop right now but, to my chagrin, I sounded like Scarlett O’Hara. Well, fiddle dee dee, Mr. Gabriel Scott, how you do turn a girl’s head.
He winked at me. “Well, I am the devil. Temptation is what I do best.”
We looked at each other for a long moment. I tried to tear my gaze away from his, but he held me irresistibly, and right there and then I knew it was inevitable. My future had already been written. I could fight him as much as I pleased, could try to disguise my feelings for him as anger and disdain, could try to hide away from him and pretend I didn’t want what he wanted, but it was too late. I was beginning to get a taste for danger and one day I’d give in. It was only a matter of time.
Chapter Five
Twelve o’clock came and went, then one o’clock, but by two o’clock, I had to accept that Barbara wasn’t coming.
“Don’t jump to conclusions,” Steph said as I helped her get the room ready for her group. “There could be a perfectly good reason for her not turning up. Maybe she’s ill. And you’ve no way of getting in touch with her, so there’s nothing you can do. You just have to switch off, Faye.”
“How the hell am I supposed to do that? Anything could have happened.”
“Remember what you were told when you started here. Don’t get personally involved.”
“Oh, yeah, that’s easier said than done.” I picked up a cushion an
d plumped it up with a little more violence than was necessary.
“Well, yes, but now you know the reason. We have other women who need our help, Faye. I know it’s difficult, but try and put Barbara out of your mind for now.”
I did as she said and tried to focus on our other clients, but every time the phone or doorbell rang, I couldn’t help but look up in the hope it might be her.
By the time Wednesday arrived, I was worn out from worrying about Barbara and I was glad I’d arranged to take the day off. I dressed in some of my new clothes—a pair of soft gray boot-cut jeans, a plain white cotton T-shirt, my gold sandals and a mulberry colored military style jacket. Then I went to pick up my mother.
She opened the door and, for a moment, she seemed taken aback, but then she rewarded me with a rare sight, a beaming smile. “Faye, you look lovely. You actually look like a woman in your thirties for a change.”
“Oh. Thank you.” Smiles? Compliments? Whatever next?
“You’re usually so stubborn, always were, but it’s nice to know you do take notice of what I say sometimes.”
At my mother’s suggestion, we started off in John Lewis where she walked straight over to a table, paid for it and arranged to have it delivered.
“That was quick and painless,” I said.
“Well, I knew it was the one I wanted. I saw it on their website weeks ago.”
“Why didn’t you just order it at the time?” I said.
“I wanted to see it properly,” she said, “and besides, I wouldn’t have had the chance to have a day out with my daughter, would I?” Before I could say something nice in return, she added, “I mean, God forbid you would ever offer to take me out just for the sake of it.”
After the furniture department, we visited the perfume counter, where she bought herself a bottle of Chanel No.5, the stationery department, where she spent a ludicrous amount of money on a pen, then ladies’ fashions, where she bought herself a new summer jacket.
“Aren’t you going to buy anything for yourself, Faye?”
“No. I spent a fortune when I went out shopping on Saturday.”
“Oh, so you’re happy to go shopping on Saturday if it suits you.”