The Millionaire's Revenge(34)

‘You didn’t think ...no, surely not!’ Gabriel leaned closer to her. ‘I am shocked!’

He didn’t look shocked. In fact, he looked remarkably pleased with himself. Without too much effort, Laura could quite easily have hit him over the head with some­thing very hard. Instead, she composed herself and stared at him haughtily. The man was playing games with her, which was bad enough. Worse, though, was the fact that, instead of her feeling insulted and outraged, the wicked glitter in those black eyes was shooting to the very heart of her, making her skin burn.

‘Men do have affairs with women who work with them. Or for them. It’s not unheard of.’

‘Ah, you do not give me sufficient credit.’ He sat back and continued staring at her as a waitress approached their table and took their orders of lasagna, which was the first thing that came to Laura’s head and Gabriel, without glancing at the menu, fell in line. All the better, she thought sourly, to get rid of the waitress so that he could continue his little pretence of nursing wounded feelings.#p#分页标题#e#

‘I have always made it a policy of mine never to get sexually involved with a member of staff,’ he said piously. ‘It can lead to all sorts of complications.’ He hoped she wouldn’t remember that when she was lying, spent and fulfilled, in his arms.

‘There’s no need to explain yourself to me,’ Laura mumbled ungraciously.

‘Anna and I have always been close. When she came to England to study and qualified as a chartered surveyor, I was delighted to be able to offer her a job with the com­pany. In fact,’ he said confidentially, I am godfather to her little boy.’

‘Lovely,’ Laura said.

There was a fractional silence, during which she was tensely aware of him looking at her whilst she gazed own in apparent fascination at the tips of her fingers rest­ing on the table.

‘You weren’t...’ he allowed the pause to drag on until she reluctantly raised her eyes to his ‘...jealous, were you?’

‘Of course I wasn’t jealous!’ Laura scoffed. ‘Why on earth should I be?’

Gabriel spread his hands in a flamboyantly Latin American gesture of bafflement.

‘I don’t have any claims over you, Gabriel, any more than you have over me. Yes, we were involved a long time ago. And yes, we’re involved now, but in a completely different way. This time, it’s all about business. You’re now my paymaster.’

He didn’t like that. Not one little bit. She could see it in the immediate narrowing of his eyes, ‘I do not care for that term paymaster.’ Laura shrugged, it’s the truth. You now are the lord and master of what used to be my home and you are per­fectly entitled to bring anyone there you want to. You could bring an entire harem of women!’

She could feel him positively fulminating as they ate their lunch in virtual silence.

This was not how Gabriel had envisaged their conver­sation going. With every short, blunt, factual observation she had managed to distance herself from him in a way nothing he could say would have succeeded in doing. Now, as he broodingly cast his eyes on her face, down-turned as she half-heartedly toyed with some food at the end of her fork, as if debating whether or not she should eat any more, he could sense her getting more and more remote.

She was drawing lines between them and he knew that, once those lines were drawn, she would set them in ce­ment. And, God, he didn’t want her behind any lines. He couldn’t understand it, but the threat of her remoteness was wreaking havoc with his composure.

He pushed aside his half-finished oval plate of food and sat back in the chair, watching her as she made sure not to look at him.

‘Is it not ironic that we are doing now what we should have done all those years ago?’ he asked softly, and she raised startled eyes to his.

‘What’s that?’

‘Sharing a meal.’

‘I told you, circumstances have changed.’ She went back to her labours with the food whilst inside her giddy little leaps were taking place.

‘You asked me before how it was that I had never mar­ried. Let me ask you now, how is it that you never mar­ried?’

Laura shrugged.

‘What does that...’ he imitated her shrug ‘...mean?’

‘It means that the opportunity never arose.’ She couldn’t stomach another mouthful. ‘What would you like me to begin with first, Gabriel? I mean, should I concentrate on fixing up meetings with people to try and regain business, or should I start working on the land to bring it up to scratch? You need to give me my list of duties so that I can—’