“Who says?”
“It’s a law of nature or something.” He led the way into the living room and gestured toward the orange crate. “You deal. I’m getting a beer. Want one?”
“Beer sounds good.”
That surprised him, but he made no comment. Nor did he say much when she displayed an extraordinary knack for knowing when to hold her cards and when to fold ’em. When she folded for the fifth or sixth time in a row, Paul grew frustrated.
“Why not play the hand out?”
“It’s always better if you know when to cut your losses.”
“We are not playing for the rent money. Hell, we’re not even playing for matchsticks.”
“If you get out of the habit of playing like you mean to win, it’ll get you in trouble later.”
“And who taught you that bit of wisdom?”
“My father. He swears it’s how he made his first million.”
“His first million?” Paul repeated with a dry inflection. “Exactly how many does he have now?”
Gabrielle shrugged sleepily and took another sip of beer. “Ten. Twenty. I don’t know. He doesn’t think it’s important for women to know those things.”
“If your father has all that money, why are you living here?” Paul asked, thoroughly bemused. He’d known Gabrielle was classy, that until very recently she’d had some money, but he’d had no idea just how much.
“Because I’m almost broke,” she explained patiently.
“But your father—”
Her chin set stubbornly, though the effect was lost in a yawn. “That’s his money,” she said, continuing to shuffle the cards.
It finally dawned on Paul that there was some sort of pride at stake here. “Your father doesn’t know you’re running out of money, does he? How long before the next trust fund check comes through?”
“What trust fund check?” She put the deck of cards down in front of him. “Cut.”
Still perplexed, Paul did as she asked. So there was no trust fund, he thought as she dealt. Yet she didn’t seem to be estranged from her family. The fondness she felt for her father had been unmistakable in her voice. She had quoted him not with irony, but with respect. Figuring out the complexity of the relationship was something he decided to leave for another time.
They played a few more hands before he got up and went for another beer. When he came back into the living room, she was sitting on the floor, legs tucked under her, her head resting on the orange crate.
“Gaby?”
She gazed up at him with sleepy eyes and a suggestion of a smile on her lips. All at once playing poker and her family’s elusive financial dealings were the last things on his mind. He tried to tell himself the swift sexual reaction was perfectly understandable. He hadn’t fully recovered from that earlier misinterpretation of the noises in her room. He reminded himself sternly that he had no personal interest in Gabrielle Clayton beyond her ability to pay the rent.
Then he made the mistake of picking her up and carrying her back to her room. She snuggled. The woman curled up in his arms, buried her face against his neck and smelled like some exotic flower. He wanted to drop her onto her bed and escape just as quickly as he possibly could. Instead he put her down gently, then stood watching her, wondering at the vague tightening in the pit of his stomach. This woman wasn’t cool and distant. This woman wasn’t a snob. She was warm and vulnerable and desirable. And he needed to get very far away from her very fast.
The room next door wasn’t nearly far enough. Gaby might have been sleeping peacefully in her own bed, but she made her presence felt in his dreams. He blinked awake to incredible loneliness and throbbing memories.
Well, hell, he thought, staring at the ceiling for the second time that night. He might have been tempting fate by inviting her to share this apartment. He might even have hoped that the chemistry between them would prove irresistible. But he hadn’t planned on feeling this tender protectiveness at all. In fact, quite the opposite. He’d been absolutely certain that daily doses of her disdain would fuel his natural aversion to women who thought they were too good for the average man. Instead she hadn’t been in the apartment twenty-four hours and already his carefully erected wall of preconceptions was cracked at the foundation. It made for a very long night.
* * *
Gabrielle did not want to get out of bed. It was Saturday morning. From the brightness of the sun slanting through the window, she judged it to be a beautiful day. But Paul was very likely to be in the next room and she wasn’t sure she was at all prepared to go another round with him.
Every one of their encounters had disturbed her in some indefinable way that went well beyond irritation. Their latest, in fact, was a dim but decidedly pleasant memory. She recalled the strength of his arms around her, the gentleness of his touch, the oddly haunted look in his eyes when he’d thought she’d been with another man. She wasn’t sure which was likely to be more difficult to face, the impossible man she’d first met or the tender one who’d helped her through the night. Such uncertainty had a tendency to make her cranky.
Finally she dared a trip to the bathroom. Fortunately Paul didn’t seem to be anywhere in the apartment. In the bathroom, however, she was reminded emphatically of his presence. She found his damp towel laying on the floor, his razor beside a sink dotted with specks of dark hair and his T-shirt on the door handle. The intimacy it suggested sent a little shiver dancing along her spine. That made her mad, though admittedly out of all proportion to the seriousness of his transgression. It also helped her to put that single incident during the night into its proper perspective once and for all. She was rooming with an inconsiderate slob, not some
