Wife By Contract, Mistress By Demand

‘Perhaps,’ he conceded, studying her through narrowed lids. ‘But I take it from your earlier comments that you think I spoil Holly?’

She gave a shrug. ‘She’s only seven now, Rufus, but if you carry on like this she will be a monster by the time she’s seventeen!’

His mouth twisted derisively. ‘And you would know all about that, wouldn’t you?’

Gabriella stiffened. No conversation between them, it seemed, even one about his over-indulged daughter, could pass without Rufus taking a pot-shot at her.

She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘According to your theory the reason I was a mercenary little gold-digger at seventeen was because I hadn’t been spoilt enough as a child!’

‘I don’t believe I ever specified it was only at the age of seventeen!’ he rasped harshly. ‘Where did you disappear to again this afternoon?’

The question came completely out of the blue, throwing Gabriella slightly off guard, the colour heating her cheeks as Rufus looked at her with narrow-eyed appraisal.

‘How do you know I disappeared at all?’ she prompted slowly.

‘You’re working in Gresham’s now, Gabriella—there isn’t much goes on there that I don’t know about!’ he assured her grimly.

‘Why do you want to know?’ she evaded, knowing that Rufus probably thought she had met up with Toby again, but at the same time having no intention of telling him where she had really been. That was her business for now. Rufus would get to hear about it all in good time. Her time.

His mouth thinned. ‘Don’t try and play games with me, Gabriella. No matter what Toby may have said this afternoon, you won’t win anything with me,’ he assured dismissively.

She sighed. ‘It isn’t a contest, Rufus—’

‘You’re right—it isn’t!’ he rasped with certainty. ‘Set yourself up with Toby against me and I’ll tie you up in the courts so long you’ll be eighty before either of you inherits anything!’

She breathed in deeply. ‘I’ve already told you how I feel towards Toby, and the reason why I feel that way.’

Yes, she had, Rufus acknowledged impatiently. And if what Gabriella had told him was what really happened, then his father shouldn’t have just thrown Toby out of the house three months ago, and changed his will, he should have had Toby charged with attempted rape!

If what Gabriella said was true…

He breathed deeply. ‘Maybe when I get back from New York I should go and have a little chat with Toby…?’

‘Go ahead,’ she invited, her gaze unwavering from his.

There was something different about Gabriella this afternoon, he realized as he studied her through narrowed lids. She wasn’t quite as defensive as she had been—in fact she wasn’t responding to his taunts in the normal way at all…

‘Why do you have to go to New York so urgently?’ she prompted interestedly now.

Just like any other wife when her husband came home and told her he had to go away urgently on business…!

‘Why the interest, Gabriella?’ he questioned.

She shrugged. ‘I just wondered what was so—urgent, you can’t take Holly with you.’

She hadn’t wondered any such thing, Rufus realized incredulously. Gabriella thought he was going to New York to be with another woman, and that Holly would just be in the way of that relationship!

As if he could possibly be interested in any other woman when Gabriella herself had him so tied up in knots he couldn’t think straight most of the time.

His mouth twisted mockingly. ‘You could always come with me, Gabriella,’ he invited derisively—and totally in contradiction of the decision he had made minutes earlier. ‘Although I couldn’t guarantee you would see much of New York!’ he added, watching intently to see her reaction.

His eyes, Gabriella realized, were now gleaming with a far different emotion from anger.

Rufus still wanted her…

How he could feel that way, believing what he did about her, she had no idea. But she knew by that gleam in his eyes, the slight flush to his cheeks, that Rufus desired her.

She met his gaze unblinkingly. ‘I’ve seen New York,’ she said. ‘I went there with my mother and James a couple of years ago Christmas shopping.’

‘So you did,’ he drawled. ‘Do I take it from that you want to come with me?’

Did she?

Oh, yes!

She hated the thought of him going away now, with things so unsettled between them. But at the same time she knew he was still angry at what he considered her duplicity with Toby, and that if she went with him to New York he would probably make her pay for that anger.

She shook her head slowly. ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea when you’ve already told Holly she can’t go. She dislikes me enough as it is,’ she added ruefully.

‘She doesn’t know you well enough to dislike you—’

‘That’s never seemed to stop you!’ she pointed out dryly.

His mouth thinned. ‘We both know exactly why I distrusted you from the beginning, Gabriella—’

‘Even if what you believed about my mother had been true—which it wasn’t,’ she snapped defensively before he could speak, ‘that was still no reason for you to decide I’m a manipulative little gold-digger!’

Rufus eyed her mockingly. ‘And your behaviour in Majorca? You deliberately set out to seduce me that day, Gabriella. Am I to believe that was just—youthful curiosity?’

Because he was never going to believe she had been in love with him!

‘It was!’ she claimed heatedly. ‘You were my good-looking stepbrother, obviously experienced, and I was—at the time I was infatuated with you!’ she admitted breathlessly.

Rufus gave a humourless smile. ‘And I suppose I crushed all your girlhood dreams?’ he taunted.

Yes, he had.

Just as he was crushing the wholly adult love she had for him now.

She shook her head. ‘You wouldn’t care if you had,’ she acknowledged quietly.

Rufus looked at her bowed head, at those long lashes sweeping her creamy cheeks, and resented the feelings of guilt she aroused in him even as he dismissed them as unnecessary. Gabriella had known exactly what she was doing five years ago. She had been dressed—or in this case, undressed!—for the part.

‘You’re right, I wouldn’t care,’ he confirmed harshly, his hands clenched at his sides as he desperately tried to resist the temptation he had to take her in his arms and make love to her, to give himself one more memory of her to take with him to New York. It was a fight he lost…

Gabriella looked up, her eyes wide as Rufus took her in his arms to crush his mouth down on hers in a kiss that demanded and took, his hands firm on her hips as he held her against his hardness, his hands moving to cup her bottom as he pressed her into him.

It was a kiss meant to punish, to claim possession, rather than give pleasure. And in that it succeeded, as Gabriella knew that she wanted no other man but Rufus to touch and hold her like this, no matter how he felt towards her.

His eyes glittered as he wrenched his mouth away from hers and put her firmly away from him. ‘Stay well away from Toby while I’m away,’ he advised harshly.

Gabriella watched, tears gleaming in her eyes as Rufus strode forcefully from the room without so much as a second glance.

Because she meant nothing to him.

Because he felt nothing but desire for her.

A desire he satisfied whenever, and wherever, he felt like it.

A desire she had no weapons against.

Just as she had learnt today that she had no defences against the love she felt for him.

Which was why, this afternoon she had visited David Brewster to start the legal process that would ensure one day Rufus would have no choice but to believe her.

It might turn out to make absolutely no difference to Rufus whatsoever, but at least she would know, when in six months’ time she gave him back the twenty-five million pounds he claimed were all she was interested in, that she had proved him completely wrong about her.

Her life, without Rufus in it, would be empty, but at least he would know the truth.

Chapter 8

Gabriella was having the most wonderful dream. In her dream Rufus was in bed beside her, holding her, making love to her, kissing her even as he explored every inch of her body.

Gently.

Tenderly.

Adoringly.

Which was when Gabriella realized she really had to be dreaming!

Rufus didn’t adore her.

She quickly buried such thoughts deep in the back of her mind, desperately returning to that dream, to the Rufus who was serving her so erotically.

Because she wanted Rufus to adore her?

Oh, yes!

She cradled his head against her as his tongue moved lightly across her breast, her moan one of protest as he abandoned his caress.

But as the heat of his lips claimed its twin, and gently drew the aroused nipple inside the moist warmth of his mouth, her groan turned to a moan of pure pleasure.

‘Do you like that, Gabriella?’ he prompted huskily.

‘Oh, yes,’ she sighed achingly. ‘Don’t stop, Rufus. Please don’t stop!’

‘Tell me what else you like,’ he encouraged throatily as his hand moved gently down the curve of her body, his fingers trailing a path of fire.

This was a dream, she told herself, and in her dream she could ask Rufus to do whatever she liked.