The Notorious Gabriel DiazRuthless Tycoon, Inexperienced Mistress

by Cathy Williams

  He didn’t do soul-searching conversations. There were some men who were good at that sort of thing. He wasn’t one of them. But she was still staring at him with those big green eyes and there was no way that he could tell her that a woman just shouldn’t ask that sort of question. It wasn’t cool. Or maybe there were women who would. How would he know? He had never been in this position before.

  ‘In case you haven’t got the message yet, I’m not the kind of guy who’s into commitment. I treat my women well…better than well…but I never encourage them to think that there’s any more than what I’m prepared to give. You’re inexperienced, Lucy. I may be many things, but I’m not into callously hurting girls just because I happen to be attracted to them and just because I can have them. Although…’ he allowed himself a self-denigrating smile ‘…don’t think you would be here now if, as you say, I hadn’t used unnecessary coercion…’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I firmly believe that all’s fair in love and war—but you’re a virgin and you’re therefore vulnerable. I don’t need you getting in over your head.’

  ‘I don’t even like you. How would I be getting in over my head?’

  ‘If you disliked me that much you would be running for the front door right now with your bags in your hand. I turn you on, and maybe you’re a little curious to see where that leads, but there’s too much scope for it to lead to places I have no intention of going.’

  Lucy was distracted sufficiently to ask, ‘You intend to stay a bachelor forever?’

  ‘I prefer to think of it as the foreseeable future.’ He shrugged, and a lifetime of cynicism was in that casual gesture. ‘This is not something I share with very many people….’ None. ‘My father was married six times. He was the very opposite of a commitment-phobe. He embraced the institution of marriage with whole-hearted enthusiasm. It would have been commendable were it not for the fact that he also embraced infidelity with equal enthusiasm. He once tried to tell me that it was because he loved women….’

  Gabriel gave a short, derisive, humourless laugh. ‘I tend to see it rather differently. It’s hard for that argument to carry weight when a man is compelled to marry his latest squeeze, only for that squeeze to be superceded by another model, all in the name of love. The marriages became humdrum and routine…my father began getting itchy feet.’ He hadn’t meant to launch into a prolonged explanation along these lines, but she was listening so damn well, and the past was rushing up at him with such speed…

  Well, what was the big deal in telling her this? he asked himself. It wasn’t as though she was going to get any ideas…she wasn’t going to see one confidence as a sign of greater things to come…

  Moreover, he might not have instigated this situation from the purest of motives, but he could have just told her to leave without explanation. He could have sent her on her very fortunate, merry way with all those unanswered questions in her head. But had he? No. And wasn’t that an indication of his upstanding nature?

  ‘I suppose, on the plus side, I was the only child from all his careless philandering. Maybe somewhere the old man had a conscience after all.’

  ‘You hated him?’

  Gabriel looked at her with some surprise. ‘Not at all. In his own way he was a very good father. He simply had no self-control. He was clever enough to set up a trust fund for me that he couldn’t get into in his weaker moments. It enabled me to be educated abroad. It was a blessing, considering the rest of his earnings invariably went on alimony. He had a good brain, and was a good entrepreneur, but he was always in a situation of making ends meet because ex-wives can be costly.’

  ‘And your mother?’

  ‘My mother was one of his victims. Wife number three, as a matter of fact. It broke her heart when he went off her and began seeing wife-to-be number four. She never recovered from him and she died when I was eight, miserable and bitter.’

  Lucy gasped and instinctively reached out to him.

  ‘How awful.’

  ‘It was a long time ago.’

  ‘And what happened to you?’

  ‘Oh, I lived with my father until he died, and I was subjected to three more stepmothers and intermittent spells of marital bliss followed by bitter wrangling. I should have hated the old man but I didn’t. I learned from him. And here’s the moral of what I’m telling you: you’re vulnerable. You’ll inevitably end up getting hurt. I won’t be the one responsible. I learnt pretty young that if you want sex it’s better to have it without any unrealistic expectations on either side.’

  Lucy had the feeling that she was staring at someone who came from a different planet from hers. Her parents could not be more in love with one another. She cherished the dream of that happy-ever-after relationship while he derided it.

  ‘Go and get your bag, Lucy.’

  ‘My parents are expecting me to be in London for the weekend,’ Lucy mumbled.

  Plus, they were under the impression that she was dating Gabriel. They hadn’t asked her whether she would be sleeping with him—they would trust her to be holding true to the principles they had instilled in her. Her friends also thought that she was on a date, of sorts. She couldn’t face getting the evening train back… There would be humiliating questions that she would have to answer. She would be forced to say that they had broken up after only one date because…what…? He didn’t like her? He found her company boring? Backward? Too rough around the edges?

  At least if she stuck this weekend out she could maybe do a couple more—visit London and stay somewhere cheap—at the end of which she would vaguely suggest that they hadn’t hit it off after all.

  But to return home after only a few hours…

  ‘Well, I’m pretty sure they won’t be disappointed to have you back home without having had to endure the unsavoury business of sleeping with their benefactor.’

  ‘I…I think, actually, I might go and have a look around London. After all the effort to get here it seems a shame to waste my trip.’

  ‘I would have thought it was anything but a wasted trip.’

  ‘You know, I’d really like to explain about my fath—’

  ‘Drop it. That’s all history. I wasn’t interested in hearing excuses then and I’m even less interested now.’

  ‘It doesn’t feel right to accept money from you—’

  ‘Are you telling me that you would rather I held you captive here with no “release date”, as you put it?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  Gabriel was right. She had been given her ticket out, so why wasn’t she running? Did it matter that her friends might ask a few questions about her early return? That her mother might wonder aloud why her so-called date had gone wrong? Her father had been bailed out and she had her precious virginity intact.

  So why wasn’t she shrieking with joy? Why was she harking back to those weird, wonderful things she had felt when he had touched her? Could it be that she had psyched herself up to sleeping with him and she was now in the grip of a puzzling anticlimax? Had she spent so much time being angry with him for making her pay a price that was so high for the favour he was bestowing on her that she had failed to recognise the very simple truth—which was that she was actually turned on by him? Against all odds? He was sexy beyond belief, and she was only human, after all. Not to mention the fact that her lack of experience hadn’t equipped her with the necessary weapons to withstand the onslaught of his blazing personality…

  Now he was writing her off as an ill-judged mistake. He was a predator who had sized up his prey and homed in for the kill only to realise that the prey in question wasn’t what he had had in mind after all. He was letting her go. She still had no idea what it was about her that had provoked him into giving her a second glance, but she did know that for Gabriel Diaz the sea was replete with fish. Lose one and there would be plenty others.

  ‘Perhaps we could…do something…?’ she suggested timidly. ‘I mean…I don’t suppose you made any plans for today…’

  �
��You want to do something?’ Gabriel raised his eyebrows disbelievingly. She was priceless. He had just dismissed her, having kindly pointed out her glaring limitations when it came to the role of mistress, and yet here she was, hesitantly asking if they could do something! ‘Do what?’

  ‘I’ve never really been to any of the sights in London…’

  ‘Hang on a minute. I’m the arrogant bastard who blackmailed you into a position you supposedly hated, and yet now that you’ve been released from that position, you want to hang around? Go sightseeing? You have no idea what you’re dealing with…’

  ‘What am I dealing with?’

  She couldn’t control a wicked shiver of anticipation. She had been raised with all her moral values in place, raised on Sunday school and thank-you notes and Girl Guides. She had been raised to fall in love with one of life’s good guys, get married, have babies and live in a cottage in the country. Gabriel Diaz was not a good guy. His values were all in the wrong places. He was unapologetically dangerous and he was warning her off him. She wasn’t just playing with fire…she was walking into an open flame.

  ‘I… It’s okay… I’ll get my stuff…’

  She stood up, but he caught her wrist before she could turn away. ‘I’ll take you sightseeing.’ Gabriel could feel the rapid beating of her pulse. This was not what he should be doing, but that hesitancy in her eyes, at war with the delicacy of her body and the innocence of her come-on, excited him. ‘But make no mistake. If you find yourself out of your depth the time for rescue rafts will be over.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to go to Madame Tussauds….’

  * * *

  At a little after six the perfect weather finally broke. They had had their fill of Madame Tussauds, but Lucy had barely taken anything in. All the time they had traipsed through the crowds she had been hyper-

  sensitive to the man next to her. She wondered what she was doing. She wasn’t a dangerous kind of girl. The first time she had met him she had been confused and intimidated by the directness of his approach and had ducked for cover. So what was going on now?

  She just knew that whenever she looked at him and saw the brooding intensity in his dark, fathomless eyes she couldn’t contain the thrill of excitement that threaded its way through her veins like a toxic drug.

  Apparently he had never taken a woman sightseeing before. But while she’d nervously chattered her way through the exhibitions, he’d drily provided historical detail to some of the wax figures. He seemed to know a vast amount of information. However successful he was when it came to making money, he was also obviously amazingly well read.

  She’d asked him why he didn’t enjoy just walking around London. He’d told her that it wasn’t his thing. Every time they’d touched on anything remotely personal he’d made sure to send her a guarded warning that she should be careful.

  Lucy’s brain refused to register any of those warnings. She heard his voice and something in her melted. It was almost as if, under threat, she had responded with anger at his arrogance in bargaining with her body, but with the threat removed something strange, weirdly exciting and entirely unexpected had been allowed to rise to the surface.

  After Madame Tussauds they’d had a very late lunch at a very expensive restaurant close to his house. She imagined that it was the sort of place he always took his women. Her jeans had not been remarked upon, but she knew that his wealth would allow him to go anywhere with anyone without question. He was someone to whom normal rules did not apply and he accepted that as his due.

  They were leaving the restaurant when the heavens opened and the rain bucketed down with such unexpected force that there was no time to find shelter.

  ‘How far are we from your house?’ Lucy had to shout over the clatter of the raindrops slamming against the pavement and the buildings.

  ‘Too far.’ He held up one hand to hail a taxi and she impulsively reached across to stop him.

  ‘It’s warm. It’s summer rain. We could make a dash for it….’

  ‘Not going to happen.’

  ‘Why? Is getting wet something you don’t do either?’

  Gabriel stared down into her green eyes. He hadn’t always been wealthy beyond most people’s wildest dreams. He hadn’t always been able to snap his fingers and see the world drop at his feet. He’d had an uncomfortable childhood, watching his mother get too fond of the bottle and then, later, before he was packed off to boarding school at the age of thirteen, hiding out in his bedroom, where the sounds of his father’s latest disintegrating marriage couldn’t be heard through headphones and loud music.

  He had witnessed firsthand the effects of a marital break-up. The constant house-moves because ex-wives needed accommodating. Possessions that were there one minute and gone the next. He had determined that he would live his life differently. For starters, no addiction to walking down the aisle with anyone. For another thing, no fluctuating finances. Total control would be his driving force. He had become inured to the things he had striven to avoid, thanks to his considerable wealth, but now Lucy was staring up at him with just a hint of laughter in her eyes.

  ‘You could always get your clothes dry-cleaned. Or you could get one of your lackeys to take them to the dry cleaner for you, if you don’t do trips to dry cleaners…’

  The rain continued to pour down on them. Gabriel conceded defeat. He nodded in the direction of his house. He had no intention of running, and he wished to God he had had the foresight to carry an umbrella with him, but still he got a kick watching her as she ran ahead of him, happily getting soaked to the skin.

  She was waiting in front of the house when he got there, hopping from one foot to the other. Her hair hung around her in wet blond strands, clinging to her neck and back and arms. There was a flash of lightning and a crack of sharp, sudden thunder and he unlocked the front door and pushed it open to let her precede him.

  She smelled of the rain. Even in London it was a clean, fresh smell that filled his nostrils like powerful incense.

  Lucy felt goosebumps on her arms as he shut the heavy door behind them, sealing off the noisy clamour of the rain, which now became a muted background sound. It was cooler inside than it had been outside. She turned to him to find his dark eyes fastened on her—but he broke the spell by walking away, telling her over his shoulder that she would have to get changed.

  Lucy felt wild and giddy, and her head was full to bursting with thoughts of Gabriel. He had no morals and was bitter beyond his years…he had an unshakeable belief that the only thing that mattered was money, that it was the currency for buying anything and anyone he wanted… He had tried to buy her and used the threat of prison for her father as leverage, and he had done it without a shadow of guilt or discomfort…. He was arrogant, and unapologetic about it….

  On the other hand there was an integrity in his not assuming a right to her body when he had discovered that she had never slept with a man before…and there was decency in the fact that he had not reneged on his promise to bail her father out even though he had failed to get the exchange he had anticipated. Although his moral codes left a lot to be desired, and his aims in life were far removed from hers, weren’t there extenuating circumstances? Hadn’t his background made him the man he was? He was emotionally cold, and would never engage fully with a woman…but there had been humour when he had filled in the gaps in her knowledge of history, a spellbinding intelligence, and weren’t those engaging qualities in themselves?

  As long-term partners went, winning the lottery was a surer bet—but who wanted a long-term partner…?

  And when had anyone ever made her feel like this in her life before?

  She knew that was the million-dollar question that had been nagging away at the back of her mind. When she stopped telling herself how ridiculous it was to be attracted to a man like him there was a space in her head that was immediately filled with the memory of him holding her in the bathroom, kissing her, running his hands underneath her T-shirt while her body throbbed
and vibrated like an engine revving to go.

  ‘Why are you still standing out here?’

  Lucy started and swivelled round to look at him. He was holding a mug of something hot and had removed his wet clothes. He was now in an old T-shirt and a pair of low-slung chinos and barefoot. There must be a laundry room nestled somewhere behind the kitchen, she thought, her heart beating fast.

  ‘I…I was just about to go and get changed. I don’t want to drip all over your expensive flooring…the rugs…I don’t want to ruin them…’

  ‘I think the expensive flooring and the soft furnishings will survive the experience,’ Gabriel said drily.

  She was looking at him the way a starving man might look at a banquet. Women looked at him. He was used to that. But he wasn’t used to women looking at him as though they would give anything in the world not to.

  Lucy’s gauche responses set alarm bells ringing in his head, but for once he was finding himself powerless to exercise the self-control on which he prided himself. Instead he was staring back at her—a long, lazy, assessing stare, his eyes roving with bold appreciation over the way her wet clothes were clinging to her body. He could see the definition of her bra underneath the T-shirt and he was overcome with craving—primitive, uncontrollable craving.

  ‘You can look at me all you want,’ Gabriel drawled, moving to lean idly against the doorframe, ‘but the second you touch all bets are off….’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’ve had your freedom card. There are no more where that came from. I can only do Mr Nice Guy for a limited period of time, and the window on that is now closed. So stare all you want, but if you want more then you’re going to have to play by my rules—and my rules don’t apply to anyone who’s looking for a safe harbour….’

  He turned on his heel and headed back to the kitchen, and Lucy was left to consider what he had said—and to try and work out where the girl who had left her village and her safe life had disappeared to.