won’t try to wrap it up in any fancy packaging. I want you, and in return for having you in my bed I’m willing to let your father off the hook. All the stolen money will be replaced. Orders issued to my two finance guys that with the debt owing to me cleared the matter is to be buried, never again to resurface. Of course your father won’t be able to return to his job. That would be taking the joke a step too far. After all, a thief is a thief is a thief. But he will be retired with a generous package, and hopefully a salutary lesson in never dipping his fingers in the till of any company again….’
Lucy couldn’t help staring at him. Here was the same man who had shown up at the garden centre with his lackeys in tow and a dinner invitation he’d expected to be accepted. Now he was offering her an invitation of another sort, and this time he was calling the shots. She was truly appalled at his lack of morality. Was this how all rich people operated? Did they assume that they just needed to snap their fingers and the rest of the world would dance to their tune?
‘That’s ridiculous…’ She edged away from the desk and began backing unsteadily towards the door. She eyed the backpack she had brought with her. It was on the ground, next to the chair she had fallen into when she had first entered his office. Her unravelled hair fell in a long, thick blond curtain over one shoulder, but she was hardly aware of it as she took small steps towards the bag.
‘What’s so ridiculous about it?’
His words halted her, and she jerked up to stare at him with an expression of disbelief. ‘You’re asking me to be…to…’
‘Sleep with me…make love…have sex—at times and places of my choosing… No need to tiptoe over the details.’
‘But that’s utterly immoral!’
‘So’s stealing—and on the plus side sex isn’t a criminal offence punishable with a jail sentence….’ He was incredulous that she was even quibbling over his generous offer. As rescue packages went, he didn’t think she could have landed herself a better one.
And yet she was still staring at him as though he had asked if she wouldn’t mind stripping off and running naked down the street. What exactly, he wondered, was the problem here? If she was playing hard to get in an attempt to up the ante then she was definitely barking up the wrong tree. He would never have dreamt of doing a deal like this with any other woman. Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that she was the only woman ever to have turned him down. But, although she might be the exception, her window of opportunity was small.
‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t.’
Lucy retrieved her backpack and clutched it in front of her like a shield. She wondered whether there was anything else she could say that would buy her father some clemency, but in her heart she knew that the offer on the table was the only one this man would be making. She also knew that by turning it down she was condemning her parent to swift retribution.
But how could she possibly do what he wanted? Sex, for him, was clearly no more than a physical transaction. It was irrelevant that there was no emotion involved. She had always promised herself that sex for her would have lots of emotion involved. How could she abandon the moral principles she had been weaned on?
Gabriel shrugged. He strolled towards her and received the impression that she was holding her ground only by the skin of her teeth. Given half a chance she would have hightailed it through the door at speed.
‘Your choice,’ he told her with casual indifference.
‘Isn’t there something else you want?’ Lucy asked desperately.
‘No.’ Gabriel refused to mince words. ‘That’s the only deal on the table.’
‘And so…my dad…’
‘Goodbye freedom. Hello Cell Block H….’
‘You’re the most heartless, unsympathetic man I’ve ever met in my entire life!’
‘But I have many other things to offer….’ Gabriel’s voice was low and husky. She had a dusting of freckles on her nose and her eyelashes were so thick and dark that anyone would think she had laid on the mascara with a trowel were it not for the fact that she radiated a natural glow that had nothing to do with make-up.
He had always found that a certain element of surprise worked when it came to disarming his opponents. He used it now.
Lucy, staring at him with the dazed expression of someone suddenly subjected to a whiplash rollercoaster of events they had been least expecting, was not prepared for his lean brown hand as he reached to curl his fingers in her hair. She was certainly not prepared for his cool mouth as it descended to meet hers, and she was even less prepared for the way her body was galvanised into a reaction that was so strong it deprived her of the ability to breathe.
She had been kissed before, but never like this. As his tongue gently parted her lips she felt scorching heat race through her. Her breasts were heavy, sensitive to the slight brush of his chest against hers. Her nipples tingled in a way that shot signals to every other part of her body. Like wax subjected to open flame, she was melting. She heard a low moan and was shocked to realise that it was coming from her.
With a push, she separated her treacherous body from his and found no opposition. Indeed, he released her immediately and stood back with a slight smile curving his beautiful mouth.
‘How could you?’
‘Take advantage of you? You enjoyed it…’
‘I did not!’ Lucy cried fiercely. ‘I’m not like that! I’m not like those women you go out with!’ But she was mortified, and ashamed of her body—which was loudly protesting her virtuous words. ‘I’m going!’
She took a couple of panicky steps to remove herself from the stranglehold of his proximity and he didn’t follow her. He reached for something on his desk, scribbled on it.
‘Here’s my card. I’ll give you twenty-four hours, and after that my offer expires. Word of advice? It’s a generous offer. Think very carefully before you decide to put your principles ahead of common sense. And don’t kid yourself that you would be disgusted by the deal. You came alive for me just then, and there’s plenty more where that came from….’
‘Don’t say those things!’ But already she was reacting to his words, her mind flashing erotic images through her head—images that made her squirm because they were so new, so unexpected, so horribly, frighteningly different from anything she had ever experienced before.
She was barely aware of leaving his office. She couldn’t have said how she managed to make it to the train station or get on the train. Several times she looked at the card he had given her and was tempted to rip it into shreds and chuck it in the nearest bin.
So why didn’t she? He had offered her a devil’s contract. She should have thrown that card away the second she left his office. She should never have accepted it in the first place!
Her thoughts were all over the place. Scenery flashed past and she saw none of it. When she tried to recall the conversation they had had all she could see was his sinfully handsome face, all she could hear was the velvety persuasiveness of his low, sexy drawl. He hadn’t touched her, but she felt as though he had. Her body tingled as though he had run those lean brown fingers over it.
She was determined
