by Faye Avalon
She was. She could easily lose track of place and time. “I’m mostly in awe.”
“Yeah, and I’m totting up its potential value at auction.”
Maddie laughed. “You’re hopeless.”
Gabe smiled back. “What I’m trying to say is that we each have our own camera lens on the world. It’s not the same for everyone, thank God. It doesn’t have to be.”
Maddie tilted her head. “Gabe Harrington, are you actually turning into some kind of armchair philosopher?”
“Fuck no. I’m just saying, is all.”
“And I appreciate it.” She looked out toward the ocean again. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something. What happened to your yacht? Did you sell it?”
He shrugged. “Didn’t have much use for it anymore. No time. When I did take it out, it became nothing more than a floating office.”
“That’s a shame. I remember you telling me how much you love being on the sea.”
He also looked toward the ocean. “I get to live by it, look at it every day. That has to be enough for now.”
“What do you do for downtime? To relax?”
His mouth kicked up, his eyes twinkled. “What do you think?”
Maddie rolled her eyes, ignoring the twinge to her chest that told her she didn’t like the idea of Gabe using sex as a relaxant, not when she considered how many women he might have shared that particular downtime experience with. Over the years, she’d imagined him taking women on his yacht, imagined him making love to them, doing the things to them that he did to her. It had almost driven her mad until she’d reminded herself that they were well and truly over and that he could do what he damn well pleased with any woman he wanted.
“I’ve never known anyone as obsessed with work as you are,” she said, putting the conversation firmly back on steadier ground. “Was your father the same? Was he in business?”
Gabe’s laugh was scornful and bitter. “My old man had no interest in anything other than what he could find at the end of a bottle. It was nothing unusual for me to come home, find him sprawled out on the concrete by the front door, pissed out of his empty head.”
Maddie sucked in a breath. “I had no idea. You never speak of your family.”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter, wasn’t important, but Maddie caught the way his fingers curled into his palms. “My mother passed away when I was fifteen. The old man’s liver gave out about ten years back.”
“I’m so sorry, Gabe.”
Another shrug. “It is what it is.”
“How did your mother die?” This was the first time she’d ever gotten him to talk about his family. She didn’t want to stop now. “Was she ill?”
His eyes shone like polished steel. For long moments he said nothing, and Maddie knew he would prefer to be doing anything but having this conversation. When she thought he would shrug it off and change the subject, he drew in a breath. “The bastard beat her black and blue, broke too many ribs to count, then put his hands around her throat and squeezed.”
Maddie’s hand flew to her own throat. “Oh my God. Gabe...”
He stood abruptly, and Maddie thought he’d shut down, but he went to the drinks cabinet and refilled his glass. Maddie watched through the opened French windows and saw him tip the alcohol back before hesitating and then refilling the glass once more.
She held her breath as he came back to the terrace and sat again. Every part of his body emanated tension, his eyes thick with both grief and fury.
Her heart squeezed for him. For the man, and for the young boy who had lived through it. She didn’t dare say anything, didn’t dare move, for fear he’d clam up.
“It wasn’t the first time,” he said eventually, so quietly that Maddie leaned toward him to catch every word. “My mother made excuses when I asked about the bruises on her body, about why she winced when she hugged me as I went off to school. When I got older, I recognised it for what it was. I confronted the bastard, but he’d say she was exaggerating and how she loved to provoke him.”
“Did he ever hit you?”
He shook his head. “Shoved me around a few times, especially when I’d question him about my mother’s fresh bruises. One day I shoved back. Struck him so hard he fell and hit his head. Called the police. They came and took me to the cop shop, probably thought to scare me. While I was there, the bastard took it out on my mother. She died in hospital that night.”
Maddie felt so desperate for him, she ached to go to him and offer comfort in any way she could. But she knew he wouldn’t welcome it. He sat so stiffly, his hands taut around the glass, his jaw tight enough she thought it might crack.
“I’m so sorry, Gabe. That must have been beyond awful for you to deal with.”
“I should have been there to protect her,” he said darkly. “If I hadn’t lashed out at the bastard, it wouldn’t have happened. I’d have been there the next time he hit her, and I could have stopped him.”
“You were a child,” Maddie said fiercely, moving closer to him. “It wasn’t your fault. It was his. Nobody else’s.”
“I should have been there,” he said again, taking a swig of his drink and draining the glass. “Anyway. Long time ago.”
But not so long that he’d forgiven himself for something that wasn’t, could never have been, his fault. Maddie wasn’t sure what to do, what to say to give him comfort. She knew how deep self-recrimination could reach.
“We’d better call it a night.” He set the glass down. “Early start in the morning.”
“It wasn’t your fault, Gabe.” Maddie felt compelled to repeat it. He looked so vulnerable right then, like she’d never seen him before. It pulled at something deep inside her.
She stood and held out her hand to him.
The vulnerability she’d glimpsed was replaced by a look of speculation, but she breathed easy when he accepted her hand. She curled her fingers around his, waiting until he stood in front of her. “I’m thinking since we both have a lot of old ghosts to battle, we should do something that will take our minds off them for a while.”
He smiled and touched his forehead to hers. “I like your reasoning.”
She led him through to the bedroom. “I’m hoping before the night is out, you’ll be liking a darn sight more than my reasoning.”
“What did you have in mind?” he asked as she made short work of his shirt.
She pressed a kiss to his bared chest, her fingers already working on the clasp of his trousers. “If you’ve got to ask, we’re in big trouble.”
“I’d get into big trouble with you any day.”
She knew it was just banter, but her heart squeezed anyway. She was already in big trouble where he was concerned, and now all she could do was ride it out, wherever it took them.
He tugged at the hem of her top, and she raised her arms as he pulled it over her head. Unhooking her bra, he leaned down to kiss each bared nipple.
It occurred to Maddie that something had changed between them. Shifted. Usually when they undressed each other, there was a kind of frenzy in their movements. Now there was tenderness, a slow and easy slide into nakedness as they discarded the rest of their clothes. It made her throat catch and her eyes moisten.
She blinked the emotion away, telling herself she was overplaying the moment. But the feeling remained as they lay on the bed.
Maddie shifted until Gabe was on his back and she straddled him. He felt amazingly hard and hot against her own heated core, and she remained still for several breaths as they just stared at each other.
The beauty of the moment made her throat catch again, and her eyes stung dangerously as Gabe raised his hand and trailed the backs of his fingers down her cheek, her throat, and around one breast.
“You’re so fucking beautiful.”
She slid her hands up the sides of his hips, his ribcage, and across h
is pectorals. “So are you.”
She had a brief and almost overwhelming need to take him inside her exactly as they were. She wanted to feel his flesh against hers with no restraint, no barrier. Nothing between them at all.
Instead, she reached out for a condom and took her time sliding it over his erection.
With her eyes on his, she slipped down onto him, slowly and steadily until he was deep inside her. Gabe gave a low groan, and his cock pulsed several times before quieting as she remained still. Again they stayed that way, neither one of them moving.
It felt incredible, and in that moment Maddie knew that Gabe wasn’t just filling her physically. He filled her in every possible way. If she stayed where she was much longer without moving, she feared she might sink into the smoky grey depths of his eyes and he’d consume her completely.
The thought was amazing and terrifying in equal measure, yet something desperately sweet whispered through her.
She brought her hands to his abdomen, pressing down lightly as she began a sensuous and rhythmic slide along his length. She leaned forward slightly, her palms flat to his stomach, and tilted her pelvis so that she could take him fully inside her. Then she rocked back, her muscles gripping him tight as she withdrew.
Gabe’s breathing intensified, and he gripped her hips as she moved.
Their eyes met and held as they soared together, and the air filled with a mixture of shouts, gasps and sighs.
Maddie leaned forward, her hands either side of Gabe’s chest. She kissed him, and he drew her down until she was sprawled across his chest, his arms banded around her.
“Thanks,” he said lazily, his voice a low and satiated rumble. “That reasoning of yours really hit the spot.”
Maddie smiled against his chest. “Mission accomplished, then.”
CHAPTER TEN
GABE WATCHED MADDIE sketching in the pad he’d bought her at the airport. He’d put off opening his tablet until she’d pulled it out, and not until she was absorbed in her work did he try to focus on his.
Last night had shaken him to the core.
Not just spilling his darkest secrets to her, but afterward, when they’d gone to bed. It was exactly the remedy he’d needed. The salve to soothe his battered soul. He had wanted her, really wanted her. It was a craving for everything she could give him, everything she could share with him. Everything he could share with her.
The realisation had rocked the very foundations on which he’d built his adult life. There was no place for emotion in his world. No place for love. He dealt in facts, figures, profit. Those he could control. But love? That brought only pain and remorse. Not that he loved Maddie, but he could admit that he cared for her. Deeply. Which was okay, considering theirs was a temporary relationship. A few days more and he could slip back into his own orderly world.
He didn’t want to dwell on the fact that he’d slept easy last night. Much easier than he’d have imagined after revealing his past to Maddie. He hadn’t planned to open up to her that way, but she was damned easy to talk to, to confide in. She had a way—sympathetic without being maudlin—which he appreciated. No point dwelling on what couldn’t be changed.
Of course, great sex had helped. They’d been pretty active, but more than that, they’d been close. Not just physically. Something had shifted. He had no precedent on which to base what it was, but he felt it to his very core.
Maybe it came from sharing parts of themselves that they’d both buried deep.
While it concerned him, he’d reasoned it was all part and parcel of that emotional outpouring. He’d never spoken of his past to anyone else. Never actually verbalised it. He’d bottled it up, stored it away in the deepest recesses of his being. Until Maddie.
Now he could bury it again. And when this business with Mallory Hotels was settled, he could go about his business once more like it had never happened. Like he’d never let the genie out of the bottle.
What he needed to focus on now was making sure that all parties came out of the deal with a smile on their face. Except Kingston. He could go drown himself for all Gabe cared. But Maddie? If what he intended went according to plan, it would be plain sailing for her.
Unable to concentrate, Gabe settled back in his seat and watched Maddie sketch. She looked intent, passionate and happy. As if what held her attention was the be-all and end-all right then. He wondered if he ever looked that way when he was absorbed in work. While he loved business, loved the cut and thrust of the deal, he couldn’t help consider if the end result took precedence over the actual doing. For Maddie, it was the process, the sheer pleasure of letting her imagination and skill lead the way to the end result. Was there anything he did purely for pleasure? Would he be in commerce if he didn’t make a shedload of money out of it? Would the wheeling and dealing lose its appeal if it wasn’t driven by the prospect of solid profit at the end?
The closest he’d ever come to pure enjoyment, to enjoying the process without an end gain, were the times he’d taken his boat out. The visceral appeal of the sea had grabbed hold of him when he’d been a boy, when tales of pirates, mutinies and high adventure had sparked his imagination. The first thing he’d bought when he’d made his first million was a small cruiser. It had been his pride and joy. Soon, he’d progressed to a yacht, but the pull of the ocean had fallen foul to his ever-growing success and he’d spent more time in his office than on the sea. He’d finally sold the yacht two years ago, after Maddie had left him. He hadn’t been able to think of the vessel without being assaulted by memories of how they’d enjoyed each other on the yacht and how much she’d seemed to fill the space. Her leaving had been the final nail which convinced him to sell and move on.
Blinking, he gave himself a mental shake. It didn’t pay to harp on the past.
He looked over at Maddie again, still absorbed in her work.
Did she realise that when she concentrated she caught her lower lip between her teeth? Exactly the way she did when he toyed with her breasts.
Did she know that she tilted her head? The same way she did when he kissed her neck, or bit gently into the tender flesh of her throat.
Maybe she wasn’t aware that she half closed her eyes. Just as she did when he used his mouth on her.
Fuck. His cock jerked as his blood rose thick and fast.
Hell, but he craved her. And desirable as it was, not just her body. He wanted her mind, too. Her passionate nature. The way she saw the beauty in both the exceptional and the mundane. Yeah, he craved her so badly that he couldn’t imagine the feeling ever going away.
He didn’t want it to.
The thought slapped him hard, shook him, stunned him. In the same way a sudden squall hit a previously settled ocean, transforming calm waters into a ferocious swell.
They hadn’t just had sex last night. They’d made love.
For the first time in his vast experience with women, he understood the difference.
It terrified the shit out of him.
* * *
“We could have stayed at my flat,” Maddie reminded Gabe when the door shut to their hotel suite in one of Mayfair’s glitzy hotels. “It’s closer to Oscar’s office.”
“I don’t want him getting wind of the fact you’re back in London. He might try and contact you, call on you, in the hope he can manipulate you.”
That wasn’t going to happen. Maddie didn’t know the exact moment she’d decided that there was no way on God’s green earth that she would even consider marrying Oscar now. She wanted to believe it was because she’d discovered the nature of his shady past, but it had everything to do with being with Gabe again. Now she could never consider marrying someone she didn’t care for. Someone she didn’t love.
She watched Gabe open his luggage, pushing away the stupid thoughts that started filling her head. She did not love Gabe. Maybe once, when she’d been naive and believing in happy-ever-
afters, but not now. Despite that he’d shared parts of his past with her last night, he was still a private man who kept things close to his chest. She wasn’t sure she could ever love anyone who didn’t share everything with her. Maybe that was naive, too, but she would accept nothing less.
“I was thinking, if you told me the exact nature of the charges that might be brought against Oscar, at least I’d have some idea of what and what not to say if he does contact me.”
“Best you’re in the dark,” Gabe said, hanging a business shirt in the closet. “That way, if the authorities want to question you, you won’t give away anything.”
Okay, so he had her best interests at heart, but the barb hurt. “I’m not a moron, Gabe. I know when to keep my mouth shut.”
He placed fresh underwear and socks into the closet drawer. “Just let me handle it, okay?”
“I’m getting a little sick of you being all over me one minute and the next giving me the bloody cold shoulder. At least give me the courtesy of having all the facts at my fingertips so I know what to expect.”
“I’ve given you the facts.”
“You’ve given me the bare bones. I know you’re holding stuff back, and it’s bloody insulting.”
He only grunted.
Beneath the frustration, panic simmered. If Gabe had given her the facts—all of them—then maybe he didn’t have much. Maybe he didn’t have the ammunition they needed to go after Oscar.
“I don’t care what you say, I’m coming with you.” Maddie pulled out a business suit from the suitcase on the bed that Gabe had opened for her.
“Forget it.”
“No. I won’t. I’m coming with you to see Oscar. If you won’t explain everything, then I’ll make sure that he does.”
“And how are you planning to do that?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll bribe him. Blackmail him. Agree to marry him.”
