‘Tell me what it is I am supposed to have done.’
‘You know what!’ She sprang to her feet, as though suddenly unable to remain still, and paced the room in jerky steps before spinning round to look at him with hostile accusation. ‘Youusedme. You pretended... You made me think... All because you wanted me to tell you what Rosa said to me.’
He lowered his eyes, shielding his expression. When he raised them to look at her, he knew his face was shuttered, revealing nothing.
‘I didn’t use you, Izzy. You’re looking at signposts but misreading the signs.’
‘What doesthatmean?’
‘You should calm down.’
‘Don’t youdaretell me to calm down. You used me to get what you wanted and Ihateyou for that!’
Gabriel felt himself flush as all the chickens came home to roost, except...had he used her? No, he hadn’t. He had been the passive recipient of useful information and why was anything wrong with that? She’d taken what Bianca had said and was twisting it into something that sat like something ugly and sharp on his conscience.
He clamped down hard on any inappropriate feelings of guilt. She said that he’d ‘made her think...’Made her thinkwhat? That helovedher? Was that the conclusion of that unfinished sentence?
Had he taken his eye off the ball? Encouraged her to have feelings for him? Even though she must surely know, because he had been utterly upfront that he wasn’t in it for the long term.
And now she was here, hurling accusations at him, screaming, shouting and tearful.
Was this what he wanted, needed? No. He’d never had time for demanding women with chaotic feelings that needed to be nurtured. He’d learnt the hard way that the only thing that mattered was the cold logic of making money. He’d been lazy and now it was time to say goodbye.
Something inside twisted. He ignored it. Control over lust...thatwas the bottom line...and if he’d forgotten that for a while, then it was time he remembered.
He stood up and moved towards her, paused to meet her fierce blue eyes.
‘Don’t get on the moral high ground with me,’ he said darkly. ‘Your friend is sitting pretty in her cottage. No more pressuring Evelyn to sell her home. Some might say thatthatis what using is all about.’
‘It’s just not the same, Gabriel.’
‘Explain the difference.’
‘If you can’t see it for yourself—’ her voice was subdued and she was already half-turning towards the door ‘—then you never will. Tell Rosa goodbye from me. She’s with Evelyn.’
She walked out without looking back.
CHAPTER TEN
GABRIELWEARILYRUBBEDhis eyes, swivelled his chair and stared out of the window of his office.
The view was somewhat different from the one he had had a fortnight ago. No symmetrical, gently swaying vines marching into a distant lavender-hued horizon... No charming local town with a pace of life as slow and steady as a snail’s progress across the grass... No pleasing sight of a flat, blue infinity pool waiting to soothe at the end of a hot day.
No very many things, come to think of it.
No Izzy sharing his bed every night... No hearing the sound of her laughter... No walking with Rosa tucked between them asking a million questions... No unwinding at the end of the day with a glass of wine and the soothing backdrop of Izzy’s soft voice.
No, that particular bubble had burst, and of course it had always been going to burst.
He was back in New York. The view from the skyscraper that housed his offices looked down at matchstick-sized crowds scuttling frantically across gridlocked streets with everything buried beneath the haze of exhaust fumes and pollution.
Or so it seemed. Everything had changed for him with Rosa, and he told himself that that was the main thing.
Currently, she was with Bianca in Tuscany for two weeks, with a nanny of his choice in attendance. When she returned to America, she would be with him. He was now the one holding all the trump cards. Bianca had had no choice but to cave in to his demands, not that she had fought too hard. She was going to decamp to Tuscany because the threat of losing the family fortune to a greedy, gold-digging toy boy was far more imperative a calling than sticking around in America so that custody could be more fairly shared.
She would see Rosa for a fortnight during the summer holidays, for ten days over Easter and they would split Christmas—unless she tried bending the rules, at which point, Gabriel had told her, he would slam into her like a freight train.
All was good. All was fine. And this...
