The Notorious Gabriel DiazRuthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  For her, her father would walk free. For him, he would finally net the one woman who had escaped him, and the terms would not involve any fear on his part of her wanting any more than she was going to get.

  He would never conceive of actually buying any woman. Why would he? But in this one instance he had been prepared to make an exception—and how was she reacting? With a ridiculous temper tantrum, insults, and a locked bathroom door. It made no sense to him. He was tempted to break down the door and physically show her just how self-deluded she was in imagining that her response just then had been the response of a woman who didn’t want to be where she was. But breaking down bathroom doors would be taking things several steps too far.

  He was beginning to rethink that decision when she eventually emerged, draped in his dressing gown that had been hanging on a hook behind the bathroom door. It swamped her. She had tried to keep her hair dry, but damp tendrils hung over her shoulders.

  ‘My bag is on the bed,’ Lucy muttered, going hot and cold and averting her eyes from the sight of him splayed with masculine abandon on the giant bed.

  ‘If you’re thinking of another pair of jeans, or more of those hideous trousers you were wearing earlier, then you might as well forget it.’

  Quick as that, he had forgotten the foul mood into which he had been plunged by her incomprehensible behaviour. She looked good enough to eat, but he was going to make sure that she came to him now. Begging. Her pupils were dilated and her trembling hesitancy spoke volumes about a woman who was scared to get too close just in case she went up in flames again.

  He liked the thought of being the man who could incite such contradictory responses in her. She could bare her claws all she wanted, and rant and rail about his terrible behaviour in taking advantage of the perilous situation with her father—but, hell, she still wanted him…she still couldn’t help herself.

  He felt himself stir as he continued to gaze at her rosy-cheeked face. He patted the space on the bed next to him and smiled.

  ‘I want to get changed.’

  ‘Feel free.’ Gabriel relaxed a little more, folded his hands behind his head and followed with interest her reluctance to take him up on his offer.

  Her bag was next to him. Lucy tentatively approached it, but as she was about to reach for it he got to her first and pulled her down towards him.

  The robe fell open as she flopped on the bed next to him and he hissed long and low under his breath at the sight of those succulent little breasts with their rosy tips. His mind was galvanised into such graphic images that he clenched his jaw to stave off his erection getting out of hand.

  There was a lot to be said for variety, he was discovering. His palate was a lot more jaded than he had originally thought!

  ‘Gabriel…no!’ Lucy scuttled away from him and clutched the robe around her tightly.

  Gabriel sat up. ‘I don’t go for women who play games.’

  ‘I’m not playing games. I know why I’m here. I know we have a deal and my half of the bargain is to…is to…’

  ‘Lucy, it’s no use coming over all girlish and pretending that I’m forcing you to do something you don’t want to do.’ Gabriel was determined to drag her kicking and screaming towards reality if it killed him. ‘And I’m not going to be accused of assaulting you.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was wrong of me to say that.’ Much as she might want to stick to that handy description, which would absolve her of all culpability in what had happened earlier in the bathroom, driving honesty compelled her to tell the truth—at least on that front. She closed her eyes briefly and drew in a deep, stabilising breath.

  ‘Ah. So we’re inching our way towards an understanding of what’s going on here, are we? Slowly but surely you’re beginning to wake up to the fact that our trade-off isn’t the nightmare you keep telling yourself it is….’

  He vaulted off the bed and paced the room. Lucy followed his prowling progress with feverish eyes. He dragged a stool from the window to the bed and settled on it.

  ‘For as long as we’re in a relationship you’ll enjoy the fruits of my money, and it’s not going to be torture. You’re burning up for me—so get over your conscience and relax and enjoy what’s on the table. You won’t even be at my beck and call. You work with your plants during the week and I make sure that my weekends are kept free for you and you alone…suits me down to the ground…’

  ‘I can’t give you what you want….’

  ‘You’re already giving it to me. I haven’t been so turned on by a woman in years…. In fact, I can’t remember the last time I wanted to have a woman the second I laid eyes on her—but that’s what you do to me. I took one look at you at the station and I would have had you in the back seat of my car if the windows had been blacked out….’

  ‘You’re just turned on because I didn’t fall at your feet!’

  ‘Who cares about the whys and wherefores?’

  ‘You will. Because I’m a virgin….’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  GABRIEL LOOKED AT her for a few silent seconds, then he burst out laughing.

  ‘Give me a break! Who are you trying to kid? And what leverage do you think a lie like that will give you? You’ve already got me to settle your father’s debt…and I’ve already told you that while you’re with me, you’ll enjoy all the things money can buy…so why hold out for further prizes by telling me that you’re a virgin?’

  Lucy stared furiously at his smirking face. His entire speech made her feel cheap, but there was nothing else she could expect. Nor could she labour the point about it being hateful—not when she had willingly allowed him to touch her; not when her body had responded to that touch with the speed of dry tinder combusting.

  ‘I’m not kidding.’

  Gabriel’s laughter died in his throat. His eyes skimmed her mutinous closed face and took in the earnestness of her expression. It was beyond belief, but could she be telling the truth?

  ‘Of course you are. You’re in your twenties…’

  ‘I’m twenty-four—and don’t tell me that I’m not telling the truth!’ She shied away from the open incredulity in those fabulous, knowing dark eyes. She couldn’t have picked a less worthy recipient of this incredibly personal truth, but it was something she couldn’t hide from him. Sooner or later he would discover that she wasn’t like those sophisticated, experienced women he had dated in the past.

  ‘But how is this possible?’ Gabriel was genuinely mystified and shocked to his core. ‘You had a boyfriend…’

  The mysterious and fictitious boyfriend! How many more times was he going to rear his ugly head? Lucy was sorely tempted to tell him the truth about that, but what would she say? That two years ago she had been so alarmed at Gabriel’s aggressive approach that she had fabricated a boyfriend to get rid of him? How flattering was that going to be for a man like Gabriel? A man who enjoyed adulation and was accustomed to the world obeying his commands?

  Furthermore, if he became angry enough would he withdraw the terms of his deal? Would her father be back where he had started?

  ‘Er…’

  ‘Don’t tell me that the two of you just made do with holding hands and looking longingly into each other’s eyes!’ He gave a derisive bark of laughter.

  ‘I know a man like you would never understand people who don’t put sex at the top of the agenda….’

  Gabriel could tell from the embarrassed blush spreading across her cheeks that she was telling the truth—and yet how could that be so? In an age where sex was everywhere, where no holds were barred, how could she have slipped through the net? Especially looking the way she did? Was it her background? He had no idea what her mother was like, or even if she had a mother. Had an unstable background with a con man for a father turned her into some kind of buttoned-up prude? And yet she had writhed and squirmed in his arms, had wanted to be touched and licked and teased….

  ‘Stop looking at me like that.’ Lucy was mortified. ‘I’m going to get dressed.’ She gathered he
r overnight back with a jerky movement and scuttled off the bed, still keeping her eyes firmly averted from his incredulous face.

  Having just spent the better part of forty-five minutes in the bath, she didn’t feel she could justify another forty-five minutes getting into jeans and a T-shirt—and what would be the point anyway? She would still emerge having to face the music….

  He was standing by the window when she opened the bathroom door to the bedroom. His first words were, ‘I think we should go downstairs…get something to drink…’ Even as his mind was playing with the conundrum of a woman of twenty-four who was still a virgin, his eyes were absorbing the terrific sight of her with her hair hanging loose, framing her heart-shaped face in a way that made her look like a living, breathing doll.

  Untouched. The thought of being the first man to have her was like a shot of adrenaline, firing his rampant libido. It was a turn-on like nothing in his life before.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ Lucy couldn’t look at him. What was he thinking? Maybe that he had purchased sub-standard wares? At great financial cost?

  She followed him in subdued silence back down the impressive staircase and into a kitchen that was as expensive as the rest of the house. But she paid little attention to the gleaming speckled black counters and the range of high-tech gadgets and the massive American-

  style fridge that he was now opening to fetch a jug of fresh orange juice so that he could pour them both a glass.

  ‘Aren’t you going to say anything?’ she asked eventually. She sat at the kitchen table—a marvel of slate and chrome—and finally stole a look at him from under her lashes.

  ‘What I’d really like is to explore this relationship you had with your boyfriend…because it’s not making sense. What kind of guy was he?’

  ‘I honestly don’t see the point of going into that.’ Especially, she thought with a guilty flush, considering he had never even existed. He was now supposed to be in New Zealand. Would she be forced to concoct more information about when he had been living in England? Give him a name? An age? Hobbies?

  ‘It was obviously a relationship that was doomed for disaster if you weren’t attracted to one another.’

  ‘I don’t want to analyse that…it’s over and done with…he’s…er…living on the other side of the world now…with…from all accounts…a brand-new wife and a brand-new baby…’

  ‘If you’d accepted my dinner date two years ago I guarantee you wouldn’t now be a virgin.’

  ‘You are so egotistical!’ And yet she knew that he was right. Five seconds in his company was enough to convince her that he had what it took to blow any

  woman’s firmly held principles sky-high. The man should come with a health warning attached.

  ‘Maybe the guy got fed up waiting….’ Gabriel didn’t know why he was labouring the point. It irked him to imagine that she was perhaps pining for someone who had obviously not cared much for her if he had disappeared across the Atlantic and immediately hitched up with another woman.

  ‘Maybe he did,’ Lucy muttered.

  ‘And it still bothers you…?’

  She looked up at him, startled. Tempting though it was to expand further on a tale of lost love and broken hearts, she just couldn’t do it. ‘No,’ she told him abruptly. ‘What bothers me is not knowing what happens now.’

  ‘What do you think happens now?’

  ‘I wouldn’t be asking if I knew. I just thought… I just felt it was fair…’

  ‘I get that.’ He was looking at her very carefully. Her shy withdrawals and blushing maidenly outrage now seemed to make more sense. He had come on strong and it was no wonder her instinct had been to take flight. ‘What if I told you that I can be a very gentle, very tender lover…. I can touch you in a way that will make you open up to me like a flower….’

  All those dormant feelings that he had awakened in the bathroom now began stirring back into life at his low, velvety drawl. Her body, once in physical deep freeze, held in storage for the right guy to come along and bring it to life, was making her question the value of preserving herself for someone she hadn’t even met yet. Someone she might never meet—because who was to say there was a guarantee that there would be a Mr Right? She didn’t know, and couldn’t understand how it was that Mr Wrong could sabotage all her good intentions like this—but he could. Was it his experience? Did he just know how to touch a woman so that she stopped being able to think? Was it some special ability of his?

  She allowed herself to think about him making love to her and excitement swelled with sudden explosive vigour inside her. The burning memory of his mouth clasped to her nipple sent her body into overdrive.

  It would be the very opposite of everything she had ever believed in! Sex without love…in fact, sex without friendship or even passing affection! Did it get any worse? And yet…

  She looked at him and his dark, lazy eyes consumed her. Her heart picked up speed.

  ‘But of course I won’t.’

  ‘Huh?’ Lucy snapped out of her erotic daydream and her mouth fell open in surprise.

  ‘I need something a little stronger than a glass of orange juice.’

  Gabriel strolled to the fridge to withdraw a bottle of wine and pour himself a glass. Lucy followed his every small movement with shameful, compulsive fascination. The elegant way he walked, as though he owned the space around him…the flex of muscle beneath his shirt…the strength of his forearms…the powerful width of his shoulders…

  She hurriedly looked away as he resumed his seat opposite her. ‘Um…you were saying…?’ What had he been saying? It was impossible to register much when she had been so busy feasting her eyes on him.

  ‘It’s off.’

  It took a few seconds for his words to sink in. ‘What do you mean…? Are you telling me that the deal’s off?’

  ‘Regrettably. However tempting I find the notion of sleeping with a virgin…it wouldn’t work for me…’

  ‘But we made a deal…we had an arrangement…’

  ‘Deals get broken. It’s the way of the world.’ Gabriel sipped his wine. His head was still cluttered with images of her underneath him. He would have to do something about that, and quickly.

  Lucy sprang to her feet and began pacing the kitchen. She swept her hair back with one hand and finally stood in front of him.

  Her body was supple and coltish, and Gabriel cursed himself for not having been able to see that it was also untouched. But, hell, how was he to have known?

  Should he have explored that weird attraction she had held for him two years ago? How it was that she had lingered in his head long after she had so politely turned him down? And how it was that the notion of having her now, at all costs, had been so irresistible?

  Should he somehow have concluded that, for a man as experienced and worldly-wise as he was, the only thing that could have made her stand out was her virginity? No. No sane man would ever have joined the dots and arrived at that conclusion. Virgins over eighteen were as rare as sightings of the dodo bird!

  ‘And what does that mean for my dad?’ she asked in a tight voice. ‘I told him…’ Her lower lip trembled and she bit on it.

  ‘I am a man of honour,’ Gabriel said wryly. ‘Sit down. You look as though you’re about to shatter into a million fragments.’ He waited until she was seated, but she was still as tense as a bowstring, with her hands on her thighs and her back ramrod-straight. ‘I told you that I would bail your father out and I will. I have already instructed my people to fill in the hole from my own private finances and to close the matter. There will be no record of what your father did. He’s in the clear. I also told you that I would pay him off and I still intend to. All things considered, you might say that you’ve done damn well out of this. Your thieving father lives to steal another day and you don’t even have to warm my bed for the favour….’

  Lucy’s mind had gone a complete blank. The only thing she was aware of was a searing sense of disappointment. It was crazy, but she felt reject
ed.

  ‘You don’t look overjoyed. I would expect you to be doing cartwheels round the kitchen at this point.’

  ‘That’s very…generous of you…’ she said faintly.

  ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘But I don’t understand…’ She took a deep breath, wiped her clammy hands on her jeans. ‘I never realised that being…inexperienced was so awful…’

  As conversations went, this was not one for which Gabriel had ever rehearsed. He flushed darkly and wondered how it was that, despite being out of pocket, and with no means of recouping his lost funds, he was reduced to feeling bad. Her huge sea-green eyes were staring at him with such honest appeal that he just wanted to scoop her into his arms and show her that being a virgin counted for pretty much everything, that it was a prize for which any red-blooded male would give his eye teeth. Any red-blooded male except him, as it happened.

  ‘This isn’t about you,’ he told her abruptly.

  ‘If it’s not about me, then who on earth is it about?’

  ‘You should be happy. I’ve just let you off the hook. If you get your things together, I would be more than happy for my driver to return you to the station.’

  ‘My ticket’s for tomorrow.’ Lucy said the first thing that came to her head. ‘And, by the way, I’m very happy. I just wondered… I’m just curious…’

  Gabriel vaulted out of his chair, debated whether to have another glass of fortifying wine, decided against it. Instead he helped himself to some water and drank the glass down in one gulp while he kept an eye on her.

  ‘Look…’ He sat back down but he felt uncomfortable in his own skin—restless, as though his body couldn’t contain the levels of energy leaping through it.