“And for money,” she continued, her eyes burning with unshed tears, the years of impotent rage all bursting behind a swell of emotion. “For five thousand dollars. That’s all it took to buy you off!” His face had gone white, but she hardly registered it; she saw him only through a blur of fevered anger. “I loved you! I would have died for you! And you sold me out for money! You used me!”
“Gaby,” he said hesitantly, as he slowly released her. “Gaby, you don’t understand. You don’t know how it was.”
“I know,” she scoffed, her voice breaking, and even then she smiled as she rubbed viciously at an escaped tear. “I know all too well. You were ambitious. You wanted to get up in the world. And you did. Don’t you want to thank me for all this, Marc?” she asked, sweeping her arms around toward the opulent apartment. “I was the price you paid for it!”
“Your own parents sold you out, not me!” he returned hotly, dark eyes flashing, his face like stone.
Her lower lip trembled, and her eyes felt as if they had sand in them. Her throat was full of thorns. Beside her slender hips, her fists clenched. “I’ve hated you,” she whispered. “For so many years I’ve hated you. I wouldn’t even go down the street where you used to live, by the garage where you worked. I thought you loved me.”
He seemed to have a hard time answering. He stared down at her, his dark eyes half-hidden under his eyelids, his jaw taut. “You were just a kid,” he said finally.
“Just a kid,” she echoed. She drew in a steadying breath. “Yes, I was. Young and trusting and stupid.” She glared at him. “I hear your new woman is loaded.” She smiled slowly. “How much will she be worth when you throw her over?”
“Damn you!” he burst out, his face livid with anger, dangerous.
She avoided his sudden movement just as Joe came out onto the patio. Marc glanced at his brother with eyes that barely saw through their fury while Joe approached them, oblivious to the scene that had just transpired. Marc lit a cigarette and Gaby sat shakily on a stone bench a few feet away. Joe joined them with two glasses of champagne.
“Talking over old times?” Joe asked, a note of anger in his voice. He gave his brother a narrow glance before he sat down beside Gaby. “Here you go, love,” he told her. “I’m sorry,” he added softly.
“So am I,” Gaby said, although only Joe understood the hidden meaning as she glanced past him at Marc. “Won’t Miss Moore be missing you?”
He glared at her. “No doubt she will. Go easy on the sauce, Joe, you know how it hits you in the head,” he said, cautioning his brother.
He turned and strode back inside, while Gaby sipped champagne as if she didn’t have a care in the world. She was still shaking inside, but she didn’t let on. She listened to Joe and answered his questions and put on the best act of her career.
But later, at home in the darkness, she relived her shame and guilt. How could she still feel desire for Marc after what he’d done to her? She’d have to keep him at a safe distance from now on. She wasn’t giving up that contract, not even for him. And if he wanted her to stop seeing Joe, let him tell his brother the truth. Let him tell Joe that he’d allowed himself to be bought off, to give up the woman he’d sworn eternal devotion to. Let him show his only brother what an unscrupulous, conscienceless, mercenary man he really was. And on that thought Gaby cried herself to sleep.
* * *
HER FATHER WAS at the breakfast table when she went down early the next morning, before she was to do the second set of stills for Motocraft, Inc.
“Fancy seeing me here!” Jack Bennett told his daughter with a grin. He was middle-aged now, balding, and a little overweight, but his eyes were as green as Gaby’s. “I’m the other tenant, remember me? I live here occasionally.”
She laughed. “Nice to have you home! Sorry I wasn’t here when you got in. I went to a party.” Gaby hesitated a moment before continuing. Should she tell her father that she had gone with Joe? Until now she had made it a point not to let him know she was once again in contact with the Stephanos.
“I... I went with Joe Stephano,” she said at last.
He seemed to freeze. “Stephano?”
“Yes. He and big brother Marc own their own company now. Motocraft, Inc., the parts and transmission company that’s been franchised. I’m doing all the publicity work for it. It was all decided before I knew who owned it, but it’s too late for them to back out now.”
“Stephano,” her father repeated huskily. “I never dreamed he’d make it.”
“He wouldn’t have, if you and Mother hadn’t bought him off,” she said coldly, and stared into her scrambled eggs, missing the flash of his eyes. “Well, that’s all water under the bridge now. You’d like his brother. Joe’s nice.”
“You’re dating Joe?”
“Why not?” She laughed. “Marc hates it, of course, but Joe’s a good guy, and I enjoy his company. Besides, he’s sort of my boss.”
“I never liked you becoming a model,” her father began.
“Neither you nor Mother ever did, but I’ve proved that I’m capable of supporting myself, and now I want to go on doing it.”
“What about marriage, children?” her father muttered.
“I don’t want all that. My goodness, you know I’m not domestic. I can burn water.”
“You wouldn’t have to be domestic for some men. There’s Peter...”
“Peter Jackson is a very nice man, and he’ll make some woman a wonderful husband,” she said dryly. “But not me. I don’t want to get married.”
“Because of Stephano?” he demanded, lifting his head to stare at her. “Because of that childish affair?”
“You never would listen to me, would you?” she asked quietly. “I was in love with him.”
He averted his eyes. “You were barely seventeen.”
“Some women only love once. He was my world.” She turned away and looked out the apartment window at the busy street below while her father stared blankly into his coffee. “There’s never been anyone else, in any emotional sense. I don’t think there ever will be.”
“Only because it was unfinished, that’s all,” her father grumbled. “If the affair had gone on very long, you’d probably have tired of him.”
“Think so?” She sipped her coffee. “Oddly enough, I think I’d have been hooked for life, so it’s just as well that we never became lovers.”
“You expect me to believe he never touched you?” he scoffed.
“Of course he touched me. But he never seduced me,” she returned, whirling. “He was too aware of my upbringing. He said it would kill my conscience, and he was probably right.”
Jack looked pale. “I thought you were having an affair with him.”
“No such luck.” She laughed. “Oh, well, it’s over, anyway, and just as well that nothing regretful happened. I have to run, I’m shooting a TV commercial this morning. Wish me luck. I’ve worked with this turkey before, and he had me do fifty-five takes on one sentence in the last commercial he filmed with me!”
“Yes,” Jack said absently. “Yes, good luck.”
She got her things together and started for the door.
“Gabrielle?” he called suddenly.
She turned, smiling. “Yes?”
“If things had been different,” he said, “you’d