“I know it,” he said with such conviction that she smiled.
“Okay, I’m open to suggestions.” She leaned forward, eyes wide, and propped her chin in her hand.
Paul’s eyes widened and he leaned away from her hurriedly. “Don’t do that.”
“What?”
“Look so damnably inviting. You could tempt a man to ruin with that look.”
She did laugh at that. “If something’s going to happen between us, it will be with our mutual consent, right? Since you want to keep this strictly platonic and so do I, we should have no problem. We’re not a couple of lusty kids with no sense. It should be even easier beginning tomorrow. You’ll be back at work. I’ll be job-hunting. We probably won’t even see each other.”
He seized on her logical, unemotional comments with transparent relief. “Absolutely. That’s right.” He got to his feet looking far more relaxed than he had when he’d joined her a half hour earlier. She was surprised he didn’t hold out his hand to be shaken. He was even whistling when he went back inside.
So, she thought when he had gone, it was all out in the open. Discussed and resolved exactly the way it should be between two rational, mature adults who knew a mistake when it stared them in the face.
Now all they had to do was live with it. And that was complicated by the realization that with every hour that passed, she was having more and more difficulty recalling why she and Paul were so terribly wrong for each other. It sure as hell didn’t have anything to do with artichokes. She didn’t like them, either.
CHAPTER SIX
In the morning their unemotional, carefully conceived plan went wildly awry.
Still half-asleep and suffering from a splitting morning headache that she blamed totally on Paul’s seductive invasion of her dreams, Gabrielle wandered barefooted into the chilly kitchen. She began running water for her bath, only dimly aware that there seemed to be plenty of hot water. Yawning, she slipped off her robe and climbed into the tub, sinking slowly down into the luxurious warmth. She slid lower, sighed and rested her head against the back of the tub. Some of the tension began to ease in her shoulders and neck.
The she heard a door open. The bathroom door! Not five feet away. And only one person could possibly be opening that door at this hour of the morning, unless a particularly fastidious burglar had stopped in to shave.
“Paul, don’t you dare come into this room!” Admittedly overly hysterical and definitely wide-awake, her screech echoed off the walls and made her head throb even more.
The door slammed shut, the noise like a shotgun blast reverberating through her head. She prayed he was on the far side of it.
“Dammit all, Gaby, we had a schedule.”
He had retreated. But even through the door, she could hear that his indignation was tempered by a slight breathlessness. Apparently her warning shout hadn’t been quite in time to prevent a very thorough look at her unclad body. The temperature in the kitchen seemed to warm by several degrees, setting her cheeks aflame.
“I forgot it,” she said with unaccustomed meekness as embarrassment washed over her.
“It was your schedule. You wanted me out of the kitchen by seven-thirty. It is now seven-twelve.”
“Okay. So I didn’t look at the clock. Are you going to kill me over eighteen measly little minutes?”
“I wouldn’t if I were anywhere other than trapped in this bathroom. Get out of the tub. You’ll have to finish your bath later, after I’ve had mine.”
She did not want to get out of this water, now that she was in it. She knew instinctively that there was not enough hot water in the entire building to give her a second bath this temperature. “Give me ten minutes. That’s all.”
“Out,” he repeated with stubborn insistence. “You’re on my time.”
“Five minutes,” she bargained, reaching hurriedly for the soap.
“Forget it. I have to get to work. I’m already running late. I might as well forget about my own bath. I’ll be doing good just to make it across town. I am coming out now.”
It occurred to her that for a man she’d pegged as irresponsible, he was suddenly awfully conscious of time management. Under the circumstances, the turnaround seemed extraordinarily suspicious.
“Don’t you…” She began the warning with haughty indignation. It failed her as she heard the latch click. She stared at the opening door with a growing sense of incredulity and dismay. He was actually coming out. Wearing a towel and a frown. Her heart thumped unsteadily. His arms and shoulders were every bit as muscled as she’d imagined. His stomach… well, never mind. His stomach was much too low and definitely too bare for a lady to be studying.
Then she considered her own predicament. She glanced down. There were no bubbles in this water. No frothy covering. Not even a bar of soap floating on the surface. Come to think of it, there wasn’t even a towel nearby. She hadn’t been nearly alert enough to remember to bring one. Towels belonged in bathrooms. Then, again, so did tubs. Logic aside, the fact of the matter was that there probably wasn’t a decent covering within twenty or thirty feet. In his current belligerent mood, she certainly couldn’t count on Paul to supply one…except perhaps for the one he was wearing and that would create far more problems than it solved.
“Paul Reed, if you’re going to insist on walking through here, then you can at least close your eyes,” she said imperiously, lifting her gaze—very hurriedly—to clash defiantly with his. It was a tactic she’d seen her mother use with extraordinary success with everyone from her father to the gardener. They, however, had not reacted with the same amusement that played about Paul’s lips.
“If I close my eyes, I’m liable
