The Millionaire's Revenge(15)
‘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.’#p#分页标题#e#
‘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, lea 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 he 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?
‘When did your father ...leave to return to Argentina?’ she asked in a stilted voice, simply to break the silence.
‘A year after I completed my university course.’ Gabriel stood up and Laura jumpily followed his movements with her eyes as he prowled through the kitchen, like a restless tiger moving as a way of expending its immense energy. ‘He did not manage to find a satisfactory post to fill the one he had lost and he returned to be with the rest of his family. I went on to work at a trading house and discovered that I possessed a talent for working the stock market. A quite considerable talent. I was rewarded with the financial backup to start my own business.’ He sipped some of his tea and directed a cutting smile at her. ‘While your fortunes were falling, mine were on the rise. Is life not full of little ironies? But, I forgot, you would rather I did not mention my successes, which you can only view as a measure of your own failures. Or rather, those of your family.’
‘That’s not true. I’m very pleased for you.’
‘Pleased because I am now in the position to rescue you from your financial mess?’
‘Stop it, Gabriel!’ She stood up and moved towards him, bristling with anger. ‘You talk about discussing things like two civilised adults but that’s the last thing you’re interested in doing, isn’t it? You haven’t even glanced at all those papers on the table!’
‘I told you. I’ll look at them in due course. Not that it makes an appreciable difference. I know the state of your finances, Laura. You owe everyone money. I am stunned that the place continued to exist for as long as it has. But then, your father must have benefited from the fact that he was on personal terms with his bank manager, not to mention all his suppliers.’ He sipped his tea and looked at her flushed face over the rim of his mug. ‘What would you do if I decided not to buy?’ he asked.#p#分页标题#e#