She cleaned the sink, washed up, dressed, picked up his belongings and tore open the door with every intention of dumping the items in the middle of his bed. She hadn’t counted on practically tripping over him. He was lying in the middle of the kitchen floor, his very bare upper body partially hidden in a cabinet. Unfortunately quite enough was exposed to tease her imagination. She dropped his things on his stomach and heard a muttered exclamation, a thump and then a curse.
He emerged rubbing his head and peered at her balefully. “What’s the story?”
“There is one bathroom in this apartment.”
“How observant of you to notice,” he retorted, responding to her admittedly nasty mood. “What’s the problem?”
“I will not clean up after you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“Well, we sure as hell don’t have a maid to do it.”
“Right again.”
“I will not live in a pigsty.”
He carefully removed the assortment of items on his stomach, holding them up for inspection. “I’d hardly call one towel, a razor and my underwear the makings of a pigsty.”
“It’s a start.”
“Come on, Gaby, loosen up. I’m used to living alone. We’ll have to work out the details as we go along. I’ll buy a medicine chest for the razor. I’ll install a towel rack later. As for my underwear, if that disturbs you…” he began with a leer.
“It doesn’t disturb me!” She was practically shouting.
He grinned. “Then why are you shouting?” Paul couldn’t resist chuckling at her furious expression. It was good to see yet another break in that cool, controlled facade of hers. In fact, if it weren’t so dangerous to his own equilibrium, he might make that his immediate goal, seeing to it that Gabrielle Clayton exchanged what had apparently been a rather uptight existence for something a little more carefree. Even now her frown wavered uncertainly. He had a feeling that now that she’d told him off, she wasn’t quite sure what to do next. Politeness dictated an apology, but her mood obviously did not.
“Come on,” he said, putting aside his wrench and his common sense. He got to his feet and held out his hand.
She regarded him warily. “Where?”
“We’re going to brunch.”
He caught the quick flash of interest in her eyes before she shook her head. “We can’t. There’s too much to do around here.”
“It can wait.”
“I cannot live in total chaos.”
“You can work twice as hard on a full stomach.”
“I don’t have money to throw away on brunch when we can cook right here.”
“I do. Besides, there’s no food in the refrigerator except for some cheese that’s turning green.”
She swallowed hard at that. “Okay. But we’re roommates. We go dutch or not at all.”
“Not this time. We’re celebrating.”
“What?”
“Our first fight.”
“It’s not our first,” she said with the beginnings of a smile. “We’ve been arguing since we met.”
“Then it’s time we called a truce.” He grinned at her. “Over brunch.”
She caved in sometime between his deliberately provocative description of freshsqueezed orange juice and the promise of waffles and warm maple syrup.
“One hour,” she agreed finally. “No more.”
“Relax, Gaby. If you eat too fast, you’ll get indigestion. Isn’t that what you told me yesterday?”
“An hour,” she insisted, glaring again.
“Do you want to time it down to the second?” he inquired, offering her a view of his watch. She scowled back, yanked on her jacket and descended the stairs like a queen on her way to court.
“Where are we going?” she asked, turning back at the corner to wait for him.
“I thought you knew,” he retorted. “You’re leading the way.”
She slowed her steps and grumbled, “Don’t you ever hurry?”
“Not if I can help it. Stress is bad for you. Don’t you ever slow down?”
“You can’t afford to in my business.”
So, he thought, she really hadn’t been taking money from her father. “What is your business?” he asked, envisioning an elegant boutique on Madison Avenue struggling against exorbitant rents and fickle tastes.
“I’m a stockbroker.”
Stunned, he simply stared at her.
Oblivious to his astonishment, she bit her lip. “Actually, I was a stockbroker. Now I seem to be having trouble convincing people of that.”
Paul tried to reconcile his first impressions with reality. “Were you any good?”
“I was damn good.”
“So why’d they fire you?”
“Who says they did?”
“You don’t seem like the type of lady who’d walk away from a sure thing with no prospects in sight.” And yet, in many ways, that was exactly what she’d done when she’d left the family nest.
“You think you have me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Not really,” he said honestly, gesturing to a crowded deli at the same time. “Is this okay?”
“Fine.”
He gave his name to the hostess, then turned back to Gabrielle. “Well? What happened?”
“Okay, I was fired.” The sparks in her eyes dared him to make fun of her for that. “Not because I wasn’t good, though. It’s just that there were dozens who were better and who’d been there longer.”
“If the business is all that tight, what makes you think it’ll be any better at another brokerage house? You could work your tail off and end up out of a job again, right? All through no fault of your own.”
She shrugged, her expression resigned. “It’s a risky business.”
Curious about her unemotional tone and the flat, empty look in her eyes, he said, “Why do you do it?”
“I trained for it. It’s what I do. You hammer and paint. I sell stocks and bonds.”
“Why?”
She ignored the question as they were finally led to a table. As soon as she was seated, she buried her face behind the menu. It didn’t take a genius to figure out she was avoiding the question. As soon as their orders had been taken, Paul persisted. “Why, Gaby? What is it about the stock market that turns you on? Is it the money, the power, the risks? What?”
Her gaze narrowed defensively. “You sound as though you disapprove of making money.”
“Hey, what’s to disapprove of? Money’s great and it’s none of my business what you do with your life. I just see
