‘What size is he?’
‘He’s a nine.’
Grimacing as he stood up in the generous-sized utility room that his impressive physique had made appear suddenly small, Gabriel emitted a playful sigh. ‘Wouldn’t have been any good, I’m afraid. I’m a size twelve.’
Having removed her own boots, Lara rose to join him. ‘In any case, I think your lovely shoes are completely ruined. Were they very expensive?’ She flushed as she privately wondered how she could possibly find the money to replace them if they’d been even half as expensive as she guessed they had. God knew a college librarian didn’t earn a fortune....
‘If I told you, you’d probably read me the riot act for being so vain and wasteful. Forget about it. The damn shoes don’t matter. Anyway, I’ve got a spare pair in the car.’
‘You’ve got a spare pair in the car? Why didn’t you tell me?’
His arresting gaze made him look to be carefully considering the question. ‘I didn’t think about it. Besides, it’s no big deal. Now, if you’ll go and get me that shirt you promised, I’ll get out of this one and give it to you to put in the washing machine.’
He was already starting to unbutton the stained shirt as he spoke, and Lara suddenly panicked at the thought of seeing him standing there bare-chested.
‘Okay...won’t be a tick,’ she murmured, hurriedly turning towards the door that led out into the hall.
Her senses were already bombarded by Gabriel’s presence alone—how was she supposed to handle being presented with the arresting beauty of his naked male chest and act as though she were unaffected?
CHAPTER THREE
FOR A MAN WHO LIKED to be in command of situations, Gabriel found himself to be uncharacteristically all at sea in his old friend’s home with Lara. Being in that house again, and recalling some of the happiest memories he had ever known, made him yearn to replicate the feelings they evoked—the predominant one being a sense of belonging.
He hadn’t experienced that reassuring sense of being welcomed, being regarded without judgement or conditions being attached, since he’d left the UK all those years ago. God knew, the pressurised career he’d chosen wasn’t likely to engender anything close to that feeling amongst the single-minded and driven individuals he worked with. The phrase about them probably selling their own grandmothers if it made a profit often sprang to Gabriel’s mind.
From time to time it alarmed him to realise he was becoming equally mercenary, and he wasn’t proud of the fact. But in truth, like all addictions, it was hellishly hard to give up—and making money was definitely his drug of choice. Yet it was strange that he wasn’t exactly overjoyed at being bequeathed his uncle’s substantial residence, plus all his possessions and a generous monetary legacy.
All attending the man’s funeral had done for Gabriel was to remind him of the sense of abandonment and excoriating pain he’d lived with since he was a child and his mother had left, leaving him with a man who—although related to him by blood—had been as distant as the Milky Way and even less accessible.
And now, as well as the unwanted complication of having to deal with his uncle’s legacy, there was the totally unexpected dilemma of Lara. Just knowing that she was in the homely kitchen right now, preparing their lunch, shouldn’t give him the inordinate amount of pleasure that it did, but along with an undeniable sense of contentment that was how it made him feel. That in itself was unusual, because he hadn’t met a woman yet he trusted enough to relax with—except perhaps Peggy Bradley, Lara’s mother.
Occupying Lara’s father’s comfortable wing-backed chair in the living room, Gabriel knew his eyelids were drifting closed, but made no attempt to check their descent. Outside, the beneficent sun was shining and its soporific rays beamed in on him through the opened patio doors and inevitably made him feel sleepy.
On the scented summer air a distant melody floated by, teasing at the memory of a small gathering Sean had once spontaneously thrown at the house.... Lara in a long magenta-and-green dress, dancing for all she was worth, throwing her arms wide as if to embrace all that the world had to offer and drawing his eye more than once because she looked so pretty and so free....
‘Gabriel? Sorry to wake you, but lunch is ready. I thought we’d sit out in the garden and eat?’
Hearing the velvet-toned voice of the woman he’d been thinking about, and unsure whether he was still in the throes of his dream or not, Gabriel opened his eyes. His startled gaze was straight away captured by the heart-shaped face that had once been so familiar to him.
Now the innocent young girl that he remembered from his youth had turned into a woman who made him catch his breath and made his blood turn molten simply by looking at her. Devoid of any artifice or make-up, her skin was as fresh and clear as the petals of the creamiest rose, and her lips... Her lush lips were the shape and kind that would draw any man’s attention and make him long to know what they would feel like beneath his own if he were lucky enough to kiss them.
Straightening in the chair, he murmured, ‘I was dreaming about you....’ Playing for time in order to marshal his thoughts, he let a helpless smile tug at the edges of his mouth. ‘Yes, I was dreaming about you at a party Sean had once. You were just sixteen and you were dancing like some ethereal wild child to a Jimi Hendrix track. You looked so free and pretty. I remember thinking you would have fitted right into the era of peace and love in the sixties.’
Lara’s dark brows furrowed as though the reference displeased her. Clearly that particular recollection from the past didn’t fill her with the same wistful pleasure as it did Gabriel.
‘Sixteen was a horrible age for me. I was always so self-conscious and shy, and I sometimes said stupid things I didn’t mean and came to regret. I said something very stupid that night at the party.’
‘Did you? Well, you should put it behind you and forget about it. For goodness’ sake that was years ago, sweetheart, and if my recollections are right I seem to remember that there was plenty of alcohol doing the rounds that night—no doubt that was partly to blame. Besides, we can all say stupid things sometimes. If you can’t be stupid when you’re sixteen, then when can you? Anyway, I was actually quite envious of you that night.’
‘Were you? Why?’
‘Because you looked so carefree. To me you represented a freedom that I longed for—the kind of freedom that no amount of money could buy me.’
Now it was his turn to feel self-conscious and awkward. Gabriel had never revealed anything quite so personal about how he felt to anyone before. Like many young men, the programming that he’d absorbed from an early age had taught him that expressing emotion was akin to revealing a weakness, and right then he kicked it strongly into touch.
Pushing out of his chair, he moved across the room to glance out at the sunlit garden again. Immediately he noticed that the wrought iron picnic table with its matching green umbrella was laid for lunch. It was just the diversion he needed. Too much introspection was liable to make him irritable. He was already regretting being quite so frank with Lara.
‘Were you saying something about us eating outside?’
‘Yes. Lunch is ready. Why don’t you go and make yourself comfortable and I’ll bring it out?’
* * *
Lara couldn’t get Gabriel’s remarks about how she had looked at Sean’s party out of her mind. At no point had he given any indication that he remembered spurning her—first when she had lifted her face up to his for a kiss and then by tactlessly suggesting there must be boys her own age who were interested in her and telling her he had his sights set on the slim blonde who was his tutor.
He hadn’t even taken the bait when Lara had mentioned that she’d said something stupid that night that she regretted. Had her flirtation with him been so insignificant