‘Not at all,’ she assured him with some of her old energy. ‘You should try it some time,’ she added teasingly. ‘Most of the other Gresham’s staff have!’
‘So I’ve heard.’ He nodded, smiling slightly. ‘The executive dining-room has been almost empty since you opened up. It was good of you to take some of the original staff back, too,’ he added approvingly.
Once she’d learnt that Rufus had employed into other departments of Gresham’s the four women who had previously worked in the cafeteria, she had been only too happy to offer them the chance of their old jobs back. Three of them had taken up the offer, while the other one was now enjoying working in the make-up department too much to want to leave.
But Rufus sounded surprised she had thought of those women at all.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’ she said defensively, knowing Rufus believed she was so self-centred those women losing their jobs wouldn’t even have occurred to her.
Rufus sighed, knowing she had misunderstood him once again. He never seemed to be able to say anything right where Gabriella was concerned.
‘I was paying you a compliment, Gabriella, not criticising you,’ he told her wearily.
She looked at him searchingly for several seconds. ‘Oh,’ she finally muttered awkwardly.
Rufus gave a rueful smile. ‘Holly tells me she’s enjoying her riding lessons.’
Holly had told him a lot more than that, but he was sure that Gabriella wouldn’t want to hear how much Holly now approved of her stepmother, with the added comment to him that he should ‘keep Aunt Gabriella as his wife’.
Considering he was fast coming to that conclusion himself, and Gabriella obviously could no longer bear to be anywhere near him, it wasn’t what he had wanted to hear, either!
Gabriella, he knew, couldn’t wait for this marriage to be over, couldn’t wait to have him out of her life!
‘She’s doing very well.’ Gabriella nodded in response to his comment. ‘A natural, Gemma at the stables tells me.’ She smiled.
Rufus nodded distractedly, searching for something else to talk to her about, not wanting to leave her yet. If he couldn’t have anything else he could at least look at her.
‘Toby is still in America—’ He broke off abruptly, knowing that had definitely been the wrong thing to say as he saw the way Gabriella’s smile faded and her gaze became wary once again. ‘Forget I said that,’ he rasped, giving a self-disgusted shake of his head. ‘Damn it, I came in here because—because—’
‘Yes, why did you come into my bedroom without being invited, Rufus?’ Gabriella prompted hardly. ‘Was it to insult me some more? To question whether or not I’ve heard from Toby? Which I haven’t. And don’t want to, either!’ she added angrily, standing up. ‘Or perhaps you want to insult my mother some more? That’s usually good for a couple of minutes or so!’ Her eyes glowed deeply purple in her anger. ‘Come on, Rufus, I’m really interested to know what you’re doing here!’
Rufus drew in a sharp breath, biting back the defensive reply he had been about to give her, knowing that he would achieve nothing by doing that except furthering his own misery.
He closed his eyes briefly before opening them again, forcing himself not to meet anger with anger. As he usually did. ‘You really want to know what I’m doing here?’ he breathed huskily.
‘I’m agog with curiosity!’ she came back sarcastically. ‘I can hardly wait for the next instalment of your accusations!’
Rufus knew he deserved that. And more. But this ache, this burning he had for Gabriella, this need he had to be with her, was beyond his control. Hard enough to admit to himself, let alone Gabriella.
But unless he wanted to spent the next five months in purgatory, he was going to have to try.
‘No accusations, Gabriella,’ he told her with a sigh. ‘Just an honest admission that wanting you, desiring you, and not being able to be anywhere near you, is driving me quietly out of my mind!’
Gabriella stared at him, too shocked to do anything else.
Rufus wanted her. Rufus desired her.
As she wanted him. As she desired him.
But she would never have admitted that to him. She would rather have stayed in her bedroom for the next five months than go to him and tell him that. And yet Rufus had just done so.
But was want and desire enough?
It was all Rufus was offering. And although she wanted more, the truth was, wanting and desiring him was driving her quietly insane, too.
‘That’s all, Gabriella.’ He grimaced ruefully as he saw her expression. ‘Just—come down for dinner sometimes, hmm? I’m not going to ask for anything more than that, only that you stop avoiding me in the way that you have been. That’s not too much to ask, is it…?’ He looked at her guardedly.
And he had every right to feel guarded after what he had just told her. Never, not in a million years, would she have ever thought Rufus would own up to wanting her in that way. Shown her, perhaps, by seducing her back into his bed—something she had been longing for him to do the last two weeks!—but never tell her in the way that he just had.
‘Poetic justice, hmm?’ He sighed as she made no reply. ‘I’ll leave you to get back to your book now.’ He nodded abruptly before turning on his heel to move forcefully across the room, closing the bedroom door firmly behind him.
Leave her to get back to her book…? After telling her he wanted her?
He had to be joking!
How could she think of anything else, concentrate on anything else, after Rufus had told her that?
Instead she paced restlessly up and down her bedroom, fighting a battle within herself.
Nothing had changed with Rufus’s admission. Nothing. He still believed that both she and her mother had been gold-diggers, only after James’s money, the pair of them. He still didn’t believe her about Toby—although it was curious that he was still trying to contact his cousin. Lastly, significantly, he had asked David Brewster to prepare the papers in readiness for their divorce…
But that was because they would be separating in five months’ time.
That had been the agreement when they had married, at the insistence of both of them, so why was she now so angry because Rufus had pre-planned that divorce?
Because it hurt, that was why. Because she was still in love with him. Because now that she had lived with him she couldn’t even bear to think about after they separated, let alone arrange their divorce.
But this was here, and now, and shutting herself off from him in this way, refusing to admit her own physical need of him, was only making her miserable. And, if she understood him correctly, for the next five months Rufus was saying he could be hers whenever and wherever she wanted him. Instead of being miserable in her self-denial, she could enjoy all the heated passion that she knew Rufus gave her.
Five months to last her a lifetime.
She deserved that, didn’t she?
What the hell was she dithering for? She was a twenty-three-year-old woman, well aware of her own wants and desires, no longer an infatuated eighteen-year-old schoolgirl, and Rufus was just down the hallway, waiting for the invitation she had stubbornly refused to give him the last two weeks.
She could hear the shower running in the adjoining bathroom as she let herself into Rufus’s bedroom, throwing off her clothes as she crossed the room on bare feet, her vest-top beside the door, her sports bottoms near the bed, silky panties next to the bathroom door, quietly letting herself in, the sound of the running water blocking out the sound of her entrance.
She could see the outline of Rufus’s body inside the wide shower unit, lean and muscled, the bronzed hair wet and slicked back as he held his face up to the battering of the power-shower.
The door slid soundlessly back as she stepped in beside him, looking at him, drinking in his male beauty, his body leaner than she remembered, but tanned and muscled, the width of his shoulders rippling powerfully.
Gabriella reached around him to pick up the tube of shower gel, squeezing some into the palms of her hands before putting it back on the narrow shelf, rubbing the gel to a soapy froth before beginning to massage it into his shoulders and back.
If Gabriella being here was just a figment of his imagination, if this was just a dream, then Rufus didn’t want to wake up. Ever!
He kept his eyes closed as the warmth of the shower water continued to cascade down on them, lost in the magic as her hands ran the length of his spine to his buttocks, tensing slightly as she caressed there, before she moved down the long length of his legs, his arousal already full when she reached around for him.
‘Turn around,’ she invited huskily.
He did, his eyes still closed, groaning low in his throat when he recognized that it was no longer Gabriella’s caressing hands he felt but the warmth of her lips and mouth as she took him inside her.
Dear God…!
He looked down at her then, at the wet tumble of her dark hair down the length of her spine, her eyes purple as she looked up at him, before she once again claimed him into the warmth of her mouth.
His hands became entangled in the dark thickness of her hair, holding her against him; he had never known pleasure like this before. It was spiralling, building, surging, and his fingers tightened in her hair to pull her back when he knew he was almost at the point of no return.