‘It is one of the privileges money buys.’ Gabriel wondered how she would look in an apron, cooking for him, tending to his every need. Try as he did to turn the image into a purely sexual one, all he could picture was the leggy blonde in front of him sitting at a kitchen table, a beaten old pine kitchen table, listening to him talk about his day, soothing away his stress.
Good God!
‘Maybe we should leave the coffee for later,’ he muttered, turning away so that she couldn’t see any tell-tale darkening of his cheeks, I might as well show you around the rest of the house and, please...’ he slid his eyes over to where she was standing, looking at him with her head inclined ‘...feel free to speak your mind.’
‘Okay,’ Laura replied airily. ‘I will.’
Twenty minutes later and Gabriel was beginning to regret his open invitation. She had voiced her opinions on everything, from the colour of the walls to the choice of paintings hanging on them, from the design of the furniture to its level of comfort. In the sitting area she had bounced experimentally on the long pale blue sofa and pronounced it too firm.#p#分页标题#e#
‘It may look attractive,’ she had told him, sweeping imperious eyes over the sofa and chairs, which, from his vague recollections, had cost a small fortune, ‘but sofas should be squashy. If you would prefer something along these lines, then you’d better tell me now, so that I know what to order or, rather, which stores to send you to for you to decide.’
‘I cannot possibly make a decision like that on my own. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’
‘Now I’m supposed to see you as the Helpless Male?’ Laura had shot him a disbelieving, sceptical look. ‘You still haven’t answered my question. Firm or squashy?’
‘Squashy.’
‘Patterned or plain?’
‘What...’ he had almost fallen into the trap of telling her to choose anything she liked, but had caught himself in the nick of time ‘...would you suggest? You are the designer.’
‘Something warm and patterned,’ Laura had said. ‘Something with ethnic overtones, maybe in terracottas and greens.’
‘Fine.’
And every room had been subjected to the same critical eye. By the time they were heading up the stairs to the bedroom wing of the house, Gabriel was fast developing a keen sense of loathing for most of his furnishings.
After guest room number two, Laura stood in front of him, frowning, her hands on her hips.
‘I’m getting very mixed messages here, Gabriel,’ she informed him.
His reply was wary. He was being bombarded by mixed messages himself, none of which he welcomed. ‘What about?’ he asked, his eyes narrowing.
He breathed an inner sigh of relief when she said, looking around the pristine room, ‘I don’t dislike anything I’ve seen, but I would never have chosen this kind of decor myself. It’s very ...impressive and tasteful, but I find it all very cold and lacking in the comforts I associate with a home. But you’ve lived here for years and so you must like it. In which case, perhaps I’m not the best person to use for doing the inside of Oakridge House. Maybe you need someone professional.’
‘I have every confidence in you, querida.’ The endearment, combined with those dark, sexy eyes, did what they always did. Made her forget what she had been saying.
‘To choose stuff I would like, Gabriel, which, judging from what I’ve seen of your house here, you would absolutely hate. And let’s face it, Oakridge House is your house, not mine. I don’t want to finish my job only to discover that I haven’t done it to your liking.’
‘Why don’t you leave me to worry about that?’ He was beginning to hate those lines of demarcation that he had been so keen to establish only a few weeks ago. ‘And do not start rambling on about your duties as my employee,’ he continued repressively.
‘I can’t just overlook that little technicality,’ Laura said tightly. ‘You’re paying me a fabulous salary, rescuing me from penury and I want to repay you by doing a good job.’ God, it was so easy to get carried away on the wings of day-dreaming, and of reading signals that just weren’t there. Discussing domestic issues was a sure-fire way to forget exactly what their situation was, and Laura felt compelled to pull herself back from the brink of massive, dangerous self-deception.
‘Then as your employer,’ he mimicked with thinly veiled anger, ‘who is paying you a fabulous salary and rescuing you from penury, I order you to furnish the house precisely how you want to. Use your flair and imagination and I am happy to leave the outcome up to you.’ He turned away and began striding along the corridor, with its plush white carpeting and pale ochre walls.#p#分页标题#e#