A faint grin flitted across Gabrielle’s face. “I thought you would.”
“I still don’t like the idea of your lying to him. If he finds out what’s happened before you tell him yourself, it will only upset him more.”
“How is he going to find out? He’s too busy keeping the whole country on the straight and narrow to worry about one wayward daughter.”
“What if he tries to call you at work?” She stared at him, her expression horrified. “Oh, damn,” she whispered softly.
“Obviously that’s not something you’d considered. What if one of your friends up here tries to track you down by calling your family? You’ve pretty much dropped out of sight. It’s not unthinkable that they’d assume you’d gone back to South Carolina.”
“You’re a real bundle of good news this morning, aren’t you? Why aren’t you still asleep?”
“I missed you,” he said evenly. “Now stop changing the subject.”
“I don’t want to talk about this,” she said stubbornly.
“Fine, but you’d better think about it. Delaying the inevitable is only going to make it worse.”
He left her sitting on the sofa, staring out the window.
Senator Graham Clayton. He couldn’t get the name out of his head as he dressed and went downstairs to finish painting the living room of the apartment that would soon be his. If last night had complicated his relationship with Gabrielle, this morning’s revelation had given new meaning to the word. He might be considered a suitable addition to the family of some pleasant, middle-class politician whose name wasn’t recognized beyond his own state, but he no more belonged in Senator Clayton’s reportedly idyllic family than he did in Buckingham Palace.
“How many coats of paint are you going to put on that spot?” Gabrielle asked, interrupting his panicked thoughts.
He stared blankly at her, then at the wall. Sure enough he’d been running the roller over the exact same square for the last ten minutes. “I guess I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I hope you weren’t down here panicking about the shotgun.”
His expression must have given him away because she sighed heavily. “I knew it. I knew the minute you found out about my family, you’d start building your defenses right back up again. I can just hear that brain of yours clicking through all the reasons why we’re unsuited and magnifying them out of all proportion.”
“You have to admit the stakes are a lot higher than I’d realized.”
“Stakes? The only thing at stake here is whether or not you and I care about each other. I can’t speak for you, but I’m falling in love for the first time in my life.”
Paul felt his heart stop then start again at a faster beat. He shook his head adamantly. “You can’t do that.”
“Who says?”
“I do. It won’t work.”
“It was working well enough a few hours ago.”
“Don’t remind me.”
She walked toward him until they were standing practically toe to toe. He felt as though he were suffocating.
“I think I have to,” she said softly, before curling her fingers into the hair at the back of his head. His scalp tingled and the sensation danced straight down to his… Oh, hell, he thought weakly as her lips claimed his with a possessiveness that captured his breath and robbed him of all sensible thoughts. For a woman who’d been relatively inexperienced twenty-four hours ago, she was catching on quickly.
Sparks danced in her eyes when she released him. “Remember that the next time you get any crazy ideas about going back to being my pal.”
Paul refused to let a little thing like an unbridled libido destroy his common sense, which had been strengthening with a vengeance ever since that phone call. He had to find some way to remind Gabrielle of exactly how mismatched they were. They’d been living in isolated, idyllic harmony here for several weeks now. She hadn’t been forced to face what his world was really like, how vastly different it was from her own.
“I’ve been thinking,” he began, still sorting through possible ways of introducing her to reality. “This apartment will be finished in a few days now. Maybe we ought to show it off.”
She regarded him suspiciously. “Where did that come from?”
“It’s just an idea. I mean why not have a party? You can meet some of my friends. I can meet some of yours. We’ve worked hard to get this place in shape. It’s time we celebrated.”
“Under normal circumstances, that would make perfect sense. Why do I have this feeling that there’s a catch in there?”
“Because you have a suspicious nature?” he suggested cheerfully.
“With good cause,” she retorted. “Are you trying to prove something to me?”
“What would I be trying to prove?” He concentrated very hard on dipping the roller into the paint, then spreading it onto a new section of the wall. He could not look into her eyes.
“That we mix like oil and water.”
He swallowed hard. “How would a party show that?” he asked innocently. “It’s just a bunch of people getting together for a good time.”
“Exactly. So don’t get any crazy ideas that your friends will offend me so deeply that I’ll stop wanting you or that my friends will be such snobs that your friends will hate them. In fact, I will go so far as to bet you that this will be the very best party you have ever been to.” Paul had a feeling he’d gone about this all wrong. Gabrielle was now determined to make this stupid party work and she would do it, if she had to invite the symphony and the New York Rangers to entertain the divergent crowd. He didn’t even need to wait for Senator Clayton to show up with his hanging noose. Right now, he had all the rope he needed to hang himself.
CHAPTER NINE
Despite her avowed self-confidence, Gabrielle felt trapped and more than a little worried. She had no choice
