The Millionaire's Revenge(56)
‘I could wait and perhaps, Anna, you could give me a lift to the nearest station when you’re leaving?’
‘She will do no such thing. She is leaving right now and you will stay as planned.’
‘Gabriel, let her go.’#p#分页标题#e#
‘Goodbye, Anna. You know where the front door is. Feel free to use it. You can telephone me in the morning to discuss whatever business you wanted to discuss.’ He didn’t even bother glancing at his cousin when he said this. He just continued pinning Laura with his eyes into frozen immobility.
She felt rather than saw the other woman reluctantly leave the kitchen, but, instead of feeling relieved that at least one member in the cast of this awful, unfolding drama was out of the way, she was overcome with sudden, wild tension that made her legs shake, and she collapsed back onto the kitchen chair.
‘You look nervous,’ Gabriel said into the tautly stretching silence and he forced himself to offer her a mimicry of a smile, I have no idea why. You surely must have known all along that what we had was not going to go anywhere.’
‘Of course I knew that, Gabriel.’
‘So why do you look so shell-shocked? Nothing my cousin said should have disturbed you.’ He hated himself for his reluctance to let her go. With controlled calmness, he walked across to a cupboard, extracted a bottle and proceeded to help himself to a generous serving of whisky, to which he added a couple of blocks of ice, but nothing else. He needed it. In fact, he had never needed a drink as much as he now needed this one. The stark realisation of how he felt about the woman sitting in muted silence only feet away from him had struck him where he hurt most.
At the very core of his masculine pride and at the heart of his formidable self-control.
‘And don’t think that you can start bleating on about being used.’ He swigged back a mouthful of the drink. ‘You threw yourself willingly at me.’
‘I wasn’t about to start bleating on about anything.’
‘Then why the strained expression? I told you myself once that you meant nothing to me.’ Just saying it made him feel a bastard but, in some crazy way, punishing her was to punish himself and it was something he was compelled to do.
‘I know, but...’
He felt a flare of treacherous hope and squashed it ruthlessly. ‘But you thought that you could change my mind? Is that it?’ he taunted. ‘Did you imagine that I would get so enraptured with your warm, available body that I would begin to hear the distant sound of wedding bells?’
‘You sound as if you hate me, Gabriel,’ Laura whispered. ‘How could you have made love to me if you had hated me?’
‘You flatter yourself. Hate is a big emotion.’ He gave an expressive shrug of his big shoulders. ‘We had an arrangement by mutual consent in which emotion did not play a part.’
‘I think it’s time I left.’ She hoped that she would find the control of her legs that she needed and was relieved when they did not sink from under her as she rose to her feet and walked woodenly towards the kitchen door, skirting around so that she did not come within touching distance of him. ‘I’ll walk to the station if you’re not prepared to drop me. Or I can get a taxi. Would you mind if I use your phone?’
‘I take it that you do not wish to continue our love-making, which was so rudely interrupted an hour ago?’
Gabriel felt that his heart were being physically wrenched out of his chest.
‘I think it’s best if we stick to what we should have stuck to from the start,’ Laura said, pausing to look at him, loving every ounce of the proud, cruel man standing across the kitchen from her. ‘Business. If, that is, you still want me to work for you at the stables.’
‘Why should that have changed?’ He deposited his glass on the counter and then leaned against it, propping himself up by his hands. ‘Of course, it might be a little awkward, in view of our new-found business-only relationship, if I were to carry on working at the house, so I will have my things collected some time tomorrow.’#p#分页标题#e#
He was letting her go without a backward glance, Laura thought in anguish, and, amidst all her emotions, at least surprise wasn’t one of them. He had never lied to her. She was the one who had been guilty of lying to herself.
‘And I shall drop you to the station myself. Never let it be said that I am not the perfect...’ his mouth twisted cynically ‘...gentleman.’
The short ten-minute drive to the station was completed in total silence and he stopped the car only to allow her time to get out, not even killing the engine to imply that he might stick around if even to see that she got safely on a train back to the house.