some drawings of the rare plants and flowers for a compendium the centre was putting together….’
Gabriel made a non-committal sound that was neither encouraging nor discouraging. Frankly he couldn’t care less about whatever drawings she had been commissioned to do, but he was enjoying the genuine enthusiasm on her face. He toyed with the pleasant thought that he might be able to generate that same enthusiasm. Once more he was subjected to a wildly pressing urge to release her hair so that he could tangle his fingers in its rippling length.
Any woman in possession of looks like hers should not have been caught dead in a pair of faded jeans and a T-shirt—least of all in his presence. He had expressed disgust that she might come to him with a view to using her body to get what she wanted without even bothering to dress for the occasion, but now he realised that he would have been disappointed had she done so.
Hadn’t he had his fill of Barbie dolls? Wasn’t he sick to his back teeth of women who were perfectly manicured, perfectly groomed and perfectly dressed in the most expensive and revealing clothes that money could buy?
Lucy was disconcerted by that lazy appraisal in his roving dark eyes. It made her feel uncomfortable. She suppressed the crazy notion that buried beneath her discomfort a slow swirl of excitement was eddying in her veins, making her breasts tingle and sending a shooting, melting warmth between her legs.
She pressed her legs firmly together and leaned forward, gripping the soft leather of the chair. ‘What I’m trying to say,’ she said quickly, because he struck her as a man who lost interest fast and she needed to grab his attention before that happened, ‘is that I get paid well for my art work. I’ve been putting money aside for the past couple of years. I’ve been trying to save so that I can afford to buy the little cottage I rent at the moment. Mrs Hardy, who owns it, says that she’ll continue renting it to me until I can afford to put down a deposit and get a mortgage from the bank….’
‘Where are you going with this?’
‘Right. Well…would you be amenable to me paying you back the money that Dad…er… borrowed from your company? You can take all the money I’ve saved. It’s a little over four thousand pounds. And I’m willing and happy to give you everything I earn. I mean, I’d have to keep a little aside for bills and food, but you could have the rest….’
‘First, your father didn’t borrow the money. Second, I’m afraid your savings and some of your monthly earnings wouldn’t begin to put a dent in his debt. Frankly, you’d be paying me until the day you died and beyond. So you can scrap that suggestion straight away.’
‘In other words there’s no point to me being here at all, is there?’
Lucy watched her bright idea disappear over the horizon, taking with it all hope that she might appeal to Gabriel’s better side. It was clear that he didn’t have one of those. Not only that, but he was deriving great enjoyment from watching her squirm. Perhaps this was his way of exacting revenge for having been turned down by her two years ago. A man like Gabriel Diaz, blessed with drop-dead good looks and the trappings of wealth, would not be used to any woman turning him down. She was now paying the high price for being one of that rare breed of woman who had.
‘Call me crazy—because anyone else in my situation would have thrown you out on your ear the second you walked into this office and opened your mouth—but you might have a way out of this….’
‘Really?’ Hope flared and she looked at him with nervous, wary anticipation.
Gabriel noted that she had amazing eyes. They were a peculiar shade of green—deep green, the colour of the sea in certain lights.
‘Really. But before I get to what I have in mind let me ask you this: what happened to the boyfriend?’
‘Sorry?’ Lucy frowned, at a loss to understand where this reference to a boyfriend had come from. She didn’t have a boyfriend.
‘The boyfriend,’ Gabriel said impatiently. ‘The one you told me you had when you sent me your Dear John text.’
‘I really offended you back then, didn’t I?’
Gabriel laughed with caustic amusement. ‘Offended me?’
‘I—I didn’t mean to…’ Lucy continued in an anxious stammer. ‘I’m not used to…’
‘Spare me the involved explanation. Just tell me the fate of the boyfriend.’
Lucy had no idea what this had to do with the matter in hand. She had to cast her mind back even to remember that small white lie. At the time the presence of a man in her life had seemed the only way of wriggling out of the situation. Gabriel Diaz had oozed sex, and there was no way she would have accepted his proposition. He had also oozed persistence. Added together, she had felt it perfectly acceptable to produce a fictitious other half, and afterwards she’d been very glad she had done so—because a quick trip on the internet had shown her what she had already suspected. Gabriel Diaz was a player—a man who, from everything she had read, worked his way through women without conscience. There were pictures of him with various beauties, none of whom had stayed the course of time.
‘He…ah… it didn’t work out,’ Lucy mumbled, dropping her gaze and staring with furious concentration at the tips of her very unflattering black pumps.
‘No? What went wrong?’
‘I don’t really want to talk about it,’ she muttered, licking her lips and frantically trying to imagine what the fate of this made up guy might have been. One tiny and necessary white lie was one thing. A series of follow-on lies was not going to do. But his continuing silence was already telling her that she was expected to expand. And yet, she thought with a rare spark of defiance, why should she? He had been horrible to her. Arrogant, sneering and dismissive. Why should she tell him anything she didn’t want to?
But that sliver of hope he had dangled in front of her was an effective gag on her rebellious thoughts. If nothing else she owed it to her parents to take advantage of any crumb of mercy he was prepared to throw her way. Perhaps he could arrange for her father to be let go, but for his reputation to remain intact and any prison sentence to be waived. That would certainly be a worthwhile result. Her parents played an active part in the community. It would be hard if her father’s situation were to become public knowledge. Fortunately the two men who had uncovered the problem were both Londoners and would not be hanging around.
‘He…um… broke up with me,’ Lucy imparted reluctantly. ‘And then, shortly afterwards, he went away. To…to New Zealand… To live with the woman he dumped me for…’ This seemed the best way to ensure that her fictitious boyfriend was well and truly out of the way. ‘But I still don’t understand what this has to do with anything….’
‘A boyfriend on the scene would have been a nuisance when it comes to what I have in mind….’ Gabriel didn’t do women with husbands, and he didn’t do women who had boyfriends either. Why would he? The world was full of beautiful, single, willing women. Why go to the trouble of courting someone who came with baggage?
‘And what do you have in mind?’
‘You. I have you in mind.’ Gabriel watched with wonderment a face that expressed absolutely no comprehension of what he was getting at.
She was literally at a loss. Any other woman would have followed the thread of this conversation, and certainly by now would have got the message loud and clear. This woman was staring at him with a frown, as though he had produced a complicated maths problem from under a hat and demanded she provide a solution immediately.
‘May I do something?’ he asked with silken assurance, and then, just in case she was still away with the fairies and not getting where he was going, he strolled behind her. Before she could react he was pulling free her hair, releasing it from its constricting braid.
Lucy swivelled round and stood up, faltering backwards until she bumped into the edge of his desk.
‘What