“Why am I so bitter…?” he mused. His voice was lazy and thoughtful, but his dark eyes were coldly hostile and a shiver of dread slithered down Laura’s spine. “Why do you think I’m bitter?”

“Because your pride was dented when…” Her voice faltered.

“Say it, Laura,” he commanded silkily. “After all, it has been a long time since we last set eyes on one another. What could be more natural than to go over old ground?”

“What’s the point of all this? Do you have any intention of buying the stables, Gabriel, or did you decide to get me here so that you could watch me squirm? Humiliate me because I once turned down your proposal of marriage?”

There. It was out, and they stared at one another in lengthening silence.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

EPILOGUE

GABRIEL GREPPI stood outside the compact, ivy-clad Victorian house for a few minutes, his hands thrust into the pockets of his beaten suede jacket. He glanced up towards the left of the house, and saw that her room was in darkness. It would be. She would be at the stables now, even though it was after nine and the countryside was sunk in the frozen grip of winter.

The thought of her brought a smile to his lips. For her, he would go through this, but it wouldn’t always be this way. He knew it. Could feel it in his bones. Knocking on the door of this house and being made to feel like a beggar, a distasteful presence to be endured by her parents with that particularly freezing politeness so typical of the British upper crust. No, things would change. He was only twenty-two and it might be a long haul, but things would change.

He hardened his jaw and pressed his finger to the doorbell, listening to it resound through the house, then he lounged against the doorframe and waited until the door was cautiously pulled open. Gabriel was tempted to ask whether they were expecting bandits to ring the bell before entering the house, but he refrained. A keen sense of humour had never been one of Peter Jackson’s striking qualities, although that might just have been towards him.

‘Greppi. What brings you here, boy?’

Gabriel gritted his teeth together and summoned up all his self-control not to respond with something he would live to regret.

‘Could I have a word with you, Mr Jackson?’ He insinuated his foot through the small opening, just in case Peter Jackson gave in to the temptation to slam the door in his face.

‘What, now? Can’t it wait?’

Peter Jackson gave an impatient click of his tongue and regarded Gabriel’s dark, handsome face with irritation, then he reluctantly pulled open the door and stepped back. ‘If you’ve come to see my daughter, then you can start heading back to that house of yours, boy. Laura’s in bed and I have no intention of getting her out of it at this ungodly hour.’

‘It’s nine o’clock.’

‘Precisely.’

‘And I haven’t come to see Laura, I have come to see you. You and your wife.’ Gabriel fought to maintain his composure but, under his weathered jacket and faded jeans, every muscle in his hard body had tensed.

That stopped Peter Jackson in his tracks. He paused and narrowed his blue eyes. ‘I hope you don’t intend to ask any favours of me, boy, because I can tell you right now that the answer is a resounding negative. I am not in the habit of bailing out anyone financially.’

‘I have not come here to ask for money.’ He kept his tone as polite as he could, but the derision underneath was unmistakable and the older man’s mouth tightened.

‘Then say what you have to say and leave.’

This was turning out to be a big mistake. He had chosen to take the honourable path and now he wondered what had possessed him.

‘Perhaps I could speak with your wife as well.’

‘Oh, very well. But you’ll have to be brief. My wife is not a well woman. She needs to get to bed at a reasonable hour.’ He turned and began walking towards the snug and Gabriel followed behind him, slightly taller and with the easy, graceful stride of someone attuned with his body.

‘Lizzie, darling, we have an unexpected visitor. No, no need to get up. It’s just Greppi.’

Elizabeth Jackson sat in one of the big, padded armchairs, a fragile figure but with the stunning prettiness of a woman who even now, in her mid-fifties, could still make heads turn. The classic English rose who exuded good breeding from every one of her fingertips. Neither invited him to sit, nor was he offered a drink, although both were, he could tell, curious to find out what the hell he was doing in their house at the unseemly hour of nine in the evening.

Peter Jackson stood behind his wife’s chair, as ruggedly impressive as she was delicately pretty. ‘If you’re thinking of buying one of the horses, Greppi, then you’re out of luck. Laura tells me that you have a knack with Barnabus, but he’s not for sale. If you could afford him, which I frankly doubt. Might be a bit tempestuous, that stallion, but he’ll make a damned fine racehorse with the proper training, so don’t think you can cut yourself a deal cheaply simply because you know how to handle him. Or, for that matter, because my daughter chooses to associate with you. I am doing enough of a good deed by employing you to do odd jobs around the stables on the weekends.’

‘I have come to ask for your daughter’s hand in marriage.’

I have come to tell you that I am from another planet. I have come to tell you that I am the son of Satan. Gabriel watched their astounded expressions and figured that he might as well have confronted them with either of those two possibilities.

‘I know that Laura thinks the world of you both and I would very much like to receive your blessing.’ Gabriel’s nerves remained steady as he stared at them both. Young he might be in years, but his life had not been an easy ride and he had learned to deal with pretty much anything that could be thrown at him. Including Laura’s snobbish, insular parents who had made it clear from the very first moment they had set eyes on him that he was one of life’s more lowly inhabitants.

‘I love your daughter, and whilst I realise that at the moment I may not have much to offer her, I assure—’

That broke the gaping silence surrounding them. The mention of his penury. Peter Jackson flung back his head and roared with laughter, then he sobered up sufficiently to wipe a few residual tears of mirth from his eyes.

‘What, are you completely mad, Greppi? Now you listen to me and you listen carefully, boy.’ The older man leaned over his wife and enunciated his words very slowly, as if addressing someone whose grasp of English was faulty. ‘Neither Lizzie nor myself approved of your involvement with Laura, but she’s a big girl and there has not been much we could do about it. However, the only way you will marry our daughter is over my dead body! Do you read me loud and clear, boy? She is our jewel and there is no way on the face of this green earth that we will give our blessing to any marriage between the two of you.’

‘She’s only a child, Gabriel.’ Elizabeth Jackson’s voice was quiet but firm. ‘Nineteen years old. And you’re only a child as well.’

‘Why don’t we cut through the child argument and get to the heart of the matter?’ Gabriel said with rigid self-control. ‘You see me as an inferior citizen because I am not British.’

‘That’s not true, young man!’ But Elizabeth Jackson’s protest was as empty as a shell. The truth was stamped on her husband’s face and Gabriel turned his head to one side in anger.

‘You’re not what we have in mind for a son-in-law, Greppi. I have no doubt that you’ll make something of yourself, and good luck to you, but Laura deserves…’

‘Better?’ Gabriel’s voice was spiked with acidity.

‘Call it what you will. And I warn you, Greppi, you leave our daughter alone. We haven’t wanted to interfere, but you are no longer welcome at these stables. You can find somewhere else to do your riding and earn your extra money.’

And that was the end of the discussion. Gabriel could see it in the way the old man turned towards the window, offering him the dismissive view of his back.

‘Very well.’ Jet-black eyes smouldered as he looked at the two of them who would both breathe a sigh of heartfelt relief when he disappeared out of their line of vision.

But this was not over. He had appealed to them for their blessing and they had turned him down. Laura would not. He would have preferred to have married the woman he loved with her parents fully on his side, but if that was not to be the case, then so be it.

He turned on his heel and walked out of the room, letting himself out of the front door. The meeting, which he had imagined would have lasted at least an hour, an hour of persuading them that, whatever their prejudices, he would devote his entire life to making their beloved daughter happy, had lasted a scant ten minutes.

The stables were set away from the house. Gabriel made sure to exit along the drive, knowing that her father would probably have leapt to the window just to make sure that he was leaving the premises, and, after a few minutes of walking through the cutting night air, he abruptly turned to his right and ploughed his way back towards the extensive stables.

He had arranged to meet her there and she would be waiting for him. The thought of that quelled some of the fire burning in his soul and he relaxed his pace, filling his head with images of her.

The stables stretched around a huge courtyard, which was occasionally used for lessons for beginners. A long, sheltered corridor bordered the sprawling sweep of the individual horses’ quarters and Gabriel swiftly and assuredly made his way towards Barnabus’s stall.

The light was on and she was grooming him, her long fingers stroking the mane, running along the proud length of his head.

Gabriel felt the familiar hot stirring in his loins and drew his breath in sharply, and both Laura and horse turned to look at him.

‘I didn’t expect you so early,’ she murmured, leaving the horse and wiping her hands along her jeans. She smiled and lifted her face to his, giving a soft purr of contentment as his mouth brushed hers.

‘Disappointed?’

‘Hardly!’

‘Do you want me to give you a hand here?’

‘Oh, no. There’s nothing to be done. I was just chatting to Barnabus.’

‘About me, I hope,’ Gabriel murmured softly, pulling her towards him and keeping her there, with his hands on her rear, so that she could feel exactly what she did to him.

She was the perfect combination of her parents. She had the height of her father and the blonde beauty of her mother. When she tilted her head back, as she was doing now, her waist-length hair rippled over his hands like strands of silk. White silk.

‘But of course,’ she agreed with a small laugh of delight. ‘Who else? What have you been doing since I last saw you? Have you missed me?’

I’ve been slaving at an incompetently run engineering company. I’ve been poring over books so that I don’t completely lose track of my Economics degree. I’ve been putting aside every sweat-earned penny so that I can afford to eat when I return to university. Oh, yes, and I’ve asked your father for your hand in marriage and it was bitten off.

That little titbit, he decided, he would keep to himself. Now, he would lose himself in her and then he would propose. Her parents would simply have to accept him because they would have no choice.

‘If you’re finished with Barnabus…’ he murmured, tucking her hair behind her ear and nibbling it with his teeth until she squirmed.

‘The office…?’

‘Out here, if you’d prefer, although I cannot truthfully say that I would welcome dealing with the frostbite afterwards…’

The office comprised three rooms attached to the far end of the stables. One small sitting area for clients, a room in which the books were kept and a bathroom, all furnished with exquisite taste. Soon, Gabriel thought, they would no longer need to scurry and hide and make love like thieves in the night. He imagined her face as she heard him ask her to marry him and he felt a fierce quiver of possessiveness.

‘What’s the matter?’

He turned to see that she was staring up at him, all wide-eyed and concerned, and he smiled.

‘Do you ever dream of us making love in a proper bed?’ he asked softly, unlocking the door to the office with the key that, unimaginatively, was hidden under one of the plant pots outside. He pushed open the door and then closed it behind them, capturing her against the back of the door and kissing the nape of her neck. ‘A proper, king-sized bed complete with satin sheets and a feather duvet?’

‘A cramped single bed would do,’ Laura murmured, sighing as his tongue trailed along her neck. ‘Anywhere but here. I have nightmares about Dad bursting in when we’re in the middle of…of…’

‘Making love…?’ he finished smoothly for her and she coiled against him with a smile. His voice always did this to her, turned her legs to water. His dark, deep voice with the lingering traces of his Argentinian background, and his smoky, sexy eyes that could stroke her body even when he wasn’t touching her.

He had turned up out of the blue one wintry morning a year ago. One minute she had been bending over, grooming one of the horses, her long hair roughly braided back away from her face, and she had stood up to find him staring at her from the stable door, his hands in his pockets, his body leaning against the rough doorframe. He had heard about their stables and he had come to see whether he could earn some money helping out because he loved horses and was a natural at handling them. He had only just come up there to live. His father had been made redundant from his post as a teacher and, whilst he could cope until he located another job, there simply was no longer enough to cover his son’s university fees. Gabriel needed to work for a year and had taken a job nearby at a small company, interrupting his university career until he could accumulate sufficient money to put himself through the remainder of his course. He had explained all of this without taking his eyes off her and without moving from his indolent stance by the door. Laura had listened and had hardly heard a word he had been saying. She had been too overwhelmed by his sheer animal beauty.

‘Are you suggesting that you want to make love to me?’ Gabriel whispered in her ear now, and Laura made a low, gurgling sound as he cupped her face in his hands and began kissing her jawbone with infinite, lingering tenderness. Underneath her three layers of clothing, she could already feel her breasts aching to be touched.

It was dark in the office. Dark but warm, with the small fan heater gently purring like a soothing background noise.

‘What would you do if I said that I just wasn’t in the mood?’ Laura teased, curling her fingers into his dark hair and nudging his face up so that she could cover his mouth with hers. The kiss was fiercely passionate, tongue pressing against tongue with an urgency that spoke volumes about the four days during which they had not seen one another. An eternity, it seemed to her.

‘I would call you a liar,’ he teased back. He slipped his hands beneath her thick, woollen jumper and hooked his fingers under the waistband of her jeans, then he gently circled his fingers round so that he could undo the button and slide down the zip, whilst Laura made a tiny moaning sound in anticipation of what was to come. Heaven on earth. It was the only way she could describe it. Sometimes when, for whatever reason, they had not managed to touch one another for a while, they would scrabble to make love, ripping each other’s clothes off in their eagerness to unite their bodies.

Tonight, Gabriel thought, was a special night. Tonight, they would take their time.

He led her towards the back of the office, where a long sofa was ranged against the wall. In the beginning, it had felt odd to make love in the place where Peter Jackson’s accountant did the books. Necessity, however, was the mother of invention, and over time the oddness had faded away.

The sofa could have been specially designed for coupling. Laura had once laughingly told him that, in her opinion, Phillip Carr had stationed it there so that when he came twice a week to do the accounts he had somewhere to nod off when the boredom of the numbers began to get to him.

‘Let me look at you,’ Laura said huskily, stretching her long body on the sofa and staring up at him as he towered over her. ‘You know I love looking at you get undressed.’ She loosely clasped her arms above her head so that a slither of flat, pale stomach was visible.

‘I have no idea why.’ He gave a low, teasing laugh.

‘And who’s the liar now? You know exactly why I love looking at you. You have the most beautiful body I have ever set eyes on in my life. You’re as powerful and muscular as any one of our prized racehorses.’

‘Thank you very much,’ he said drily, although he knew that, coming from her, this was the biggest compliment she could give him.

He shrugged off his bomber jacket, then tugged his thick jumper over his head, followed by his tee shirt, once black, now faded to a dark, uneven grey.

Laura gave an involuntary groan of physical response at his bare-backed torso, just a shadowy outline in the darkness. She had seen him bare-backed before, though. In the summer, when he had stripped off his shirt and ridden Barnabus, without her father’s knowledge. Her memory could easily fill in the details of how he’d looked, his body bronzed, his muscles defined and rippling with every little movement. She watched, heavy-eyed, as he removed his trousers and the boxer shorts that were low slung on his waist, and her smile met his.

‘Enjoying the view?’

Laura sighed with delicious assent and stood up, ready to wriggle out of her jeans. Her body was on fire. Just looking at him was enough to make her breathing shallow and unsteady.

‘Allow me, querida,’ he murmured. It was one of the rare times when he uttered an endearment. He was a man of passion but essentially a controlled man. Outbursts of verbal emotion were not in his nature. No phoney declarations of love for him. Laura appreciated him for that. His tenderness went beyond mundane utterances. Which was why his endearment now made her heart flutter with pleasure. She allowed him to strip off her jumper, her long-sleeved rugby shirt, which had been a legacy from her father’s barnstorming days when he’d played rugby for the county, her tee shirt, leaving only her lacy bra, which barely covered the full swell of her generous breasts.

‘Beautiful. You are exquisite.’ He dipped his finger into the hollow between her breasts and languidly stroked her, mesmerising her with his eyes until her breath caught in her throat. ‘I will never tire of looking at you, touching you.’

Laura laughed softly and caught his finger in her hand, raising it to her mouth so that she could draw it in between her lips, whilst she continued to look at him with her amazing chocolate-brown eyes. With her other hand, she lightly traced the hard muscles of his flattened stomach, down to where his manhood was sheathed with dark, vibrant hair.

‘What, never? Even when you go to university in September to finish your course? And all those young, beautiful girls are there making eyes and flinging themselves at you?’

‘Would you be jealous?’ He slipped his hands down her waist and began easing her jeans off, tucking the tips of his fingers into her briefs as she wriggled out of the jeans and gently kicked them to one side.

‘Oh, absolutely, Gabriel. Which is why I don’t think about it.’ She licked his mouth with her tongue and pushed her body against his. She was only a few inches shorter than he was and their bodies made a perfect match, fitting against each other as though specifically designed for the purpose. ‘I prefer to concentrate on the here and now.’ To prove her point, she drew his hands down to the front of her briefs, wantonly offering him the temptation to explore the honeyed, womanly centre wetly waiting for his expert touch.

‘You’re a witch, Laura.’ Gabriel tugged down her underwear and then unclasped her bra, allowing her full breasts with their rosy peaked nipples to spill forth in all their bountiful glory.

‘Only since I met you.’ And they both knew that that was true. She had come to him as a virgin, driven into his arms by a force of attraction she had never in her life experienced before. The many boys she had laughingly dated in the past had faded into insignificance alongside the potent, raven-haired stranger who had walked into her life and taken it over.

‘Right answer.’ He cupped her breasts with his hands. God, he had meant for this to go oh, so slowly, but with her naked body pressing against his he had to fight to maintain control. When she rubbed against him as she was doing now, he just wanted to take her, to feel her body joined to his in heated, pulsating fulfilment.

He guided her back to the sofa, but when she made to lie down he urged her back up, sitting, so that he could part her legs and kneel between them. The perfect position in which to devote his attention to her perfect breasts. He nuzzled them as Laura flung back her head and made no effort to silence her groans of exquisite pleasure. His tongue played with the tips of her nipples and then his mouth circled first one, then the other, pulling and sucking until she began to buck gently against him with her hands firmly clasped in his hair.

No other man would ever touch her like this. She was his, he thought with a surge of possessive elation.

He placed the flat of his hands against the soft inner flesh of her thighs and, whilst she was still reeling from the effects of his mouth on her sensitised breasts, he began a more intimate exploration that had her writhing and gasping as his tongue found the protruding nub of her femininity.

In between her panting, he could hear the abandoned rawness of her voice as she verbalised her passion and that was a powerful aphrodisiac. With a final flick of his tongue deep into the moist sweetness, he rose up and thrust into her, moving strong and deep until their bodies reached the peak of mutual fulfilment.

Only when they were physically spent did he shift her lengthways onto the sofa so that he could lie beside her. A tight fit but it felt so right with his leg draped over her body.

‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could actually fall asleep together, Gabriel? Like this? Spend the night together?’ Laura cradled his head against her breasts and smiled down at him. She swept some of her tangled hair away from her face and continued to watch him as he idly coiled one long, stray tendril around his finger. He held the hair between his fingers and languorously dangled it over her nipple until she giggled.

‘I could come and visit you when you’re at university,’ she carried on dreamily. ‘Your own room. Bliss. Or else you could come and visit me at university. Taking this year off’s been good, but I can’t wait to stretch my wings and leave home.’

‘Edinburgh is a long way to commute from London.’ He touched her nipple with the pad of his thumb and felt her body still under his touch.

‘What are you saying to me, Gabriel?’ Laura jerked his head up so that their eyes met in the semi-darkness. ‘Too far to commute? I know it won’t be like it is now, with you working locally, but we’ll still see each other, won’t we? Fate brought us together. I know that. Why else would you have happened to see that advert for a job all the way up here, with lodgings provided? And why else would you have found your way here, at these stables, to earn some extra money, meeting me in the process? Fate.’

‘Ah, but are you sure you will have time for me?’ he teased. ‘Studying to become a vet is not going to leave you much time for entertaining old…acquaintances…’

Laura caught the wicked gleam in his eyes and breathed a silent sigh of relief.

‘So it’s just as well that you’re not an old acquaintance, isn’t it?’ She allowed herself a little laugh and relaxed back against the sofa.

‘There is another solution, of course, to the problem of meeting up regularly…’

‘Oh, yes. What’s that?’ She ran one foot along the length of his thigh. ‘Have you suddenly discovered a vast sum of money somewhere and bought a helicopter so you can fly up to see me every evening?’

‘Laura, will you marry me?’

It took a few seconds for Laura’s drowsy brain to absorb what he had just said. ‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’

‘I have never been more serious about anything in my life, querida.’

Laura shifted herself into a sitting position and drew her legs up. She desperately wanted to switch the light on so that she could see the expression on his face, but switching on lights was totally out of the question. The office block was not at all visible from the house, but it was still a chance they never took. Instead, she peered at him.

‘Marry you, Gabriel?’ He was deadly serious. His body language conveyed as much.

‘Of course, it would be a bit difficult to start with, but we could find somewhere cheap to rent in London and as soon as we are settled you could re-apply to a London university to do your course. Having to come up here to work and save money has slowed me down a bit, but I have only one year left to complete and then I will be earning money. We won’t go hungry, mi amor, of that you can be certain.’

‘Gabriel…’ Her voice was a low stammer as the implications of marrying him slammed into her like a fist. Her parents would die. Her mother certainly would. She knew that they had viewed her relationship with Gabriel with growing unease, and they probably weren’t even aware that they were lovers. Her mother had shown slightly more fortitude than her father and had contented herself with the occasional observations that she should be careful not to become too emotionally entangled. Her father had been more outspoken. He had told her only two weeks ago in no uncertain terms that he disapproved strongly of what was going on and that he wanted her to end any relationship before it got out of control.

She could feel him pulling away from her and she reached out and gripped his hand tightly. ‘God, Gabriel, I love you so much. I’ve never felt anything like this before. You know that. I’ve told you that a thousand times. More. But…’

‘But…?’ No, this was not going how he’d imagined, not at all. He had expected her immediate, glowing acceptance. Yes, there would be one or two problems, but nothing that could not be handled. Nothing that they could not discuss and solve. His pride began shifting into place. He could feel it closing around him like a vice and he took a few deep breaths to steady himself.

‘I’m only nineteen,’ she said, half pleading. ‘Can’t we just…carry on like this…?’

‘You mean sneaking around your parents’ backs because you’re ashamed to be seen openly with me?’ he accused harshly, and Laura flinched back from the tone of his voice.

‘That’s unfair!’

‘Is it?’ He stood up and began putting on his boxer shorts, his jeans whilst she continued to watch him with a growing sense of panic. ‘It seems to me, Laura, that you don’t object to my presence in your bed, or should I say on this cursed sofa, but you object to it everywhere else in your life!’ Rage had now settled firmly into place. He remembered her father’s burst of laughter at the unimaginable idea that a poor Argentinian might want to marry his daughter and wondered whether it was so far removed from her own refusal. Because refuse she had. No point trying to cover it up in pretty packaging. She had turned him down.

‘Stop it, Gabriel!’ She sprang to her feet, shaking with dismay, and tried to get his hands between hers, but he brushed them aside and carried on getting dressed whilst she stood before him in all her naked splendour. Her vulnerability only occurred to her when he had slung his tee shirt over him, and then she hurriedly began to follow suit, flinging on her clothes with shaking hands.

‘God, you even still wear your father’s clothes!’

‘He doesn’t wear this! And I only put it on because it’s warm and it was the first thing that came to hand when I left the house tonight! Left the house to meet you!’

‘Yes, under cover of darkness! Would you have been so desperate to come rushing out if I had invited you to dine with me? If you had been forced to tell Mummy and Daddy that you were going on a date with me?’

‘Yes, I would have been just as desperate!’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, which she swallowed back. ‘But when have you ever asked me out on a date?’ she flung at him. ‘You come and work and sometimes we ride off together away from the house and we sleep together, but when have you ever asked me to go out to dinner with you?’

‘You know the situation!’ His voice cut through her like a knife and sent a shiver of despair fluttering down her spine. ‘I have always made it clear that every meagre penny I get from the company is ploughed back into my bank account so that I can support myself financially for my last year at university!’

‘I’ve offered to pay!’

‘Accept money from a woman? Never.’

‘Because you’re so damned proud! And you’re letting your pride destroy what we have now!’

‘What we have? We have nothing.’

The silence stretching around them was shattering. Gabriel could hardly look at her. His optimism as he had set off earlier for her house now seemed pathetic and absurd. Even after he had been kicked in the face by her parents, he had still stupidly convinced himself that she would still be his. His wife. He had made the classic mistake of avoiding reality, which was that she was rich and he was poor and never the twain could meet. Whatever flimsy objections she was now trying to come up with.

‘Don’t say that,’ Laura whispered. ‘I love you.’

‘Just not enough to prove it. Just not enough to marry me. Words without action are meaningless.’

‘You make it sound so simple, Gabriel. You love me, therefore do as I say and follow me to the ends of the earth, never mind about hurting anyone along the way.’

He flushed darkly and his mouth tightened into a hard line. ‘It is as simple as you choose to make it.’

‘No, it’s not! It’s anything but simple! What about my university degree?’

‘I told you…’

‘Yes, that I could come to London and somehow it would all be sorted out! And my parents? Do I just walk away from them as well? Why can’t you just…wait? Wait for a few years? My parents would adjust over time…I know they would. I would be able to finish my degree. Perhaps I could start in Edinburgh and arrange a transfer…’ Her voice faltered into silence as she absorbed the hard expression on his face.

‘I made a mistake.’ His mouth curled into a twisted smile that was the death knell on any lingering illusions she might have been nurturing that she could somehow prevent him from walking out of that door and never turning back. ‘I thought I knew you. I realise now that I never did.’

‘You knew me, Gabriel. Better than anyone has ever known me,’ Laura intoned dully. One errant tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and she let it trickle down the side of her face.

‘Oh, I don’t think so, querida.’ The endearment that had filled her with joy only an hour before was now uttered with sneering cynicism. ‘It’s time for you to get back to the playground you know best. You will go to university and be the golden girl your mummy and daddy have trained you to be and then, in time, you will marry someone they approve of and live happily ever after.’

He turned away and began walking towards the door and that snapped her out of her daze and she rushed behind him, past him so that she could position herself in front, blocking his way out.

‘Don’t do this!’

‘Get out of my way.’ There was a grim determination in his voice but Laura stood her ground, refusing to watch him leave even though her head was screaming at her that it was all over and that there was nothing she could do to make him stay.

It flew through her head that she could agree to marry him. Marry him and crash headlong into her parents’ disappointment and anger. Toss aside her aspirations and follow him, as he wanted, to the ends of the earth. But the moment was lost when she realised, knowing it to be a fact, that he would never accept her now. All those little indications of his pride that she had glimpsed over the months had solidified into something she could not breach.

She felt an anger rise inside her suddenly. ‘If you loved me, you would wait for me.’

He reached out and pulled the door open from behind her and, tall though she was, she was not half as powerful as he was. He opened it easily, sending her skittering out of his path.

‘It can’t end like this,’ Laura cried desperately. Her flash of self-righteous anger had lasted but a second before disappearing in a puff of smoke. ‘Tell me that we’ll meet again.’

He paused and looked at her then. ‘You should hope, querida, that we never do…’

THIS was Gabriel Greppi’s favourite time of the day. Six-thirty in the morning, sitting in the back seat of his Jaguar whilst his driver covered the forty-minute drive into London, allowing him the relative peace and sanity to peruse the newspapers at his leisure. From behind the tinted windows of the car, he could casually look out at the world without the world casually looking back at him.

Sometimes, in the quiet tranquillity of the car, he would occasionally reflect that the price he had paid for his swift and monumental rise to prominence had been a steep one. But such moments of reflection never lasted long. His days of idle, pointless introspection were long over and they belonged to a place he would never again revisit.

He picked up the Financial Times and began scouring it, his dark eyes frowning in concentration as he rapidly scanned the daily updates on companies and their fortunes. This was his life blood. Companies that had suffered under mismanagement, inefficiency or just plain bad luck were his playground and his talents for spotting the golden nugget amidst the dross were legendary.

He almost missed the tiny report slipped towards the back section. Four meagre square inches of newsprint that had him narrowing his eyes as he re-read every word written about the collapsing fortune of a certain riding stables nestling in the Warwickshire equestrian territory.

No, not a man for idle introspection, but this slither of introspection galloping towards him made his hard mouth curve into a smile. He reached forward and tapped on the glass pane separating him from Simon, his driver.

‘You can take the scenic route today, Simon,’ he said.

‘Of course, sir.’ Obligingly, Simon took the next turning from the motorway and began manoeuvring the byroads that led away from the country mansion in Sunningdale towards the city centre.

Whilst Gabriel relaxed back into the seat, crossed his long legs encased in their perfectly tailored and outrageously expensive handmade trousers, and clasped his hands behind his head.

So the riding stables were on the verge of bankruptcy, pleading for a buyer to rescue them from total and ignominious ruin. He could not have felt more satisfied if a genie had jumped in front of him and informed him that his every wish would come true.

For the first time in seven years he allowed his tightly reined mind to release the memories lurking like demons behind a door.

Laura. He stared through the window at the lush countryside gliding past them and lost himself in contemplation of the only woman to have brought him to his knees. The smell of the stables and the horses. Glorious beasts rising up in the misty twilight as they were led back into the stables. And her. Long white-blonde hair, her strong, supple body, the way she laughed, tossing her head back like one of her adored animals. The way she moved under his touch, moaning and melting, driving him crazy. The way she had finally rejected him.

His jaw clenched as he feverishly travelled down memory lane and he felt the familiar, sickening rush of rage that had always accompanied these particular memories.

‘On second thoughts, Simon. Take the motorway. There’s a call I want to make…’

Or rather, a call he would instruct his head accountant to make. But Andy, his head accountant, didn’t get to the office until eight-thirty, and waiting until then nearly drove Gabriel to the edge of his patience.

It was not yet nine when Laura raced into the kitchen and grabbed the telephone, breathing quickly because she had just finished doing the horses and had opened the front door to the frantic trilling of the phone. Of course, the minute she picked up the receiver, she could have kicked herself. Why bother? She knew what was going to greet her from the other end. Someone else asking about unpaid bills. Lord, they were crawling out of the woodwork now! Her father had managed to keep the hounds at bay whilst he had been alive, spinning them stories, no doubt, and using his upper-crust charm to squeeze more time in which to forestall the inevitable, but the minute he had died and she had realised the horrifying extent of the debt, every man Jack had been down her throat, demanding their money. The house had been mortgaged to the hilt, the banks were clamouring for blood and that was only the tip of the iceberg.

How she had managed to swan along in total ignorance of their plight was now beyond her comprehension. How could she not have managed to realise? The house slowly going to rack and ruin? The racehorses being sold one by one? The horses in their care gradually being removed by concerned owners? She had merrily gone her way, doing her little job in the town, coming back to the security of her home and her horses, protected as she had always been from the glaring truth of the situation. God!

Her voice, when she spoke, was wary. ‘Hello? Yes?’

‘This is Andrew Grant here. Am I speaking to Miss Jackson? The owner of the Jackson Equestrian Centre?’

Laura ran her slender fingers through her shoulder-length blonde hair and stifled a little groan of despair.

‘Yes, you are, and if you’re calling about an unpaid bill, then I’m afraid you’ll have to put it in writing. My accountant will be dealing with…with all unpaid bills in due course.’ Like hell he would be. There was simply no money to deal with anything.

‘I have in front of me an article in the Financial Times about your company, Miss Jackson. It doesn’t make pretty reading.’

‘I…I admit that there are a few financial concerns at the moment, Mr Grant, but I assure you that—’

‘I gather you’re broke.’

The bluntness of the statement took the wind out of her and Laura shakily sat on the old wooden chair by the telephone table. With the phone in one hand, she stared down at her scuffed brown boots and the frayed hem of her jeans. In the past four months she felt as if she had gone from being a carefree twenty-six-year-old girl to an old woman of eighty.

‘Money is a problem at the moment, yes, Mr Grant, but I assure you—’

‘That you will miraculously be able to lay your hands on enough of it to clear your debts, Miss Jackson? When, Miss Jackson? Tomorrow? The day after? Next month? Next year?’

‘My accountant is—’

‘I have already had a word with your accountant. He’s managing your company’s death rites, from what I gather.’

Laura gave a sharp intake of breath and felt her body tremble. ‘Look, who are you? You have no right to make phone calls to my accountant behind my back! How did you get hold of his number? I could take you to court for that!’

‘I think not. And I have every right to contact your accountant. The demise of your company is now public knowledge.’

‘What do you want?’

‘I am proposing a rescue package, Miss Jackson…’

‘What do you mean by a “rescue package”? Look, I really don’t know a great deal about finances. Perhaps it would be better if you contact Phillip again and then he can explain to me…’

‘On behalf of a very wealthy client, who wants to meet with you personally to discuss what he has in mind.’

‘M-meet with me?’ Laura stammered in confusion. ‘Phillip has all the books. It would be extremely unorthodox to—’

‘The sooner you are able to arrange a meeting with my…ah…client, the quicker your problems will be resolved, Miss Jackson, so could I propose…’ he paused and down the end of the line she could hear the soft rustle of paper ‘…tomorrow? Lunchtime?’

‘Tomorrow? Lunchtime? Look, is this some kind of joke? Who exactly is this so-called client of yours?’

‘You will have to travel to London for the preliminary meeting, I’m afraid. My client is an exceptionally busy man. If the deal shows promise, then, naturally, he will want to see the stables for himself. Now, there’s a small French restaurant called the Cache d’Or just off the Gloucester Road in Kensington. Could you be there by one?’

‘I…’

‘And if you have any doubt as to my client’s financial worthiness or, for that matter, the reliability of this proposed deal, then I suggest you call Phillip Carr, your accountant, and he should be able to set your mind at rest.’

At rest was the last place her mind was one hour later, after she had called Phillip and plied him with questions about the identity of the apparent knight in shining armour who wanted to buy one desperately ailing riding stables in the middle of nowhere.

‘He can’t be serious, Phillip. You’ve seen the place! Once glorious, now a destitute shambles. Not even a good reputation left to trade on! Just an empty, sad shell.’ Laura felt the prickle of tears welling up when she said this. She could hardly bear to remember the place when it had been in its heyday, when her mother had still been alive and everything had been all right with the world. When everything had been all right in her world, a lifetime ago it seemed.

‘He’s certainly serious at this point in time, Laura, and, face it, what harm is there in checking it out?’

‘Did you manage to find out who exactly this man is?’

‘I have simply been told that his estimated wealth runs into several million, if not more, and I’ve been given a succinct list of his various companies.’ Phillip sounded unnaturally sheepish and Laura clicked her tongue in frustration. She and Phillip went back a long way. He was now about the only person she could trust and the last thing she felt she needed was his reticence.

‘Why the secrecy?’

‘Because he is considerably powerful and he says that it’s essential that no one knows of this possible deal.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Phillip sighed, and she could imagine him rubbing his eyes behind his wire-rimmed spectacles. ‘Look, meet the man, Laura. He might just save the day and you have nothing to lose. The fact is, without some kind of outside help you’ll lose everything. The lot. House, contents, your precious horses, any land you have left. It’s far worse than I originally thought. You’re standing on quicksand, Laura.’

Laura felt a shiver of fear trickle down her spine. Thank heavens her father had not lived to see this day. However much he had squandered everything, she refused to hate him for it. He had been caught up in one long vortex of grief after her mother had died, and what had followed, the gambling that had been exposed, the addiction to alcohol that he had always been able to hide beneath his impossibly cheerful veneer, all of it had been his own sad response to emotional turmoil.

She became aware that Phillip was talking to her and she just managed to catch the tail-end of his sentence.

‘…and the worse is yet to come.’

‘What do you mean? How could things get any worse?’

‘You could be held liable for some of his debts. The banks could descend on you, Laura, claim your earnings. If this man seems genuine, then be more than open-minded about his offer. Entice him into it. It could be your last chance. I frankly don’t see anyone else taking it on.’

Twenty-four hours later, with those words ringing in her ears, Laura dressed carefully and apprehensively for what could turn out to be the biggest meeting of her life. Her wardrobe sparsely consisted of a mixture of working clothes, which she wore to the office where she held down an undemanding but reassuring job three days a week as secretary for an estate agency, and casual clothes, which took the brunt of her work with the horses and showed it. Sensible dark skirts, a few nondescript blouses and then jeans and baggy jumpers. She chose a slim-fitting dark grey skirt, a ribbed grey elbow-length cardigan with tiny pearl buttons down the front and her high black shoes, which escalated her already generously tall height to almost six feet.

Hopefully, this powerful businessman would not be too short. Towering over a diminutive man would do her, she conceded wryly, no favours at all.

Her nerves were in shreds by the time she arrived at the restaurant, after two hours of monotonous travel during which she’d contemplated the gloomy future lurking ahead of her.

As she anxiously scanned the diners, looking for an appropriately overweight, middle-aged man reeking of wealth, Gabriel, removed to the furthest corner of the room and partially out of her sight behind an arrangement of lush potted plants resting on a marble ledge, watched her.

He had not known what to expect. He had awakened this morning positively bristling with anticipation. Not a sensation he had experienced in quite a while and he had relished it. Money and power, he had long acknowledged, didn’t so much corrupt as they hardened. Having the world at your beck and call produced its own brand of jaded cynicism.

He sat back in his chair, watching her through the thick, rubbery leaves of the plants alongside him, and a slow smile curved his handsome mouth. Seven years and this moment was well worth waiting for. Yes, she had changed. No longer did she have that waist-length hair, which, released, had always been able to turn her from innocent young thing into something altogether more sexy. No, but the blunt, straight, shoulder-length hair suited her. His eyes darkened as they studied the rest of her. The lithe body, the full breasts pushing out the little, prim grey cardigan, the long legs. He felt a surge of violent emotion and deliberately turned away, waiting for her now, with his whisky in one hand.

He sat back in the chair and swallowed a mouthful of his drink, mentally following her progress as she was ushered towards his table.

Their eyes met. Brown eyes widening in disbelief clashing with coal-black, thickly fringed ones. Gabriel smiled coldly as she stood in front of him, casting one desperate glance back over her shoulder and then back to him.

‘Gabriel? My God, how are you?’ The residue of shock was still rippling through her body as Laura looked at the spectacularly handsome man lounging in the chair in front of her. She clutched the back of the chair and managed a small, tentative smile.

‘So, Laura, we meet again.’ His hard black eyes raked over her body with casual insolence before returning to her face, and continued to watch her over the rim of his glass as he took another sip of his drink. ‘You seem a little…disconcerted.’

In fact, she looked as if she might faint at any moment.

‘I wasn’t expecting…I thought…’ Laura stared back at him, transfixed by his face and those mesmerising black eyes that had always made her feel hot and unsteady. Had it been seven years ago? It seemed like just yesterday. She cleared her throat. ‘When this meeting was arranged, I had no idea…’

‘That you would be coming face to face with me? No, you wouldn’t have.’ Gabriel gave an indolent shrug of his broad shoulders. ‘But I am being very rude. Sit down.’ He watched as she hesitated fractionally, knowing what was going through her head. She didn’t want to be here. If she could have, she would have fled the restaurant as fast as she could. But she couldn’t. She was trapped by her own financial circumstances in a cruel twist of fate that not even he, in his most vengeful moments, could have conceived.

‘Sit,’ he ordered silkily, when she continued to hover by her chair like a frightened rabbit caught in the headlights of a fast-moving car. ‘After all, as old friends we have much to talk about.’ She still had that peculiarly enticing air of innocence and sensuality. Her extreme blondeness in combination with those large, almond-shaped chocolate-brown eyes had always been eye-catching because they contrasted so sharply with the contained intelligence on her face. For the first time, Gabriel lowered his eyes as his body treacherously began to respond to her.

‘What do you want, Gabriel?’ A pink tongue flicked out to moisten her dry lips, but she obeyed his order and cautiously slid into the chair.

‘Why, I thought my accountant made it perfectly clear what I wanted…’ Gabriel beckoned a waiter across and ordered a glass of white wine for her, Sancerre, then he smiled lazily. ‘After seven years I am finally able to offer you a drink. A drink in a smart, fashionable and excruciatingly expensive restaurant. As many drinks as you would like, as a matter of fact. Is that not extraordinary…?’

‘I would have preferred mineral water.’

Gabriel ignored her small protest.

Did he know what he was doing to her? Yes, of course he did, Laura thought shakily. It was pay-back time. She felt a shiver of apprehension feather down her spine as she was swamped by memories. God, he had been beautiful. She slid her eyes surreptitiously to him. He still was. Suffocatingly and excitingly masculine. All male. Every pore of him breathed virile sexuality and he hadn’t changed. No, he had changed. Power and wealth had hardened the ferociously handsome features of his face and the eyes staring at her were cold and assessing. A wave of nausea rushed over her.

‘You look a little pale. Take a sip of your wine.’ His voice snapped her out of her memories and brought her crashing back to reality. ‘Please accept my sympathies on the death of your father,’ he said, observing her coolly, whilst his fingers stroked the side of his glass.

‘Thank you.’ Laura paused to take a sip of wine. ‘I see you…you’ve done very well. I had no idea…’

‘That a poor boy like me working to make ends meet so that he could afford to complete his university course would turn out good in the end?’

‘That’s not what I was going to say. How is your father?’

‘Back in Argentina and doing very well.’

‘And you? How are you? Are you married? Children?’ In her head, he had never married. Laura realised, with shock, that he had been in her head ever since he had stormed out of her life. She had allowed herself to be persuaded by her parents that his disappearance had been for the best, that she had her future, that they had never been suited, that she would forget him in time, but she hadn’t forgotten him. And her memories of him were still of the raw youth who had swept her off her feet. Not of this man sitting in front of her with the world at his fingertips.

Gabriel’s jaw hardened. Married? Children? Those were dreams he had nurtured a long time ago, dreams he had uselessly expended on the woman floundering in the chair opposite him. He had been naïve enough at the time to imagine that she had shared those dreams. Until reality had kicked him in the face and he had been forced to swallow the bitter truth that he had been nothing but an amusing plaything for a rich young girl. Her dreams of happy families had not included wedding a poor Argentinian. Not enough class. His hand tightened around his glass and he quickly swallowed the remainder of his drink.

‘No,’ he said abruptly. He signalled to the waiter for menus and, after they had placed their orders, he sat back in his chair and loosely linked his fingers on his lap. ‘So…our fortunes have changed, have they not? Seven years ago, eating out at a restaurant like this would have been out of my reach.’ His dark eyes gave a quick glance around their expensive surroundings before returning to her face. ‘Who would have ever imagined that here I would one day sit, with you opposite me, in the role of…what shall we call it, Laura? Penitent?’

‘Why are you so bitter?’ Laura’s eyes met his and skittered away in a rush of helpless confusion. ‘It’s been years…’ She sighed. ‘Look, I don’t want to rake over old ground. Phillip tells me that you’re interested in buying the riding stables. I might as well warn you that they’re not what they used to be.’ She wished desperately that he would stop staring at her.

‘Why am I so bitter…?’ he mused. His voice was lazy and thoughtful, but his dark eyes were coldly hostile and a shiver of dread slithered down Laura’s spine. ‘Why do you think I’m bitter?’

‘Because your pride was dented when…’ Her voice faltered and she nervously tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

‘Say it, Laura,’ he commanded silkily. ‘After all, it has been a long time since we last set eyes on one another. What could be more natural than to go over old ground?’

‘What’s the point of all of this?’ She whipped her napkin from her lap and flattened it with the palm of her hand on the table. ‘Do you have any intention of buying the stables, Gabriel, or did you decide to get me here so that you could watch me squirm? Humiliate me because I once turned down your proposal of marriage?’ There. It was out and they stared at one another in lengthening silence.

She would not allow him the satisfaction of playing cat and mouse with her. He had no intention of buying any stables. He had simply used that as a pretext to get her here so that he could spend a few hours watching her squirm because she had wounded his volatile, Argentinian pride.

‘I’m going.’ She stood up and scooped up her handbag from the table. ‘I don’t have to stay and suffer this.’

‘You’re not going anywhere!’ His voice cracked against her like a whip and she glared down at the impossibly handsome, ruthless face staring back at her with narrowed eyes.

‘You can’t tell me what I can and cannot do, Gabriel!’ She leaned over, squaring her hands on the table, her body thrust towards him. It was a mistake. It brought her too close to him, too close to that sexy mouth of his and, as if sensing it, he smiled slowly.

‘Times really have changed, in that case,’ he murmured, his black eyes flicking to her parted lips, then dipping to view the heavy breasts gently bouncing beneath the cardigan. ‘I remember when I could tell you exactly what to do, and you enjoyed every little instruction, if I recall…’

Bright pink feathered into Laura’s cheeks as their eyes tangled and she drew her breath in sharply.

‘But…’ he was still smiling, although his expression was cool and closed ‘…that’s not what this is all about, is it? This is about the riding stables, which is why you are going to sit back down, like a good little girl. This is about your future, and believe me when I tell you that you have no choice but to endure my company.’

Laura felt all the energy drain out of her. He had the upper hand. Whatever card she pulled out of the pack, he carried the trump. The fact that he loathed the sight of her was something she would have to grit her teeth and put up with because he was right, she had no choice.

‘That’s better,’ he drawled, when she had returned to her seat. ‘Now, I propose that we discuss this over lunch in the manner of two civilised adults.’

‘I am more than happy to do so, Gabriel. You’re the one who’s intent on dragging the past up at every opportunity.’ She was still trembling as she sat back and allowed the large oval plate of filleted sole to be placed in front of her. It smelled delicious, but her appetite seemed to have utterly deserted her. ‘Perhaps we could agree to call a truce on discussing the past,’ Laura intoned tightly.

‘You are not in a position to offer agreements on anything.’ He had ordered the halibut and he dug his fork into the white flesh, savouring the delicate flavour. He should have been delighted to have won this round, to have pulled the plug on her outburst and forced her to obey him, but, aggravatingly, there was no such sense of satisfaction. He stabbed another mouthful of food into his mouth. ‘But let us get to the matter in hand. What is the position with the riding stables?’

‘You know what the position is. It’s a mess. Phillip must have explained all of that to your accountant or whoever the man was who made the phone call.’

‘How much of a mess?’

‘A lot of a mess,’ Laura confessed grudgingly and half-heartedly continued eating. Her stomach felt inclined to rebel at the food being shovelled into it, but she would not let him get to her again. ‘The racehorses have all gone. Sold. Four years ago. Most of the other horses were removed over time. I still have a few, but I doubt I shall be able to hang onto them for much longer. And the house…well…it’s still standing, but just.’

‘What happened?’

‘Are you really interested?’ Her eyes flashed at him. She couldn’t help it. ‘Or do you want all the grisly details for your scrapbook on how much the Jackson family fell? So that you can chuckle over it in the years to come?’

‘Now who is guilty of dragging the past up?’ Gabriel taunted silkily. ‘I am not asking questions any interested buyer would not ask.’

‘And are you really interested in buying, Gabriel?’

Good question. He had toyed with the idea. Andy had been appalled at the thought of investing money in a decrepit stables that would probably never show any return for the money ploughed in, arguing that such enterprises failed or succeeded by word of mouth and that, because Gabriel was not a part of the racing scene, it was doomed to failure. And Gabriel had been able to see his logic. He had also been unable to resist the opportunity to avenge himself for a rejection which he had carried inside him like a sickness for too long. But had he really been serious about buying the place?

Now, he realised that he was deadly serious. A couple of hours in this woman’s company was not enough to sate his appetite. He looked at her, at the strong, vulnerable lines of her face and the supple strength of her body, and suddenly wondered what other men had touched her. He would touch that body again, he would feel it move under his hands, but this time unaccompanied by the emotions of a boy. He would touch her as the man he now was. He would take her and she would come to him on his terms and when he was finished with her, then he would be the one to reject her. If it took the purchase of the riding stables, then so be it. It was hardly as though he could not easily afford it.

‘I am interested in buying,’ he agreed smoothly. ‘So explain what happened.’

‘Mum died. That’s what happened.’ Laura closed her knife and fork and wiped her mouth. ‘Her heart. We both knew that it was…that she was weak, but I think Dad just never accepted the reality of it. He always thought that something would come along, some magical potion and everything would be all right. But nothing came along, and when she died he just couldn’t cope. He lost interest in the place. He said it all reminded him of Mum and he began going out of the house a lot. I thought it was to see horses, visit old friends. Since he died, I discovered it was to bet.’ She sighed and pressed her fingers against her eyes, then propped her face in her hands and stared past Gabriel with a resigned, thoughtful expression. ‘He gambled away everything. Amazing to think how quickly a thriving concern can go down the pan, but, of course, the world of horses doesn’t operate along the same lines as a normal company. The racehorses were sold.’

‘He gambled away all of the profits from those thoroughbreds?’

‘Not all.’ Laura’s eyes slid towards him and she shivered. Despite the stamp of ruthlessness on his face, he still possessed bucket-loads of that sexual magnetism that had held her in his power. He was her enemy now and making no bones about it and she would rather have died than have let him see that he could still have an effect on her. ‘He made two investments that were disastrous and plunged him even further into debt. I guess, that was when the spiral of gambling to win really began.’

‘And you were not aware that all of this was going on?’

‘I never imagined there was any reason to be suspicious!’ Laura returned defiantly. ‘I wasn’t at home doing the books. How was I supposed to know that the money was disappearing?’

‘Because you have eyes and a brain?’

That stung because it was the refrain that played over and over in her own head. But did he have to say it? But then, why shouldn’t he? His past and present had now merged to give him the freedom to say whatever damn thing he wanted to and she could do nothing but accept it because she needed him. Her hand curled into a ball on her lap.

‘Obviously not enough of either,’ Laura said icily.

‘What happened to your plans for becoming a vet?’ Gabriel asked, abruptly changing the subject.

‘I had to…to cut short university because of Mum and then…well…’ She shrugged and lowered her eyes, not wanting to think about what might have been. ‘Dad needed me.’

‘You have been at home all these years? Helping out?’ He sounded amazed and Laura flushed, remembering all her grand plans.

‘Of course I haven’t just been at home!’ she snapped. ‘I…I have a job in town.’

‘Doing what?’

‘Is this part of the normal line of questioning by any prospective buyer?’

‘Call it curiosity.’

‘I’m not here to satisfy your curiosity, Gabriel. I’m here to talk about the riding stables. There’s still a bit of land and of course the house, but that’s about it. It’s all heavily mortgaged. Now, do you still want to proceed or not?’

‘You’re here to satisfy whatever I want you to satisfy and make no mistake about that. I know everything there is to know about the financial state of your riding stables and, without my money, life will be very bleak indeed for you. So if I ask you a question, you answer it. Now what job do you do?’

‘I work in an estate agency, if you must know. I’m a secretary there. Since Dad died I’ve had to cut short my working hours so that I could spend more time at the stables, but I still work three days a week.’

And what a sight for sore eyes she must make in the place, Gabriel mused suddenly. Stalking around like one of those thoroughbreds she had spent her life looking after. Driving those poor, hapless men crazy.

‘A secretary,’ he said sardonically. ‘What a disappointing end to all your ambitions.’ His voice was laced with irony and Laura bit down the response to fly at his throat.

‘I happen to like it there,’ she said tautly.

‘Satisfying, is it? As satisfying as it would have been to work with animals? Shifting bits of paper around a desk and fetching cups of coffee?’

‘Some things are not destined. That’s just the way life goes and I’ve accepted it.’ Laura met his gaze stubbornly. She would never have guessed that her stormy, passionate lover could have transformed into this cold stranger in front of her. ‘I may not have risen to dizzy heights and made lots of money like you, but money isn’t everything,’ she threw at him, and in response he gave a short bark of dismissive laughter before sobering up.

‘At least not now,’ he amended coldly. ‘Not now that you have no choice but to fall back on that little homily, but somehow it doesn’t quite sit right on your shoulders, Laura. Perhaps my memory is a little too long.’ He leaned forward, planting his elbows on the table and closing the space between them until he was disconcertingly close to her. ‘I remember another woman, to whom money was very important and maybe I have more in common with that woman now, because money is important, isn’t it, querida? Money drove us apart and now it brings us together once again. The mysteries of life. But this time, I hold you in the palm of my hand.’ He opened one hand before squeezing it tightly shut whilst Laura looked on in mesmerised fascination. ‘Tell me, how does it feel for the shoe to be on the other foot?’

PHILLIP should have been handling this. Phillip should have been the one showing Gabriel around the stables and the house, gabbling optimistically about how much of a turnaround could be achieved with the right injection of cash. Wasn’t that supposed to be a part of his job?

But Phillip was not going to be around. Away on business, he had apologised profusely. He had no idea why she was so intimidated at the thought of showing her prospective buyer the premises. It wasn’t as if he were a complete stranger. And, after all, she did work in an estate agency, even if showing people around properties did not actually constitute one of her duties. She would be absolutely fine, he had murmured soothingly.

But Laura didn’t feel fine. She had had precisely three days after that nerve-shredding meeting with Gabriel to realise that the last thing she felt about selling to him was fine.

The fact was she had not been able to get him out of her mind. In under half an hour, he would be driving up that long avenue towards the house, and she still didn’t feel prepared. Either physically or mentally.

She had carefully collated all the paperwork given to her by Phillip in connection with the accounts for the riding stables and laid them out neatly on the kitchen table. She had tidied the house in an attempt to make it appear less shabby, although the sharp spring sunlight filtering through the long windows threw the faded furnishings into unflattering focus. She had taken her time dressing, forsaking the security of working clothes for the comfort of trousers and a loose checked shirt. She had still found herself with one and a half hours to spare.

Now, she waited with a cup of coffee, her stomach churning with tension and then twisting into knots when she finally spotted a sleek black Jaguar cruising slowly towards the house.

Laura took a deep breath and reluctantly responded to the ring of the doorbell, pulling open the door once her face had been arranged into an expression of suitably detached politeness. She had spent so many hours reminding herself that, as far as Gabriel Greppi was concerned, she was an object of dislike that she had automatically assumed that her body would obediently follow the dictates of her head and not react when she saw him. She was wrong. Her eyes flickered over him as he stood in front of her, casually dressed in a pair of khaki trousers and a short-sleeved shirt that revealed the dark, muscular definition of his arms. A faint perspiration broke out over her body and she stood back, allowing him to brush past her and then stand in the hall so that he could slowly inspect it.

‘Did you…find the house okay?’ Laura asked nervously, closing the front door.

‘Why shouldn’t I have?’ The black eyes finished their leisurely tour of the hall and he looked at her with a cool expression.

‘No reason. I collected most of the paperwork from Phillip. It’s all in the kitchen, if you want to go and have a read.’

‘In due course,’ Gabriel drawled lazily. ‘Right now, I’d appreciate something to drink and then you can show me around.’

‘Of course.’ She walked ahead of him and he followed her into the kitchen, appreciating the view of her long legs and well-toned body. He had had three days to savour his plans for seduction. Three days during which even the demands of his beloved work had paled into the background. The more he had contemplated it, the more beautifully just it had all seemed. One rejection deserved another and he had been given the opportunity to achieve it. The wheel had turned full circle and he would reap the benefits of sweet vengeance. Despite the massive control he applied in his working life, he was innately a man of passion, and his response to the situation did not disconcert him in the slightest. Laura was unfinished business and he would finish it at last, once and for all.

‘What would you like to drink?’ she was asking him, watching as he skirted around the large central island in the middle of the kitchen and towards the French doors that led out onto the open fields at the back.

‘I assume there is some kind of structural report on the house amidst that stack of papers on the table,’ he said, turning around to look at her.

‘What kind of structural report?’ Laura stammered, frowning.

‘The kind that will tell me whether this house is in need of serious renovation, or whether its state of decay is confined to the superficial. You can appreciate that such information will necessarily reflect any price I might be willing to pay.’

‘The house isn’t falling down, Gabriel.’

‘How do you know? These old properties need a lot of attention and, from the looks of it, it has had less than zero.’

‘You’re determined to rub it in my face, aren’t you?’ she asked tightly, moving over to the table so that she could begin sifting through the inches of paperwork to see whether she could locate anything about the material state of the house. She raised her eyes to his resentfully. ‘You just can’t resist reminding me that you could make or break me, can you?’

‘Is that what I’m doing? I thought I was merely asking for information about the property.’ He looked at the bruised, hurt eyes and felt a sharp twinge of something he did not want to feel. ‘Leave it,’ he said abruptly, ‘it can wait. For now, I would very much like something to drink. Tea would be nice.’

‘You never used to like tea.’ The words were out of her mouth before she could think and colour slowly crawled into her face as she spun around and began fiddling with the kettle. God. Please. Don’t let the past sneak up and grab me by the throat. ‘How do you take it?’

‘Very strong with one sugar.’ Gabriel sat down at the table. That little stack of paperwork would just have to wait. He wouldn’t be able to concentrate on any of it anyway. Not with her moving around in front of his roving eyes like that, reaching up to fetch mugs from the cupboard so that he could see a little pale slither of skin, as firm and as toned as if she were still the young girl of nineteen he had once completely possessed.

When she sat at the kitchen table, she made sure to take the chair furthest away from his, and gazed down at her fingers cradling the mug. The silence was excruciating. She could feel his eyes on her and she wondered what he was seeing. Certainly not the uninhibited young girl she had once been. Could he sense her fear? And if he did, would he know where it stemmed from? Would he guess that he terrified her because she was realising how much she still responded to him? Physically? As though the intervening years had never existed?

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