A Bargain with the Enemy

by Carole Mortimer

  Which was probably why her mother now appreciated Rhys’s steadiness, Bryn’s stepfather having been the local and much-respected carpenter for all of his working life.

  ‘But you stayed together....’

  Her mother smiled. ‘We had you.’

  ‘But did you never think of leaving Daddy?’ Bryn looked at her mother searchingly.

  ‘Many times,’ Mary admitted truthfully. ‘And I’m sure, as much as it would have hurt you, it would have come to that in the end.’

  Bryn gave a pained frown. ‘And yet, even during the trial, you stood by him.’

  ‘He was my husband. And your father,’ her mother added pointedly. ‘And you adored him.’

  Yes, Bryn had adored her father. But she hadn’t been able to get Gabriel’s outburst that last evening in London out of her mind. To question, to want to know if the things he had said were true.

  Her mother’s comments confirmed what Bryn had feared—that William had been the petty crook Gabriel had called him, for almost all of her life, involved in one scam or another. A petty crook who had tried to break into the big time by selling the fake Turner—and failed miserably.

  And these past few days Bryn had questioned whether she hadn’t always known that, and that it was the knowing that had added to her resentment of Gabriel, not because he had kissed her, not because she had fallen in love with him, not even because of his involvement in her father’s downfall, but because that involvement had made him part of the disenchantment she hadn’t wanted to acknowledge all these years.

  ‘Why the interest in all of that now, Bryn?’ her mother prompted softly, her gaze sharp. ‘Has something happened? Something that’s made you start thinking, questioning the past?’

  Gabriel D’Angelo was what had happened! A man who was making it impossible for Bryn not to question the past. But it wasn’t Gabriel’s fault; Bryn was the one who had chosen to come into contact with him again when she’d entered the exhibition.

  No, it wasn’t Gabriel’s fault, but Bryn’s reaction to meeting him again, her response to him, had set in motion those same feelings of guilt inside her that she had felt five years ago when she had looked across that crowded courtroom and known that, despite everything he was saying and all the damage he was causing to her father and her family, she still wanted him.

  It had been bad enough then for Bryn to realise she was infatuated with the arrogant and handsome Gabriel D’Angelo, but she found it harder still to realise, all these years later, that she was still attracted to the man who had helped shatter her world.

  Admittedly her mother was happily remarried, but still the past had to overshadow, to make impossible, there ever being any sort of relationship between Bryn and Gabriel. A relationship she would have to tell her mother about.

  Even if her traitorous body seemed to have other ideas on the subject!

  Just thinking about that last evening with Gabriel, of the depth of intimacy the two of them had shared, the way she had totally fallen apart in his arms, climaxing so spectacularly, was enough to make her blush.

  ‘Okay, now I really want to know who this man is if he can make my sensible daughter blush so prettily,’ her mother stated firmly.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Bryn groaned.

  ‘Why on earth not?’ Mary looked stunned. ‘We’ve always been able to talk about anything in the past— Bryn, if it’s a woman making you feel this way, then I hope you know that I’m broad-minded enough not to—’

  ‘It’s not a woman!’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘But I appreciate knowing how broad minded you are!’ she added dryly.

  ‘Is this man involved with someone else, then? Maybe married?’ her mother added worriedly.

  ‘It’s worse than that!’ Bryn groaned as she began to pace the lawn Rhys had recently cut. Her mother’s brows rose. ‘What could possibly be worse than—? Is he older than you?’

  ‘Marginally.’ Bryn shrugged. ‘Maybe ten years or so.’

  ‘That’s nothing.’ Her mother sighed her relief. ‘But I still don’t understand why you won’t tell me who he is.’

  ‘Because I can’t.’ She sighed heavily. ‘He’s just not—suitable for me to be involved with, okay?’

  ‘No, of course it’s not okay, Bryn.’ Mary frowned worriedly. ‘I’ve never known you to— He isn’t a drug dealer or something like that, is he?’

  ‘Of course not,’ Bryn denied ruefully.

  Her mother didn’t look reassured. ‘But he’s unsuitable in some other way?’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Bryn sighed.

  Mary continued to look at her searchingly for several long minutes, that worried frown between her eyes. ‘Does your interest just now, in the past, have anything to do with your reluctance to talk about this man?’ she finally prompted.

  ‘I— Maybe.’ Bryn’s teeth worried her bottom lip. ‘Do you know—? Is it possible that Daddy was the one to tell the press about the painting, as a way of ensuring the D’Angelo gallery, or some other gallery, couldn’t just dismiss the painting as a forgery?’

  ‘More than possible, I’m afraid,’ her mother sighed. ‘You know, Bryn,’ she said slowly, evenly, ‘it took me years to accept this, but your father was responsible for everything that happened to him.’ Exactly the words Gabriel had used to Bryn just days ago.

  ‘Not me. Not you,’ her mother continued firmly. ‘Not anyone else involved in that mess. Just your father. He gambled not just with his own future but with ours too, and he lost. We all lost. But having met Rhys, finding such happiness with him, has shown me that we don’t have to continue to let ourselves be the losers, darling.’

  ‘I’m not a loser—’

  ‘Bryn, I’ve watched the way you’ve avoided all involvement with men these past five years,’ her mother admonished gently. ‘And I’m telling you now that the only way of allowing yourself to go forward is to let go of the past.’

  Tears blurred Bryn’s vision. ‘Sometimes that’s easier said than done.’

  ‘But it can be done.’ Her mother reached out and grasped Bryn’s hand tightly in hers. ‘I’m living proof of that.’

  Yes, her mother’s happiness with Rhys now was living proof of that. Except... Gabriel had been directly involved in that past her mother spoke of. Not as a spectator, or someone removed from the situation, but as a full participant.

  ‘We’ll see.’ She squeezed her mother’s hand reassuringly. ‘But could we just forget about this for now? Talk about something else?’

  Her mother looked less than happy with the idea. ‘If that’s what you really want.’

  ‘It is.’

  Mary nodded. ‘You know where I am when and if you want to talk.’

  Yes, Bryn knew; she just couldn’t see a time she would ever be able to tell her mother of the emotional tangle she had got herself into with Gabriel.

  * * *

  ‘Did you have a good time in Wales last week?’ Gabriel’s expression was guarded as he looked down at Bryn and saw the way the colour drained from her cheeks. She slowly looked up from the magazine she was reading at the back of the coffee shop, the girl who had prepared his coffee having told him where Bryn was sitting taking her evening break.

  Gabriel knew that Bryn had to have been back in London for four days now, but she hadn’t come anywhere near the gallery, or him. Mainly him, Gabriel suspected.

  The fact that his unexpected appearance at the coffee shop this evening had caused Bryn’s face to pale so dramatically, as well as striking her uncharacteristically dumb, would seem to confirm that suspicion.

  He pulled out the chair opposite hers and sat down before placing his mug of coffee down on the table between them. ‘Everything all right at home?’

  Her throat moved as she swallowed before answering him. ‘Fine, thank you.’

  ‘T
hat’s good.’ Gabriel leaned back in the chair to stretch his long legs out in front of him as he continued to study Bryn.

  She appeared somehow fragile to his critical gaze. Her face was pale, and there were hollows in her cheeks that hadn’t been there a week ago, implying that she had lost weight since he saw her last. Her eyes were also shadowed and bruised-looking, as if she hadn’t been sleeping well.

  Because she had been as disturbed by what had happened between the two of them the previous week as Gabriel still was, rather than the things he had said to her?

  Had she talked to her mother, as he had advised? Did she now know the truth where her father was concerned? Or did she still hold Gabriel responsible for everything that had happened in the past?

  His determination to find answers to these questions had brought him to the coffee shop.

  The past week had been a torturous hell for Gabriel, the first three days spent wondering if Bryn would talk to her mother, what she was thinking if she had, what decision she was going to come to in regard to the two of them while she was away. He had then spent the four days since she’d returned from Wales assuming she had decided to cut him out of her life.

  A totally unacceptable decision as far as Gabriel was concerned.

  Bryn was totally disconcerted at Gabriel’s arrival in the coffee shop, not least because his appearance, in a casual cream polo shirt, faded jeans resting low on lean hips and the darkness of his overlong hair falling casually over his forehead, had literally taken her breath away. How she wanted this man.

  More so even than a week ago, she acknowledged achingly as she looked at him from beneath lowered lashes, their time together in Gabriel’s office, the intimacies they had shared, having for ever changed the way she now thought and felt about him.

  A realisation that made a complete nonsense of her avoidance of him this past week.

  ‘You haven’t been to the gallery since you got back.’ Gabriel’s accusing tone echoed some of her thoughts.

  She shrugged. ‘I’ve spoken to Eric several times on the phone, explained that I couldn’t make it to the gallery because I’ve been really busy at work.’

  ‘So he told me.’

  Bryn found it impossible to meet the dark shrewdness of Gabriel’s gaze. ‘Then I don’t understand why you’re here.’

  He lost his relaxed pose as he sat forward and grasped both of her hands in his, his nostrils flaring angrily as Bryn instinctively sat back and tried to pull free. A freedom he wouldn’t allow her. ‘I’m here so that we can have the conversation we didn’t finish a week ago.’

  Her tone was pleading. ‘Gabriel—’

  ‘Bryn, don’t try to freeze me out, or put me, and what happened between us, into some convenient little compartment in your brain never to be opened again,’ he warned fiercely, ‘because, I assure you, that isn’t going to happen. I’m not going to allow it to happen.’

  She gave another tug on her hands, once again failing to free herself, her throat moving as she swallowed before speaking. ‘I don’t know what you mean—’

  ‘Like hell you don’t,’ Gabriel scorned harshly.

  A blush warmed her cheeks as she hissed, ‘You’re causing a scene, Gabriel.’ Several people at neighbouring tables had turned to give them curious glances as they had obviously heard the harshness of Gabriel’s tone.

  He gave a humourless smile. ‘We wouldn’t be having this conversation here at all if you hadn’t been too much of a coward to come to Archangel when you got back.’

  She gasped. ‘I told you, I’ve been really busy at the coffee shop since I returned—’

  ‘Too busy to so much as bother to telephone the man who is your lover?’

  ‘Gabriel!’ she warned fiercely, wrenching her hands painfully from his grasp even as she glanced around them before turning back to glare across the table at him. ‘You are not my lover.’

  ‘More than any other man has ever been,’ he stated uncompromisingly.

  And how Bryn regretted ever allowing Gabriel to realise that.

  Gabriel wasn’t enjoying this conversation, not his own part in it, or the fact that it was obviously causing Bryn discomfort. But this past week of not personally hearing so much as a word from her had made him so frustrated that he couldn’t seem to help himself.

  Just looking at Bryn again as she sat alone in a corner at the back of the coffee shop reading a magazine, taking in the delicate softness of her cheek, the long sweep of her lashes, the silkiness of that defensively spiky hair, had been enough to cause his breath to catch in his throat and his shaft to become hard and aching beneath his jeans—the same painful state of arousal he had been in for most of the past week!

  Consequently, he wasn’t in the mood to accept the brush-off from Bryn again. ‘What time do you finish here tonight?’ he prompted.

  She blinked. ‘Gabriel—’

  ‘We either have this conversation at my apartment later tonight, Bryn, or right here and right now, but we are going to talk sometime this evening,’ he assured her.

  She gave a shake of her head. ‘I’m tired, Gabriel.’

  ‘And you think I’m not?’

  Her frown was pained. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I haven’t exactly been sleeping like a baby for the past week as I waited to see what you decided to do about us.’

  ‘There is no “us”,’ she sighed wearily.

  ‘Oh, yes, Bryn, there most definitely is an “us”.’

  She gave a shake of her head. ‘Doesn’t the fact that I haven’t bothered to contact you since I returned speak for itself as to how I feel about what happened between us?’

  Gabriel gave a humourless smile. ‘It tells me you’re a coward, nothing more.’

  Her chin rose. ‘That’s the second time you’ve called me a coward in as many minutes, and I don’t like it.’

  ‘Then prove that you aren’t one by meeting me once you’ve finished work tonight.’

  She gave him a pitying glance. ‘We aren’t children playing a game of dare, Gabriel.’

  ‘We aren’t children at all, which is why you should stop behaving like one.’ His eyes glittered angrily. ‘I’m not going anywhere, Bryn, so if you thought I was going to help you get through this situation by going along with pretending last week didn’t happen, you were obviously mistaken. It happened, Bryn. I suggest you live with it.’

  Bryn had been living with it for the past week. With the knowledge of her complete lack of resistance to this man. With the fact that she’d had no control over what had happened between them in his office a week ago. With the fact that Gabriel had been the one to call a halt to their lovemaking because she hadn’t been able to do so.

  With the fact that she had only needed to look at Gabriel again tonight to know that she wanted him still.

  Her mouth tightened. ‘It would have been the gentlemanly thing to do, in the circumstances.’

  ‘Insulting me isn’t going to make me get up and walk out of here either, Bryn,’ he assured her softly. ‘This is way too important for that. To both of us. This past week, waiting, wondering, has been sheer bloody hell.’ He ran an agitated hand through his hair.

  She looked across at Gabriel searchingly, noting the dark shadows beneath his eyes, the sharp blade of his cheekbones above slightly hollow cheeks, lines etched beside his nose and mouth that she was sure hadn’t been there before, and realised that this past week really hadn’t been any easier for Gabriel than it had been for her.

  ‘Why won’t you just accept that I can’t do this, Gabriel?’ she groaned achingly.

  ‘Because neither of us knows what this is yet,’ he maintained stubbornly. ‘And I’m not willing to just give up on it until we do know.’

  She gave a shake of her head. ‘Isn’t it enough that we both know that the events
of the past makes this impossible?’

  ‘I refuse to accept that.’ His gaze was tormented as he reached across the table to once again take one of her hands in his.

  ‘You have to! We both do.’

  Gabriel gave a shake of his head. ‘Did you speak to your mother?’

  ‘About you?’

  ‘Obviously not about me,’ he drawled knowingly at her shocked expression. ‘But did you at least ask her to confirm the things I told you about your father?’

  ‘And what if I did?’ Colour warmed her cheeks as she avoided meeting his gaze. ‘Knowing who and what my father was, the things he did, changes nothing, Gabriel.’

  ‘It means we can put the past where it belongs—in the past! It can’t be undone, or remade, because it is what it is, but if we— If we want each other enough, we should be able to talk about it, to get by it. And I do want you, Bryn, and the trembling of your hand when I touch you is enough to tell me that you still want me too.’ His fingers tightened about her shaking ones as she would have pulled away. ‘Nothing else matters at this moment but that.’

  ‘And what about later? What happens once the—the wanting has all gone, Gabriel?’ Tears glittered in her eyes. ‘What happens then?’

  ‘Who says it’s ever going to be gone?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then we deal with later when later comes along,’ he stated firmly. ‘For now I just want us to be together and see where this takes us. Can we do that, do you think?’ The soft pad of his thumb caressed the back of her hand as he looked across at her intently.