“Of Asian models. My look doesn’t fit this market. It’s not a profession where you walk in a door and get a job anyway. You have to build up to it, provide headshots and find an agent.”
He waved at the laptop. “You have options. Why haven’t you made inroads?” He sounded incredulous.
“Your grandmother couldn’t run her business without me. Not the way she liked to run it.” Her conscience grew heavy with the familial obligation she had alluded to a few minutes ago. “And she would never have forgiven me. She was furious with your mother for leaving without her permission.”
The sudden flash in his eyes told her that particular topic was off-limits.
She resisted the urge to tangle her hands together and wring them.
“I’ve been struggling these last few years, aware that she needed me, but also aware that the two advantages I possess—youth and looks—won’t be available to me forever. If I’m going to exploit them, it has to be now.”
“Don’t overlook that cunning brain of yours.”
“Much as I would prefer to be valued for my intellect, who will hire someone without accreditation or even a home and a computer of her own? The work I do for your grandmother isn’t transferable to anyone except you. And my use to you has a very short shelf life. I know that.”
She sighed, trying to keep hold of her composure as she continued.
“Her passing has forced me to secure my future as quickly and expediently as possible. Models with the right look can work anywhere. They’re paid well and agencies help with the travel and residency paperwork.”
“You just pointed out that no one walks into that career.”
“It depends who escorts me, doesn’t it?” She was way out on her wobbly limb now, grip slipping and the whole tree swaying in hurricane-force wind.
His brows went up. She’d watched those raptor wings lift like that several times, expressing his astonishment at the audacious mouse in his sharp-taloned foot, chittering no matter how hard he squeezed her.
He smiled faintly. “I wondered when we were going to get to an offer like that.”
The tip of his finger grazed her temple in a caress that tucked a stray hair behind her ear.
Any further words she might have found became tangled in her throat because his fingertip continued that nascent caress into the hollow beneath her ear, then stroked the soft flesh beneath her jawbone, tilting up her chin before she had realized she was obeying his silent command.
“Pleasant as that inducement promises to be...” His voice grated sensually across her nerve endings. “I won’t be persuaded to let you handle my grandmother’s money. Or me.”
He dropped his touch, sending a chill through her whole body.
* * *
Dragging his gaze off the temptation of her plump, shiny, parted lips took every ounce of Gabriel’s well-honed discipline. He controlled all that he did because he controlled himself. Giving in to impulse, especially the sexual kind, was juvenile.
But the flare of yearning and disappointment in his eyes was almost his undoing.
“I wasn’t...um...trying to offer s-sex for—”
“The stutter is a nice touch. Most men go crazy for the helpless damsel act. Good on you for trying it.” It was her first show of vulnerability amid a nerves-of-steel performance. He wasn’t buying it, though. “I’m impervious.”
Mostly. His hands itched to drag her against his chest, not only because he wanted to do things to her—carnal, wicked things—but because the tremble in her lashes tugged at something in him. Against his better judgment, he felt an urge to shelter her. Reassure her.
She didn’t argue or stammer out more protestations. There might have been a glimmer of injury behind her eyes, but it was gone so quickly, he knew it was only a strategy that was briefly considered before she discarded it. Within seconds, she returned to her true, iron-butterfly persona.
“Sex is firmly off the table?” Her tone gave him the sense he was missing something.
“I never force sex and I never pay for it. I am, however, open to enjoying it anywhere, including on tables.”
“I’m willing to offer other acts that might be of value to you, then. Marriage, for instance.”