Wife By Contract, Mistress By Demand

The laugh caught at the back of Gabriella’s throat as she saw the way Rufus was looking at her. Almost as if it were her he would like to eat!

But she must have been mistaken, she decided as that cynicism hardened his face once more, green eyes pale and assessing now as he returned her gaze challengingly.

‘Rufus, what—?’She broke off as she realized where he had brought her, her eyes widening and pulse leaping as she looked excitedly round the huge restaurant area on the fourth floor.

A restaurant that, if she agreed to marry Rufus, would become hers. Hers to keep even when the marriage was over.

The restaurant was at the front of the store, taking up half the fourth floor, totally separate from the book and magazine department that took up the rest of the floor space. At the moment it was being run more as a self-service cafeteria, but the possibilities for it becoming an exclusive lunch-time restaurant, as well as a place for morning coffee and afternoon tea, were endless. Gabriella was already able to envisage the changes she would make to the décor, like taking away some of the tables and replacing the utilitarian chairs with more comfortable upright armchairs.

It would become somewhere to relax and enjoy a leisurely lunch that Gabriella would make from totally fresh ingredients—

It could only become that if she agreed to marry Rufus!

‘Let’s go up to my office and finish discussing this, Gabriella,’ he said briskly, once again taking a firm hold of her arm.

Finish discussing it? She wasn’t aware that they had started!

Gabriella was familiar with the executive offices on the sixth floor, and indeed the chairman’s—Rufus’s—plush office, having visited her mother there very occasionally over the period she had worked as James’s secretary.

God, that seemed a lifetime ago!

Which, in fact, it was in a way—with her mother and James both gone now, and only Rufus left to torment her.

She didn’t recognize the secretary behind the desk in the outer office—but then, why should she?—a tall, shapely blonde who turned to smile warmly at Rufus as the two of them entered the room, and Gabriella gave Rufus a speculative look.

His fingers tightened painfully on her arm as he all but dragged her into the inner office to shut the door firmly behind them. ‘I would never make the same mistake my father did,’ he assured her coldly as he released her so suddenly Gabriella almost lost her balance.

Never fall in love with his secretary, Gabriella knew he meant. Certainly never marry her.

‘They were happy together, Rufus,’ she defended impatiently. ‘Couldn’t you see that? Feel that when you were with them?’

Oh, yes, he had seen his father’s happiness with Heather, and knew that losing her had probably killed him. But he believed his father had been blinded by love and had never allowed himself to get close enough to Heather to hear her side of the story, truthful or not.

Heather had certainly tried to get closer to him over the years, but only for his father’s sake, Rufus felt sure.

Anyway, Rufus had totally resisted Heather’s friendship for his own sake as much as anything else.

Heather and Gabriella, despite Gabriella’s years in France, had continued to be close, and if Rufus had lowered his guard towards Heather then he would have been lowering it towards Gabriella, too. And that was something he had no intention of doing.

Either then.

Or now.

He might be being forced into marrying Gabriella if he wanted to keep Gresham’s, but that didn’t mean he had to like it!

‘Did you ever take my advice?’ he prompted dryly.

Gabriella frowned her puzzlement at this sudden change of subject, not sure what advice he was talking about.

Rufus’s mouth twisted mockingly as he enlightened her. ‘Did you ever ask your mother why, six years ago, she needed a hundred thousand pounds?’

Gabriella froze at the taunt, knowing Rufus had done this deliberately, and that he intended to hurt.

Her chin rose challengingly. ‘Yes, I did.’

‘And?’ he prompted impatiently.

And she had promised her mother she would never tell anyone else about it. James had known, of course, because Heather had told him all about her first husband’s gambling, and the debts he had left behind for his widow and young daughter. But Heather had wanted to keep that particular skeleton of the Benito family in the closet where it belonged.

‘And it’s none of your damned business!’ Gabriella told Rufus with hard dismissal, having no more intention of sharing that secret with him than her mother had.

‘Right,’ he accepted scornfully. ‘So how much did you owe my father when he died, Gabriella? More, or less, than he gave to your mother all those years ago?’

This time she felt the colour drain from her cheeks.

So Rufus hadn’t missed her completely instinctive response in David Brewster’s office as he covered that part of his father’s will. Or failed to guess the reason for it.

But she should have known that he wouldn’t. Rufus was too astute, too intelligent, to fail to guess the cause of her dismayed groan.

‘Less,’ she sighed, knowing there was no point in prevaricating, Rufus only had to ask David Brewster the same question for the lawyer to produce the contract that Gabriella and James had signed over a year ago. ‘Much less.’

Rufus looked at her through narrowed lids. Until that moment he had hoped, had really hoped, that his guess had been wrong. It would have at least been something to know Gabriella hadn’t used his father in the same way her mother had.

He should have known better!

‘And are you going to tell me exactly why it is you now dislike Toby even more than you dislike me?’ he prompted in a scathingly cold voice.

No, she wasn’t.

Obviously James had known of Toby’s unprovoked sexual attack on her, and the fact that he had changed his will only two months before his death meant it had coloured the way he’d worded that will. But that didn’t mean that Rufus was entitled to know about it, too. Besides, with the opinion Rufus had of her, he would probably think she had encouraged Toby’s attentions!

‘Almost impossible to believe, isn’t it, Rufus?’ she retorted instead.

He gave a humourless smile. ‘About as hard to believe as the claim you once made about not being interested in my father or me because of the money!’

She gave a rueful shake of her head. ‘This is never going to work, is it—?’

‘On the contrary,’ Rufus cut in firmly, moving behind his desk to sit down. If he didn’t he might just reach out and strangle her! ‘It would at least be a marriage—of short duration, thank God!—based on no illusions whatsoever.’

‘On either side!’ she came back defensively.

Rufus gave a terse inclination of his head. ‘On either side,’ he conceded hardly.

Would they really be able to do this? Gabriella wondered achingly.

Somehow she doubted it.

‘What about Holly?’ she prompted slowly.

Rufus frowned darkly. ‘What about her?’

Gabriella grimaced. ‘How do you think she will like the idea of living with a stepmother? Even for six months?’

‘You would hardly be that,’ Rufus assured her scathingly.

‘Legally—’

‘Stay away from my daughter, Gabriella,’ he warned softly.

Her eyes widened; what was he implying? ‘And exactly how am I supposed to do that if we’re all living together at Gresham House?’

‘I suggest you find a way,’ he advised hardly. ‘The less contact Holly has with a manipulative little money-grasper like you, the better I’ll like it!’

He wasn’t just trying to wound now, he intended to lacerate and make her bleed, by stating that he didn’t even consider her suitable company for his seven-year-old daughter.

‘You’ll regret this, Rufus!’ she struck out instinctively, her eyes glittering deeply violet.

‘I already do,’ he assured her wearily. ‘But I’m sure you will agree that, ultimately, neither of us has any real choice but to go ahead with this bogus marriage?’

Rufus because he had no intention of losing Gresham’s to a man like Toby.

Gabriella because she would never allow herself to become financially indebted to a man like Toby, either!

Rufus’s mouth twisted at her hesitation. ‘Just say yes or no to marriage, Gabriella,’ he rasped scathingly.

She felt like a mesmerized rabbit caught in the headlights of an oncoming car. She drew in a shaky breath. ‘Yes,’ she bit out. ‘We both know my answer has to be yes!’ she added shakily. Six months. That was all she would have to live with him for. Surely she could survive that…?

‘Just as mine has to be.’ Rufus nodded abruptly. ‘Although I want to make it absolutely clear that marriage to you is the last thing that I actually want!’ he added insultingly.

Her eyes flashed deeply blue. ‘It’s the last thing I want, too!’

He nodded again. ‘As long as we’re both aware of that. Now, if you wouldn’t mind?’ he added firmly. ‘Some of us have work to do.’

She had work to do, too, and needed to get to the bistro in time for the six o’clock opening. Not that she would be working there much longer once she and Rufus were married.

She would be too busy in the next few weeks preparing and then opening the restaurant downstairs.