CHAPTER THREE

PHILLIP should have been handling this. Phillip should have been the one showing Gabriel around the stables and the house, gabbling optimistically about how much of a turnaround could be achieved with the right injection of cash. Wasn’t that supposed to be a part of his job?

But Phillip was not going to be around. Away on business, he had apologised profusely. He had no idea why she was so intimidated at the thought of showing her prospective buyer the premises. It wasn’t as if he were a complete stranger. And, after all, she did work in an estate agency, even if showing people around properties did not actually constitute one of her duties. She would be absolutely fine, he had murmured soothingly.

But Laura didn’t feel fine. She had had precisely three days after that nerve-shredding meeting with Gabriel to realise that the last thing she felt about selling to him was fine.

The fact was she had not been able to get him out of her mind. In under half an hour, he would be driving up that long avenue towards the house, and she still didn’t feel prepared. Either physically or mentally.

She had carefully collated all the paperwork given to her by Phillip in connection with the accounts for the riding stables and laid them out neatly on the kitchen table. She had tidied the house in an attempt to make it appear less shabby, although the sharp spring sunlight filtering through the long windows threw the faded furnishings into unflattering focus. She had taken her time dressing, forsaking the security of working clothes for the comfort of trousers and a loose checked shirt. She had still found herself with one and a half hours to spare.

Now, she waited with a cup of coffee, her stomach churning with tension and then twisting into knots when she finally spotted a sleek black Jaguar cruising slowly towards the house.

Laura took a deep breath and reluctantly responded to the ring of the doorbell, pulling open the door once her face had been arranged into an expression of suitably detached politeness. She had spent so many hours reminding herself that, as far as Gabriel Greppi was concerned, she was an object of dislike that she had automatically assumed that her body would obediently follow the dictates of her head and not react when she saw him. She was wrong. Her eyes flickered over him as he stood in front of her, casually dressed in a pair of khaki trousers and a short-sleeved shirt that revealed the dark, muscular definition of his arms. A faint perspiration broke out over her body and she stood back, allowing him to brush past her and then stand in the hall so that he could slowly inspect it.

‘Did you…find the house okay?’ Laura asked nervously, closing the front door.

‘Why shouldn’t I have?’ The black eyes finished their leisurely tour of the hall and he looked at her with a cool expression.

‘No reason. I collected most of the paperwork from Phillip. It’s all in the kitchen, if you want to go and have a read.’

‘In due course,’ Gabriel drawled lazily. ‘Right now, I’d appreciate something to drink and then you can show me around.’

‘Of course.’ She walked ahead of him and he followed her into the kitchen, appreciating the view of her long legs and well-toned body. He had had three days to savour his plans for seduction. Three days during which even the demands of his beloved work had paled into the background. The more he had contemplated it, the more beautifully just it had all seemed. One rejection deserved another and he had been given the opportunity to achieve it. The wheel had turned full circle and he would reap the benefits of sweet vengeance. Despite the massive control he applied in his working life, he was innately a man of passion, and his response to the situation did not disconcert him in the slightest. Laura was unfinished business and he would finish it at last, once and for all.

‘What would you like to drink?’ she was asking him, watching as he skirted around the large central island in the middle of the kitchen and towards the French doors that led out onto the open fields at the back.

‘I assume there is some kind of structural report on the house amidst that stack of papers on the table,’ he said, turning around to look at her.

‘What kind of structural report?’ Laura stammered, frowning.

‘The kind that will tell me whether this house is in need of serious renovation, or whether its state of decay is confined to the superficial. You can appreciate that such information will necessarily reflect any price I might be willing to pay.’

‘The house isn’t falling down, Gabriel.’

‘How do you know? These old properties need a lot of attention and, from the looks of it, it has had less than zero.’

‘You’re determined to rub it in my face, aren’t you?’ she asked tightly, moving over to the table so that she could begin sifting through the inches of paperwork to see whether she could locate anything about the material state of the house. She raised her eyes to his resentfully. ‘You just can’t resist reminding me that you could make or break me, can you?’

‘Is that what I’m doing? I thought I was merely asking for information about the property.’ He looked at the bruised, hurt eyes and felt a sharp twinge of something he did not want to feel. ‘Leave it,’ he said abruptly, ‘it can wait. For now, I would very much like something to drink. Tea would be nice.’

‘You never used to like tea.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could think and colour slowly crawled into her face as she spun around and began fiddling with the kettle. God. Please. Don’t let the past sneak up and grab me by the throat. ‘How do you take it?’

‘Very strong with one sugar.’ Gabriel sat down at the table. That little stack of paperwork would just have to wait. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on any of it anyway. Not with her moving around in front of his roving eyes like that, reaching up to fetch mugs from the cupboard so that he could see a little pale slither of skin, as firm and as toned as if she were still the young girl of nineteen he had once completely possessed.

When she sat at the kitchen table, she made sure to take the chair furthest away from his, and gazed down at her fingers cradling the mug. The silence was excruciating. She could feel his eyes on her and she wondered what he was seeing. Certainly not the uninhibited young girl she had once been. Could he sense her fear? And if he did, would he know where it stemmed from? Would he guess that he terrified her because she was realising how much she still responded to him? Physically? As though the intervening years had never existed?

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