he had remained totally immune to all her other attempts to show him how much in love with him she was!
And now she knew the reason he had remained immune—because he believed her mother had only married his father for his money, and believed she only wanted him for the same reason!
She shook her head firmly. ‘I don’t believe a word you’ve said about my mother.’
‘Then ask her, Gabriella,’ he challenged scathingly. ‘Just ask her.’ He gave a mocking shake of his head. ‘I have no idea why my father bothered to marry Heather at all when he was already paying for it—’ Rufus broke off abruptly as Gabriella’s hand landed hard against his cheek.
Rufus reached up and grasped her wrist, his face dangerously close to hers now, his eyes glowing with an icy heat, the mark of Gabriella’s hand starting to show red on one rigid cheek. ‘Do that again, Gabriella, and I promise you’ll regret it,’ he grated between clenched teeth.
Her eyes blazed deeply purple as she glared right back at him, breathing hard in her agitation. ‘I hate you!’
‘Good,’ he said with satisfaction. ‘Perhaps in future this will teach you to leave me out of your quest for a rich husband!’
‘I wouldn’t come near you again if you were the last man on earth!’ she assured him emotionally.
‘How original!’ Rufus scorned.
‘You bastard!’ Gabriella told him with feeling. ‘You’re an absolute bastard and I hate you!’ She turned and ran into the villa.
Rufus stood poised on the edge of the pool for several furious minutes before turning sharply and diving deep into the water, relishing the coolness as he began to swim the length of the pool.
Gabriella hated him.
Good.
So why didn’t it feel as satisfying as he’d imagined?
CHAPTER ONE
FIVE years later, as she gazed across the lawyer’s office at Rufus Gabriella knew that she still hated him!
‘If I could get straight on to the terms of Mr Gresham’s will…?’ David Brewster prompted politely once they were seated.
‘Go ahead,’ Rufus instructed tersely.
He didn’t want her here, Gabriella knew. Or his cousin Toby, if the way the two men had greeted each other a few minutes ago was anything to go by. On that she could agree with him however, after what Toby had done.
But although she knew Rufus wouldn’t believe her, she really wished she weren’t here.
Given a choice, she would rather James hadn’t died at all. She’d much rather he were still here giving her the fatherly advice and love that she had found so invaluable since her mother’s death a year ago.
James had been devastated after Heather was killed in a car crash last year, and never really seemed to fully recover from the blow. He had suffered a heart attack six months later, and then another, fatal one, a month ago.
No, given a choice Gabriella would rather have had both James and Heather still alive than being summoned to this lawyer’s office—as must Rufus and Toby have been—at this time, on this day, for a meeting about James’s will.
She and Rufus hadn’t spoken at all since they had arrived separately. As they hadn’t spoken for the last five years. As they wouldn’t ever speak again once this last link with James was severed.
David Brewster’s expression was grave as he opened the official-looking document on top of his desk to look at them over the top of the half-moon glasses he had perched on top of his nose. ‘First things first,’ he said slowly. ‘I have already informed by letter the recipients of small bequests in Mr Gresham’s will, members of the household staff and suchlike,’ he dismissed. ‘And there is, of course, a trust fund for his granddaughter Holly, to be administered by her father and myself until she is of an age to receive the bulk capital.’
‘Lucky old Holly,’ Toby said cheerfully, an actor by profession, his dark good looks unfortunately not matched in talent, meaning that he was very often ‘resting’ rather than actually working. ‘Pity she isn’t eighteen rather than seven, then I could have married her!’
‘Over my dead body!’ Rufus growled in response.
‘If necessary,’ Toby came back tauntingly.
Gabriella barely listened to the exchange, her earlier tension rising to an unbearable pitch as David Brewster dismissed so lightly those ‘small bequests’.
What did that mean?
That she was a recipient of a large bequest…?
If so, Rufus was just going to dislike her more than ever.
If that were possible!
Rufus’s gaze narrowed on the elderly lawyer. ‘Can I ask if this is a recent will of my father’s?’
‘Indeed it is, Mr Gresham,’ the lawyer answered him lightly. ‘In fact, it’s dated only two months before your father’s death.’
Rufus’s uneasiness about the contents of his father’s will increased.
Of course, that uneasiness could have something to do with the fact that Toby, his disreputable cousin and a constant sponge on James’s good will until uncle and nephew had fallen out about three months ago, was also here.
And Gabriella…
He had rarely seen her the last five years, Gabriella having lived and trained as a chef in France for three years after that…incident…in Majorca, and their paths had rarely crossed since she came back to England to live two years ago.
But whenever they had chanced to meet, he had been very aware of the burning intensity of her dislike.
Those five years had done nothing to lessen her beauty, he noted clinically as he looked at her between narrowed lids. In fact if anything she was even more beautiful, none of that youthful eagerness in her face now as she sensed his gaze on her and turned to look at him challengingly.
Her hair was still that gloriously wild cascade of ebony curls loose down her back, but her slenderness was now of almost model-like proportions, her face thinner, too, making those violet-coloured eyes look bigger, her cheeks slightly hollow, her chin more pointed, with only the full, sensual pout of her lips remaining the same.
And he remembered every silken inch of that delectable body, now hidden beneath fitted black trousers and a red gypsy-style blouse that emphasized the fullness of her breasts.
His mouth curled self-derisively as he turned away abruptly, not wanting to dwell on memories of how it had felt to touch her there.
Gabriella saw that scorn on Rufus’s face before he turned his attention back to the lawyer, easily able to guess the reason for it. Rufus still believed her to be nothing but a money-grasping little witch.
‘Now
