in your life!’ Rage had now settled firmly into place. He remembered her father’s burst of laughter at the unimaginable idea that a poor Argentinian might want to marry his daughter and wondered whether it was so far removed from her own refusal. Because refuse she had. No point trying to cover it up in pretty packaging. She had turned him down.
‘Stop it, Gabriel!’ She sprang to her feet, shaking with dismay, and tried to get his hands between hers, but he brushed them aside and carried on getting dressed whilst she stood before him in all her naked splendour. Her vulnerability only occurred to her when he had slung his tee shirt over him, and then she hurriedly began to follow suit, flinging on her clothes with shaking hands.
‘God, you even still wear your father’s clothes!’
‘He doesn’t wear this! And I only put it on because it’s warm and it was the first thing that came to hand when I left the house tonight! Left the house to meet you!’
‘Yes, under cover of darkness! Would you have been so desperate to come rushing out if I had invited you to dine with me? If you had been forced to tell Mummy and Daddy that you were going on a date with me?’
‘Yes, I would have been just as desperate!’ Her eyes glittered with unshed tears, which she swallowed back. ‘But when have you ever asked me out on a date?’ she flung at him. ‘You come and work and sometimes we ride off together away from the house and we sleep together, but when have you ever asked me to go out to dinner with you?’
‘You know the situation!’ His voice cut through her like a knife and sent a shiver of despair fluttering down her spine. ‘I have always made it clear that every meagre penny I get from the company is ploughed back into my bank account so that I can support myself financially for my last year at university!’
‘I’ve offered to pay!’
‘Accept money from a woman? Never.’
‘Because you’re so damned proud! And you’re letting your pride destroy what we have now!’
‘What we have? We have nothing.’
The silence stretching around them was shattering. Gabriel could hardly look at her. His optimism as he had set off earlier for her house now seemed pathetic and absurd. Even after he had been kicked in the face by her parents, he had still stupidly convinced himself that she would still be his. His wife. He had made the classic mistake of avoiding reality, which was that she was rich and he was poor and never the twain could meet. Whatever flimsy objections she was now trying to come up with.
‘Don’t say that,’ Laura whispered. ‘I love you.’
‘Just not enough to prove it. Just not enough to marry me. Words without action are meaningless.’
‘You make it sound so simple, Gabriel. You love me, therefore do as I say and follow me to the ends of the earth, never mind about hurting anyone along the way.’
He flushed darkly and his mouth tightened into a hard line. ‘It is as simple as you choose to make it.’
‘No, it’s not! It’s anything but simple! What about my university degree?’
‘I told you…’
‘Yes, that I could come to London and somehow it would all be sorted out! And my parents? Do I just walk away from them as well? Why can’t you just…wait? Wait for a few years? My parents would adjust over time…I know they would. I would be able to finish my degree. Perhaps I could start in Edinburgh and arrange a transfer…’ Her voice faltered into silence as she absorbed the hard expression on his face.
‘I made a mistake.’ His mouth curled into a twisted smile that was the death knell on any lingering illusions she might have been nurturing that she could somehow prevent him from walking out of that door and never turning back. ‘I thought I knew you. I realise now that I never did.’
‘You knew me, Gabriel. Better than anyone has ever known me,’ Laura intoned dully. One errant tear slipped out of the corner of her eye and she let it trickle down the side of her face.
‘Oh, I don’t think so, querida.’ The endearment that had filled her with joy only an hour before was now uttered with sneering cynicism. ‘It’s time for you to get back to the playground you know best. You will go to university and be the golden girl your mummy and daddy have trained you to be and then, in time, you will marry someone they approve of and live happily ever after.’
He turned away and began walking towards the door and that snapped her out of her daze and she rushed behind him, past him so that she could position herself in front, blocking his way out.
‘Don’t do this!’
‘Get out of my way.’ There was a grim determination in his voice but Laura stood her ground, refusing to watch him leave even though her head was screaming at her that it was all over and that there was nothing she could do to make him stay.
It flew through her head that she could agree to marry him. Marry him and crash headlong into her parents’ disappointment and anger. Toss aside her aspirations and follow him, as he wanted, to the ends of the earth. But the moment was lost when she realised, knowing it to be a fact, that he would never accept her now. All those little indications of his pride that she had glimpsed over the months had solidified into something she could not breach.
She felt an anger rise inside her suddenly. ‘If you loved me, you would wait for me.’
He reached out and pulled the door open from behind her and, tall though she was, she was not half as powerful as he was. He opened it easily, sending her skittering out of his path.
‘It can’t end like this,’ Laura cried desperately. Her flash of self-righteous anger had lasted but a second before disappearing in a puff of smoke. ‘Tell me that we’ll meet again.’
He paused and looked at her then. ‘You should hope, querida, that we never do…’
CHAPTER TWO
THIS was Gabriel Greppi’s favourite time of the day. Six-thirty in the morning, sitting in the back seat of his Jaguar whilst his driver covered the forty-minute drive into London, allowing him the relative peace and sanity to peruse the newspapers at his leisure. From behind the tinted windows of the car, he could casually look out at the world without the world casually looking back at him.
Sometimes, in the quiet tranquillity of the car, he would occasionally reflect that the price he had paid for his swift and monumental rise to prominence had been a steep one. But such moments of reflection never lasted long. His days of idle, pointless introspection were long over and they belonged to a place he would never again revisit.
He picked up the Financial Times and began scouring it, his dark eyes frowning in concentration as he rapidly scanned the daily updates on companies and their fortunes. This was his life blood. Companies that had suffered under mismanagement, inefficiency or just plain bad luck were his playground and his talents for spotting the golden nugget amidst the dross were legendary.
He almost missed the tiny report slipped towards the back section. Four meagre square inches of newsprint that had him narrowing his eyes as he re-read every word written about the collapsing fortune of a certain riding stables nestling in the Warwickshire equestrian territory.
No, not a man for idle introspection,
