Her glibly spoken answer hit him like a hammer in his gut but he forced himself to nod curtly in agreement.
‘How much further do we have to go?’ Laura asked as his taut silence thickened around them. In the blink of an eye the light-hearted banter between them had evaporated and she knew, once again, how fragile it really was, how easily it was obliterated by one wrong word or one dangerous sentence. ‘Tell me about your house. How long have you been living there?’
Gabriel expelled his breath and shook his head slightly. ‘What can I say about my house? I bought it five years ago when the property market had slumped. I thought it would prove to be a worthwhile financial investment, and I was right. It has ...eight bedrooms and I lose count of the reception rooms. A lot.’
‘And you entertain quite a bit? I can’t imagine you entertaining. You would frighten all your guests.’ She saw his shoulders relax and a small smile replace the hard expression on his face. Ridiculously, she felt a spurt of pleasure that she could manage to shift his mood. He surely couldn’t be that emotionally cold towards her if he could respond to her in that way, could he? Could he?
‘Should I take that as a compliment?’ he asked, flicking her a glance.
‘Depends. Do you want to be thought of as scary?’
‘Sometimes it helps in business,’ Gabriel told her truthfully. ‘Especially when you are an outsider. No matter that I have lived here for years. I am an Argentinean and you, of all people, should know how strong the old-school tie can be.’ But there was no bitterness or resentment in his voice when he said this.
‘I can’t imagine that anyone would let old-school ties stop them from dealing with you, Gabriel, and you know it. You’re way too charismatic to be ignored.’
‘Now that I do take as a compliment. Although...’ he lingered musingly before continuing ‘...you seem to be doing a rather good job of ignoring me at the moment.’
‘Really. And what should I be doing?’
‘My thigh feels a little stiff at the moment.’ This was better. He was discovering that when it came to the physical, he was supremely in control, but whenever the emotional started creeping in, which it seemed to do a little too often for his liking, then his control disappeared like a puff of smoke. ‘Must be all the driving,’ he said helpfully. ‘Perhaps you could massage it just a little...?’
‘Isn’t that a little dangerous when you’re at the steering wheel?’ Laura asked innocently and Gabriel grinned, back in the driver’s seat in more ways than one.
‘Perhaps you’re right.’ Just as well that there was a convenient turning less than five minutes later, and, because they had avoided the motorway, it was simplicity itself to go down sufficient winding turns to leave all signs of traffic behind.#p#分页标题#e#
‘I know what you said about being too old and too tall,’ Gabriel drawled, killing the engine and relaxing back against his car door so that he could look at her with lazy thoroughness, ‘but I couldn’t resist the temptation to discover whether you were right...’
A little over an hour later, Laura found out that she was neither ...and nor was he.
When, she thought to herself as they approached the roundabouts and traffic lights that were the hallmark of suburbia, would she be able to look at this man and resist him? When would she be able to hear his voice, redolent with its soft, sexy come-on, and not feel every bone in her body melt?
More disturbingly, what was going to happen to her when he got sick of revisiting old territory and vanished, leaving her behind to pick up the pieces and start again? It seemed that they were living in a vacuum, where sex was the integral force, but whilst she was spinning away into the fantasy realms of love, he was merely enjoying her for a short while, enjoying the thought of controlling the woman who had turned him down. He wasn’t spinning away anywhere.
She was barely aware of the change in the scenery. From passing estates to more open land where houses lay un-glimpsed down avenues leading away from the main road.
His car turned down one of these imposing avenues and Laura blinked with a start to the view of a sprawling, ranch-style mansion, which loomed imposingly ahead of them.
‘Your house?’ She gaped incredulously and Gabriel half smiled.
‘My house,’ he agreed, slowing the car to park to one side of the drive. ‘Like it?’
‘It’s very ...impressive,’ Laura said with resounding understatement. ‘Very ...big. Well, huge, really.’