by Daphne Clair
'You can do this in mosaic?' he queried.
'Yes. But the silver bits will be overpainted with me tallic paint. I thought of mirror glass instead, but paint will give a softer effect, in keeping with the other col ours. Do you like it?'
Remembering his plan, he said, 'Can you explain some of the symbolism?'
He'd thought he didn't really need it, but she showed him things he hadn't noticed, although half the time he was watching the unusual animation in Rhiannon's face instead of following the finger she used to trace the var ious elements.
She straightened, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, her eyes alight and her expression for once un guarded when she faced him, so beautiful he felt as if an unseen hand gripped his heart. A sensation of purest pleasure seared him.
Something must have shown in his expression. He saw her eyes widen, the pupils enlarge, and her lips momentarily parted, waking a terrible urge in him to close them with his own. Then she blinked and took a step back. Her hand released the drawing and the paper curled into a loose roll.
She raised a hand unnecessarily to her hair again, and gave a small nervous laugh. 'That's it,' she said. 'I hope it's what you want.'
Realising she was still waiting for his verdict, and unable to pretend there was a thing wrong with the pro posal, he said, 'It's brilliant. Exactly what I want—no, it's more than I ever hoped for.'
Rhiannon relaxed a little. Even smiled, though it was a slightly guarded, strained smile. 'If you're satisfied, I've made two copies of a contract.' She turned away from him to the desk, pulling out a drawer.
Damned if he was satisfied. He wouldn't be satisfied until he had her in his bed, where he'd teach her what satisfaction was all about. He wanted to see that ab sorbed animation in her face when she looked at him— see it directed at him instead of a work of art. Wanted to watch it change to a taut mask of desire that disin tegrated into the uncontrollable, naked delight of sexual fulfilment.
She bent and pulled out a couple of sheets of paper from the drawer, and Gabriel, admiring the curve of her behind where her skirt tightened over it, allowed himself a moment of fantasy.
'If you want any changes...' she was saying, turning to him.
Her face did go taut then, but not with desire—it looked more like apprehension. Guiltily, Gabriel trans ferred his attention to the contract she held, hiding his eyes behind lowered lids. He made a thing of consulting his watch. 'Why don't we discuss that over a business lunch?'
Rhiannon told herself she'd been mistaken. Gabriel Hudson wasn't the sort of man who eyed a woman like a tiger sizing up its prey. The suggestion of lunch was made in the tone of a man who had little time to waste and proposed combining the necessary act of eating with the business at hand. And when he looked at her again his eyes were cool and expressionless.
'We often get busy over lunchtime,' she said. 'I don't want to leave Peri to cope on his own.'
His eyelids flickered infinitesimally, the only reaction she could discern, then his gaze went beyond her and she realised Peri had entered the room as she spoke.
'No problem, boss,' Peri said cheerfully. 'Don't you trust me?'
'Of course I trust you!'
'Then go for it,' he advised airily. 'I can manage okay.'
Gabriel raised his brows at Rhiannon. 'Shall we?'
He indicated the door, and Peri said, waving a piece of paper, 'I have an order for another of those brass candlesticks we had last month. I'll leave it on your desk, okay? See you later then,' he added firmly.
'I suppose,' Rhiannon conceded, 'I could spare half an hour.' Picking up her bag, she put the contract copies into it.
At a nearby cafe-bar that was spacious and not yet too crowded, a waitress showed them to a corner table near a window. Gabriel removed his jacket and slung it over the back of his chair before sitting down and giving their order.
Rhiannon handed over the contracts. He read a copy quickly and asked two questions that she answered ap parently satisfactorily, then he scrawled a signature at the bottom of each copy. 'I'll make sure you get the first-stage cheque as per the agreement by tomorrow,' he promised.
'Thanks. I'll need that to buy the materials.'
He pushed the papers over to her and offered her the handsome, gold-trimmed pen he'd signed with, warm from his fingers, to add her own neat signature.
Gabriel seemed to study it for a moment before taking his copy and tucking it into his breast pocket. Rhiannon passed back the pen and he put that away, then held out his hand. 'Shake on it?'
She allowed him to fold her hand in his, and he retained it for a second before releasing her.
As the waitress brought their order he asked Rhiannon, 'When can you start on the mural? I'll order that scaffolding for you.'
'I'll let you know. It depends on how quickly I can get the materials together.' She returned her own copy of the contract to her bag. 'Do you have some place where they could be stored in the building? The tiles will need quite a bit of room.'
'I'll find somewhere. It needs to be close to the site, I suppose.'
'If possible.'
'I'll make it possible,' Gabriel said.
She edged a glance at him as she began cutting her salad-stuffed croissant in half, and he said, 'If you want it enough, anything's possible.'
Wo—' The knife in Rhiannon's hand slipped and cut painfully into her thumb. She dropped the knife onto her plate and lifted her thumb to her mouth.
Gabriel reached out and pulled her hand away, grip ping her wrist to inspect the thin pink line on her skin.
'It's nothing,' Rhiannon said, as the pink line turned red with blood. 'The knife isn't even sharp.'
'Sharp enough.' He picked up a paper napkin, folded it into a pad and pressed it over the tiny wound.
'Really,' Rhiannon said shakily, 'it's not worth fuss ing over.'
She made to withdraw her hand but he only said, 'Keep still and the bleeding will stop a lot quicker.'
'I'm not usually accident-prone.' This was the second time she'd done something silly while eating with Gabriel. 'You must think I'm an idiot.' At least he hadn't been there to see her smash glass all over the floor when he sent her flowers.
He smiled. I know you're not. You're a savvy busi nesswoman and a gifted artist. Quite a combination.'
'Not all artists have their heads in the clouds.' If they kept talking maybe she could distract her mind from the fact that his hand wrapped her wrist, warming the skin and making her pulse jump about, and that his other hand cradled hers while his thumb exerted pressure on the makeshift first-aid pad.
'Obviously. What did you mean, no?'
Rhiannon's throat tightened. If he hadn't been holding her so firmly her hand would have jerked. 'I...don't re member what we were talking about.'
'I said a person can get anything if they want it badly enough, and you said... No.'
Her gaze was on their hands. She moistened her lips briefly with her tongue and, keeping her voice steady, said, 'It doesn't always work that way. Not if what you want depends on some other person wanting it too, just as much.'
An inclination of his head conceded the point. There's such a thing as compromise. Whenever possible I try to bring about a win-win situation for all con cerned.'
'Sometimes,' Rhiannon said, staring so hard at the folded white napkin that her eyes stung, 'someone has to lose.'
He said, 'I'm not a loser.' As a chill attacked her spine, he added, 'And neither are you.'
That brought her eyes to his. His gaze was calm and steady, the light through the window accentuating the silvery look she'd come to associate with him.
She said, 'I think it's stopped bleeding.'
Carefully he lifted a corner of the napkin and peeked, then very gently peeled it away, releasing her hand. 'No lasting damage.'
'No,' she said. Wounds healed. Scars faded into in significance with time. Miracles happened. Even physi cally disabled people sometimes astonis
hed the medical world.
There was curiosity in his gaze. 'What are you think ing?'
Rhiannon shook her head. 'Nothing.' She picked up the croissant and bit into it, an excuse not to talk. Nothing she could tell him. Nothing she could tell any body until she'd conquered the dark demons of her past.
Gabriel sawed a piece off his superburger. Of course she wasn't going to explain to him what had brought that sudden determination to her face, the spark in her green eyes like a light of battle, followed by a Mona Lisa smile.
Rhiannon was an expert at guarding her thoughts, giv ing nothing away of her inner self if she could help it. Fortunately she wasn't always able to hide her feelings. He was learning to read them in her face—something that she'd probably find unwelcome. But as for asking her point-blank to reveal them—he should have known better. Because now she was climbing back into her shell with the pretence of eating.
'How's the croissant?' he asked, for want of some thing better to break the silence.
'Fine. And your lunch?' Glancing at what was left of his burger.
He hadn't even tasted it, shovelling food in his mouth while all his attention concentrated on every tiny nuance of Rhiannon's expression, her voice.
Her pulse under his had been erratic, he'd noted. Because he was holding her hand, or because the small accident had affected her? Some people couldn't stand the sight of blood, even the tiniest amount. 'Good,' he answered. The burger had been large, anyway, and the potato chips with it were crisp. Before she could fill her mouth again, he dredged up, 'I'll arrange a key card for the building for you, since you'll be working on the mural after business hours when everyone else is gone.'
'Oh... thanks.'
Detecting a note of reserve, he said, 'A custodian lives on the top floor and has an office in the basement. If you have any problems you can call on him.'
'I will.' Was that relief that flitted across her face? Maybe she was nervous of being in the deserted building alone. If so, he had a hunch she wouldn't admit to it.
She picked up her croissant again and he couldn't see her expression anymore.
At the next table a party of twenty-something suit- wearing males, their cell phones on the table vying for whose was the smallest, was growing raucous as the men exchanged banter with a waitress. Gabriel threw an ir ritated glance in their direction.
Rhiannon finished the croissant and emptied her cof fee cup, then checked her watch and got up. 'I have to
go-'
Reluctantly Gabriel pushed away his empty plate and stood, too, pausing to retrieve his jacket from the back of the chair.
Their neighbours had commandeered a couple of extra chairs and one of the young men, sporting a carefully trimmed Van Dyke beard on a flabby chin, had pushed himself back to stretch his legs under the table, blocking the way out.
'Excuse me,' Rhiannon said.
The man looked up, slowly taking in the whole of her body on the way to her face. Then he leered. 'Sure, babe.'
He didn't immediately move, taking his damn time and obviously enjoying the moment while his grinning companions looked on. Gabriel moved forward, his hand going to Rhiannon's waist as he glared over her shoulder at the lout.
The man's gaze shifted to him and he blinked, then straightened and stood up, pulling the chair out of the way and giving them an exaggerated bow as they passed. The others laughed.
'Smart-ar...aleck,' Gabriel muttered as he and Rhiannon stepped into the street. He realised she was trembling, and pulled her closer to his side before re membering that probably wasn't the cleverest thing to do, and loosening his hold. 'Are you all right?'
'Of course.' Predictably, she extricated herself from his arm. 'It was nothing. He was just being stupid.'
Normally Gabriel would have dismissed the incident as trivial, not been consumed by a murderous desire to wipe the smirk off the idiot's baby face with a well-placed punch.
Women were subjected to that sort of thing all the time. Most of them shrugged off the offensive behaviour as annoying but nothing to get worked up about. Some might even have laughed, or put the man down with a basilisk stare. Gabriel knew a few who were capable of that.
It might have been a minor incident, but it was symp tomatic of an attitude that had never really made him angry before. Perhaps it should have.
No man had a right to bully a woman—and bullying was what that cafe Romeo had been doing. He'd enjoyed trapping Rhiannon, embarrassing her, prolonging her discomfort until he was forced to adopt some semblance of civilised behaviour.
Whatever it was that lay in Rhiannon's past had made that sort of thing not at all minor for her.
He could find out—even if it meant hiring someone to dig into her life. He'd used an agency several times to conduct checks on people who wanted to work for him, even once or twice on dodgy clients. It was sensible business practice, to protect his company. But, damn, he couldn't do that to Rhiannon. He'd made her a promise. The revelation had to come from her.
Would she ever trust him enough to tell him?
CHAPTER SIX
Rhiannon sent Peri off for a quick lunch of his own and tried to concentrate on making shelf labels instead of thinking about Gabriel Hudson.
She'd been almost prepared to forgive his intrusion into her privacy, perhaps tell him she realised she'd overreacted.
The right moment hadn't seemed to arise, and then that incident as they left the cafe had rocked her equi librium. She'd been grateful for his strong presence at her back, and in the street, when he'd pulled her closer to him, the temptation to accept the comfort of his arms endangered the fragile control that prevented her inward quaking from becoming visible.
He'd have thought she was nuts, going to pieces over something so petty.
Carefully lettering a sign while looking up now and then to keep an eye on a couple of browsers, she paused, calligraphy pen in hand, the letters before her eyes blurring. She'd coped with similar situations before, and not fallen apart afterwards. Not lately anyway. In a public place, she'd been perfectly safe from any real assault. The man had been teasing, that was all, showing off. The waitress hadn't seemed to mind the group's behav iour.
But the urge to collapse against Gabriel, simply because he'd seemed to intuitively understand her revul sion, was disturbing.
And dangerous. Rhiannon had learned the hard way to rely on no one but herself, to stand on her own feet, manage her own problems. She wasn't about to compromise that—it was an autonomy that had been too hard- won.
Somehow Gabriel had infiltrated her defences—de fences that she needed to function in the world. Feelings, emotions that she'd thought shut away for ever had sur faced in his company. Some of them were good feelings, if a little nerve-racking. Before discovering he'd found out her home address, she'd been tentatively moving towards exploring them, giving them room to grow and develop into—maybe—something deeper.
But if it meant she was opening the door to other vulnerable emotions...
She couldn't afford that at the expense of all she had regained over the last five years.
Gabriel's caring protectiveness had the potential to undermine her determined independence. It was a snare and a temptation, because if she allowed herself to be seduced by it, to depend on his strength, and then it was taken away...
She'd be thrust right back into the black pit of despair that she'd so determinedly clawed her way out of. Twice.
'Excuse me?'
The impatient voice intruded on her thoughts, and she looked up to see a woman at the other side of the counter clutching a small painting. 'I said, how much is this? I can't read the price here.'
'I'm sorry.' Rhiannon took the picture and turned it over, reading out the price. She must remember to make her figures larger. Her writing was naturally small.
Peri breezed back in, holding the door for the cus tomer as she left clutching her painting. The other browsers had gone without buying, and he asked Rhi
annon, 'And how was your lunch?'
'We signed a contract for his mural,' she said repres sively.
'It can't have been all business.'
'Yes, it was.' Rhiannon returned to her lettering. 'Don't you have some unpacking to do? I think there's room on that shelf in the corner. You can shift some of the ceramic pieces to the floor.'
'Sure, boss.' He gave her a little salute and a pene trating look before swaggering off to the workroom.
Rhiannon sighed. She hadn't meant to be sharp with Peri. It wasn't his fault she was unsettled and unsure. To be fair, she supposed it wasn't Gabriel's fault either.
No, the trouble was in her.
And that, she thought with a surge of anger that shook her from head to toe, wasn't her fault either. One thing all those months of counselling had done was convince her of that—and finally that she was the only one who could effect a cure.
She finished the card she was working on and picked up another, deliberately making bolder strokes with the pen, the lettering larger.
Tomorrow she'd start ordering supplies for the Angelair mosaic. She'd have to phone Gabriel and check on that storage space he'd promised.
The thought brought a range of complicated emotions. Anxiety, hope, and anticipation. None of them logical.
And none of them necessary, as it turned out. While she procrastinated, arguing that he'd hardly have had time to make any arrangements, he phoned her the following morning.
'We have a basement room for you,' he said. 'It's near the rear elevators so your materials can be taken up as you need them. I'll make sure someone is around to help with any lifting and carrying.'
'I don't think that's really necessary.'
'I do. I know how heavy those tiles are, remember?'
She did remember, vividly, how easily he'd carried a box full of them for her after she'd made a fool of herself by dropping them at his feet.
'I won't need tiles for a while yet,' she told him. 'Not until I've done the cartoon.'
'The what?'
'A coloured sketch on the wall, to guide me.' For most projects she'd have worked on backing panels in her studio, fixing them in place later, but this was so big and complex she had decided it was better to do it in situ rather than risk the pieces not fitting together perfectly.