The Millionaire's Revenge(22)

‘What time will you be back, Laura?’ Hugo pointedly turned his back to Gabriel, a gesture that did not appear to disconcert Gabriel in the slightest. Hugo placed his hand on her arm with a look of concern on his face and over his shoulder Laura met Gabriel’s stony expression with bland disregard.

If he thought that he could purchase her with the property, then he was wrong, and he was doubly wrong if he thought that he could control who touched her and who didn’t. He might be pulling her out of a quagmire not of her making, but that didn’t make him her saviour. Just the opposite, she thought, and a cold shudder of apprehension trickled down her spine.

‘she’ll be back when she’s back and only to collect her things Gabriel announced shortly, moving around so that he was standing beside them both.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You heard me, Laura. I am taking you out to lunch to discuss my decision and you will not be returning to this job here.’

‘Don’t be ridiculuos.’ The door clanged open and a cou­ple walked inside holding hands and looking bright-eyed and optimistic. First-time buyers. Hugo, torn between sort­ing out the dramatic situation unfolding before him and seeing to the young couple, who were shortly followed by an elderly man and his wife, reluctantly left them alone.#p#分页标题#e#

‘I am not being ridiculous,’ Gabriel informed her with no effort to lower his voice.

‘Shh! Gabriel,’ she hissed, I can’t just walk out of here and never return.’

‘You will return. I told you—to collect your things.’

‘Will you keep the volume down?’

Gabriel felt his lips twitch as he took in her flustered face. ‘You never did like scenes,’ he mocked. ‘And, no, I will not keep my voice down, so, in order to avoid one, I suggest you do as I say.’

And with Hugo now glaring at her whilst trying to pla­cate his prospective buyers that the dark, handsome man with the arrogant tilt of his head did not actually work for him, Laura resigned herself to grabbing her bag from the chair and stalking out of the office, ahead of him.

‘How dare you?’ She turned on him the minute they were outside, hands on her hips and her body thrust for­ward in a stance of pure aggression.

‘How dare I come up here with the glad tidings that I am going to buy your riding stables? I thought you would have been overjoyed to see me.’ He had thought nothing of the sort. He had known precisely what her reaction would have been to look up and see him standing there in her cosy little workplace. But he had discovered that he’d wanted to see where she worked. Another piece of the jigsaw that was slowly coming together to form the com­plete picture.

‘You know what I mean, Gabriel!’

‘Where do you want to go for lunch? I will rely on you to suggest somewhere quiet where we can have a talk ...about business.’

‘I’m not hungry!’

‘Well, I am. So humour me.’ With that he began striding along the high street, attracting stares from most of the women who walked past him, bar those too old or too young to notice.

Laura half ran until she caught up with him. Tall she might be, but her strides were no match for his, especially in her slightly heeled court shoes, which she was not ac­customed to wearing.

‘What about this place?’ He stopped in front of a spa­cious wine bar that advertised its specials of the day with a blackboard on the pavement.

‘You can’t make me give up my job, Gabriel!’

He ignored her and she wanted to literally scream with frustration. If this was his primitive, caveman way of get­ting his own back on her after seven years, by controlling every aspect of her life, then he was doing a very good job of it, she thought furiously.

‘We’ll talk inside,’ he informed her, glancing back at her Hushed face over his shoulder as he stood aside to allow her to walk past him into the wine bar.

Laura maintained a simmering silence as they were shown to a table towards the back of the wine bar and handed two oversized menus, which she barely glanced at.

‘Is it all right for me to talk now?’ she asked sarcasti­cally, leaning forward so that her breasts rested against the surface of the table and her straight, impossibly fair hair swung around her face.

‘Must so long as you don’t raise your voice. We wouldn’t want to create a scene.’ He glanced across at a waitress, who almost tripped over her feet in her haste to get to their table and take their I drink order. Champagne . To celebrate. To which Laura automatically replied that she never drank alcohol at lunchtime since it made her feel sleepy.