“So, Gaby, when do you want to move in?”
She gave him an icy stare. It was going to be a very long month. Or two. “As soon as possible.”
“Will Friday be okay? I should be able to get the basics taken care of by then.”
She supposed if she was about to walk straight into danger, it was better to get it over with. “Perfect,” she said without the slightest tremor.
“One last thing,” she said as she went to the foyer. “For as long as we’re sharing the place, we split the rent fifty-fifty.”
“That’s really not fair. I’m inconveniencing you. I’ll take care of the first month. After that you pay the full rate.”
She toyed with the temptation, then dismissed it. Being in this man’s debt could lead to all sorts of potentially explosive misunderstandings. “Fifty-fifty.”
He shrugged. “If that’s what you want.”
“And the same with the utilities.”
“Okay.”
“And you call me Gabrielle.”
He grinned. “We’ll have to work on that one.”
He followed her onto the front stoop and watched as she started down the steps. She felt his gaze burning into her.
“Have a nice week,” he said just then. The husky note in his voice sent a delicious shiver down her spine before he deliberately taunted, “Gaby.”
Paul Reed, she decided as she marched off to the subway station, was a very irritating man. Since that was the only real certainty to come out of the morning, she was stunned that she’d put up so little fuss about living with him even on such a temporary basis. She was not an impetuous woman. While working on Wall Street had demanded a certain amount of risk-taking, her decisions were always well-informed, not reckless. So why on earth had she agreed to move in with a man like Paul Reed, a man who made her usually sensible head spin? During the subway ride back to Manhattan, she told herself he’d caught her in a weak moment, with little money and a lease that was about to expire. She even blamed it on the zinnias.
Now, after a blast of cool air and a little distance, she was thinking more clearly. That knot of uncertainty in her stomach was sending a message. She ought to listen to it. She would call and cancel their agreement. No, forget calling. His voice would sizzle across the phone lines and she’d agree to something else ridiculous. It was far more sensible not to show up. It would teach him a valuable lesson about good business. He should have insisted on a lease. He should have asked for references, a deposit. Quite possibly he’d considered the fox coat adequate. If only he knew. It was the last thing of value she owned and she could very well be forced to hock it if things didn’t turn around soon.
Pleased with her decision to forget all about the apartment in Brooklyn and about Paul Reed, she pulled the classified ads out of her purse and began to search for another, more suitable apartment, one with a tub where it belonged and no overwhelmingly masculine roommate. But before the subway even crossed into Manhattan, her spirits sank. She could not bear the thought of looking at another dump. The brownstone which, like her, was at a turning point in its life seemed increasingly attractive. And Paul Reed, she decided, she could manage.
“How bad could it be?” she murmured under her breath, hoping for a stronger sense of conviction. It was only for a month after all. Four weeks. She’d handled stock portfolios worth millions. She’d dealt with avaricious, rakish men. She could handle anything for four weeks, even a man like Paul Reed. Starting Monday she’d double her efforts to find a new job. Within a month or two at the outside, she’d be back on her feet and back in Manhattan.
An image of Paul Reed’s bold, impudent smile danced across her mind. The subway suddenly seemed much warmer. Doubts flooded back more vividly than ever.
It was the balance in her checkbook that took the decision out of her hands. When it came right down to it, there was no choice at all. It looked as though Friday would be moving day. She’d just buy a very sturdy lock for the bedroom door.
* * *
Now why did you go and do a stupid thing like that? Paul asked himself repeatedly after Gabrielle had left. Oh, sure, he needed the money if he was to keep this restoration on schedule and make the monthly payments on the brownstone, but he could have insisted that she wait another month before moving in. He could even have volunteered to move downstairs with his sleeping bag. He’d lived like a vagrant amid the rubble up here for weeks now anyway. Instead he’d managed to manipulate her into sharing the place with him. Was he suffering from some need to torment himself? Hadn’t he learned anything about the unbreachable differences between the classes while he’d been growing up on Long Island? He’d been the housekeeper’s son on an estate the size of a country club. It had kept him on the fringes of high society all of his life. The women he’d met had been vain, shallow and spoiled. He’d learned the hard way that they were unsuited to anything but the most pampered way of life.
He slammed a nail so hard it shook the door. Gabrielle Clayton belonged in a place like this the way diamonds belonged in the Bowery. She probably wouldn’t last half as long as diamonds did in that neighborhood, either. It would give him a certain perverse satisfaction to watch her try to adapt to a life-style she quite obviously considered beneath her.
He’d seen the way she looked at him, too, as if he were no better than a lazy, unambitious handyman. Too many people had looked at him just that way. It was about time he taught one of them a lesson about quick judgments and superficial values.
But why
