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She was laughing out loud when the lift doors opened, but all her confidence turned to mush when she got in the lift that afternoon to find Gabe already on board, lounging resplendently in the back corner. His dark eyes connected with hers, lit, burned, and it was all she could do to keep blushing from head to toe.
Funny, because now they were even, or nearabouts. Though perhaps she still owed him an orgasm. She stepped inside the lift, feeling his dark eyes on her, and thought it seemed as good a time as any to remind him as much—
‘Good afternoon, Ms Danforth,’ a female voice said.
And Paige leapt fair out of her skin. Her gaze jumped sideways to find Mrs Addable from the ninth floor tucked into the front corner, stroking Randy, her Russian Blue whose hair was the same solid dark grey as his owner’s.
‘Mrs Addable, hi,’ Paige mumbled as she slipped into the gap, behind Mrs Addable, and beside Gabe, who looked straight ahead even while his body heat reached out to her like an invitation. ‘Randy okay?’
Mrs Addable rolled her eyes. ‘He’s decided he’s too good for his litter tray. We now have to take a constitutional down to the garden near the parking lot four times a day.’
Mrs Addable’s eyes slid over lounging Gabe to Paige, who was standing as still and upright as a tower. The older woman’s sharp eyes softened to a dull gleam.
‘You’re Gabe Hamilton,’ Mrs Addable said.
‘That I am,’ Gabe’s deep voice rang out.
Paige had to swallow hard so as not to tremble as the sound reverberated deliciously through her bones. She remembered all too well the feel of his breath against her cheek that came with the exquisite sensation of having him inside her.
‘Gloria Addable. 9B. I heard Sam the Super talking to Mr Klempt the other day about your arrival.’
‘Pleasure to meet you, Gloria.’
‘Likewise, Gabe.’
No Mr Hamilton, Paige noticed. She’d lived in the building for two years and had yet to progress from polite surnames from anyone in that apartment bar the cat.
‘Sam said you’d had some trouble with your bed?’ Mrs Addable added, eyes now front, watching the movement of floor numbers, the slow strokes to Randy’s back causing the cat to purr.
‘True, yet I’ve managed remarkably well,’ he said, pulling himself upright, bringing him closer.
Paige looked directly ahead, not daring to meet his eyes. Yet she felt a beat pulse between them. Two. Three.
‘I have a spare mattress I can send up,’ Mrs Addable tried again. ‘It’s only a single, but …’
While Mrs Addable droned on about the history of her single mattress, Paige felt Gabe move closer still. Close enough when she breathed the sleeve of his jacket brushed against the sleeve of hers.
Then he said, ‘My bed arrived this morning.’
Forgetting propriety completely, Paige shot her gaze straight to his. ‘It did?’
Mrs Addable’s snort of triumph barely touched the edges of her sub-conscious. Gabe’s dark and dangerous eyes had a funny way of blocking out everything else.
His voice was low as he said, ‘The service lift, it seems, is less touchy.’
‘That’s great,’ Paige said, adding a belated, ‘For you.’
Gabe’s cheek lifted in the beginnings of the kind of smile that meant big trouble for her. ‘I’m glad—for me—too.’
The lift binged and when Paige and Mrs Addable both turned with expectation towards the doors, Gabe took the chance to slide his finger down the edge of Paige’s. The shock of his touch shot through her like a bushfire, spreading in half a second flat to the whole of her chest and the ends of her curling toes.
The door opened to the fourth floor. Where nobody was waiting. And stayed there.
Mrs Addable sighed. ‘It’s okay, Randy. We’ll get there eventually.’
As the lift went up and down the next ten minutes, Paige locked her knees, and bit her bottom lip, and prayed for the strength not to moan out loud as Gabe’s thumb traced circles over the wildly fluctuating pulse at her wrist, making her so woozy she saw spots.
And for the first time since she’d moved into the building she was thankful she had a Machiavellian lift.
CHAPTER FIVE (#ulink_d4307b8a-3458-5e86-9a3f-a5d07e79c864)
IT TOOK more than fifteen stupid minutes for the stupid lift to open at Paige’s floor on the night of Gabe’s party. Way too much time in which to wonder if she ought to change her dress. Her hair. Her mind.
She felt edgy. Hyper-aware. As if she could feel even the slightest shift of air dancing across her skin. Because after several days of living out the most hot, illicit, exciting affair of her life under cover of darkness in the privacy of Gabe’s moon-drenched loft, the real world was about to impose on their heretofore perfect little bubble of secret sex.
The lift doors began to close and she slipped inside at the last second, squeezing into a gap amongst a group of bright shiny young things, none of whom she’d ever met. Why would she have? She and Gabe knew hardly anything about one another outside the bedroom.
Which was fine. Perfect really. It kept things super casual.
She wished she’d brought up the party once, at least to get a gauge of what she might be about to walk into. Would she and Gabe treat one another as virtual strangers? As friendly neighbours? Or would they simply avoid one another all night?
This, she thought. This was why she liked things to be simple, straightforward, with all the cards on the table from the very beginning. This nervous tumbling in her stomach was awful. And horribly familiar. Surely it was a symptom that something wasn’t right.
As the lift rose the deep whump whump whump of music pulsed in her bones, lifting the energy throbbing deep within her to screaming point. The lift opened, and the sounds of party chatter and, ironically, Billy Idol singing ‘Hot in the City’ spilled into the lift as the inhabitants tumbled out.
Paige took a deep breath, smoothed a hand over her new dress, ran another over her hair, then with chin tilted she walked into Gabe’s penthouse.
As it turned out, Paige knew plenty of people. Mrs Addable and several other inhabitants of the building huddled by the windows checking out the view. She saw a few girls from uni, and even a couple of guys she’d dated. She felt an odd surge of disappointment. She shook it off. She wasn’t special to Gabe and she didn’t want to be.
She nearly managed to convince herself as much when a quick glance around the jam-packed room revealed a massive red and grey rug now covering the lounge-room floor. A large red urn bursting with a tall spray of stripped willow. And chairs and tables in every place they ought to be. A half second after she got over the surprise of Gabe having decorated she realised every item was from that season’s Ménage à Moi catalogue. The bubbles in her stomach went haywire.
Then the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle, as though she was being watched. In a party that size someone somewhere would be smouldering at someone, and it was likely she’d been caught in the crossfire. And yet …
Rolling her shoulders to fend off the scratchy sensation, she turned, eyes searching the crowd until they landed on a pair of familiar dark eyes.
Gabe stood on the far side of the large room, his back to the floor-to-ceiling windows, a near full moon and a million stars twinkling in the inky black sky his backdrop. He was so deliciously handsome, so unsettling, so much. And his eyes were focused entirely on her. Dark eyes of a man who was near addicted to doughnuts, knew more about Doris Day movies than she did, and who remembered where she worked even though she was sure she hadn’t mentioned it since the day they first met.
She liked that he was leaving. Liked that he was discreet. Liked that every time she saw him he could barely keep his hands off her. But the riot of sensation ripping through her in that moment was so beyond mere like she hadn’t a hope of naming it.
She clutched her silver lamé purse in one hand, and the small box she’d brought with her, so hard they left imprints on her palms.
‘Paige!’ Mae’s voice rang sharp in her ear.
Paige blinked, the noise and energy and light and life of the party rushing in on her as if she’d burst from a tunnel. Then the crowd shifted, and Gabe was gone.
Paige turned to find Mae shoving through the crowd and bundling up to her like a ball of energy, Clint lolloping in her wake.
‘How cool is this?’ asked Mae. ‘And my godfather, this apartment! You must be dying to get stuck into it.’
Paige opened her mouth to tell Mae this was Gabe’s version of decorated, until she remembered that according to Mae this was the first time Paige had been there too. She hadn’t meant to keep the thing with Gabe from Mae, but they’d barely seen one another in the past week, and she’d been so busy at work—And it had been so intense, so unlike anything she’d ever done before, she hadn’t wanted the bubble to burst.
She’d fill Mae in on all the juicy details the first moment they had some girly time together, just the two of them. She glanced across at the ever-present Clint and wondered when that might be.
‘Where is that delicious pirate of yours?’ Mae asked. ‘The guy was clearly into you at The Brasserie last week, and he looks like the kind of guy who doesn’t need a flashlight and a map to find your treasure, if ya know what I mean.’
Paige rolled her eyes even while she knew it to be the absolute truth. Gabe Hamilton had found her treasure no problem at all. In fact, her treasure was so attuned to him she was doing her best to ignore the heavy ache in her treasure just thinking about him.
‘Drinks!’ Mae said and Clint looked as if he was reminded again why he wanted to marry her. Then hand in hand they made a beeline for the bar.
Leaving Paige to pretend every fibre of her being wasn’t paying intense heed to their host, wherever he might be.
Gabe ran a finger beneath the V of his sweater for about the hundredth time since a bunch of strangers had piled into his apartment.
He’d be pushing it to say he knew even a tenth of them, and a half of those he’d met in the lift at one point or another that week. The rest were a blur of hair and teeth that Nate had introduced to him, talking each and every one up as though they were the next big thing. He got it, Nate was trying to make him feel at home. Yet the only thing keeping him from making a hasty exit in search of fresh air, no matter how cold, had been brief glimpses of a familiar head of cool-blonde hair.
He’d known the moment Paige had arrived—some shift in the air, some call of the wild to his hormones had him sniffing the air for her scent. And then she’d appeared through the crowd in a white dress that looked as if she’d been poured into it and revealed enough leg to give a less vital man palpitations.
His gaze found her again, this time talking to some guy. Her hair shifting across her back as she talked. When the guy moved in, placing a hand on her upper arm, waving his big watch in her face, something clenched hot and hard deep inside Gabe. Something primal and not pretty.
‘It’s the legs,’ said a voice cutting into his thoughts.
He turned to find a group of men in sharp suits standing beside him, all cradling half-filled glasses, all looking in Paige’s direction.
‘What’s that?’ asked Gabe.
‘They’re like something out of a forties detective movie,’ said another of the men. ‘I’ve spent more time than I dare admit imagining myself as Sam Spade, walking into a smoke-filled room, sunlight pouring through slatted blinds, to find those legs crossed as she sits waiting on my desk.’
‘Hamilton, right?’ asked the third. ‘We’re friends of Nate’s.’
‘Right,’ said Gabe, brushing off the fact that Nate seemed to have more friends he didn’t know than friends he did. There were more pressing matters. ‘You know Paige?’
At the dark tone of his voice three pairs of male eyes turned his way. Turned, and softened. He could all but hear them thinking, Poor mug, thinks he’s in with a chance.
Never in his life had Gabe felt a stronger urge to kiss and tell. I’ve had her up against a wall, on the kitchen bench, crying out my name so loud the whole damn building must have heard. But he lifted his glass and filled his mouth with Scotch before his foot landed there instead.
‘Dated her one time,’ said the first, ‘before she introduced me to my wife.’
‘Cool move,’ said the second with a laugh.
‘Cool creature,’ said the third.
Gabe’s gaze drew back to Paige. He caught her profile as she smiled and waved at someone across the room. Her smile was calm. Understated. He could see why people might think her cool, he’d thought so himself at one point, but now he understood it was a mask, a mode of self-protection. Something tickled the back of his mind, as if he were trying to catch the disparate threads of a dream.
Familiarity, perhaps. Maybe even a recognition of his own natural reserve.
Or déjà vu.
Another cool blonde of his acquaintance came crashing into his mind, right along with the tightness in his gut as he’d first spied that long ago blonde smiling at him from across the room at BonaVenture’s first big party, and the smile that never quite reached her eyes unless they met his.
‘No,’ he said, out loud, turning heads. Grimacing, he downed the last of his Scotch before slamming the glass onto a passing tray.
This wasn’t the same as that. For one thing he’d been young, and cocky, and ruled by his libido. He was older, wiser now and kept that part of him on a short leash. And yet his subconscious wouldn’t let it lie. This thing with Paige was … intense. And it had ignited exceptionally fast. Who could blame him? The woman was so lush and lovely she kept him half hard half the day and all the way all night.
He ground a thumb and forefinger into his eyes, but the memories continued to knock against the inside of his brain.
He’d met Lydia right as BonaVenture had hit the crest of its first wave of success. The business that had been a mere dream a few years before had gone stratospheric right after his gran had died. And it was as though he’d gone to sleep one night himself, and woken up to find the world as he’d always known it was simply no more.
Lydia had been his port in the storm, and it had never occurred to him that her motivations in being with him might have been anything less than romantic. In the end that error of judgement had all but destroyed everything he and Nate had worked so hard to build.
And here he was, set to make the biggest financial decision of his life, and he’d gone and entangled himself in a blonde distraction once again.
‘Having fun?’ Nate said, slapping Gabe on the back, rocking him back on his heels.
A dark cloud hovering about his ears, Gabe shoved his fingers hard into the front pockets of his jeans. ‘So much so I barely know how to contain myself.’
Nate snorted. ‘Now quickly, I have a thing in Sydney this week. A meet and greet with an upstart encryption software company. Looks schmick. I was going to send Rick, but I’m not sure that he’s as net savvy as—Gabe?’
‘Hmm?’ A sliver of white glinting through the crowd had snagged Gabe’s attention. ‘What now?’
‘I was being about as subtle as a woman in red lipstick. I’m offering you a lifeline, mate. An actual prospective client to sound out while you’re here. Thought you’d jump at the chance to sink your fangs into an actual real live deal.’
Normally he would, but he was in a questioning type of mood, and even while Nate’s face was a picture of innocence, so far everything he’d said or done that night had screamed ulterior motive.
‘Unless you have other plans? More decorating perhaps? Like what you’ve done with the place so far. Very … pretty.’
Gabe cut him a glower. ‘Considering your flair for interior design I take that as a compliment. When’s the flight?’
‘Daybreak tomorrow. And you’re welcome.’
Gabe caught the glint of light on blonde hair move through the swarm and heard himself say, ‘Make it a day later and I’m there.’
He felt Nate’s incredulous stare. Pretended he didn’t.
Nate said, ‘Am I missing something here? I’ve had people manning the lifts at work in case you slipped out and were never heard from again—Ri-i-ight. I see.’ Nate grabbed a tiny pastry from a passing tray and threw it into his mouth. ‘So who’s the blonde?’
Gabe breathed out long and slow. He’d been quietly concerned about the ever-decreasing degrees of separation between Paige and Nate and confirmation that Nate wasn’t a paid-up member of the ‘I Fantasise About Paige’s Legs’ club was more of a relief than he cared to admit. Gabe set his vision at the middle distance, and drawled, ‘Any blonde in particular you need me to soften up for you?’
Nate grabbed him by the ears and turned his head the half-inch to face the blonde in question. ‘The one who has you dancing about like you have ants in your pants. The one making you think twice about getting out of bed early tomorrow.’
Gabe swiped his hands away. ‘For starters, I don’t dance. And secondly she lives in the building and …’ She what? Wasn’t the reason why he was actually considering shucking off work? The dark cloud surrounded his whole head. ‘She all but shut the lift doors on my fingers when we first met.’
‘That’s it? Well, then you won’t mind if I head that way and—’
Gabe’s hand shot out and grabbed Nate by the back of the neck.
Nate laughed as he ducked out of Gabe’s grip. ‘Been so long since I’ve seen you even look twice at a blonde, it’s bloody reassuring. Like you’re really back. Not just here, but back. Now, seems I have to go tell poor Rick he has an early start in the morning.’
With that, Nate headed off, leaving Gabe silenced. And shrouded in more grey clouds than ever. Of all times for Nate to slant a reference at Lydia … He’d dated blondes since her, surely? Lydia hadn’t screwed him over that much.
