by the conviction that in the space of a few minutes his life had swung in a totally new direction.
He had felt that kind of internal shift before, the night his father had died. That night had been marked by grief and grim resolve. The way he presently felt was the exact opposite. The calm deliberation that had become his hallmark had utterly deserted him and in its place was a humming, restless energy.
A cliché or not, he knew the exact moment the change had taken place: when he had seen Gemma across the width of the crowded reception room.
Stepping inside, he swung the heavy door, with its medieval double thickness of timbers designed to stop both arrows and spears, closed behind him. The sound of the lock reengaging echoed.
Gemma, who was already at the far end of the circular room that opened out at one end into a large barnlike lounge, was busy checking out the impressive view across the sea. She swung around, her expression professionally brisk. Gabriel couldn’t help thinking that it was a look he had gotten used to seeing from his own very efficient PA.
“If it was anyone else, I might suspect your motives in locking the door.”
“I’ll take that as a compliment.” Although Gabriel’s sense of irritation increased that, evidently, even Gemma didn’t think he was capable of doing anything either remotely edgy or borderline. Strolling to the wine counter, he poured some of the water, which was still sitting there from his afternoon session with Constantine, into two clean glasses. “What makes you so sure I don’t have motives?”
Gemma gave him a preoccupied look, as if her attention had just switched to something else. “It’s been six years since we last met. I seem to remember you saying that we had very little in common, so I don’t see how that’s changed.”
“We did have one thing in common.”
She checked her watch, although her cheeks had taken on a pink tinge, so she wasn’t entirely oblivious to their exchange. “I don’t think sex counts.”
It did in his world. “So any motives on my part other than chivalry are doubtful?”
Her blush deepened. “It’s been six years. You never called. I think that about settles it.”
Gabriel frowned. Thinking about what Gemma might have needed from him was not an aspect he had dwelled on, because he’d been so absorbed with fixing the scandal that had erupted after his father’s death. But he was thinking about it now. “Did you want me to call?”
Her gaze locked with his for an electrifying moment. “I slept with you. That was not something I did lightly. Of course I wanted you to call.”
Blinking, as if she couldn’t quite believe that she had said the words, Gemma set the bag, which she was still keeping annoyingly close, down beside one of two leather chairs grouped around a coffee table.
“I thought about calling.” And a couple of times it had been more than that. He had actually picked up the phone and started pressing numbers before he had come to his senses.
She sent him a level look. “It wasn’t a problem. I understood why you couldn’t afford to be involved with me. Banks and scandal don’t really go together.”
Gemma began investigating the racks of wine lining the walls as if she were riveted by his wine collection. Gabriel suppressed a surge of frustration. It was not the response he’d hoped for.
She pulled out a bottle of a rare French vintage worth a staggering amount of money. “I know for a fact that if anything about you appears in the papers, it’s always in the financial, not the social pages.”
Suddenly intensely irritated at the way Gemma insisted on reinforcing his image as a staid, boring banker, Gabriel drained his water and set the glass down on the counter with a click. “I didn’t know you were interested in the financial pages.”
She gave the label of the award-winning burgundy a distracted look and slipped the bottle back onto the rack. “When I’m stuck on a long haul flight, I’ve been known to read anything I can get my hands on, even the financial pages.”
She glanced at the narrow watch on her wrist again, and despite the optimism that had gripped him when Gemma had agreed to spend the night at his house, his mood plummeted. “One step up from the classified ads.”
“Only just.” She abandoned her perusal of the wine racks and strolled over to the counter. “Speaking of finances, I read somewhere that you’re a qualified economist as well as an accountant—”
“With a calculator for a heart, no doubt.”
She accepted the glass he handed her. “I didn’t say that. If you had a calculator for a heart you wouldn’t have bothered to rescue me. Twice.”
His pulse racing that she had mentioned the previous occasion that he had intervened to help her, he said, “Just a suggestion, but maybe you need to rethink the kind of guy you’re dating.”
The second the words were out, he wished he could retract them. Six years on from the one passionate night they’d shared and he was sounding like an older brother—worse, a father figure—dispensing advice.
“I intend to. As of tonight, I’m not dating anyone afraid of commitment—”
The distinctive chime of her phone distracted Gemma from a conversation and a simmering tension that was continually pushing her out of her depth. She had been worried because Sanchia was due to call her and she absolutely could not take the call right now.
Feeling under siege, she dug the phone out of her evening purse, intending to simply turn it off. Sanchia would understand. She knew that Gemma couldn’t always answer, and that she would pick up on the missed call when she could.
The phone ringing was a sharp reminder that she could not afford another sizzling fling with Gabriel. Before she could hit the power button, the phone was whisked out of her hand. Incensed, Gemma grabbed at the phone, desperate to get it back. “That’s mine.”
“You can have it back once Zane’s hung up.”
“Why would Zane be ringing me?”
Gabriel’s gaze was cool and flat. “I’m not prepared to take any chances.”
The small silence that followed, the knowledge that Gabriel was not only acting unreasonably, he was behaving in a distinctly possessive way, made her stomach clench.
Although she refused to accept that Gabriel’s disconcerting focus on her was either real or lasting. She knew now that Zane and Lilah had found the kind of deep, committed love she herself longed for. She wished them well with all of her heart, but that didn’t change the fact that their togetherness underlined her single, lonely—and now desperate—state. “I’m not Zane’s girlfriend or his mistress.”
Gabriel’s expression underlined his disbelief. Given that he had dropped her like a hot coal six years ago, his opinion shouldn’t register, but tonight it did.
She was tired of being judged and dismissed and treated as if she was a pretty airhead just out for a good time. She was strong and independent; she had dreams and desires and plans. She certainly wasn’t the good-time girl the tabloids had dubbed her.
Just the thought of that derogatory label made her feel sick. The only good time she’d ever had had lasted just a few short hours. “I am not interested in an affair with Zane. If only you knew, it’s the last thing I want.”
One final chime and the call went through to answer phone.
She drew an impeded breath. She should be angry that Gabriel was behaving so high-handedly in taking her phone and switching it off. That he could believe, even now, after everything that had happened, that she would try to remain in contact with Zane.
But she couldn’t sustain the anger for one simple reason. Gabriel wouldn’t behave in such an arrogant fashion if he didn’t care. The thought clutched at her deep inside and refused to let go, generating