her and speaking those words?
She’d missed him constantly over the last fifteen months, as she’d given birth to their baby alone, woken up in the night alone and raised their child without a father. She’d yearned for his strong, protective arms constantly. Especially during the bad times, such as the moment she’d told her family she was pregnant. Or the day of her father’s funeral, when her mother and three younger sisters had clung to her, sobbing, expecting her to be the strong one. Or the endless frustrating weeks when Laura had gone to the bank with her baby in tow, day after day, to convince them to extend the loan that would let their farm continue to operate.
But there had been happy times as well, and then she’d missed Gabriel even more. Such as the day halfway into her pregnancy, when she’d been washing dishes in the tiny kitchen and she’d suddenly clutched her curved belly and laughed aloud in wonder as she felt—this time for sure—their baby’s first kick inside her. Or the sunny, bright August day when Robby had been born, when she’d held his tiny body against her chest and he’d blinked up at her, yawning sleepily, with dark eyes exactly like his father’s.
For over a year, Laura had missed Gabriel like water or sun or air. She’d craved him day and night. She’d missed the sound of his laugh. Their friendship and camaraderie.
And now, he’d finally come for her?
“You came for me?” she whispered. Was it possible he’d thought of her even a fraction of the times her heart had yearned for him? “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Gabriel said quietly. “I need you.”
She swallowed. “Why?”
His dark eyes glittered in the flickering firelight. “Every other woman has been a pale shadow of you in every way.”
If her heart had been fluttering before, now it was frantically rattling against her ribs. Had she been wrong to leave him, fifteen months ago? Had she been wrong to keep Robby a secret? What if Gabriel’s feelings had changed, and all this time he’d cared for her? What if—
He leaned forward as his lips curved into a smile. “I need you to come work for me.”
Laura’s heart stopped, then resumed a slow, sickly beat.
Of course. Of course that was all he would want. He’d likely forgotten their one-night affair long ago, while she would remember it forever—in her passionate dreams, in the eyes of their son. Laura stared up at Gabriel’s dark, brutally handsome face. She saw the tension of his jawline, the taut muscles of his folded arms beneath his suit jacket.
“You must want it badly,” she said slowly.
He gave her a tight smile. “I do.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother coming back down the hall, holding Robby in one arm and a slice of wedding cake in her other hand. Laura sucked in her breath.
Robby. How could she have allowed herself to forget, even for an instant, that her son was counting on her to keep him safe?
Grabbing Gabriel’s hand, she pulled him out of the room, dragging him out of the house, away from prying eyes and into the freezing February air.
Outside in the wintry night, cars and trucks were wedged everywhere along the gravel driveway between their old house and the barn, strewn along the country road in front of their farm. Across the old stone walls that lined the road, white rolling hills stretched out into the great north woods, disappearing now into the falling purple twilight.
Behind them, next to the old barn, she could see the frozen water of their pond, gleaming like a silver mirror under the lowering gray clouds. Her father had taught all his daughters to swim there during the summers of their childhood, and even though Laura was now grown, whenever she felt upset, she would go for a swim in the pond. Swimming made her think of her father’s protective arms. It always made her feel better.
She wished she could swim in the pond now.
Laura looked down at her breath in the chilly air and saw the white smoke of Gabriel’s mingle with hers. She realized she was still holding his hand and looked down at his large fingers enfolding her own. The warmth of them suddenly burned her skin, sizzling nerve endings the length of her body.
She dropped his hand. Folding her arms, she glared up at him. “I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing. I’m not going to work for you.”
“You don’t even want to hear about the job first? For instance—” he paused “—how much it pays?”
Laura bit her lip, thinking of her bank account, which held exactly thirteen dollars—barely enough for a week’s supply of diapers, let alone groceries. But they’d get by. And she couldn’t risk Robby’s custody—not for something so unimportant as money! She lifted her chin fiercely. “No amount of money could tempt me.”
His lips quirked. “I know I wasn’t always the easiest man to live with—”
“Easy?” she interjected. “You were a nightmare.”
His eyes crinkled in a smile. “Now that’s the diplomatic Miss Parker I remember.”
She glared at him. “Find another secretary.”
“I’m not asking you to be my secretary.”
“You said.”
He looked down at her. His voice was dark and deep, his eyes burning though her with intensity. “I want you to spend a night with me in Rio. As my mistress.”
His mistress? Laura’s mouth fell open.
Gabriel continued to stare down at her with his inscrutable dark eyes, his hands in his pockets. She licked her lips.
“I’m…I’m not for sale,” she whispered. “You think just because you are rich and handsome you can have whatever you want, that you can pay me to fall into your bed—and go away the next morning with a check?”
“A charming idea.” A humorless smile traced his sensual mouth. “But I don’t wish to pay you for sex.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks went hot. “Then what?”
“I want you—” he moved closer, his hard-edged face impossibly handsome “—to pretend to love me.”
She swallowed. Then she tilted her head, blinking up at him in the fading light. “But thousands of girls could do that,” she said. “Why come all the way up here, when you could have twenty girls at your penthouse in Rio in four minutes? Are you insane?”
He raked his dark hair back with his hand.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I am going slowly insane. Every moment my father’s company is in the hands of another man, every moment I know I lost my family’s legacy through my own stupidity, I feel I am losing my mind. I’ve endured it for almost twenty years. And I’m close now, so close to getting it back.”
She should have known it had something to do with regaining Açoazul. “But how can I possibly help you?”
He looked down at her, his
