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It had happened with the first flash of Mae’s pretty little solitaire as Mae had giddily told her Clint had proposed. The diamond dazzling her as the sun caught an edge, piercing her right through the middle, tearing every plan, every belief, every comfort she had that she wasn’t alone in believing love wasn’t priority number one.
She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, heat and tears squeezing past them.
What was wrong with her? Her best friend was in love. Getting married. Actually happy. Because of that her world had crumbled?
She’d always thought the hot spot that flared in her stomach whenever she looked at Mae and Clint together was fear for her friend. She’d been kidding herself. It was envy. Deep, torturous, craving certainty that she’d never experience even a tenth of the love and affection they shared. It had run so deep that for months she hadn’t even been able to face going on a date that would only remind her she was destined to be alone.
The tears came so fast she began to sob. And then to choke. And then she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs felt as if they were being squeezed from the inside out. The only way she’d ever breathe again was to get out of the damn dress.
She tugged at the straps, but they dug into her shoulders. She yanked at the deep neckline, but it wouldn’t budge. Her trembling fingers wrenched at the zip at her back and—
She stilled, one foot braced indecorously on an ottoman, her arms doing some crazy pretzel move behind her.
The zip was stuck.
Like something out of a movie, the next hour of her life flashed before her eyes. She had to leave in ten minutes if she had a hope of getting to work on time. And first up that day? The final presentation of her Brazilian proposal.
Determination steeling her, Paige took a breath, sniffed back any remaining threads of self-pity, gripped the zip between unwavering fingers, and tugged.
Nada.
Argh! What was she going to do?
Mae and Clint lived only a couple of suburbs over, but in peak-hour traffic it would take for ever for one of them to get to her. The neighbour next door was in hospital getting a nose job. If she called on Mrs Addable upstairs her predicament would be all over the building before she even left the apartment.
Maybe she could wear the thing. She could cover most of it up. Her chartreuse beaded cardigan. Her cropped chocolate jacket. Her fringed grey cowboy boots. And accessories. Lots of fabulous accessories. She pictured the conference room: Callie holding court with the fawning assistants, Geoff hovering over the pastry tray trying desperately not to eat one, her assistant Susie looking up at her as if she were the bee’s knees as she waltzed in … wearing a wedding dress.
With a sob Paige gave in and slumped to her back on her bed.
Gabe stood in the ground level foyer of the Botany Building, rubbing a hand across the back of his neck. It had been a hell of a week. The two other mobs who’d lined up to hear out the ramblings of a rabble of tech-nerds on nanotechnology applications had been the hardest competitors he’d been up against in an age. He’d been lit by the honest to goodness thrill of the chase, and the flicker of brilliance he’d spent his career chasing felt, if not imminent, then at least possible for the first time in a long time.
And yet Gabe felt unpredictably relieved at being back. The cold didn’t seep into his bones like before. The trundle of trams didn’t give him a twitch. And even the Gothamesque skyline didn’t appear quite so unforgivingly stark. In fact with the morning sun pouring over the jut of skyscrapers, glorious Finders Street train station, and the gleaming, snaking river, the city had looked downright pretty.
Maybe he’d missed his bed, with its him-shaped dent. Or maybe he’d missed what could have been in his bed, all long and warm and languid, a warm smile lighting up her deep blue eyes, her lush pink mouth—
The lift binged.
Gabe discreetly repositioned himself. Whoever might be in the lift didn’t need to see how a week without Paige in his bed had affected him. But without even opening its doors, the lift headed back up without him.
A muscle twitched in his cheek. ‘Now, this I didn’t miss.’
The lift paused on the eighth floor. Paige’s floor. He checked his watch. She might not yet have left for work. He could drop in. Say ‘hi’. Shore up their plans for dinner that night. He actually laughed out loud. As if he’d be able to stop at just that.
No, he needed to get into the office to debrief Nate on the deal. He needed to get back to the piles of paperwork that needing reading before he signed on the dotted line to list BonaVenture on the stock market. So that he could get out there again, back amongst the sharks where he belonged.
And yet as he eyeballed the lift his mind didn’t wander to the big wide world waiting for him. His fingers twitched at the thought of burying themselves in masses of silken blonde hair. His mouth watered as he imagined the sweet taste of soft pink lips. He hardened at the thought of burying himself deep inside a woman who knew how to take him to the brink and right on over the other side.
He checked his watch again. His feet twitched and he stared at the lift, as if eyeballing it would make it come back to him.
Screw it.
Three long strides took him to the door to the stairs; he pushed through and took them two at a time, a surge of adrenalin all but giving him wings. His blood pumping hard through his veins as he got ever closer to number eight.
He reached her floor, jogged to her apartment, and, before he could talk himself out of it, banged on her door with a closed fist, feeling a connection to his caveman ancestors. If he was able to do more than grunt before kissing that heavenly mouth of hers he’d deserve a damn medal.
She was home. The shuffle of bare feet on her polished wood floor brought on a heavy heat in his groin. ‘Paige,’ he called, his voice as gruff as a bear’s. ‘It’s me.’
Then, listen as he might, he heard nothing, not even a breath. He hadn’t imagined it, had he? Conjuring up sounds of her that weren’t even there? He started as the doorknob squeaked and turned in its socket. Then the door opened as if in slow motion.
It had been barely a week since he’d seen her, yet the moment he looked into her beautiful face his heart skipped a beat. He’d heard the expression, but before that moment he’d not known it felt like stepping off the top of a tall building with only a faint hope there’d be a dozen firemen waiting below with a big trampoline.
Paige blinked at him, her gorgeous blue eyes smoky with smudged eyeliner. Her hair was all a tumble. Her skin flushed pink. The woman looked so gorgeously rumpled he throbbed for her, and it took every effort not to throw her over his shoulder and toss her down on the bed and take her before they’d even said hello.
Cleary a glutton for punishment, he slid his gaze down her gorgeous body to find it encased in—
What the—?
He blinked. And again.
Well, he thought as his libido limped into hiding as though it had been kicked where it hurt most, you don’t see that every day.
CHAPTER EIGHT (#ulink_1b8d46d7-5368-5786-bccd-2fbe48d586e1)
‘ARE we a tad overdressed for this time of the morning?’ Gabe asked.
‘What do you think?’ Paige asked, before swallowing so hard the tendons on her neck looked about to snap.
‘I think you’re wearing a wedding dress.’ Even as he said the words a pulse began to beat in his temple. ‘Is it yours?’
After a long second she nodded, her eyes like those of a puppy who’d been kicked. As if she were the one who should be feeling hard done by, not the guy she was sleeping with who’d just come back from a week away to find himself staring down a bride.
Right. Okay. Think. Not an easy thing to do considering he was fighting against the unwieldy mix of raging lust and abject horror wrestling inside him.
‘And you’re wearing it because …’ You’ve been married before? You’re getting married today? You missed me that much …?
Wow. Had everything somehow been leading to this? No matter all the safeguards he’d put in place, had he been outfoxed again? Should he have paid more heed to Hitchcock’s warnings after all? He’d give her a minute to explain. Two at most. And if he wasn’t a hundred and ten per cent thrilled with the answers he was outta there.
‘The zip’s stuck!’ She turned, lifted her hair and flashed him an expanse of beautiful back. And creamy-coloured lace, and pearl looking things and—
Gabe lifted his eyes to the ceiling. ‘That’s not exactly … I meant why do you own a … you know?’
‘Took you long enough to ask.’
Gabe was fairly sure he’d only been at her apartment door for a minute but apparently he’d passed through the looking glass, so who knew? ‘Forgive me if my mind’s working at about thirty per cent velocity, but what the hell are you talking about?’
‘Oh, come on. You knew about the dress.’
Gabe shook his head, hard, hoping it might send him back to the right dimension. ‘What precisely am I meant to know about it?’
‘That it exists. That it’s mine. That I have a wedding dress in my possession.’
‘Paige, I’m on the back foot here, with the dress, and the accusations, and the … dress. But I can honestly, hands down, say, I’ve never seen it before.’
‘The day we met,’ she shot back, eyes flashing, arms crossed beneath her breasts until they loomed above the deep V of the dress. ‘I was carrying it in the lift.’
He opened his mouth to tell her she damn well wasn’t, because there was no way in hell he’d have made a play for an engaged woman. Who needed that kind of drama? Was she engaged? No. He couldn’t believe it. He shut his mouth, realising nothing good would come of any question he asked. And she didn’t look in the mood for an argument. In fact she looked pretty close to a nervous breakdown.
Not exactly what he’d imagined their reunion might be like. Sure, he’d imagined heat, he’d imagined sweat, he’d not even dared hope to come close to losing consciousness. But right then, the only thing keeping him from bolting was the fact that the terror in Paige’s eyes pretty much mirrored his own.
He tore off his beanie, unwound his scarf, rid himself of his jacket and threw them onto her kitchen diner. Then, hands shaking a little, he reached out, slowly, and curled his palms around her upper arms, careful not to touch the fabric wrapped lovingly around her body. Then he pressed himself inside her apartment and kicked the front door shut with his foot.
‘Paige. Believe me when I tell you this. I don’t recall you carrying anything that day.’
‘You told Nate I tried to shut the door on your hand, but you don’t remember me carrying a fluorescent white garment bag with ‘Wedding Dress Fire Sale’ in hot-pink neon writing slashed across the front of it?’
‘I remember fine.’ The big blue bedroom eyes. The rumpled blonde hair. The legs that went all the way up. The sparks bouncing off the walls. The instant intense stab of desire that had made a mockery of his efforts to sleep his jet lag away. ‘I remember you.’
At that Paige blinked. Faster than a hummingbird’s wings. And then she breathed out, long and slow, as if she’d been holding her breath a real long time.
At the slow rise and fall of her chest his eyes defied him and slid down, noting how well the … thing fitted her, dipping at the front, hugging at the sides, sloping down her beautiful hips. If a man in a rented tux ever got to see that walking towards him down an aisle, he’d have no complaints.
But he would never be that man.
He liked Paige. She was funny, smart, great company, breath-taking in bed. But if this dress was some kind of sign, she was signalling the wrong man.
He wasn’t a marrying man. Not even long-term-commitment guy. His priorities simply made it impossible. For as long as he could remember his ambitions had been clear-cut: to work hard and make his gran proud. After his one monumental hiccup, he’d poured all of himself into fixing that mistake. Never making the same one again.
And he wasn’t here. Was he? It didn’t feel as though he was, but, considering his track record, who the hell knew?
He pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing there was no going forward—to the apartment, to work, or dinner, or even to her bed—till they cleared this all up.
Gabe slowly removed his hands and tucked them into the pockets of his old jeans and took a small step back. He lifted his eyes deliberately to hers. Her eyes were all liquid-blue, her lush mouth down-turned. She looked so forlorn, so … unbridely, it was almost laughable. Almost.
He motioned with his chin to the small kitchen table. ‘Sit.’ She sat. Gabe sat too, though far enough away so as not to touch. ‘So do you want to tell me what this is all about so I can stop looking over my shoulder for the priest?’
‘Really?’
‘More than you know.’
‘Okay,’ she said, then after a big deep shaky breath went on. ‘So I’d been shopping with Mae to find her wedding dress the morning before we met, and I saw this dress and felt like I’d never breathe again if I didn’t take it home. Not out of some deep and abiding desire to get married. I’ve never been one of those girls who always wanted to get married. On the contrary. So we can clear that up.’
‘Okay,’ he said, feeling far from clear.
Then Paige looked down, a swing of fair hair falling over her face, all her usual va va voom seeping out of her as she stared at some unknown spot on the table. ‘Turns out Mae getting married has really thrown me. More than I’d realised until about half an hour ago. I’ve been completely out of sync since she got engaged. We’ve been in one another’s pockets for such a long time. And now she’s … not mine any more.’ She held out her hands as if she’d lost something then settled back into her slump. ‘I’ve been going through the motions ever since. With Mae. At work. Not dating.’ Her eyes slid to his, her long dark lashes all crazy and clumped together. ‘You’re the first guy I’ve seen since it happened.’
The emphasis on the word ‘seen’ brought a flare of heat to his groin. When he shifted on the chair Paige noticed, and her mouth flickered into the first smile of the day.
‘Mae had a theory about why I bought the dress,’ she went on, ‘and it was easier to believe that than to believe the truth. That I was jealous of her. Not the marriage bit, the happiness bit. So I kind of wished for you. And then a minute later you stuck your fingers through the lift door.’
‘I’m sorry … You wished for me?’
Sass put some sinew into her slump as she flicked her fringe off her face, and lifted one saucy shoulder. The flare of heat spread till it roared through his blood with the speed and intent of a bush fire.
‘Well, not you in particular,’ she said. ‘A man who … Well, a man. Mae’s theory for why I bought the dress was that I needed to get some.’
Gabe’s mouth turned dry at the thought … for about half a second. Then saliva pooled beneath his tongue and he had to physically press himself back into the chair so as not to go right ahead and give her what Mae thought she needed.
Paige slowly eased herself upright, leaned back in her chair, and looked him dead in the eye, and he realised she hadn’t been kidding. If any other man had walked into the lift at that precise moment she would have been sitting at her kitchen table sending some other guy hard with desire with those burning baby blues of hers.
No way. It wouldn’t have been the same. The way they fitted was chemical. One in a million. Thus worth pursuing to the edges of his limits. Clearly, or he wouldn’t still be sitting there while she wore a wedding dress.
He leaned forward, keeping her gaze connected to his. ‘And now that you have … got some, how are you doing?’
Paige tilted an eyebrow, before wafting a hand past her lace-covered curves. ‘How do you think I’m doing?’
‘Fair enough.’ Gabe rubbed his fingers into his eyes to clear the image that was making it hard for him to see straight. ‘And do you try it on every morning—? ‘
‘Good God, no! This was the first time ever. Don’t think I ever had any intention of you finding me like this. This is my worst nightmare. And I can’t fathom why you’re still sitting here and not halfway to anywhere else but here!’
She had him there. He’d help her get the dress off then vamoose. Go home. Go to work. Put some space between them so that he could think.
He shoved back the chair so hard it squeaked on the pale floorboards. He motioned to her with a flick of his fingers. ‘Come on.’
‘What?’
‘You said that thing was stuck.’
She nodded. ‘The zip. It’s caught on something. I tried tugging, and shimmying it over my head, but it fits like a glove.’
It did that. ‘Then let’s get you free of it, shall we?’
Paige stood, and turned her back to him.
Swallowing down the bile rising in his throat at the connotations of ridding a beautiful woman of a wedding dress, Gabe forced his eyes to move to the dress to find a paper clip had been bent through the eye of the zip.
His tension melted a little. At least now he could be certain she’d had a go at taking the thing off. As for the rest? Everyone had weaknesses, and if hers was for a combination of lace and pearly-looking things, then it beat smoking. Just.
‘Do you need me to move at all?’ she asked, lifting her hair away from her neck, the scent of her shampoo wafting past his nose for the first time in days. The interplay of muscle across her back made his fingers feel fat and useless as blood left his extremities to pour into his groin.
He reached for the zip, the backs of his fingers brushing across her warm skin. Her muscles twitched at even his slightest touch. A few strands of hair fell to slide against the back of his hand and, God help him, delicate shocks prickled down his arms landing with a rock-hard thud in his pants.
‘You want this thing off or not?’ he asked, his voice gruff.
‘I do.’
‘Then stop wriggling.’
She stilled. And there were a few long moments in which the only sound was the shuffle of satin on her skin as the hopeless zipper refused to budge.
