‘Oh, you were. Curves in all the right places ...breasts a man could fill his hands with.’ His voice was low and lazy and at the mention of her breasts he openly looked down at hers before flicking his dark eyes back to her flushed face. ‘Your breasts at any rate are still as wonderfully bountiful as they used to be...’
‘This is a ridiculous conversation,’ Laura choked hotly. ‘We were supposed to be discussing business.’
‘We were. Now I thought we might move on to more general conversation.’
‘If your idea of general conversation is discussing my figure, then ...then...’
‘Then...?’
‘Then you’re wasting your time because I’m not going to join in!’
‘Perhaps it was a little rude of me, but really, you need to take care of yourself. I don’t want you collapsing on me when you need to have all the strength at your disposal to deal with the work ahead.’
‘Have you got some sort of ...plan ...or timetable?’ Laura grasped the opportunity to steer the conversation away from the dangerously personal observations he had just thrown at her. She was mortified to discover that, unwittingly, he had stirred something inside her that had had her melting, thinking thoughts best kept hidden.
‘You’re the one in the know when it comes to horses. What do you suggest?’ She was making a big effort to calm down. The blushing hue of her cheeks was subsiding and her normal colour was returning, but she still couldn’t quite meet his eyes. Gabriel watched it all and he realised that at least part of his pleasure, if not all of it, was derived from the knowledge that he was getting under her skin. He also realised that he wanted badly to get under her skin, that his purely male response to her went beyond any desire for revenge. He wanted to taste the sweetness of that full mouth once again. That brief moment of passion three days earlier had only served to tease his appetite and to remind him of how intensely satisfying the act of making love had been with her.
He dragged his mind back to what she was saying and realised that he had been staring at her with an utterly blank expression when she tilted her head to one side and frowned.#p#分页标题#e#
‘Are you listening to me?’
‘Oh. Yes. Of course. You were saying...?’ Was he so bored that he couldn’t even keep his mind focused on what she had just spent five minutes rattling on about? Laura wondered.
‘I was saying that I can get in touch with all our old suppliers and hopefully convince them that they can resume doing business with us again. But before then, I would have to begin the process of wooing old clients back. Some of them will have gone for good, but I personally know a few who were truly sad about ...about the way things turned out and privately told me that if ever the business picked back up, they would return their horses. God, Gabriel ...it’s such a huge job. I just don’t know...’
Her eyes clouded over and he found that he didn’t like that. He almost preferred the resentment to the sadness. Not, he reminded himself grimly, that the disintegration of the stables had anything to do with him, but he felt a sudden rage for the old fool who had done this to his daughter.
‘You can do it,’ he said gently. ‘If anyone can do it, you can. I have utmost faith in you, Laura.’
‘But I have no real idea where to start. There’s so much...’ She chewed her lip, fighting back the overwhelming urge to burst into tears. His anger she could handle. She didn’t like it but, in a funny way, she understood it. His gentleness she found much more disconcerting, as she found her own sudden temptation to lean on him, get strength from him, let him hold her and soothe her problems away.
I must be mad, she thought shakily. He declared himself the enemy and made no bones about it. How on earth can I be thinking of leaning on him? She shook her head to clear it and raised her eyes to his.
‘I can’t do a thing, anyway, without ...without finance.’
‘It will be taken care of,’ Gabriel informed her, calling for the bill and removing one of several platinum credit cards from his wallet to pay. He glanced at his watch. ‘We just about have time for you to pay a visit to your office and then we will head to the house.’ Back to the business in hand. For a second there he had felt a compelling need to gather the wretch up in his arms and kiss her troubled expression away. Lessons, he reminded himself harshly, are never learnt by forgetting the past.
‘And don’t forget,’ Gabriel informed her as he pulled up just a few metres down from the estate agency, ‘there is no time for any lingering farewells. I will give you five minutes.’