Wife By Contract, Mistress By Demand

That was what hurried her through changing into her own black tee shirt and trousers, before she made her way up in the lift to Rufus’s office on the sixth floor.

‘Go right in, he’s expecting you.’ Stacy smiled as Gabriella entered the outer office.

Gabriella entered Rufus’s office shyly, expecting to find Rufus behind the desk, but instead he came out of the adjoining bathroom, stripped to the waist as he dried himself after freshening up.

Her eyes widened as she took in the broad width of his tanned shoulders and tapered waist, the tarnished blond hair slightly damp, too.

‘Don’t worry, I’m going to put some clothes on.’ He gave a rueful smile as he saw her wary gaze, taking a clean shirt from behind the door and slipping it on, buttoning it but not bothering to tuck it into his denims.

Gabriella hadn’t exactly been worried, as she knew that the physical attraction they had for each other was too strong to bother her any more. At the same time she was sure that simply falling into each other’s arms and making love wasn’t going to help to sort this mess out—it hadn’t in the past. In fact, it appeared to be what had happened in Majorca that had started all the misunderstandings between them!

Rufus felt as nervous as Gabriella looked, eyeing her ruefully. ‘Do you want to sit down? Or—fine.’ He nodded as she sat down on the sofa at the back of his office.

He had never felt so nervous in his life, as he knew that everything depended on this conversation with Gabriella, and that without her his life was going to be more empty than it had ever been. Barren.

‘You said you were going to talk if I would listen,’ she reminded him huskily.

Yes, he had, and no matter what it cost his natural reserve, his deep-felt self-preservation, he had to tell Gabriella exactly how he felt about her. And why. Otherwise he was going to lose her for good. And that was just unacceptable.

He went down on his knees beside her, not touching her, but able to feel the warmth of her, smell her perfume. Just breathe in being close to her again.

‘Gabriella, I didn’t leave you yesterday morning because I wanted to—’

‘Why else would you have gone?’ she interrupted scornfully, still able to feel that sense of desolation she had known at finding him gone when she’d woken up in his bed. ‘Not another emergency, surely?’ she derided.

‘Of a kind.’ He nodded, his expression grim, his eyes having gone hard. ‘I lay awake just holding you after you fell asleep on Wednesday evening. Unable to sleep myself. Thinking. And thinking. Somewhere around three o’clock in the morning I knew I had to go and find Toby—’

‘You told me that in your—note,’ she reminded dryly.

He nodded. ‘But not why, I realized once I was on the plane to Los Angeles, which was why I began telephoning you so frantically once I was free of the airport. Gabriella, I went to find Toby to tell him that if he ever came near you again I would beat him to a pulp!’ Rufus bit out harshly. ‘Needless to say—’ his mouth twisted with distaste ‘—Toby has decided to stay on in America indefinitely! As for my “note”, as you call it—’

‘Just a minute,’ Gabriella halted him, aware she wasn’t exactly sitting and listening as Rufus had asked her to do, but having too many questions of her own now to remain silent. ‘Why would you tell Toby that?’

Rufus stood up forcefully, his hands clenched into fists at his sides. ‘Because the bastard tried to rape you four months ago!’ He was breathing heavily in his agitation.

Gabriella’s eyes widened. ‘You believe me about that now?’

‘Gabriella, I’ve held you, I’ve loved you, touched you in the most intimate way, all the time with you proclaiming you hate me, and yet you’ve never shrunk from me in revulsion in the way you do with Toby.’ Rufus shook his head.

There was a very good reason for that, she thought. She happened to be deeply in love with Rufus…

Rufus scowled. ‘I finally realized, on Wednesday night after you gave yourself to me so freely, that there was no other explanation than the one you had given me. And if I had known about it then I wouldn’t have been as forbearing as my father, I can assure you,’ he added grimly.

Gabriella swallowed hard, finding it difficult to take all of this in. ‘I thought you went to see Toby because you didn’t believe me—’

‘You mentioned my note, Gabriella,’ Rufus rasped. ‘I wrote it to “My darling Gabriella”,’ he reminded her intensely. ‘I signed it “Yours, Rufus”—because I am yours, Gabriella. For what it’s worth,’ he added. ‘I’m all yours. I always will be,’ he said gruffly.

‘But you want a divorce.’ She frowned her confusion.

‘What?’ Rufus queried disbelievingly.

She nodded. ‘You had David Brewster draw up the papers while you were in New York; that’s the reason he wanted you to contact him when you got back—’

‘Just a minute.’ Rufus stopped her, at last beginning to see a possible reason for the change in her that day. He had expected to have dinner with her and she had deliberately avoided doing so by going out with friends, avoiding him completely after that, until he had thought he was going insane with wanting her, with wanting just a word or a smile from her. ‘I didn’t have David Brewster draw up those papers—’

‘Well, I certainly didn’t!’ she protested, the colour coming back into her cheeks in her agitation. ‘Besides, I spoke to David Brewster, and he told me that Mr Gresham had asked him to draw up the divorce papers—’

‘But did he say which Mr Gresham he was talking about?’ Rufus cut in softly.

Gabriella frowned her puzzlement. ‘I don’t understand—’

‘It was my father, Gabriella,’ Rufus told her patiently. ‘He was the one who asked David Brewster to have those papers drawn up. Don’t ask me why, but he did. It certainly wasn’t me.’ He moved to clasp her hands in his. ‘Gabriella, I don’t want a divorce, not now, not in six months’ time, not ever!’

She was totally confused now; she had no idea either why James should have asked David Brewster to do such a thing. But Rufus had to be telling her the truth about that, and she knew she only had to make a single telephone call in order to know if he was lying. Besides, why should he?

She looked up at Rufus guardedly now. ‘What do you want, Rufus?’ she asked huskily.

He drew in a ragged breath, his hands tightening about hers until he saw her wince slightly. But this was too important for him to make a mistake now!

‘I want you, Gabriella,’ he told her softly. ‘Forget my father’s will. Forget the past. Forget everything but now. I love and want you so much now that if you leave me I’m just going to keep pestering you and pestering you, spend all my days haunting Gabriella’s, my nights haunting wherever you go to live, until eventually you’ll feel so sorry for me you have to come back to me!’

Gabriella gave a choked laugh. ‘I could never feel sorry for you, Rufus,’ she assured him ruefully. ‘You’re far too big, and strong, and—and self-contained, for me to ever feel sorry for you!’

He gave a shake of his head. ‘Without you I’m none of those things. And I haven’t been self-contained, as you call it, for some time. Since the afternoon of our wedding, if you must know. God, Gabriella, that afternoon—!’ He closed his eyes briefly as he recalled the living flame of her in his arms that afternoon. ‘You completed me that afternoon, Gabriella.’ He gazed down at her intently. ‘Filled me, engulfed me, made me absolutely yours.’ He shook his head. ‘I’ve been fighting for my emotional freedom ever since!’

‘You filled and engulfed me, too, Rufus,’ she told him huskily. ‘But—’Gabriella moistened dry lips ‘—I was a virgin that day, Rufus. I—I left so suddenly because I didn’t want you to know that,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘I couldn’t bear your ridicule if you should realize that.’

Rufus closed his eyes, remembering Gabriella that afternoon, the way she had given herself to him so completely.

All these months—years—he had been mocking her, and he had been her first lover, after all. What a fool he was!

‘You took me to the apartment where you take your mistresses!’ she reminded him frowningly.

‘No, I only let you go on thinking that.’ He grimaced self-derisively. ‘I really do only use that apartment if I’m delayed in town on business.’

Gabriella looked at him searchingly, seeing only truth and honesty in that candid green gaze. ‘But you knew what I thought, and yet you let me go on thinking—’

‘Gabriella, I never said that I ever wanted to fall in love with you,’ he rebuked gently. ‘Look at it from my point of view. Please! Angela, Holly’s mother, married me for what she could get in a divorce settlement. I thought your mother had married my father for his money. I thought you set out to seduce me in Majorca for the same reason—’

‘I was in love with you!’ she cut in protestingly. ‘I loved you so much I ached with wanting you to love me in return! I’ve always loved you, Rufus. Always…’ she repeated softly.