Hearing her voice was so unexpected that it took Gabriel a few seconds before he realised that he was talking to the woman who had plagued his thoughts the night before. He had missed a breakfast meeting because he had just not been able to get out of bed in time to make it to the Savoy and he had only just managed to get to his second scheduled meeting for the day, at an impressive smoked-glass building in Canary Wharf.
He abruptly halted his long stride through the offices of DuBarry, obliging the personal assistant who was leading him through to the boardroom to stop as well, and cupped the cell phone in the palm of his hand.
How dared she? How dared she telephone him, using his mobile phone number no less, when he was about to go into a very important meeting, after he had made it absolutely clear that he wanted nothing more to do with her? That she could take a running jump off the side of a very steep cliff! Had she no respect for a single word he had spoken?
‘What do you want?’ God, it was bloody good to hear her voice.
‘I hope I’m not interrupting anything.’
‘You are, as a matter of fact. Now get to the point, Laura.’ He made sure to invest his voice with supreme indifference, overlaid with just the right amount of irritation that would indicate a busy man who had no time for some insignificant ex-lover. He placed his hand over the receiver and whispered to the personal assistant, a ferociously competent-looking woman in her mid-fifties with disciplined hair and a face that would terrify the most hardened of men, that she would have to go ahead of him and explain that he was dealing with a very important call, and would be in as soon as possible.
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘You have my e-mail address. You will have to learn to make decisions without running to me every two seconds. I thought I had made it perfectly clear to you that you and I are finished and the less contact I have with you, the happier I will be. Now, if that is all…’
Laura gritted her teeth together and clenched her fist. ‘I want to see you and it’s not about the house.’
‘Oh, no? Then what do you want to talk to me about?’ He glanced at his watch and realised that he would have to get a move on if he was to complete this meeting in time for his next one. Still. Disgusted though he felt with himself, there was no way he could dismiss her. Just the sound of her voice was sending his system into overdrive.
‘I want to talk to you about us,’ Laura said bluntly.
‘I really have no time for this,’ Gabriel said dismissively. ‘I am very busy.’ The personal assistant reappeared and he glowered at her.
‘I don’t care how busy you are, Gabriel. I’m not prepared for things between us to end this way.’
‘You are not prepared?’
‘That’s right. I am not prepared and I shall just keep pestering you until you…meet me.’
‘Oh, very well. I will drive up to the house this afternoon. I should be there early evening, but I can warn you now that there will be no point to the meeting.’
Laura was shaking by the time she dropped the receiver back onto its handset. She didn’t dare start having doubts about what she had done now that she had done it, but she couldn’t help herself. They crept in like pernicious tentacles of ivy and sought to wrap themselves around the fragile little fragments of courage she had tried to instil within herself.
By the time the workmen were leaving the house, she had analysed and re-analysed every nuance of every expression she had ever seen cross his face, searching desperately for signs of hope that he might care about her. She could deal with his pride and his indifference, provided at least some of it was just a veneer, but what if his indifference really did run bone-deep? What if Anna had been utterly wrong?
Eventually, as Laura quickly changed into a pair of jeans and a fresh top she abandoned her pointless train of thoughts and told herself that, at the end of the day, she had no choice but to see him anyway. She was carrying his baby and there was no way she would want to keep him in ignorance of that fact, even if there was a chance that she could have. A father deserved every chance to know of the existence of his child, just as the child would deserve every chance to know of his or her father. Any other route was unthinkable.
She was peering through the side window when Gabriel’s car drew up and her heart clenched as he stepped out of the driver’s seat and glanced once around him. He had come straight from work. He was still in his suit, although the tie had been removed and the top two buttons of his white shirt were undone. She imagined him restlessly tugging it off as he drove up to the house.
Her courage of earlier on was disappearing at a rate of knots, and by the time she went to the door, where the doorbell was imperiously issuing its summons, it had completely vanished. She literally had no idea what to say as she pulled open the door and was confronted by the harsh, cold expression of two dangerously dark eyes staring at her.
‘Gabriel. Hi.’
‘You said that you wanted to talk, so here I am. It has been a long trip up through traffic and it will take at least an hour and a half to get back home, so shall we get this talk over and done with as soon as possible?’
Making it clear what his intentions were, Laura thought with plummeting self-confidence. He had come but he was not going to stay the night, whatever she had to say…
CHAPTER TEN
THE kitchen was one of the few rooms as yet untouched by the workforce and Gabriel followed Laura into it, keeping a telling distance and focusing on the bitter pill that he had been forced to swallow and that still stuck in his throat like a bone. What did she want to talk to him about? If she thought that she could wriggle back into his bed and his life, then she was way off target. God, how had he managed to get himself into this hole? The answer, he thought savagely, was quite simple: he had found a spade, dug it and jumped in whilst telling himself that he was totally in control.
His faraway plan to avenge himself for the insult delivered to him seven years previously could not have gone more disastrously wrong. Instead of using her ruthlessly so that he could eventually discard her in his own sweet time, he had caved in once again and the only means he had of extricating himself from the mess was to walk away from it as quickly as his long legs could carry him.
Even looking at her now, the way her body moved like a gazelle in front of him, mesmerised him.
His overriding urge was to close the distance between them, swing her around and make her his.
‘Have you eaten?’
She was looking at him, all wide brown eyes and appealing hesitation.
‘I am fine. Why don’t we just have a cup of coffee and you can tell me what was so important that you felt you had to drag me out here?’
God, but he wasn’t making this easy. Laura gritted her teeth together and thought of the little life growing steadily inside her. The thought of tossing that little fact his way made her want to faint.
‘Sure, but, if you don’t mind, I’ll just fix myself something to eat as well.’ She knew that he wasn’t even looking at her as she busied herself by the counter, making them both a cup of coffee and rustling together the vegetables she had previously chopped and prepared.
The opening remarks she made, about nothing in particular, were met with monosyllabic answers and a tone of disinterest.
This was the behaviour of a man who cared?
Eventually, she turned around, her plate in her hand, and sat facing him at the table.
‘So,’ Gabriel remarked, finally affording her his attention, ‘why don’t you just say what you have to say and get it over with, Laura? Instead of the both of us playing this game of polite strangers.’
‘Because we’re not, are we, Gabriel?’
The directness of her reply took him aback and he narrowed his eyes at her upturned face as she continued to look at him levelly across the table.
‘We’re lovers.’
‘Were lovers. You need to get the tense right.’
‘What changed, Gabriel? One minute we were o
n the brink of making love and the next minute you had turned into a raging bull and what we had was gone in a puff of smoke. Was it so meaningless to you?’
A dark flush spread over his high cheekbones. ‘If this is going to be a post mortem on a failed relationship, then you are wasting your time.’
‘Why? Because you think that I should meekly walk away and accept that I meant nothing to you?’
‘I dislike women who cannot face the end of a relationship.’ Gabriel shrugged with exaggerated indifference. ‘All good things come to an end.’ He had won, he thought. He had her in the palm of his hand. That had been his intention. So why was he feeling so damned hollow? Because he had fallen in love with her. Again. Her body was never going to be good enough and he knew that if he allowed her back in, she would wreak further devastation on his heart. But, God, he didn’t want to leave this house, this kitchen, her.
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why do all good things have to come to an end? Are you implying that the only relationship you will ever consider with a woman is one that isn’t good?’
‘Relationships are possible without all the trappings that society forces us to accept.’
‘By trappings you mean…what? Love? Marriage?’ The last thing she wanted was for this conversation to be reduced to the level of a hypothetical debate, but he just wasn’t going to give an inch. If she mentioned the word marriage, he would oblige her by talking about it as an institution, if she mentioned love, he would analyse the meaning of the word and then dismiss it. She shook her head in frustration and rested her forehead lightly on the palm of her hand.
‘Have you brought me here so that you can hear me tell you again that I have no intention of ever asking you to marry me?’ Gabriel’s mouth twisted cynically and she flinched, but held her ground.
‘I would never expect you to ask me to marry you, Gabriel,’ Laura returned softly.
‘Then what?’ he grated irritably. He was beginning to feel uncomfortably hot, and he ran one long brown finger inside the collar of his shirt.
Laura chose to ignore that pointed question. His voice might be callously dismissive and his eyes were as hard as ice, but he was uncomfortable. She could sense it and that gave her failing courage a bit of a boost. She loved this man and she was going to fight for him, and if it didn’t work out the way she hoped, then so be it. Better to fight and lose than to walk away and then spend the rest of her life regretting her passivity.
‘So if relationships and commitment and marriage isn’t about love, Gabriel, what is it all about?’
He shrugged and stood up. He had to. He had to move. The contained energy inside him was killing him.
He restlessly began to prowl through the kitchen, hands shoved aggressively into his pockets, whilst his dark eyes swept over the blonde figure sitting quietly on the chair.
What was she trying to say to him? That she couldn’t do without his body? That she was prepared to beg and plead just so that she could get her daily fix of sex? But if sex was what she was after, then why hadn’t she greeted him at the door in the clothes of seduction? Small, revealing and provocative?
‘Who knows?’ he answered ambiguously. ‘Maybe the best relationship is one based on business.’
‘I thought that that was precisely what we had,’ Laura replied drily.
‘Not quite the sort of business I had in mind,’ Gabriel said smoothly. ‘I meant business that involves a two-way profit.’ He picked up a small flowerpot resting on the counter, in which a clump of basil was struggling to grow, and inspected it in some detail before putting it down.
‘Gabriel, sit down. I can’t concentrate when you’re stalking through this kitchen like a cat burglar on the lookout for the family heirlooms.’
‘What is there to concentrate on?’ He felt a fierce tug of excitement and fought it tooth and nail.
‘I don’t want what we have to end,’ Laura began, drawing in a deep breath and watching as Gabriel pushed back his chair and proceeded to inspect her through half-closed eyes. ‘And before you open your mouth to speak, let me just finish.’
He could have told her that the last thing he was going to do was open his mouth. Behind the scowling façade, he was hanging onto her every word.
‘Seven years ago, you walked away and I let you. I let you because I was young and marriage was something that I had never, ever even contemplated. Maybe my parents had something to do with it, I don’t know. But I was a fool.’
‘Especially when you look at me now,’ Gabriel intoned grimly.
‘That has nothing to do with it,’ Laura told him impatiently. ‘I don’t care whether you made a million or not. What I care about is that you…came back. And I know why you came back…’ All of this was hard and it took every ounce of courage she possessed to lay every card on the table, but this part was the hardest. Acknowledging the cold, ugly truth that had brought him to her aid. She could feel a lump of self-pity gather at the back of her throat and she choked it down.
‘You came back,’ she continued in a whispered monotone, ‘because you wanted revenge and what better revenge than to have me in a position of indebtedness to you. The shoe was on the other foot, as far as you were concerned, and you could have the last laugh. But what matters to me is that you came back. I realised that I loved you then and I never stopped loving you.’ She glared at him, daring him to sneer at the admission that had drained her, but he didn’t. He looked lost for words.
‘You expect me to believe that? I heard you tell Anna just the opposite, querida.’ He didn’t dare give way, but his heart was soaring like a bird. He wanted to jump up, sing, wrap his arms around her, all at the same time.
‘When?’
‘When? What do you mean when? Yesterday, of course. When the two of you were having your cosy chat in my kitchen.’
‘I spoke to Anna this morning and told her everything. Well, almost everything.’ Laura sighed and ran her fingers through her hair. She was perspiring, as if she had run a marathon, and her hands were shaking. ‘I told her how I felt about you. I can’t change how you feel, whether you believe me or not, but…’ she met his eyes steadily, without blinking ‘…I love you, Gabriel Greppi, and I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if this all fizzled out and you never knew how I really felt. When I told Anna that I wasn’t involved with you, I was lying. It’s as simple as that. I had a moment of pride. I might have thought that you…would have recognised the passing weakness.’ She paused long enough for the silence to settle, and then said shakily, ‘Aren’t you going to say anything? Even if all you have to say is that you don’t believe a word I’m saying?’
‘I cannot ask you to marry me…I asked you once…’ A moment of pride! He had a lifetime of pride. He couldn’t ask her to marry him, not again, even though he believed every word she had just spoken. The truth of it was shining in her eyes. But his pride.
‘Is that all you have to say, Gabriel?’ Laura stood up. ‘Nothing else? You damned, stubborn…okay, you win. I’ve told you how I feel and if you have nothing to say, then you were right, it’s over.’ She had gambled everything. What price one more gamble?
His head shot up and he stood up as well, moving swiftly over to her.
‘I…’
‘Marry me.’ Laura looked at him with blazing challenge. ‘What we have is good, very good, and it’ll get better. Take a chance.’
‘You’re asking me to marry you?’ His face darkened and he dropped his head.
‘That’s right. Marry me.’
‘Or else what?’
‘Or else you’ll regret giving up the greatest love you will ever know.’ She tentatively placed her hand on the side of his face and caressed his skin.
‘No,’ he murmured hoarsely.
So this was it. She had taken the gamble and lost.
‘Right,’ Laura said hollowly.
‘I mean, no, I would not just regret giving up the greatest love I will ever know…I would re
gret a great deal more than that…’ He tilted her chin so that she was looking at him and what she read on his face, the tenderness and love, made the breath catch in her throat. ‘I lost the only thing worth having the day I walked out of your life, my darling.’ He buried his head into her neck and then, when he had gathered his self-control, that priceless commodity that had been in very short supply ever since he had gone barging back into her life, he raised his head once again to catch her eyes with his.
‘I came back, yes, for the lowest of reasons. I thought I was over you and that I was simply closing a chapter. God help me, I saw myself as the all-powerful one who had returned to settle old scores. But the fact is, there were no scores to settle. I should never have let my pride kill our relationship then. I should have listened to what you were saying because every word you said was right. We were both young. We could have waited a little longer, grown to know each other better, but I was having none of it. When I think that this cursed pride of mine would have caused my own destruction a second time, my blood runs cold.’
‘You love me,’ Laura said with a wondering smile.
‘I adore you. When you called me on my mobile this morning and told me that you wanted to see me, to talk, I couldn’t wait for my meetings to be over. I couldn’t wait to be in your presence again because it’s only when you are around that I feel alive.’
‘And you’ll marry me?’
‘You don’t intend to let me wriggle away again, do you, querida?’ This time he gave a low, velvety chuckle that made her go to liquid inside.
‘That’s certainly one of the reasons.’
‘One of the reasons?’
‘Would you mind if we sat down? I feel as if my legs are going to buckle from under me.’
Thank goodness the kitchen stools were generously built. Big enough for Gabriel to comfortably sit with Laura on his lap. She rested her head on his shoulder and realised, suddenly, that the full extent of his love was about to take a serious knock. Marriage, passion and a three-year honeymoon spelled a different story from marriage, a swelling stomach and midnight feeds.
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