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She felt his sympathy, felt his concern. And she felt the rough warmth of his palm against her own—the touch she’d craved for the past year and all the five years before. Her fingers curled over his as longing blistered her soul.
With an intake of breath she ripped her hand away.
“Thank you,” she said, blinking back tears. She’d thought she was done grieving for her father, but she’d spent most of the day with a lump in her throat, watching her uncle walk Becky down the aisle, seeing her mother alone in the pew with tears streaking her powdered face. Laura’s father should have been here. “It’s been a long winter. Everything fell apart without him. We’re just a small farm and always run so lean, one year to the next. With my dad gone, the bank tried to refuse to extend the loan or give us anything more for spring planting.”
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed. “What?”
She lifted her chin. “We’re fine now.” Although they were just surviving on fumes, trying to hold on another week until they’d get the next loan. Then they’d pray next year would be better. She folded her arms. “Becky’s husband, Tom, will live at the house and farm the land now. Mom will be able to stay in her home and be well looked after.”
“And you?” Gabriel asked quietly.
Laura pressed her lips together. Starting tonight, she and Robby were moving into her mother’s bedroom. The three-bedroom farmhouse was now full, since Laura and her baby could no longer share a bedroom with Becky, and her other sisters, Hattie and Margaret, shared the other. Ruth had loyally said she’d be delighted to share her large master bedroom with her grandson, but Ruth was a very light sleeper. It was not an ideal situation.
Laura needed a job, an apartment of her own. She was the oldest daughter—twenty-seven years old. She should be helping her family, not the other way around. She’d been looking for a job for months, but there were none to be had. Not even at a fraction of the salary she’d earned when she worked for Gabriel.
But there was no way she was going to tell him that. “You still haven’t explained what you’re doing here. You obviously didn’t know about the wedding. Do you have some kind of business deal? Is it the old Talfax mine that’s for sale?”
He shook his head. “I’m still trying to close the Açoazul deal in Brazil.” His jaw tightened. “I came because I had no choice.”
Over the noisy conversation nearby, Laura heard a guitar and flute play the opening notes of an old English folk song from somewhere in the house. She heard a baby’s bright laugh over the music and a chilling fear whipped through her. “What do you mean?”
His dark eyes narrowed. “Can’t you guess?”
Laura sucked in her breath. All her worst nightmares were about to come true.
Gabriel had come for her baby.
After all the times he’d said he never wanted a child, after everything he’d done to make sure he’d never be burdened with one, somehow he’d found out Laura’s deepest secret and he’d come to take Robby. And he wouldn’t even take their son out of love, oh no. He’d do it out of duty. Cold, resentful duty.
“I don’t want you here, Gabriel,” Laura whispered, trembling. “I want you to leave.”
He set his jaw grimly. “I can’t.”
Ice water flooded her veins as she stood near the fireplace in the warm parlor. “What brought you? Was it some rumor—or…” She licked her lips and suddenly could no longer bear the strain. “For God’s sake. Stop toying with me and tell me what you want!”
His dark eyes looked down at her, searing straight through her soul.
“You, Laura,” he said in a low voice. “I came for you.”
CHAPTER TWO
I CAME for you.
Stricken, Laura stared up at him with her lips parted.
Gabriel’s dark eyes were hot and deep with need. Exactly as he’d looked at her the night he’d taken her virginity. The night she’d conceived their child.
I came for you.
How many times had she dreamed of Gabriel finding her and speaking those words?
She’d missed him constantly over the last fifteen months, as she’d given birth to their baby alone, woken up in the night alone and raised their child without a father. She’d yearned for his strong, protective arms constantly. Especially during the bad times, such as the moment she’d told her family she was pregnant. Or the day of her father’s funeral, when her mother and three younger sisters had clung to her, sobbing, expecting her to be the strong one. Or the endless frustrating weeks when Laura had gone to the bank with her baby in tow, day after day, to convince them to extend the loan that would let their farm continue to operate.
But there had been happy times as well, and then she’d missed Gabriel even more. Such as the day halfway into her pregnancy, when she’d been washing dishes in the tiny kitchen and she’d suddenly clutched her curved belly and laughed aloud in wonder as she felt—this time for sure—their baby’s first kick inside her. Or the sunny, bright August day when Robby had been born, when she’d held his tiny body against her chest and he’d blinked up at her, yawning sleepily, with dark eyes exactly like his father’s.
For over a year, Laura had missed Gabriel like water or sun or air. She’d craved him day and night. She’d missed the sound of his laugh. Their friendship and camaraderie.
And now, he’d finally come for her?
“You came for me?” she whispered. Was it possible he’d thought of her even a fraction of the times her heart had yearned for him? “What do you mean?”
“Just what I said,” Gabriel said quietly. “I need you.”
She swallowed. “Why?”
His dark eyes glittered in the flickering firelight. “Every other woman has been a pale shadow of you in every way.”
If her heart had been fluttering before, now it was frantically rattling against her ribs. Had she been wrong to leave him, fifteen months ago? Had she been wrong to keep Robby a secret? What if Gabriel’s feelings had changed, and all this time he’d cared for her? What if—
He leaned forward as his lips curved into a smile. “I need you to come work for me.”
Laura’s heart stopped, then resumed a slow, sickly beat.
Of course. Of course that was all he would want. He’d likely forgotten their one-night affair long ago, while she would remember it forever—in her passionate dreams, in the eyes of their son. Laura stared up at Gabriel’s dark, brutally handsome face. She saw the tension of his jawline, the taut muscles of his folded arms beneath his suit jacket.
“You must want it badly,” she said slowly.
He gave her a tight smile. “I do.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother coming back down the hall, holding Robby in one arm and a slice of wedding cake in her other hand. Laura sucked in her breath.
Robby. How could she have allowed herself to forget, even for an instant, that her son was counting on her to keep him safe?
Grabbing Gabriel’s hand, she pulled him out of the room, dragging him out of the house, away from prying eyes and into the freezing February air.
Outside in the wintry night, cars and trucks were wedged everywhere along the gravel driveway between their old house and the barn, strewn along the country road in front of their farm. Across the old stone walls that lined the road, white rolling hills stretched out into the great north woods, disappearing now into the falling purple twilight.
Behind them, next to the old barn, she could see the frozen water of their pond, gleaming like a silver mirror under the lowering gray clouds. Her father had taught all his daughters to swim there during the summers of their childhood, and even though Laura was now grown, whenever she felt upset, she would go for a swim in the pond. Swimming made her think of her father’s protective arms. It always made her feel better.
She wished she could swim in the pond now.
Laura looked down at her breath in the chilly air and saw the white smoke of Gabriel’s mingle with hers. She realized she was still holding his hand and looked down at his large fingers enfolding her own. The warmth of them suddenly burned her skin, sizzling nerve endings the length of her body.
She dropped his hand. Folding her arms, she glared up at him. “I’m sorry you’ve come all this way for nothing. I’m not going to work for you.”
“You don’t even want to hear about the job first? For instance—” he paused “—how much it pays?”
Laura bit her lip, thinking of her bank account, which held exactly thirteen dollars—barely enough for a week’s supply of diapers, let alone groceries. But they’d get by. And she couldn’t risk Robby’s custody—not for something so unimportant as money! She lifted her chin fiercely. “No amount of money could tempt me.”
His lips quirked. “I know I wasn’t always the easiest man to live with—”
“Easy?” she interjected. “You were a nightmare.”
His eyes crinkled in a smile. “Now that’s the diplomatic Miss Parker I remember.”
She glared at him. “Find another secretary.”
“I’m not asking you to be my secretary.”
“You said.”
He looked down at her. His voice was dark and deep, his eyes burning though her with intensity. “I want you to spend a night with me in Rio. As my mistress.”
His mistress? Laura’s mouth fell open.
Gabriel continued to stare down at her with his inscrutable dark eyes, his hands in his pockets. She licked her lips.
“I’m…I’m not for sale,” she whispered. “You think just because you are rich and handsome you can have whatever you want, that you can pay me to fall into your bed—and go away the next morning with a check?”
“A charming idea.” A humorless smile traced his sensual mouth. “But I don’t wish to pay you for sex.”
“Oh.” Her cheeks went hot. “Then what?”
“I want you—” he moved closer, his hard-edged face impossibly handsome “—to pretend to love me.”
She swallowed. Then she tilted her head, blinking up at him in the fading light. “But thousands of girls could do that,” she said. “Why come all the way up here, when you could have twenty girls at your penthouse in Rio in four minutes? Are you insane?”
He raked his dark hair back with his hand.
“Yes,” he said heavily. “I am going slowly insane. Every moment my father’s company is in the hands of another man, every moment I know I lost my family’s legacy through my own stupidity, I feel I am losing my mind. I’ve endured it for almost twenty years. And I’m close now, so close to getting it back.”
She should have known it had something to do with regaining Açoazul. “But how can I possibly help you?”
He looked down at her, his jaw clenched. “Play the part of my devoted mistress for twenty-four hours. Until I close the deal.”
“How on earth would that help you close the deal?” she asked, bewildered.
He set his jaw. “I’ve hit a snag in the negotiations. A six-foot-tall, bikini-wearing snag.”
“What?”
Gabriel ground his teeth. “Felipe Oliveira found out I used to date his fiancée.”
“You did?” Laura said in surprise, then gave a bitter laugh. “Of course you did.”
“Now he doesn’t want me within a thousand miles of Rio. He thinks if he doesn’t sell me the company after all, I’ll go back to New York.” Gabriel looked at her. “I need to make him understand I’m not interested in his woman.”
“That doesn’t explain why you’d need me. Thousands of women would be happy to pretend to be in love with you. For free.” She took a deep breath, clenching her hands at her sides. “Some of them wouldn’t even have to pretend!”
He set his jaw. “They won’t work.”
She exhaled with a flare of her nostrils. “Why?”
“Oliveira’s fiancée…is Adriana da Costa.”
“Adriana da…” Laura’s voice trailed off, her eyes wide.
Adriana da Costa.
Laura could still see those cold, reptilian eyes, that skinny, lanky body. Gabriel had dated the Brazilian supermodel briefly in New York several years ago, while Laura was his live-in personal assistant. She could still hear Adriana’s pouting voice. Why do you keep calling here? Stop calling.
Find the whiskey, you stupid cow. Gabriel always gets thirsty after sex.
Laura cleared her throat. “Adriana da Costa, the bikini model.”
“Yes.”
“The one Celebrity Star magazine just called the sexiest woman alive.”
“She’s a selfish narcissist,” he said sharply. “And for the short time we were together, she was always insecure. Only one woman has ever made her feel so threatened. You.”
“Me?” Laura gasped. “You’re out of your mind! She would never feel threatened by me!”
Gabriel’s dark eyes gleamed. “She complained to me constantly. Why did I always take your calls, but not hers? Why did I always have time for you, day or night? Why would I leave her bed at 2:00 A.M. in order to go home to you? And most of all, why did I allow you to live in my apartment, only you and no one else?”
Laura’s mouth fell open.
“She never understood our relationship,” Gabriel said. “How we could be so close without being lovers. Which we weren’t.” He paused. “Not until…Rio.”
The huskiness of his deep voice whipped through Laura, causing a sizzle to spread down her body.
“Adriana has made it clear she wants me back,” he said in a low voice. “She’d leave Felipe Oliveira in an instant for me, and he knows it. Only one thing will convince them both I am not interested in her.”
Laura stared at him.
“Me?” she whispered.
He looked right at her. “You are the only woman that Adriana would believe I could love.”
A roar of shared memories left unspoken between them washed over Laura like a wave, and her heart twisted in her chest. She’d been only twenty-one when, on her second day in New York City, the employment office had sent her to Santos Enterprises to interview in the accounting office. Instead, she’d been sent up to the top floor to meet with the CEO himself.
“Perfeito,” the fearsome, sleek Brazilian tycoon had said, looking at her résumé. Then he’d looked at her. “Young enough so you will not be planning to immediately quit to have a baby. At least ten or twenty years before you’ll think of that. Perfeito.”
Now, Gabriel looked at her with dark eyes. She felt a cold winter wind sweep in from the north and shivered.
“Be my pretend mistress in Rio,” he said. “And I will pay you a hundred thousand dollars for that one night.”
Her lips parted as she breathed, “A hundred thousand!”
