“Dammit,” he swore softly, his hands dropping to his side. He seemed to be biting back something, restraining himself.
Gabrielle rubbed her arms and waited for the explosion to go on. When it didn’t, she said, “You might as well go on.”
“No.”
“Don’t stop now. You’re on a roll. Then, again, maybe I should remind you of the niche you’ve put me in and exactly how many times I’ve proven you to be mistaken. Don’t tell me you didn’t expect to have a rich prima donna, a real spoiled brat on your hands. You have a real hang-up when it comes to money. Even I can see that.”
He sighed. “Okay, you’re not the only villain in this piece. That’s all the more reason we should stay as far away from each other as we can get. We seem to bring out the worst in each other.”
Gaby refused to let that lie go unanswered. “Not always.” At his shocked and disbelieving look, she added, “At least not for me.”
“What are you saying?”
“All day today I’ve been remembering the way I felt this morning. You never even touched me and yet I felt as though I were the most desirable woman on the face of the earth. I felt a fire inside that I’d never felt before.”
“That’s lust, Gaby. We’ve never even tried to deny that we feel that. I ought to know. I came damned close to forcing myself on you in there this morning.”
She shook her head and smiled. “Don’t even try to turn what nearly happened here today into some sort of ugly scenario with me as the poor victim. I wanted you, just as much as you wanted me.”
“It’s not enough, Gaby. For this to work, we need mutual respect and we’ve just established that it doesn’t exist. Our bodies may be in perfect harmony,” he said, a bitter note of regret in his voice, “but our heads are in different worlds.”
Gabrielle wanted to protest, but there was far too much truth in what he said. If they were to find their way to something real and meaningful between them, they would have to start over. The prospect might have seemed insurmountable were it not for one thing.
“What about our hearts?” she responded finally, reaching out to touch his chest. He trembled as her fingers lingered over the spot where his heart thundered at a revealing pace. “What about those?”
Paul’s eyes widened at the softly spoken taunt, but she didn’t wait around for an answer. She picked up her coat and left, not sure where she was going, only certain that she wanted to be far from here when she began to cry.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Paul stared at the door as it slammed behind Gabrielle, instinctively noting that the frame seemed a little loose on top. He automatically went for his hammer and a handful of nails as he pondered her exit line.
What the hell was she talking about? Had she been trying to suggest that this thing between them amounted to love? That was crazy. They barely knew each other. In fact, until tonight they’d both apparently been influenced—subconsciously at least—by fairly negative first impressions, the kind that did not inspire love or anything remotely akin to it.
Then, again, maybe that’s what someone of Gabrielle’s background had to think in order to justify a sexual relationship. Which, he noted ruefully, they didn’t even have. Perhaps in her circles, she even had to justify desire.
Well, she could call it anything she liked. Personally, he thought lust or chemistry was a pretty adequate label. It was possible to lust after a total stranger—a lady with a pair of shapely legs, for instance, or one with long red hair that flashed fire in the sunlight. But you sure as hell couldn’t love someone you didn’t even know. If tonight’s argument had told him anything, it was that he and Gabrielle knew as much about each other as two people who happened to sit on neighboring bar stools. They’d both been talking for days, but obviously neither of them had been listening.
And that, he decided, was something he couldn’t do a damn thing about until she came home. He went back down to work on the third floor apartment. The sooner it was finished and rented, the sooner he could complete the second floor unit and then, finally, his own on the ground floor. Then there would be some space between him and Gabrielle, assuming she hadn’t already moved on long before that. That prospect wasn’t something he cared to think about at all.
At first, tonight, seeing the excitement that lit her eyes when she’d come in, his stomach had knotted. He’d been convinced that only a new job would spark that high-voltage smile and guileless enthusiasm. When he’d seen the two tables and realized that, for the moment, she intended to stay—job or no job—he’d been overwhelmed by relief and a vague sense of victory. It was as if those tables represented a sort of commitment.
It made what had happened afterward all the more confusing. How, in the midst of the teasing and laughter over those tables, had things gotten so intense and so wildly out of control? One minute they’d been talking about paint, putting it on and taking it off. It certainly should have been less volatile than a similar discussion about clothes, for instance. Still, the next minute accusations and countercharges were whizzing through the air aimed at hurting.
No matter how hard he tried, he
