Needs were terrible things. They took no prisoners, showed no mercy. He’d wanted to frighten her, to teach her a lesson that he wasn’t just some lackey she could bully.
But the only lesson being taught was that he was far more vulnerable in this little setup than she was. For all he knew, this might be business as usual for her.
It damn well wasn’t for him.
“Daddy?” The small voice wedged itself between them like a physical entity. “Daddy,” Katie called out. “Are you in there?”
They jumped apart as if they’d been seared by a hot branding iron.
Courtney was surprised and relieved to discover that she could actually stand on her own. The last couple of moments in his arms had left her in doubt. The man could kiss like nobody’s business.
She dragged air back into her lungs as she looked toward the door. His daughter couldn’t find them here like this.
Glancing one last time at him before she left, Courtney advised, “Your towel’s drooping.”
The slightest hint of a smile curved his mouth as he tucked the ends more tightly together against his flat stomach. The towel might be drooping, but she’d certainly had a different effect on other parts of him.
“Thanks.”
She was backing away, trying not to seem as if she were actually fleeing. But she was. She desperately needed to regroup.
“I’m in here, honey,” Gabriel called out.
Turning, Courtney pressed her hand against her stomach. It was fluttering so badly, she fully expected to feel it quaking beneath her palm. The man hadn’t even had the decency to have morning breath, she’d thought grudgingly. He’d tasted sweet Intoxicatingly sweet. And more addictive than the chocolates that heretofore were her main weakness.
“Good morning, Daddy.” She heard Katie greet her father just as she slipped out. “Good morning. Mommy.” The girl’s voice floated behind her.
Courtney stopped dead. The greeting caused something to ache within her. Probably just the oysters from yesterday. There was no reason to make something out of this.
But instead of leaving, Courtney turned around. Katie, already dressed, hurried to her side. Her small face was pinched as worry suddenly creased it.
“Is it okay?” she asked hopefully. “Can I call you Mommy now?”
Oh, God. At a complete loss, Courtney glanced toward Gabriel. “I—”
Katie gave her no opportunity to turn the honor down. “—’cause you married my daddy, so that makes you my new mommy. Jenny calls the lady who married her daddy Claire, but I don’t want to call you Court—” She stopped, trying to remember the rest of the long, unfamiliar name. “Court—”
“Courtney,” John supplied when Courtney only stared dumbly at his daughter.
He’d set her up for this, he thought, disgusted with himself. It was his fault that Katie was baring her heart to this woman, pouring out all the love she had. Damn it, anyway. He should have tried harder to find the money somewhere else.
John placed a hand on her shoulder, anchoring her to him. Drawing her away from Courtney. “Maybe we’re being a little hasty here, honey. I really don’t think—”
Courtney ran her tongue along her lips, hesitating. The taste of him only confused the issue further for her. But there was something distant and warm moving within her, filling her heart.
Mommy.
Someone wanted to call her Mommy.
She could remember the ache she’d felt when there’d been no one for her to call Mommy. She’d been older than Katie when her mother had died, but the pain, she knew, was the same no matter what the age.
Courtney placed her hand on Katie’s other shoulder. Her eyes met Gabriel’s. She had the impression that they were momentarily waging a tug of war. Gabriel raised his hand, stepping back.
She looked down at Katie. “It’s all right, Katie. You can call me Mommy if you really want to.”
Katie nodded so hard, her hair bobbed up and down. “I really want to.”
The smile on Katie’s face erased any doubts Courtney had. At least for the moment.
When she raised her eyes from the child’s beaming face, John was looking at her. There was a strange look in his eyes. For the life of her, Courtney couldn’t fathom what he was thinking.
He was probably annoyed with her because he thought she was moving in where she had no business being.
Well, so was he, she thought in frustrated annoyance. Oh, she had asked him to move into her house. But something within her was afraid that Gabriel was moving in somewhere else. A place where he had absolutely no business being.
She began to move away again. “Let me know when you’re finished in here.” Courtney turned to leave.
She heard him turn the water on, then off again. “I’m finished.”
And so would she be if she wasn’t careful. Courtney pressed her lips together. She had to get hold of herself, she thought. She was beginning to act like a sentimental idiot. The child was just four years old—she would have called any woman Mommy if allowed. It didn’t mean anything.
Squaring her shoulders, she looked at him. Had the towel gotten smaller? “You’ll put something appropriate on, I hope.”
He had to hand it to her, she certainly knew how to ruin a moment. “What’s appropriate these days for an interrogation?”
She doubted it would come to that Parsons had seemed quite taken with Gabriel, the little he had seen of him at the reception.
“Sackcloth and ashes.” Her flippant tone matched his. “But we’re fresh out. In lieu of that, try the charcoal gray pin-striped suit.”
“I don’t own a charcoal gray pin-striped suit.”
It was unsettling, standing here and looking at him dressed only in a towel. Moreover, she was sure he knew it. Courtney purposely turned toward Katie. The little girl seemed content just listening to them. She couldn’t help wondering just how much Katie was absorbing.
“Yes, you do,” she informed him. She led the way back into the dressing room to show him. “It’s next to the beige Armani.”
He’d just assumed that the clothes in the closet belonged to a former lover who had left too quickly to pack. Probably running for his life. He looked around. There were more suits here than in a department store— and enough ties to outfit a battalion of kites, which was all he thought ties were good for. Just looking at them made his throat close up.
“You’ve been busy.”
“The buyer was.” She’d issued a list of instructions, along with sizes she had obtained from Gabriel under duress. The men’s shop on Rodeo Drive that her father had favored had done the rest.
Courtney pulled out the suit in question and held it up against him. She had to admit that part of her preferred him in the towel. “Can’t have my husband looking like he just stepped out of a thrift shop, now, can I?”
Katie tugged on the hem of her nightgown. “Want me to go change, too?”
Gabriel could stand to take lessons in cooperation from his daughter. “You,” Courtney said, sliding a fin gertip down the pert nose, “are perfect just the way you are.
With that, she turned and walked out, knowing that Gabriel was watching her. Though she knew it was a cheap trick, Courtney swayed her hips just a little.
Chapter Eight
Courtney? What are you doing calling me? I didn’t expect to hear from you so soon.”
It had been almost two weeks since the wedding. Whenever they were both in town, she and Mandy usually got together about once a week. Courtney couldn’t see why her friend seemed so surprised that she was calling.
“What do you mean, ‘so soon’? I haven’t talked to you in over a week and a half.”
Mandy’s laugh was deep and sultry as she let her imagination wander. “And what a week and a half it’s probably been. Don’t think I haven’t envied you. I just didn’t think you’d come up for air for a while, that’s all.”
Mandy was carrying her joke too far. And it was no longer funny. “I got mar
ried, Mandy. I didn’t become a deep-sea diver.”
Mandy began to laugh again, but then stopped abruptly. “Court, you’re not trying to tell me that you and he haven’t—”
How had she gotten sidetracked like this? She’d called Mandy to invite her to a party this Saturday night. A party that might help take her mind off the tension that had become her constant companion. Tension that was generated precisely by the lack of what Mandy was alluding to.
“No, we haven’t,” she retorted more sharply than she’d intended.
The silence on the other end of the line stretched out until Courtney thought they’d been disconnected. When Mandy finally spoke, her voice was almost solemn. “Courtney, I’ve never known you to be stupid before.”
Courtney sat down on the edge of the desk, cradling the telephone in her lap. From her vantage point, she could see the guest house. He was out there again, working. Just as he had been every day since the wedding.
At least he had a way to release his frustration, she thought grudgingly. She wondered if he’d let her hammer something.
Mandy’s comment did nothing to improve her mood. “It’s a business arrangement, nothing more. Remember?” Mandy knew why she’d married Gabriel. She’d been the one to suggest it in the first place. Why did she suddenly sound as if it was a love match? If anything, it was a grudge match. On both their parts.
Courtney sighed. What she really needed was to get away. But how would it look to go somewhere so soon without her husband? And taking him along negated the reason for going in the first place. Besides, the foundation’s annual fund-raiser was coming up soon. She was the hostess and she couldn’t just abandon that because she was uncomfortable about her living conditions. There were too many children who depended on that foundation. Children, she mused watching. Gabriel’s little girl, who deserved a chance to be as well as Katie was.
“Business, huh?” How could Courtney be letting such a great opportunity slip through her fingers? “Ever hear of mixing business with pleasure? If it were me in your place, that man would have been reduced to a liquid state by now, pouring himself out of my bed every morning.”
Courtney sincerely doubted that If anything, Gabriel was the reducer, not the reducee. But that was something Mandy didn’t need to know.
She leaned forward on the desk to get a better look. Didn’t the man ever work in a shirt? Frustrated by the effect the sight of his sweaty chest had on her, she turned away.
Within a couple of seconds, she found herself turning back again. “There is no pleasure with living with an overbearing, monosyllabic man, Mandy.” The tight, wet knot in her stomach bore her out
. Mandy’s laugh told her she knew better. “Oh, I don’t know. I could find pleasure.”
Mandy could find pleasure dating an eight-by-ten glossy. But Courtney needed more than that. She needed substance. A man who treated her tenderly. And who didn’t give a damn if her bank account was in the single digits or more than seven.
Courtney disregarded the deep sigh she heard in the receiver. “If it wasn’t for the way he treats his daughter, I wouldn’t think he was human at all.”
“He looks plenty human to me—and there are ways to test that theory.” Courtney could almost see Mandy’s eyes gleaming. “Want me to go over them with you? Better yet, want me to demonstrate?”
She didn’t have time to listen to this. If this party was to come off on such short notice, she had lists to make and people to contact.
“No, I just want you to come to my party. I’m inviting all my friends to officially introduce my husband. Sort of a coming-out party.” It was also her birthday, but turning thirty wasn’t something she wanted to celebrate. Not when she had an albatross around her neck.
“Ah, a cozy evening at home with only the immediate world in attendance.” There was nothing Mandy loved more than a party, except for Courtney. “Really, Court, do you think that’s wise? Showing him off? Some of the women we know will jump at the chance to try to lure him away—and not just because he’s yours, this time. The man is drop-to-your-knees-and-thank-your-luckystars gorgeous. It’s like smearing your hand with goose pâté and sticking it into a tank full of piranhas.”
“They can lure him away all they want after the paperwork for the trust fund is signed and the money is transferred into my account.”
It was on the tip of Mandy’s tongue to quote Shakespeare’s line about the lady protesting too much, but she let it go. She knew just how far Courtney’s patience stretched.
“Uh-huh. Remember who your best friend is when you’re having your garage sale.”
Mandy was hopeless, she thought. Normally, Courtney found her humor infectious. Right now, it was only irritating.
Everything was irritating lately. Even getting her own way. She was beginning to feel like a disgruntled shrew. That was Gabriel’s fault, too.
“When this is over, I won’t sell him to you, I’ll make you a present of him.” I’ll even throw in a spare shirt, she thought, watching the way the perspiration made his body glow in the afternoon heat.
Didn’t he have enough sense to come in out of the sun?
She was letting her mind wander again. Courtney forced herself to concentrate on what Mandy was saying.
“—not that I wouldn’t sell my soul for the man, but I don’t think he’ll come all that willingly.”
A lot Mandy knew. “Yes, he will. He’s already chomping at the bit.”
“Yeah, but which way is that bit pointing?” Silence on the other end told Mandy that Courtney didn’t understand. “Hey, I saw the way he looked at you when you were dancing at the reception. And that kiss—”
Courtney didn’t want to hear about it. “Done for effect, Mandy. Nothing more.”
Even special effects had their limits, Mandy thought, and what she’d witnessed had seemed genuine enough from where she had stood. Why was Courtney being so stubborn? She would have killed to have a man like that within her reach. “Well, it sure affected me. I lived off the fumes for a week.”
Enough was enough. “Party. Saturday. Eight. Formal. Be there.”
“With bells on,” she promised, then added wistfully, “Maybe if I’m lucky, he’ll ring one or two.”
She hoped Mandy would stop beating this dead horse by the time she came to the party. “Goodbye, Mandy.”
Courtney hung up and sighed. Her gaze drifted toward the guest house. Gabriel was doing something to a door he had brought out and leaned against a sawhorse. Even at this distance, she was aware of the way the muscles on his back rippled as he worked.
She blinked, suddenly realizing that she was staring. It wasn’t as if she’d never seen a man without his shirt on before. It was just that, she had to admit, she had never seen anyone quite so perfect-looking before.
Courtney didn’t relish telling him that his services were required. She didn’t relish having to tell him anything at all. The more distance between them, the better chance this charade of theirs had of working.
Although, she had to admit that the dinners they’d shared so far were not as bad as she’d anticipated. They ate as a family strictly for Katie’s sake and any conversations they had were centered around the child. There had been a few eye-opening moments that gave her a glimpse of what their life together was like. Gabriel wasn’t quite the self-serving clod she’d envisioned him to be.
That still didn’t make this easy.
Courtney sighed again as she got off the desk. She hoped he’d be more cooperative this time. When he’d come down to greet Parsons that first morning, he’d put on his usual jeans and shirt instead of the suit she’d asked him to wear. He’d been deliberately defiant The smile she’d seen in his eyes told her that he enjoyed pressing her buttons.
He’d pressed more by acting the part of the enamored husband, touching her hair, slipping his arm around her shoulder. He’d done it so well, even she might have been taken in—if she hadn’t known better.
The meeting had gone off
far better than she’d hoped. Parsons had left, promising to begin transferring the initial sum into her account by noon.
“There’ll be an equal transfer in a year,” he’d told her as he reached the front door. “The balance, of course, will remain in abeyance until the end of the second year.”
“Of course,” she’d echoed. She knew better now than to secretly hope the old man might be persuaded to revert the entire trust to her account in one transaction.
She remembered Parsons looking past her, at Gabriel, who had remained in the living room with Katie. One of the few smiles she’d ever seen gracing his lined face made an appearance.
“I guess your father really did know best in this matter. He seems to be a fine young man.”
“All this from a few words?” She could keep the sarcasm from her tongue, but not the words themselves.
The small eyes had looked at her knowingly. “The investigator’s report was more than a few words, Mrs. Gabriel.”
She’d stared at him, dumbfounded, forgetting to remind Parsons that she was keeping her maiden name. “Report?”
His manner, though not condescending, had been patronizing. “Yes. You don’t think your father would have wanted you marrying a serial killer just to satisfy a clause in his will, do you? His instructions to me were to have the prospective groom thoroughly investigated before the wedding.” The thin shoulders moved beneath the jacket that seemed to have grown too large for him with time. “Granted, it was a rush job. Your invitation didn’t leave the investigator much time to do his work, but it was more than adequate.” He summed it up tersely. “I feel that I know all I need to know.”
But she didn’t. There were gaping holes in Gabriel’s background, so much she didn’t know. “About the report. Could I see it?”
The small eyes had all but penetrated her. For a moment, it almost seemed as if he could read her thoughts. Did he suspect that the marriage was a sham?
“Why would you have to? You can ask Mr. Gabriel anything you want to know. He is, after all, an honest man.”
Wanted: Husband, Will Train Page 10
