He’d gone. She found herself glaring helplessly at the closed door, unable to recall ever feeling such a violent loathing for someone she barely knew. A bientôt? She’d think herself lucky if she never had to see him again!
Her luck was out. Fierce hopes of avoiding bumping into him again evaporated as she walked out to the palm-tree-dotted poolside restaurant an hour later. He was drinking red wine, lazily relaxed on a bar stool, darkly attractive in a white dinner-jacket and an amber bow-tie which seemed to emphasise his golden eyes. Around him, in an animated group, milled several glamorouslooking people who appeared to be hanging on his every word. Two girls in particular held Gabriella’s attention. Chic, dark, svelte as models, they fawned over him, vying for his attention. In clinging evening dresses, they looked dauntingly poised and beautiful. For a few seconds, Gabriella felt rooted to the spot, glancing round uncertainly at the other guests, standing near the bar or seated at the candlelit tables all around the circular floodlit pool.
Her heart plummeted. Everyone seemed to have dressed for dinner! Everywhere she looked she saw silks and crepe de Chines, sequins and satins. And here she was, face bare of make-up, hair dragged into a high French plait, in a favourite but totally unsuitable short apple-green cotton T-shirt dress, and flip-flops…
Rick Josephs had seen her. Half turning from his seat on the bar stool, he raised a hand in brief salute, his eyes lingering on her for a while, his expression unreadable. The girls nearest him turned too, eyeing Gabriella with swift, derisive glances before swinging away, resuming their vivacious conversation.
Too late to duck back upstairs, and riffle through her skimpy wardrobe for her smartest dress. She’d look an immature idiot, if she ran out now. She’d just have to brazen it out.
Head high, she aimed for the bar and smiled confidently at the friendly Asian barman.
‘I’d like a…a glass of pineapple juice, please…’
Near by, she could hear one of the girls and Rick Josephs talking in rapid French, his husky, amused baritone growl a contrast to her cool feminine voice. With relief, she realised that the head waiter had spotted her, and was bearing down on her, smiling in welcome.
‘Bonsoir, Mademoiselle Howard. Would you like me to show you to your table?’
‘Oh, yes. Thank you…’ She followed him, averting her gaze as she passed Rick Josephs. As she drew level with his party, one of the girls in the group surrounding him burst into a peal of laughter, swirled blindly round, glass in hand, and collided head-on with Gabriella. With a gasp of dismay, Gabriella felt the contents of the glass of red wine splash down the front of her dress.
‘Oh, pardon! I am so sorry…’ The girl was definitely slightly tipsy. From the laughingly unrepentant expression on her face, as she eyed Gabriella’s casual outfit, she didn’t view the accident with too much gravity.
Pink-faced, Gabriella stared down at the spreading stains on her dress, suddenly the centre of everyone’s attention, wishing she could vanish into thin air.
‘It doesn’t matter…’ Embarrassment engulfed her. Not only was she not dressed in an evening gown, as everyone else appeared to be, she was also sporting a T-shirt dress with red wine all over it…
‘Mademoiselle, how unfortunate…’ the head waiter was saying anxiously. ‘Perhaps you would like to change your clothes before you sit down to dinner…?’
‘Yes…I think I’d better…’
They were interrupted by Rick Josephs, who took charge of the situation with cool aplomb.
‘Leave it to me, René,’ he told the head waiter with a grin. ‘Come with me, Gabriella…’
When he took her arm, she was so stunned by his audacity that she barely had time to argue before she was escorted away from the restaurant, and into the cicada-filled darkness of the hotel gardens.
‘Let go of my arm,’ she said, icily polite, swinging to confront him as he dropped his hand. ‘You’d be far better off chatting up your drunken female admirers at the bar than hauling me out here…!’
He gave a weary sigh, eyeing her taut face with wry annoyance.
‘Gabriella…you don’t mind if I call you Gabriella?’
‘As a matter of fact, I do…’
‘You must try not to judge people so harshly,’ he went on softly, ignoring her. ‘I apologise for the accident, and for the clumsiness of my companion. And I will buy you a new dress.’
‘I happened to like this one!’ she countered obstinately, with what she knew to be a lamentable lack of social grace. ‘And just because I have certain…standards…doesn’t mean that I judge people harshly…’
‘Dieu!’ he growled, half laughing and half angry, catching her by the shoulders and giving her a slight shake. ‘What an unbearable little prig you are, Gabriella!’
His words seemed to hit her square in the face. Opening her mouth to retort, she felt her throat tighten without warning. Abruptly, her fragile poise began to crumble, and anger came to her rescue.
‘I couldn’t really care less about your opinion of me,’ she retorted shakily, trying to free herself from his firmly guiding hand as he steered her through the undergrowth. ‘I assure you my opinion of you is every bit as low! Where are we going…?’
‘My mother taught me that to remove red wine the stain must be soaked in white wine,’ he re- torted calmly, ‘as quickly as possible.’ They’d reached a detached white villa, palms swaying beside the arched, carved wooden doorway, the air heavy with the lush musky scent of tropical flowers. ‘Come inside, and take off your dress. I can supply the white wine, if you wish to put my mother’s remedy to the test?’
The sardonic grin as he ushered her inside what seemed to be a private villa in the hotel grounds sent her temper soaring even higher.
‘Take my dress off…? Are you serious?’
‘Why, yes—’ he spread his hands ironically ‘—unless you wish me to pour white wine over it while you are wearing it?’
‘Look, if this is some kind of…of cheap seduction technique…’
‘Far from it, Gabriella.’ He was guiding her into a luxurious wood-panelled bathroom, handing her a grey Paisley silk robe before leaving her. ‘You are not my type. I prefer older, married women. Or drunken pick-ups at hotel bars. Remember?’
Hot colour burned her cheeks as she stared at his mocking dark face. Catching an angry breath in her chest, she demanded unsteadily, ‘And what am I supposed to wear to dinner, your silk dressing-gown?’
‘Relax. I promise I will not let you starve.’
He withdrew, leaving her seething with mixed emotions, not least of which was acute apprehension.
After a long, indecisive wrestle with her temper, she rammed the bolt home on the door, and then slowly slid the apple-green dress off. She examined her white lacy bra. There was a red stain on that, too, but she’d rather die than present her underwear for Rick Josephs’s stain-removing treatment.
With the Paisley robe belted tightly enough to endanger her circulation, she emerged with the dress.
Rick Josephs had discarded his white dinner-jacket, and loosened his bow-tie. He was stretched out quite happily on a white LloydLoom-style cane chair on a paved balcony with a spectacular view of the moonlit ocean, as she came reluctantly in search of him.
When he saw her he stood up, took the dress from her stiff fingers, and waved an opened bottle of white wine with a lop-sided smile.
‘OK. Now we marinate the dress in the white wine,’ he quipped lightly, bearing it off into what looked to be an expensively equipped kitchen. ‘Can I get you a drink?’