The Dominant Male

Citation preview

THE DOMINANT MALE Sarah Holland

He knows what he wants Rhiannon was happily engaged to Bobby, who only offered her friendship and security. She thought she didn't want or need anything else--until she met Gabriel Stone. He had the name of an angel, but the reputation of a sinner--and he was determined to unleash the suppressed passion he sensed in Rhiannon. She told herself that all she felt for this dominant male was sexual attraction--but then, to her horror, she realized she'd fallen in love....

CHAPTER ONE RHIANNON attracted attention just by walking across the lawns. Dressed in scarlet and gold, as a wild, dark-haired gyspy, she was not only ravishing but rather out of place among the respectable and wealthy guests. Kohl made her green eyes smoulder, her midriff was bare, and she wore gold bells in her ears, around her neck, on her wrists and around her slender, scented ankles. She looked like an exotic, seductive slave. And suddenly she sensed a man watching her. Her green eyes flicked to him, a dark, sidelong look from below her sooty lashes. A quiver of excitement and fear ran through her, as though she knew he would one day command her life, fill her senses and be the centre of her world. Fanciful stuff.. .but he was gorgeous. Tall, very tall, with jet-black hair and steel-blue eyes which dazzled her with their life-force and inner power. His smile was clever, knowing and admiring. His mouth was very tough. So was his hard-boned, cynical-looking face. In fact, he had an air of absolute power about him that was formidable, and made every pulse in her body jump to attention. As their eyes met her step faltered. She felt her heart flutter in brief, wild response, staring at every inch of him as he stood watching her, a glass of champagne in one hand,

silver cuff-links gleaming at strong, dark-haired wrists, his powerful body impeccably dressed in an expensive black suit. A sense of deja vu washed over her in hot-cold waves, and the dazzling green of her eyes seemed the only emotion-filled part of her otherwise still face. Suddenly the spell shattered. A little girl in a red dress was being chased by a naughty boy with a water pistol. The girl hurtled into Rhiannon, then ran off shrieking with laughter, ribbons flying. 'Hey!' Rhiannon laughed as the boy squirted his water pistol at her. He rat-a-tat-tatted her as though his blue plastic pistol were a machine-gun and then hurtled after his quarry, who was rapidly disappearing behind the drinks marquee. Smiling affectionately, Rhiannon turned, saw the gorgeous stranger still watching her, and gave him a haughty look. Who did he think he was anyway? Staring at her as though she were a champagne truffle in a shop window... Turning her back on his laser-blue stare, she told herself that dangerous, exciting men were all very well, but twenty-four-hour-a-day love and friendship were far more important. She walked towards the vast mansion with its white stone unicorns and long red walls. Music came from the indoor swimming pool and elegant guests stood in the slender windows, where white lace curtains fluttered softly in the warm breeze, drinking champagne as they discussed the forthcoming raffle.

And there was Bobby, standing by the white pillars and statues around the pool, drinking orange juice, for he never touched alcohol, and talking to a group of kindly elderly women. He turned and saw her. A calm smile touched his face. He spoke briefly to the women, who smiled and nodded understanding^, then walked across towards Rhiannon. At once she turned, hot green eyes staring across to that man, the dark, powerful man by the lake. He was still watching her. She decided to make a show of her relationship with Bobby just to teach him not to stare at her. 'Darling!' Bobby lumbered up and kissed her chastely on the cheek. 'What brings you out here? I thought you were busy telling fortunes and having your palm crossed with silver.' 'I wanted to see you.' 'Splendid!' 'I wanted a kiss!' 'Gosh!' 'Anything wrong with that, my darling Bobby?' Rhiannon twined her slender jewelled wrists around his neck, deeply aware of the blue-eyed man still watching. 'Nothing wrong with it at all!' said Bobby, looking distinctly uncomfortable. She kissed his mouth softly, lingeringly. He was a tall, thickset man. He looked more like a farmer than an executive. He dressed as he lived: traditionally, conventionally, quietly, understatedly.

And he hated public show. That was why his neck was going brick-red as Rhiannon kissed him in front of all these people. 'Darling,' he said under his breath, 'do please keep your passions under control! What on earth will the ladies from the committee think?' 'That we're in love, engaged to be married and—' 'And thoroughly scandalous!' He gently disentangled her arms from around his neck. 'Come along, now. Behave!' She felt herself redden hotly, aware of the dark stranger watching them, a cynical smile on his tough mouth. He had seen the rejection and it had told him all he needed to know. Rhiannon could have kicked herself for being so stupid. What on earth had made her think Bobby would let her kiss him like that in public? They might have been engaged for a year after seeing each other for four, but that didn't mean that the stable, reliable, down-to-earth Bobby would change just for her to show some insolent stranger that she was already spoken for. Bobby frowned, seeing the hot colour in her face, the embarrassed way she lowered her lashes, and interpreted it correctly. 'We're here to raise money for a good cause,' he reminded her gently. 'Speaking of which—how are you doing with your particular sideshow efforts?' 'Oh...' She leapt on the change of subject with relief. 'Six hundred pounds in all, so far.' 'Goodness!' He was astonished. 'Just for reading tarot cards?'

'One woman gave me a pound, another gave me a cheque for two hundred,' Rhiannon shrugged tense shoulders, still deeply aware of the dark stranger's eyes. 'That's the way it happens with charity events.' 'Two hundred quid just for reading tarot cards!' Bobby whistled. 'Perhaps you should take it up professionally!' She laughed. 'And give up the day job? Not in a million years!' Rhiannon was a top advertising executive. The creative director of Solomon Associates, no less, and one of the most powerful advertising forces in London. She had gone into Solomon's straight from art college at twenty-one, and over the last five years had carved herself a career that was the pride and joy of her family, who were still living in their little country village in Hampshire. But today she was 'Rhiannon the Welsh Witch', telling fortunes in a little Romany tent in the grounds of Courtney Manor, raising funds for her favourite children's charity. 'Still, you're making lots of money here.' Bobby took her arm, walking with her towards the drinks marquee. 'And I'm not surprised. There are so many wealthy people here.' 'There always are at these charity events. I'm surprised they don't just write it boldly on the invitations— "DO NOT ATTEND WITHOUT YOUR CHEQUEBOOK".' 'And he's got the biggest chequebook of all,' Bobby said, glancing across the lawns. 'Who has?' 'Him. The very tall man over there.'

Her eyes followed his glance until she realised with a thudding heart that he was talking about her stranger— the tall, dark man with, the fierce blue eyes and cynical face. Prickling, she said, 'I suppose he's some kind of wealthy...' Her voice trailed off as her mind suddenly rearranged those powerful features into a newspaper photograph, a magazine cover, a face on the television news. 'Don't you recognise him? He's—' 'Gabriel Stone,' she whispered, breathless. As though her soft voice had reached his ears, Gabriel Stone looked up at that moment, and as those blue eyes met hers her body jerked with electrifying sexual attraction. 'Is that who he is?' Flustered and off balance, she clung to Bobby's solid, boring, safe arm. 'I did wonder. Gabriel Stone...' She could barely think properly. 'Charismatic swine, isn't he?' Bobby murmured. 'All that power, of course.' 'No doubt he's earned it...' 'I read the other day that he's just bought a small island in the Pacific.' 'I'm sure it's not too small to cope with his private jet.' Darling—do you mind terribly that I'm not in that league?' She stared at him in amazement. 'Don't be ridiculous. We've both got enough money to see us through, and that's all that matters. Why on earth should you think I'd be—'

'Just a thought.' He took her left hand, lifted it to his mouth and kissed the diamond solitaire that gleamed on her finger. Gabriel Stone's eyes narrowed sharply. His powerful body seemed to tense. Rhiannon's heart skipped rapid beats and her eyes darted to his hard face. She felt quivers of excitement and fear run through her, and thought, Stop staring at me! 'So when are we going to tie the knot?' Bobby asked teasingly. 'Soon as you like,' she heard her own off-balance voice say. 'How about next week?' Bobby gaped like a goldfish, then stammered: 'Wh- wh-what?' She could have kicked herself. It was the first time in the year since they had got engaged that she'd said anything like that. Normally she played marriage down, pleaded career problems, begged for more time, sometimes even told him she wasn't so sure any more. So what on earth had made her suddenly say they could get married as soon as he liked? 'Well, Rhiannon...' Bobby began anxiously. 'You know I love you dearly, but marriage so soon... I mean, I had anticipated longer... I mean, I—' 'Don't worry, it was just a joke!' She laughed it off whilst wondering two things: a. why they were both intent on delaying their marriage for eternity and b. why she had been so determined to show Gabriel Stone that she belonged to Bobby. 'Just a joke!' Rhiannon said again, and looked quickly at her watch. 'Heavens, is that the time? I'd better get back to work...'

He didn't try to stop her as she moved away from him, and she was sure it was because he was relieved not to have to discuss marriage again. He just watched her walk away... Another pair of eyes watched her too. Gabriel Stone's. Go away! her mind shouted silently. Don't look at me. Keep away from me. I don't even know you. But her pulses leapt with excitement and she felt aware of every inch of her skin: her bared midriff, the sway of her hips, the curve of her breasts, her buttocks and the soft feel of the grass beneath her naked jewelled toes. Once inside her tent, she breathed deeply, angrilyaware of her feeling of deep excitement, just because he had looked at her with those ruthless eyes. What's the matter with you? she demanded. First you turn to jelly just because he looks at you. Then you try to seduce Bobby publicly just to annoy him. Then you actually consider marrying earlier than planned just because—because of what? Some dark-haired stranger with sex appeal? This is madness, she decided. I need to dispel this clamouring for great passion with dangerous, ruthless strangers. And the best way is with white magic. Smiling to herself, she sank down into her Welsh Witch chair, with its carved black faces both beautiful and terrifying. A golden lamp hung overhead and the table gleamed with purpole silk and gold coins. Incense burned, filling the air with its sweet smoke, and the walls were hung with silk scarves in scarlet, blue, indigo and gold. Tarot cards were spread out on the table where she had left them.

Quickly she shuffled the pack, eyes closed and red lips murmuring her wish. 'I wish to remain engaged to Bobby for another year, then marry him, live happily ever after...' Her green eyes darkened with memories as she added, 'And never again fall helplessly in love with a man who can make me lose my head. The cards were ready. She sensed it, began to spread them Iti the Celtic cross, and as each card turned she felt more and more afraid of the reading. The Ace of Cups signifying marriage, blocked by The King of Swords, signifying a ruthless and powerful man. In the immediate future, the Seven of Wands, signifying a fight between two men. 'Rubbish!' she muttered, refusing to believe it as she finished the spread. 'Hocus-pocus! Mumbo-jumbo! Jig- gery-pokery!' The last card was The Lovers. ' She went into shock. For a long time she stared at it, her heart thudding violently. It was five years since she'd got that card. Five years of recovery. Five years of loving Bobby. Five years of safety since Jack... Jack... Just the memory of him made something in her heart resist. It was like looking back on another life, a previous incarnation, as though the woman she had been when she loved Jack was someone else entirely, not her, not Rhiannon Windmorr. She had been slavishly devoted to him, following him around like a puppy, gazing at him adoringly with besotted green eyes and doing anything he'd asked her, as though he were her master and she his slave—a situation that had continued until she'd lost her self- respect.

But that was all over now. She had recovered, moved on, picked herself up and found a way to rebuild her shattered self-esteem, had met Bobby, loved him as a friend, and now she was—oh, yes, she was—going to marry him and live happily ever after. Most of all, she was never again going to be in danger from her own fierce, slavish desire. The warm breeze softly rang the bellchimes. Her green eyes flashed up to the entrance of the tent. Gabriel Stone filled the doorway, his broad shoulders blocking the sunlight outside, his height and power dominating both the silken little marquee and Rhiannon's mind. In silence, they looked at one another. Excitement blazed in Rhiannon's green eyes. He saw it and smiled, as though he already knew she was his to control, as though he had known it, just as she had, the moment their eyes first met. 'What do you want?' Rhiannon's taut voice demanded. 'You,' he murmured with a ruthless glint in his blue eyes. Breathless, she just stared at him, speechless because he had been so incredibly direct. 'You,' he said again softly, and moved further inside. 'I want you.. .to tell my future.' She watched him, eyes as green as a witch's cat's. 'You can do that, can't you?' he drawled smokily. 'Tell my future? Shuffle the cards and let me know what exquisite surprises fate has in store for me?'

'Yes,' she said, trying to pretend this was a normal client, a normal reading. 'Won't you sit down, Mr...?' 'Stone,' he said softly, and smiled as he sank down in the chair opposite her, his powerful body making her nerves quiver as he put his hands behind his strong dark head, leaning back, watching her from below hooded eyelids. 'Gabriel Stone.' 'An unusual name,' she said conversationally, shuffling the cards. 'Although deeply classical.' 'One of the four archangels. Gabriel, Raphael, Michael and Hod. A divine quartet. Untouched by sin.' His Blue eyes glittered. 'Unlike me.' 'Ah, yes. "Angel by name, sinner by nature". Where did I read that?' 'Life magazine. Last year.' Her pulses raced as she studied him in the dusky gold lamplight. He wasn't remotely unrepentant. And he did have the face of a sinner. Hard and cynical, with every wicked thought etched at the corners of those steel-blue eyes, forever recorded, all his misdeeds and wrongdoings there for all to see. He was so desirable... 'Here.' She warily handed him the cards. 'Shuffle them and think of your question.' He smiled as he took them, let his long, strong fingers brush hers and seemed aware of the leap of her pulses at his touch. But he said nothing and shuffled the cards deftly. 'You're supposed to close your eyes,' Rhiannon informed him. 'To better focus on your question.'

'I am focusing on my question. It's sitting right in front of me.' Breathless for a second, she stared, then said, 'You can't ask a question about me!' 'Why not?' He put the cards down, caressed them with one long, lazy finger in a manner that made her breathless. 'Because I said so! I'm not here to indulge the passing fancies of men like you! I'm here to raise money for charity, and if you can't think of a more appropriate question—' 'Money for charity?' His strong hand lifted to the inside pocket of his expensive black jacket, and the light fell on the silk lining gleaming richly, on the Savile Row label embroidered in silver. 'I think I can make it worth your while to do as I ask.' 'I very much doubt it! I can't be bought! By you or anybody else! And I've had just about enough of your—' 'Shall we say...' he withdrew his chequebook and a silver pen'.. .One thousand pounds?' Her jaw dropped. 'What...?' 'For charity, of course,' he murmured, and began to write with bold, black self-assured style, a personal cheque from Gabriel Stone for one thousand pounds sterling. 'I'll make it payable to the charity shall I?' She stared in speechless amazement as he continued to write, but her only thought was, I knew his handwriting would look like that. So confident, leaning to the right, big bold strokes, and a signature that spoke of a powerful personality and a healthy ego.

'Such good work,' he drawled softly, tearing the cheque out and handing it to her with a cynical, lazy smile. 'One must contribute as much as one can.' Rhiannon took the cheque, warring with herself briefly but humbly aware that she must think of all the lost, hungry, homeless, helpless children it would benefit—and not of how it grated on her to be bought by this man. 'Thank you,' she said eventually, putting the cheque in her cash-box. 'That's a very generous contribution. Very kind of you...' 'Think nothing of it.' He arched arrogant black brows at her, his face tough. 'Now read the cards for me.' It was a command, an order, and the formidable look on his face as he gave it made her tense with excitement, hating herself for being unable to resist responding completely to his will, his authority, his dark desire to control. Rhiannon picked up the cards. 'What .is your question?' 'What lies in the future for us?' he said insolently. 'There is no us!' 'Let's see whether the cards agree with you.' With a mutinous expression she began turning over the cards, using the Celtic cross again—so much simpler than other readings, so much more direct. The King of Swords,' she heard her shocked, husky voice say as she stared down at it, then looked warily up at Gabriel Stone's formidable face.

'That's me, is it?' he drawled coolly. 'Where are you?' Rhiannon turned the next card over and caught her breath audibly. 'What is it?' He frowned, leaning forward to study the card. 'Nothing!' she said thickly, because she wasn't going to let him know that his reading so far was the exact reversal of her own, just moments earlier. Where her happiness with Bobby had been blocked by Gabriel Stone, Gabriel Stone's desire for her was blocked by her engagement to Bobby. It was so uncanny that she had to suppress the desire to dash the cards from the silken table. And as she turned the rest over she began to tremble at what they predicted. Herself as The High Priestess, his ultimate goal. Gabriel as The Devil, chaining naked prisoners to his throne. And the last and most terrifying card of all-—The Lovers. 'Ah...' murmured Gabriel Stone with a smile of cool satisfaction. 'The Lovers. I did rather expect that card to come up. Didn't you?' 'No!' she snapped hotly, and slammed the cards down on the table, 'And it doesn't refer to me, so don't get any ideas or—' 'But if my question was about you, surely the cards are telling us we will be lovers?' 'Mr Stone,' she said thickly, 'I am engaged to another man.' 'I know. I asked around. You've been with him for some years.'

'And I assure you I have every intention of staying with him for many more! I am marrying him.' 'Don't worry. I won't let that stand in my way.' He smiled slowly as he saw her shocked expression. 'Did you think I would?' 'Well, out of common decency—' 'I don't care about common decency. It's me you want, not him.' 'I beg your pardon! What on earth makes you think I want anything to do with you?' 'The way you look at me.' 'And how do I look at you?' 'As though you're afraid of me.' She fell abruptly silent, her heart thudding hard enough to be heard while through her body ran silvery tremors of desire. 'But you're attracted to me too—aren't you, Rhiannon? And excited by me.' His eyes were hypnotic. 'Don't worry, the feeling is more than mutual. Only difference is—I'm not afraid of you. Quite the reverse. Truth is... I like the fear I see in your eyes. I like to see you looking helplessly feminine. It makes me want to make love to you.' Her breath caught audibly. 'Mr Stone, I don't remember ever being spoken to like this in my life. Not only do I not like it, but I won't put up with it. I am engaged to be married. I'm faithful to—' 'Does he make love to you?' In the dim lighting he watched her red lips part in silent shock. 'Clearly not.' His eyes were ruthless. 'I could see the lack of passion on his side from a distance. And the pipe-and-slippers mentality in his face.'

'I like his "pipe-and-slippers mentality"!' 'Then why were you seductive with him at first? Why did you let him stop you when you were trying to kiss him? You're the sexiest woman I've ever seen. But that fiance of yours didn't want to know. What's the matter with him? If you were my woman and you twined yourself around me like that, I'd drag you off into the bushes and give you what you so obviously want.' 'This conversation is unacceptable!' Shooting to her feet, she stood there in trembling silence for a moment. He smiled and stood up too, moving around the little table with absolute self-assurance, his body as masculine and threatening as that of a dark pagan god. 'The truth is unacceptable, is it?' 'It's not the truth! You keep away from me!' She backed away from him rapidly, pulses hammering. 'I love Bobby! I'm going to marry him!' 'You're not going to marry that idiot!' He advanced on her. She kept backing. 'Just watch me!' 'Bet you won't promise to obey him.' 'Modern women never do!' 'You'd obey me, Rhiannon.' He stopped, cornering her at the edge of the wall of the canvas tent. Yes, she thought in terror. My God, I'd obey you. And she almost said it. Just looking into those ruthless blue eyes made her want to start right away, and she was horrified by how much she would enjoy obeying a man like this, a man with such a powerful will, such a

strong sense of himself and such an unbreakable determination to get what he wanted. Rhiannon saw all that and more in his face.But the feelings he evoked in her reminded her so forcibly of Jack that she couldn't bear to let him win. Jack had been bad enough, but this man was twenty times the ruthless swine he had been. If Jack had knocked her confidence, Gabriel Stone would absolutely destroy it—and probably ruin not only her career but her security in her love for Bobby in the process. 'Perhaps I'd obey you if you put a gun to my head, Mr Stone!' Rhiannon said thickly, lifting her chin. 'But it would have to be a kalashnikov rifle!' 'Well,' he drawled softly, 'maybe I have a kalashnikov in my mind. If I do, it's pointed right at you as we speak. And from the way that lovely heart is beating...' His long fingers slid to her wrist, felt her manic pulse. 'Ah, yes...' 'Don't touch me!' she whispered threadily: 'You'd obey me.' The blue eyes blazed with arrogance. 'You certainly wouldn't get away with treating me like a doormat, the way you treat your tame fiance.' 'I do not treat him like a—' 'Yes, you do. All that seductive flirting was for my benefit, not his. You used him as a shield against me. Now, why should you do that, I wonder? Only one answer makes sense. He's not making love to you, and you've put up with it for too long.' 'Why, you—' she whispered thickly, staring up into his ruthless eyes, horrified that he could have guessed the truth with such deadly accuracy. 'You—you-'

'Hit a nerve, did I?' he mocked. 'But don't worry. Your frustration won't last much longer.' 'How dare you?' 'I've decided that I want you now, and that means there'll be no stopping me. Within the month you'll be my woman, my lover—and this phoney engagement will be a thing of the past.' She gave a nervous laugh. 'And how do you propose to accomplish all of that?' 'By insisting that you obey me, Rhiannon,' he said smokily, evoking a shiver of exquisite desire in her, which she fought. 'Haven't you ever heard of feminism? Women have changed since the Neanderthal era, and modern women don't want to obey any—' 'Women are women,' he cut in. 'They want to be treated as such.' 'They want to be treated with respect!' He laughed softly. 'I never met a woman who wanted me to make love to her respectfully! What's the matter with you? Don't you know what it is you like? Or has your sexless relationship with that idiot made you forget how much you like to submit to a powerful man?' She stared for a second, wondering if he knew her from her past life. She was excited, knowing deep in the guilty recesses of her sexual self that he was right— that was exactly what she liked. Then she realised how stupid she was being. Of course he didn't know her! He was a total stranger with a brilliant chat-up line which he was lucky enough to find working on her.

Furiously she pushed at his shoulders and shouted, 'Stop it! You don't even know me—how dare you talk to me like this? Get your hands off me and—' 'Make me,' he drawled, unmoving as a monolith. 'You're a strong woman, a modern woman, a woman not about to submit or obey! Go on—make me stop!' She pushed at his shoulders hard, harder. He just stood where he was, smiling mockingly, a ruthless glimmer in his steel-blue eyes as she pushed and pushed and pushed, getting more and more flustered. Eventually she stopped, breathing harshly, dwarfed by his height and defeated by his physical strength. 'So much for the modern woman!' he drawled, and then pulled her hard against his body, his dark head swooping, his ruthless mouth closing over hers as she opened it to gasp and was silenced by his kiss. Her vulnerable eyes flashed with a plea for mercy, but her mouth opened beneath his with a moan of helpless desire. And, although she struggled angrily against him, he really was too strong for her, kissing her deeply, determined to impose his will on her, enjoying her puny struggles as he controlled her easily, hard hands stroking her naked midriff, one pressing the small of her back so that she could feel every inch of his body hard against her. It was wonderful, mindless ecstasy, and eventually she surrendered with a sigh of sweet capitulation, unable to fight any more, obliterated by him. She found her hands on his broad shoulders, clinging to him as she felt the last traces of common sense, of will-power, of fidelity to Bobby slide from her grasp like grains of sand on a hot summer beach as the water rushed in to engulf them.

He took immediate advantage, sensing her submission, and deepened the kiss. She clung to him blindly, unable to stop herself, drowning in a desire she hadn't felt for years, years, centuries... It was as though she had been covered in dust, a relic from a long-forgotten age, hiding from life, from love, from passion behind Bobby's unthreatening personality until this man, Gabriel Stone, had come along to rip aside the facade and bring her, literally, to her knees with the excitement of being a woman in a man's arms. He slid one strong hand down to cup her rear, making her moan hoarsely, gasping for breath. 'Don't.. .please...' she whispered shakingly against his hot mouth. 'Make me stop!' he whispered back, his breath hot on her tongue as his strong hand fondled the curve of her buttocks and made her burn with hot, moist desire. 'You know I can't.. .you're stronger than me!' 'Then give in and do as you're told!' Her heart leapt with fierce excitement, but the memory of Jack Ratchett and that hellish experience five years ago was still strong enough to break through her excitement and make her find a way to stop him. She couldn't fight him physically. But she could scream her head off—and that was precisely what she did. She pulled her head back from him and screamed loudly. His eyes flashed with steel-blue rage as her piercing scream rent the air. They both heard the sounds of people running towards the tent.

Bobby lumbered in, followed closely by two other men and one woman. For a second they all just stared at Rhiannon, standing flustered and breathing hoarsely, her eyes glittering, her face flushed, backed up against the silken wall, while Gabriel Stone towered as tall as the ceiling, hands thrust in the pockets of his expensive black suit, a look of hard, arrogant power on his tough face. 'A sensational reading.' Gabriel turned swiftly, taking charge. 'I'm afraid Rhiannon was so startled by her accuracy with the tarot cards that she quite lost her self-control.' 'Rhiannon...?' Bobby asked gently, coming towards her, glancing suspiciously at Gabriel Stone. 'It's OK,' she said shakily. 'I'm all right.' But she didn't tell him what had really happened, and as her eyes met Gabriel Stone's she saw the gleam of triumph in those blue depths, because he had made her support his story.. .he had made her obey him. 'I do apologise, Mr Stone.' The male organiser was more concerned with keeping Gabriel Stone happy. 'We hired her in good faith, and...' 'Please, don't apologise for her.' Gabriel Stone cut him off with a curt, contemptuous note in his voice. 'If she was scared by the reading it was my fault, not hers. I won't have her penalised. Understand me?' 'Oh, yes, of course, Mr Stone!' 'Good.' He turned to look at her. 'Thank you very much for an exciting glimpse of the future, Rhiannon.' 'Don't mention it!' she muttered. 'I shall remember precisely what the cards predicted.'

'I'm sure you will!' 'And I shall most definitely,' he drawled mockingly, 'be in touch with you to discuss it more fully in the future.' Her eyes smouldered at him. 'Until then...' Gabriel Stone turned and strode coolly out of the tent, giving no more than a cursory nod to the men and the woman who practically bowed to the ground in their haste to curry favour with him, his money and his undeniable power. Rhiannon watched him go, her eyes filled with hatred. Hatred and desire...

CHAPTER TWO RHIANNON presented almost two thousand pounds to the charity organisers. Naturally they were thrilled. It was the single biggest contribution of the day. Rhiannon told them that Gabriel Stone had donated the largest amount and they all swooned like mad, saying things like, 'He really is the most marvellous man,' and 'How can one man be so generous and so sexy?' 'Does he always contribute so heavily?' she asked, because she had to know if he had been generous for good or bad motives. 'Oh, yes!' Marella, the head of the committee told her. 'Mr Stone is a born philanthropist. He doesn't just make millions and keep them all to himself. He donates to worthy causes wherever he finds them. And he has a particular fondness for children's charities.' Rhiannon mulled this over. The brute had made it appear as though he wanted to buy her, not help children. Yet clearly he would have donated as much whatever the circumstances. That doesn't make him a saint, though, she thought angrily. Look at the way he behaved towards me! 'We're going to be late for dinner, Rhiannon,' Bobby whispered in her ear as she was about to accept another cup of tea from Marella. 'I booked the table for seven- thirty. ..' Rhiannon quickly excused herself and went to get changed in one of the superb bathrooms of the Manor. She had brought her evening outfit with her, and it almost felt as though she'd had a little holiday because she had to pack her day clothes, her Welsh Witch costume, her tarot cards and her make-up into a little suitcase.

In the mirror, she saw the faint bruising of her lips from Gabriel Stone's kiss, and she wondered if she would ever need lipstick again. Her heart thudded harder as she remembered the strong arms around her body, the insistent pressure of his mouth, the exciting intimacy of their tongues sliding together and the burning heat of her blood... I hate him! she thought defiantly, fighting the force of her own desire. How did he know what I yearned for? Is it written all over my face? Staring into the mirror, she saw the wildness of her green eyes, the pout of her red mouth, and wondered, What told Gabriel Stone that I wanted to be dominated by him? It was her secret. Her secret, dammit, and nobody else was supposed to know—not even Bobby. Like Pandora with her golden casket, she had kept it buried for five long years, never thinking about it herself, if she could help it—let alone telling anyone else. It wasn't just the desire to love, honour and obey a man that she had kept secret all these years. Nor was it the desire to find herself with a man who would dominate her physically, make her feel feminine and helpless and exquisitely ravaged in lovemaking. It was more., the fact that only a dominant man could ever hope to make her truly fall in love. Of course, she loved Bobby, but in such a different way. He was and always had been more like a friend, a comfortable and familiar cushion she nestled on while getting on with her own life and career. But a man like Gabriel Stone could make her fall helplessly in love, and that made him dangerous. Far too dangerous to allow him access to her again— even though she was already so fascinated by him that all she could think of were his

dazzling eyes, his cynical face, the power of his kiss.. .and what other wicked delights a kiss like that could lead to. 'Rhiannon!' Bobby called up the vast sweeping staircase. 'I booked the table for seven-thirty! We're going to be late!' 'Just coming!' Rhiannon snapped out of her reverie and hurried downstairs with her little suitcase, which Bobby stowed in the car as they both said their goodbyes to the charity organisers. They drove swiftly back to London and had dinner at a homely little Italian restaurant just round the corner from Rhiannon's Kensington home. But she was preoccupied and tense all through the meal, dark passion occasionally smouldering in her eyes as she toyed with her food indifferently and remembered Gabriel's words—'I like to see you looking helplessly feminine...' Why did that phrase make her want to make love with him until the world exploded into a thousand stars? After dinner, Bobby drove her home. 'Darling,' he said as he pulled up in the cobbled mews, 'you've been so quiet since we left the Manor. Are you all right?' 'Yes, I'm fine.' She looked at him through her lashes, frowning. How could she tell him the truth? He had never even tried to make love to her. Their whole relationship had been founded, from the beginning, on a mutual fear of casual sex and intimacy. How could she confide in him now when what was bothering her was precisely that? Something in her must have changed. There was no denying that she had spent the whole evening dreaming of Gabriel's kiss, touch, dominant lovemaking. But Bobby was unaware of that. Just as he was unaware that Rhiannon now clamoured for more of Gabriel Stone.

Guilt ate away at her. Bobby was clearly still the same. He had not been the man to awaken her sleeping desires. Gabriel Stone had done that. So what could she possibly say to Bobby about it without rocking their security and damaging their friendship? 'I suppose you're just tired?' Bobby ventured helpfully. 'I suppose so,' she agreed, wishing she could confide in him as she had always done when something was bothering her. 'And I had such a busy week at the office. I was working late every night.' 'You work too much.' Bobby smiled, relaxing with the familiar excuse. 'I've told you that before.' 'I love working. I've told you that before!' Bobby laughed and opened his door. 'OK, Mademoiselle Workaholic! Let's call it a night, shall we?' Rhiannon stepped out of the car too, and walked round in the moonlit, lamplit mews to her bottle-green front door with the gold lion knocker and the two hanging plants beside it. 'Lunch tomorrow?' Bobby put his arms around her. 'I could come round at twelve, read the papers while you cook. Maybe we could have a game of Monopoly...' The thought of the familiar routine horrified her. Don't you realise that everything's changed since I met Gabriel Stone? she wanted to say. But she would just have sounded mad. After all—how could it all have changed in just one meeting with a complete stranger...?

Suddenly she needed to do something that would keep her security with Bobby, and for some insane reason she thought that making him see her in a sexier light would do the trick. 'Bobby,' she said on impulse, 'why don't we do something different this Sunday?' 'Such as? Picnic in Hyde Park? Motor down to—?' 'Why don't we make wild, passionate love instead?' His eyes almost fell out of his head. 'Make love...!' 'I...' Her skin burned with embarrassment. 'I—I just meant we ought to do something different. That's all.' She turned away from him, worry in her eyes. His attitude to sex had never bothered her before. Why did it bother her now? But she knew the answer to that. It was six feet six with steel-blue eyes and a tough, sexy mouth. 'Well, I...' Bobby coughed nervously, as uncomfortable as she was. 'I'd love to, darling, but I thought you felt as I did. About sex before marriage, I mean. Not the done thing, and all that. Rather tawdry.' He shuffled his feet, face red. 'Sort of thing cheap, insincere people do.' 'But we have been together for five years, and—' 'Yes, yes, but...' He shifted uncomfortably in the lamplight. 'The wedding night is the proper time. And don't forget we've steered clear of sex because it was what you wanted. That was what you said in the beginning, remember?' 'What did I say?' she asked huskily, leaning against his shoulder, closing her eyes and praying that his love, his kindness, his tenderness would keep the forces of her desire for Gabriel Stone at bay. Like a magic charm, an amulet, a crucifix to ward off the Devil.

'That Jack Ratchett had driven you mad with his need to control you. That he'd made you obey him in everything. And that you never wanted to be involved with a man like that again as long as you lived.' She sighed softly, reassured. 'And what else?' He kissed her forehead, saying deeply, 'That you would only get involved with me if I promised never to play power-games with you, and never to force you into lovemaking until you were ready.' 'Yes, that's right...' She smiled up into his eyes with love. 'I did say that, didn't I?' 'And you are still happy with it, aren't you, darling?' He asked eagerly, almost desperately. 'I mean—you don't change your mind about something so loathsome overnight. Do you, dearest?' 'No...' Her voice said the word, but she stared at him and thought, Loathsome? Did we really once agree? Am I really going to marry him? The worry she felt as those thoughts ran through her mind was so deep she couldn't cope with it. Instinctively she tried to cling to what was safe, secure, familiar. 'You're right, Bobby. Power-games are horrid and so is sex. I want nothing more to do with either.' Horrors! she thought, listening to herself. I sound like some awful old prude instead of a young woman. Do I really hate sex? But even as she thought it she remembered Gabriel Stone's kiss, her passionate response and the helpless desire she had felt in his arms... 'Look, I really must go in now,' she heard her shaken voice saying as her hands fumbled in her bag for the keys. 'I'm so tired. That's probably all that's wrong with me. I need to sleep.'

'A tired boy is a fretful boy, as my mother always says.' Bobby irritated her further with yet another of his mother's sayings. 'And it applies to girls too, darling. We don't want you all fretful when you've so much work to do, do we?' Rhiannon smiled tensely, kissed him goodnight and went inside. She put the light on and stood staring at her beautiful living room for a long moment in silence. It seemed strange. As though she'd never seen it before. As though it were a rented house, not the home she'd lived in and loved for three years. Her briefcase was open on the pale yellow couch and the storyboard was visible from here: tiny television screens with colour drawings in each one, depicting frame by frame the advertisement she had devised for Carillo's Cuban coffee. A Cuban hacienda at night. Two cups of coffee steaming on an antique drawing room table. An overhead fan and smouldering music... The camera moved across the bed and out onto the balcony. A sultry, sexy brunette stands on the balcony over- lookng Havana. She is wearing a long, slinky red evening dress, slit to the thigh, and a red bougainvillea flower in her hair. A black limousine pulls up in the aristocratic Havana street below. A liveried chauffeur rushes to open the rear door. A tall, dark and incredibly powerful-looking man steps out, looks up at the brunette on the balcony and gives a slow, ruthless smile. The sultry brunette looks at the camera and says throatily, 'I like my men the way I like my coffee... dark, rich and very strong.'

CARILLO'S CUBAN COFFEE,

flashes up onto the screen.

DARK, RICH AND VERY STRONG.

Rhiannon studied the storyboard. When she'd left for the charity fete this morning, her mind had been filled with Carillo's Cuban coffee. She hadn't been able to decide whether to stick with 'Dark, rich and very strong' or move to her new idea of 'When you feel like coming on strong'. Now she couldn't care less. It was a matter of complete indifference to her. All she cared about was whether or not she would ever see Gabriel Stone again, and whether he would kiss her as he had kissed her today, unleashing that dammed-up passion. He made me feel like a woman for the first time in years, she realised with a shock. And I loved every second of it. But how could he do it in just one brief meeting? How...?

Ambition had been her lover and best friend for so long that she automatically expected to feel dynamic and excited as soon as she crossed the threshold of Solomon Advertising Associates on Monday morning.

But as she entered the busy black glass building on Tottenham Court Road she felt the same sense of detachment and strangeness she had felt all weekend. She quickened her step, almost running to the lifts as though from the changes in herself. On the seventh floor people said hello to her as always, and she said hello back cheerily, but inside she felt alien to them, and to the whole business of advertising. She hurried past Bobby's little glass office without stopping to wave. He was sitting at his desk, playing with the executive toy she had bought him for Christmas last year. But there was her own office, just ahead, a beacon of light—her palace, her reason for living. The door was polished oak with a gleaming gold plaque on it which read 'RHIANNON WINDMORR—CREATIVE DIRECTOR'. Just the sight of it had always made her smile brightly. But today she felt nothing. It was just a piece of brass on a door, that was all—nothing more. She went inside, closed the door and looked at the trophies, the certificates, the award-winning designs, adverts and accolades collected over the last five years. They seemed so pointless. Just pieces of brass and wood and glossy posters. They weren't real or alive, they couldn't make her feel wonderful any more—and they no longer filled her with passionate excitement. Only one thing, however, had happened to her since she'd left this office at midnight on Friday—Gabriel Stone! Damn the man! What has he done to me? Is this some kind of magic spell he's put over me, making me turn my face from my own life and wish for nothing but love, passion, desire...

There was a knock at the door. Whirling round, she called sharply, 'Come in!' 'Morning!' Jerry, the receptionist, strode in, blonde hair flying, pink lips glossy, high heels flashing. 'Sorry to disturb, but an urgent package has just arrived for you.' 'For me?' Rhiannon took the big white parcel with a frown. 'A chauffeur just hand-delivered it to Reception. I'm dying to know what's inside it.' Curiouser and curiouser, thought Rhiannon, opening the parcel while Jerry watched. She saw a flash of scarlet-gold silk beneath folds of white tissue paper, and a white envelope nestling among the tissue with the unmistakable handwriting of Gabriel Stone in black. 'I don't believe it!' Rhiannon said through her teeth, heart thudding hard as she tore the envelope open with trembling hands and read the card. Miss Windmorr, I'm having an intimate dinner party on Saturday night. It would amuse me if I could entertain my guests with a Welsh Witch. My chauffeur will collect you from your home address at seven-thirty. Wear the costume provided. Come alone. Gabriel Stone. How had he managed to find her? Not only here at Solomon Associates, but also to get her home address? Then she remembered him talking to the host and hostess at that charity fete. He had found

out that she was engaged to Bobby. It must have been a simple matter to get her work and home addresses. She looked down at the note in her unsteady hands. It wasn't just the condescending and insolent tone that offended her. Nor even the curt commands, issued as though she were some kind of minor domestic employee. What made her most furious was the total lack of respect which permeated his letter from start to finish. 'Gabriel Stone!' Jerry gasped, reading over Rhiannon's shoulder. 'Gosh, you lucky thing!' 'Lucky...?' 'Oh, yes! He's the most gorgeous man I've ever seen!' 'Optically challenged, are you?' Rhiannon snapped. 'Oh, come on! He's got more animal magnetism than any man has a right to! You should have seen him when he walked in here twenty minutes ago! Those blue eyes, that tough face—' 'Walked in here?' Rhiannon whispered, almost collapsing like a tower of jelly on the spot. 'You mean— here? He's here! In the building?' 'Yes, he's upstairs with Steve Solomon.' Rhiannon swayed, aware of the excitement gripping her body like an electric fist, knowing she was a fool to feel it—a lemming rushing blindly over a cliff to destruction. How stupid to feel excited at the prospect of her own unquestionable doom if she ever let him near her. 'Maybe he's going to switch to Solomon Associates!' Jerry mused. 'All his companies have been with Rawdon and Taylor for years. They're so old- fashioned, though. Did you see—?'

'Even if Gabriel Stone does switch to us, I won't have anything to do with him! Just look at this note! Have you ever seen anything so conceited? Demanding I come to his party like a performing monkey!' 'I'd perform for him any old day!' 'Oh, Jerry! Must you think of sex, sex—?' The telephone rang sharply. Rhiannon snatched it up, her voice unsteady. 'Rhiannon Windmorr!' 'Ah, Miss Windmorr!' Steve Solomon, the chairman, drawled, like the lazy fat-cat he was. 'Get up to my office right away, please. We have a potential new client I'd like you to meet.' 'But, sir, I—' The line went dead. For a second Rhiannon just stood there, clutching the receiver with a damp hand while Jerry waited with bated breath. Trembling, she clumsily put the receiver down. 'Well?' Jerry asked eagerly. 'I have to go up to Solomon's office right away,' she said huskily. 'To meet a new client.' She smoothed her damp palms on her skirt. How could she face him? She felt so vulnerable... 'It must be Gabriel Stone!' 'Yes, well, I think that's perfectly obvious!' Rhiannon looked down at the package. 'I'll have to go up and see him, I suppose.' Her voice was

still husky, and she heard the unsteady desire throbbing in her voice, knew she wanted him and hated herself for it. 'Ooh!' Jerry said dreamily. 'Let me know what happens!' Rhiannon gave her a sharp look and left the office, striding as purposefully as she could across the open- plan area with its potted palms and air-conditioning, heading for the chairman's lift. The lift took her to the fifteenth floor with luxurious speed. Her reflection in the mirrored wall undermined her confidence. The shimmer of helpless femininity in her green eyes was so severe she could barely look at it herself. Nervous, she tidied her long black hair, but it still fell softly around her flushed pink face, making her look girlish despite the smart red skirt-suit she wore— and even that made her look desirably female, with its nipped-in waist and figure-hugging cut. Walking out of the lift and onto the plush oyster- coloured carpets, she tried to look confident, but inside her heart was thudding hard and her legs were actually shaking. 'Miss Windmorr!' The secretary smiled as she entered the outer rooms. 'Mr Solomon is expecting you.' 'Thank you!' she said unsteadily. 'Gabriel Stone is with him!' breathed the secretary. 'He is the sexiest man I've ever seen in my life! Lucky you, being invited in to meet him!' 'Lucky old me!' Rhiannon said thickly, and knocked on the door, then entered at Solomon's shout.

Gabriel Stone was standing by the windows, with Steve Solomon next to him. Both men were in an attitude of old friends, but it was clear—so clear—who was the more powerful of the two, because not only did Gabriel Stone tower over Steve Solomon but everything about him, from the cut of his impeccable grey suit to the lift of his dark head, shouted, Power. Authority. Masculinity. Superiority. He turned with a cool smile to look at her, ruthless blue eyes glittering with mockery. In silence she met his gaze measure for measure, but her heart was beating like a crazy drum. She wanted him so much she could barely stand. And he knew it. How could he fail to notice that her eyes flashed over him with desire? Flashed over the hard muscles emphasised by the grey suit, the taut waistcoat, the silver watch-chain gleaming across it and the dark red silk tie knotted at his throat. 'Miss Windmorr!' he drawled smokily. 'We meet again.' 'Hello, Mr Stone.' Her voice was more confident than she could have prayed for it to be. 'What brings you to my offices?' 'Oh, are they yours? I was under the impression that they belonged to Steve Solomon, here.' 'Yes, of course. Forgive me.' Humiliating colour stung her cheeks. 'Welcome to Solomon Associates, Mr Stone. How may we help you?' He smiled with lazy satisfaction. 'Well, now, that's the kind of welcome I prefer!' Rhiannon's green eyes filled with furious rebellion as she thought to herself, You rotten, power-wielding snake!

'I've been discussing the possibility of switching all my accounts from Rawdon and Taylor to Solomon's. I'd prefer to test the water first, so I'll only hand over one account initially. I'd like you, Miss Windmorr, to work on it for me.' 'I'm afraid I can't at the moment,' she informed him. 'I'm still working on Carillo's Cuban coffee.' 'What a pity,' said Gabriel softly. 'In that case, I'll have to withdraw my offer.' Her jaw dropped in shock. 'Er, Mr Stone,' Steve said rapidly, shooting a furious glare at her, 'I'm sure Rhiannon will be pleased to work for—' 'I did want her to handle my account,' said Gabriel with a smile and a sinister note in his voice. 'Only her. Nobody else.' 'I'm sure she'll agree to—' 'But, if she prefers not to—' Gabriel strode coolly past her towards the door '—I shall have to take my business elsewhere.' 'Rhiannon!' Steve exploded, dark eyes blazing. 'Yes, all right!' she muttered thickly, and turned, calling resentfully, 'Please wait, Mr Stone!' He turned, a mocking smile on his hard mouth. She hated him—and desired him—more in that moment, standing there with the light of victory in his eyes, than she could ever have thought possible. 'Of course I'll work on the account,' she said tightly.

'I'm delighted to hear it,' Gabriel drawled with a cynical smile, and moved back into the room, arrogance itself as he stood there, dark head lifted with authority. 'Mr Solomon—would you be so good as to leave us alone now, to discuss the details?' 'Yes, of course!' Steve hurriedly moved away while Rhiannon stood rigidly, aware that she was being set up but helpless to stop it. 'Just tell my secretary when my office is free again.' Gabriel Stone gave a cool nod, and a second later the door had closed, leaving them alone. The silence between them seethed with sexual attraction, fierce cross-currents of emotion, and an awareness of each other that was nothing short of electrifying. Rhiannon spoke first—out of necessity as well as nerves. 'How did you engineer this?' 'Simple,' he drawled. 'I just had my secretary ring your boss and say the magic words: "Mr Gabriel Stone would like to meet with you in one hour's time.'" He smiled lazily. 'Of course, he said yes. They always do.' 'Must be nice to be so powerful!' He laughed softly. 'Yes, it is!' 'And what about the rest of your plan? Sending that ridiculous gift, that insulting invitation and—' 'I wanted you to be angry by the time your boss summoned you. I wanted you to refuse to work with me in his presence, just to make sure you understood your position.'

'And what is my position?' 'Powerless,' he drawled mockingly. Rage blazed through her veins so fiercely that she practically had to nail herself to the floor to stop herself hitting his dark, arrogant face. He smiled. 'I suppose you want to slap my face. That's only natural. A pity your hands are so effectively tied.' 'My hands are not tied!' she choked out. 'I can hit you any time I want!' 'Go on, then. See where it gets you.' She fumed impotently, hands curling into fists at her sides. 'Darling,' he murmured, 'never make a threat you're not prepared to carry out.' 'Don't you dare call me darling!' she said under her breath, tears spurting suddenly to sting her eyes. 'I loathe you for what you're doing. And just what do you hope to achieve by it anyway?' 'I would have thought that was perfectly obvious!' 'Sex?' she whispered fiercely, her vision blurring. "No need to say it like that!' He frowned. 'I saw and felt how much I turned you on. I can assure you the feeling is mutual. Surely, after years of a sexless relationship with that clown, you should be eager to feel like a woman again? So why the frightened whisper? Anyone would think I wanted to do something terrible to you instead of make love to you.'

Rhiannon had already looked away, breathless with horror at the continuing accuracy of his guesses—not only about her response to him as a woman, but about her sexless relationship with Bobby. There was a tense silence. She didn't look round but she could feel his eyes on her, and she knew he was thinking—thinking hard, trying to figure out why her reaction should be this way. 'Rhiannon...?' he said under his breath, sensing the depth of the change in her emotions. The note of compassion in his voice made tears sting her eyes, and she went rigid with the fear that she might break down. His footsteps sounded behind her. 'What's wrong?' 'Nothing!' A big gentle hand touched her shoulder. 'Hey... look at me...' 'No!' she said thickly, feeling pathetic as she struggled not to cry, standing with her back to him like an obstinate child while the tears burned at her eyes. The seconds ticked away in tense silence and Gabriel Stone felt the tremors of emotion in her shoulders as he held her. 'Come on,' he said softly. 'Why the big emotional display?' 'I'm not being emotional!' 'Then what are you doing?' He laughed seductively. 'Any minute now you'll stamp your foot like a little girl and—'

She reacted as though stung. 'Don't laugh at me! My personal feelings are none of your business!' 'But I'm going to make them my business.' He turned her with infinite care, as though she were a precious piece of porcelain. Her tear-filled eyes met his. 'Ah...' The tough face softened. 'And don't patronise me either!' 'Forgive me,' he murmured with a smile. 'But it melts the strongest heart to see you show such helpless femininity. You're quite a powerful woman, you know, Rhiannon. It's touching to see how very female you can be.' Rhiannon felt absurdly flattered, and hated herself for it. 'I suppose that brings us very neatly to the point, doesn't it? You want to dedicate yourself to reducing me to a state of helpless femininity!' 'Why, so I do!' he drawled with a flash of mockery in his eyes. 'But I thought my intentions towards you were understood. Or weren't you listening to me on Saturday?' 'I was listening...' She lowered her lashes, staring at the dark red silk tie against the white shirt and powerful chest. 'Then you know,' he said deeply, 'that I want you badly enough to find out why you're involved in that dull, sexless relationship.' 'You have no proof that it's dull or sexless!' 'Rhiannon, I could see it with my own eyes.'

'Because he didn't kiss me? How do you know he didn't ravish me as soon as we got home that night?' He tensed, frowning. 'I don't believe it!' She carried on staring at his chest. 'Well?' he demanded thickly. 'Did he make love to you? Has he ever made love to you?' I could lie, she thought, holding her breath. I could say Bobby made love to me and then he'd go away, never come back.. .never make wild, passionate love to me. 'Tell me!' Gabriel bit out under his breath, and his long fingers tightened on her shoulders. 'Tell me, damn you, or I'll—!' 'No.' He relaxed. He even drew a sharp breath. Those eyes moved rapidly over her face and the white line of his mouth curved as he gave a wry smile. 'I was right, then,' he drawled arrogantly. 'He is a wimp!' Her eyes flashed angrily up to meet his from under her lashes. 'Was I right about everything, Rhiannon? Oh, I can see from that look that I was!' He laughed under his breath as she tried angrily to get away from him. 'No, you don't! You're staying right here until I've got what I wanted from you!' 'You're never going to get that, Mr Stone!' she said furiously, fighting to escape those hard fingers. 'I am engaged to another man. When will you get that through your thick head?'

'My head is many things, but thick isn't one of them. And if I want to take you to bed, I damned well will.' 'The only way you'll get me into bed is as a corpse!' 'Oh, you'll be very much alive. You'll also be powerless, naked and more than willing.' Without stopping to think, she moved to slap him hard—and missed. He was too quick for her, catching her hand at the wrist and leaving her struggling impotently once more while he grinned down at her, amused. 'Darling!' he mocked. 'You don't have to go to such lengths to show me you're climbing the walls with sexual frustration.' 'How dare you speak to me like that?' she gibbered. 'How dare you?' 'Because I want you to be happy, you stupid, obstinate female!' 'I'll only be happy when you get out of my life!' 'I'm here to stay, Rhiannon!' 'But why? Why? I don't want you here!' 'And I don't want to see a woman like you marrying a pompous, half-witted, sexless little idiot like Bobby— what's his name?' 'Pratt,' she snapped, without thinking of the repercussions, and then realised precisely what she had done. There was a long, stunned silence. The hot sunlight blazed over them from the wide airy windows and London's skyscrapers glittered far above the stately white palaces of centuries past.

Gabriel started to laugh. 'What? You're kidding me! His name is not Pratt!' 'It's not his fault!' She glared at him furiously. 'Oh, I quite agree!' He was laughing so much his powerful chest was shaking. 'He can't help being a complete and utter—' 'Right, that's it! I am not staying here to listen to my fiance being insulted by a swine like you!' 'Oh, come on! Where's your sense of humour?' The light in his eyes was so incandescent that it was irresistible to her, making her heart move and her own eyes light up in response to his personality, his wit, his soul. 'Parting, the man's been living up to his name for years! You can't marry him! And I absolutely refuse to allow you to become a Pratt yourself!' She looked away, obstinately refusing to be moved by him. He could be as charming as he liked. She refused point-blank to be swayed by him. Apart from that—she had to confess that from the moment she had met Bobby his surname had been one of her strongest objections to him. But she didn't want Gabriel Stone to know that. He smiled, his eyes filled with affection. 'You know what I'm saying is right. So come on.. .stop fighting me. The cards predicted we'd be lovers. Why don't you just give in to destiny—and to me?' 'I'm in control of my destiny,' she said in a husky voice. 'Not a set of tarot cards, and certainly not you!' 'Fine. I want you to be in control of your destiny. It's your body I'm going to take control of.'

She raised her head. 'And what if I won't let you?' 'Oh, you'll let me!' he drawled, eyes hardening to ruthless steel so suddenly that she caught her breath with excitement just to see the different reflections of this multi-faceted man: 'You'll let me all right, Rhiannon! I'm going to encourage you to submit—and then I'm going to make a woman out of you!' 'You think I'd give my consent to that kind of thing?' 'Even a tiger knows how to roll onto its back and let itself be stroked.' She was breathless again, staring at his arrogant face, thinking of her first oil painting: a tiger moving stealthily through a darkened jungle towards a dark man asleep beneath a tree. Her tutor had told her that the tiger was herself.. .a man-eater. 'Glad to see you're being more agreeable,' Gabriel murmured with a smile, misinterpreting her stare. 'So let's see what else you're agreeable to, shall we? We agree, for instance, that you have to take this job. We agree that I currently have total professional control over you. And we also agree that we will one day be lovers.' 'I never agreed to the last one!' she told him flatly, lifting her dark head and trying to look convincing. 'That's because I'm going to demand submission, darling. And I'll start on Saturday night, when you arrive at my house.' 'Ah, yes! Saturday night! I'd forgotten, in all this non-excitement, about your insulting little note and that truly humiliating costume!' 'But you'll look sensational,' he said deeply, and the sudden tenderness of his voice made her heart melt like an ice-cream in a microwave. 'How can you possibly see that as humiliating?'

She hesitated while her stupid heart carried on melting: 'I...' She felt her skin shiver with excitement: 'Well, I... I just have no intention of wearing it—or of attending your dinner party.' 'You will, or I'll have you fired.' . 'Fired!' She was so furious she could hardly speak coherently. 'I beg your pardon, Mr Stone, but I am a highly qualified, highly respected woman, and I do not need your say-so to remain employed!' Her eyes flashed with rage. 'I can walk into another top job anywhere in advertising, and don't you forget it!' 'That may be so.' His eyes turned ruthless. 'But I happen to know all about the Moretti account.' Her breath caught in horror. 'The Moretti account...?' 'Mmm. Shall we talk about it alone? Or shall I call Steve back in here to make it a cosy threesome?' Rhiannon's face paled with disbelief. He sounded so sure, so arrogant. He must know all the gory details. And she certainly wasn't about to put it to the test. Not the Moretti scandal... It had been her first major account as creative director, three years ago. She had been working on a top-secret campaign for Moretti Cars to launch the Panther, a long, sleek sports car they had just built to corner the market in affordable glamour. Then Baron, a rival car firm working on a similar car, had got hold of their slogan and used it first, practically destroying the Moretti launch—and Solomon Associates in the process. 'You discussed it with an old friend, didn't you?' Gabriel Stone's smile was deadly. 'And she just happened to be in love with Tony Baron—the eldest son of the Baron car firm family.'

Rhiannon felt sick. 'I trusted her. We were at school together. I had no idea she knew Tony Baron—or that she'd tell him my slogan.' 'Ah, but you'd been in this business long enough to have known better. Never discuss a campaign with outsiders until it's in the public eye.' 'We were at my parents' wedding anniversary party in Hampshire!' she said in hoarse self-defence, knowing full well she had been a fool to trust Lynda like that, and shuddering with horror at the memory of how stupid she had been. 'She was just an old Mend, sipping tea and eating cake and looking like Snow White!' 'You shouldn't have discussed it with her.' 'She was the vicar's daughter! She worked as a nursery school teacher! She was a homely little country girl! It never occurred to me that she'd betray me!' 'Even homely little country girls need husbands,' he drawled. 'I believe she is now married to Tony Baron and expecting their first child.' She winced. It was never easy to accept that an old and trusted friend, someone you would never, ever have suspected, was capable of betrayal. It made the world such a horrid place. It made people dangerous instead of nice. It made life so.. .difficult. 'Sweet little innocent,' he said softly, and, though he sounded mocking, when she looked into his eyes she saw a glimmer of compassion in their depths. 'You're so tough, so sophisticated, such a world-beating executive. But all the time there's a part of you that will be forever trusting, forever naive.'

'There's no need to rub it in! And although "The Panther—too wicked to ride" was a good slogan, I managed to come up with something else in the end!' 'Oh, brilliant!' he agreed with a dazzling smile as pride lit his eyes, making her stare at him with astonishment. '"Wild Thing" made it the biggest-selling sports car of the year. It was better than the original slogan.' He laughed softly, adding, 'But you only pulled it out of the hat at the last minute.' 'With twenty-four hours to go,' she remembered, then gave him a sharp, questioning look. 'How do you know all of this anyway?' He smiled. 'Tony Baron's father is a very old friend of mine. Known each other since college, me and Jimmy Baron. He's a self-made man, just like me, and we're old buddies.' 'Ah...' She grimaced, then realised what he must think and felt her face flame as she looked up at him. 'You must think I deliberately didn't confess to Steve.' 'I know he still doesn't know how that slogan got out,' he drawled, 'because I asked him about it before you came in.' 'Cunning of you,' she said tightly. 'But the truth is, I didn't tell him because I didn't put two and two together until Lynda married Tony—and I wasn't invited to the wedding.' His dark brows arched. 'Do you want me to tell Steve now?' Rhiannon looked away, horrified at the thought. She had wanted to tell Steve so many times since it had happened. But what could she say that wouldn't ruin her career? Steve was a city man. Born and bred in London's East End, he had no more idea of how a top advertising executive might trust a sweet little

country vicar's daughter over tea and cake at a family party than... well, than of how to milk a cow or avoid a rabbit on a country road. It was just a different world. And Steve would never be able to trust her again. Not even if she reassured him, on her knees, that it would never happen again. Steve would probably just fire her or ask her to leave or stop giving her big accounts. But what use was a creative director who couldn't be trusted with major accounts? And who would ever employ her in that capacity again? 'Well?' Gabriel Stone asked with a ruthless smile. 'Will you come to my dinner party—or shall I tell Steve Solomon your sad tale?' 'I'll come to your dinner party!' she said thickly, because it was either that or destroy her career for ever. He laughed and released her, stepping back. 'Good girl. I'd love to stay longer, but I have a very busy schedule. I suggest you run along downstairs and get working on my account. Tell Solomon to come back in here. But I'll see you on Saturday night.' Rhiannon studied him with wide eyes and parted lips. He was letting her, go? Without even trying to kiss her or make love to her? For a second she wondered if it was a trick. But then she realised he had plans for her on Saturday night. Oh, yes, she could just imagine what those plans were! 'Yes, I'll see you on Saturday night!' she said with husky, defeated anger. 'But only to keep the peace. And doesn't it occur to you that treating me like this will make me hate you? Do you want a relationship with me or just total control over me?' He smiled like a lazy tiger. 'I already have total control over you. I just haven't begun to exercise it completely.'

She couldn't handle that. Not even the thought of it. So she turned on her heel and strode to the office door, legs shaking beneath her even though she looked the very picture of professional cool. They didn't say goodbye to each other. She let the door close with a slam behind her and managed to speak briefly to Steve Solomon, who was cooling his heels like a recalcitrant schoolboy outside his own office. Guilt rose in her over the Tony Baron incident. But Lynda had been such a close friend of hers. They'd been at school together since the age of five. They'd kept in touch when they'd both left school. And Lynda had only just fallen in love with Tony when the betrayal had occurred. How could anyone have known, at that innocent little tea party in the middle of the countryside, that a great advertising secret would be in danger? 'Is everything going well?' Steve got up clumsily from the couch. 'I've accepted the job—yes, sir,' she said huskily. He sighed with relief. 'Good. Gabriel Stone is the biggest fish ever to swim into my pool, and I intend to keep him here.' 'The biggest shark, you mean!' she said with feeling. 'And this may be your pool, sir, but if you'll forgive my saying so, a shark like Gabriel Stone swims in the darkest, most dangerous waters of—' 'I don't care, Rhiannon! You disobey him once—just once—and you'll find yourself looking for another job. Got it?' 'Got it!' she muttered, controlling herself with difficulty. The door closed as Steve went back in to his office. That's it, Rhiannon thought bitterly. No one to appeal to for help and nobody to blame but myself. Talk about hoist by one's own petard.

She'd thought she had already paid the full price for trusting her old schoolfriend. How many more times was she going to be presented with a bill for it? And even if she went to Steve to confess everything, he really wouldn't understand or forgive—so what was the point? She might just as well shoot herself in the foot. Trembling with fearful excitement over just how cornered Gabriel had her, she thought desperately, What am I going to do?

CHAPTER THREE BOBBY took one look at her tense, worried face and took her to Hey Gringo's for lunch. The trendy Mexican restaurant pulsed with life and music. All the waiters were dressed as Mexican bandidos, with fake moustaches and hilarious fake accents. They said 'Hey, Gringo!' to all the customers, served fantastic Tex-Mex food and encouraged people to drink from authentic pitchers of frozen margaritas. It cheered Rhiannon up to go there, but of course Gabriel Stone was far too powerful a man to have his impact displaced by a bunch of fake bandidos, no matter how funny. Rhiannon told Bobby all about Gabriel Stone's visit to Steve Solomon and what it meant for her future with the company. Of course, she couldn't tell him the more personal aspects of Gabriel's visit. What was the point of upsetting him with the truth of what was happening between her and Gabriel? If she was powerless to prevent it, what on earth could Bobby do? 'But this is the biggest break you've ever had!' Bobby enthused. 'I don't understand why you're so reluctant to do it.' 'I don't like the personal angle, Bobby. This dinner party on Saturday night.. .what does that have to do with business?' Bobby affected a man-of-the-world sophistication as he dipped his fried potato skins in his chilli. 'Most big business deals are conducted over lunch or dinner.' She studied him with anxious eyes: 'Is that really how you feel? I mean—don't you care that I'll be dining with him on Saturday night, instead of with you?'

'I'll miss you. But I'll know you're in safe hands.' The irony was too much. Rhiannon paled and looked down at her chicken fajitas, the soft flour tortillas and spicy chicken barely touched. If only Bobby were capable of understanding how easily a man like Gabriel could make her respond to his brand of lovemaking... 'Besides,' he went on innocently, 'I know you're not the type of woman to succumb to the charms of a swine like Gabriel Stone.' She gave a wan, guilty smile. 'You're a wholesome woman. He won't even attempt to seduce you.' Her guilt gnawed at her as she painfully avoided his eyes. 'After all, you're not predatory or sex-obsessed, like some of these ghastly creatures, and you wouldn't let a man kiss or...' He went on blithely, oblivious to her true feelings, and she had a sudden stark memory of Gabriel, sensing and interpreting every turn of her emotions during their conversation... Why was Bobby so blind to what was really going on inside her? It wasn't just that he was blind to her current emotions right here and now—he was also blind to the sudden re-emergence of her sexuality and the desire she felt for another man: Gabriel Stone. Suddenly she knew without doubt that if the positions were reversed, and Gabriel was her fiance, he would have sensed what was going on within the blink of an eye. 'Hey, Gringo!' The waiter appeared at their table, the tips of his fake moustache curling down to his chin. 'You want coffee?'

Carillo's Cuban coffee, she realised later, sipping it. She had spent the morning handing over that account to Martin, her second-in-command. He would finish it off for her, with help from the rest of the team. But she resented having to leave it, particularly as Gabriel reminded her of that slogan.. .dark, rich and very strong. She would miss seeing the advertisement coming to full completion, and she would miss all the in-house meetings, the team discussions, the client's pleasure when the advert was one hundred percent finished and perfect. When they got back to the office, Gabriel's account was there. The gleaming gold file lay on her desk with 'GABRIEL STONE' stamped in black on its cover. 'What does it say?' Bobby demanded excitedly. Rhiannon opened the file with trembling hands. Her green eyes flashed over the opening page. The gold- embossed crest at the top was enough to make her heart leap twenty-seven violent beats. 'It's the Chauvin account,' she said breathlessly. Bobby whistled. It was without doubt the most prestigious watchmaking firm in the world—Swiss craftsmen making exceptional watches by hand, each moving part handcrafted out of solid gold. Its headquarters were in Geneva, but the watches were sold in every capital of the world. Prices started at eight thousand pounds. Chauvin retailed only to men. 'What a triumph!' Bobby was awe-struck. 'You must be the first woman in history ever to have anything to do with that company.'

'The last bastion of male power,' she murmured, still breathless herself. 'Does he really think I'll be able to come up with a winning slogan? When I detest chauvinistic men more than any other kind?' 'Apparently so, darling. I'll leave you to wave your magic wand over it! Dinner tonight...?' 'Yes, of course.' Rhiannon was already sitting at her desk, mind working like a computer, focusing and re- focusing on every idea that sprang to her like wildfire. Gabriel's face burned in her mind. So did his character, his personality—the very epitome of the man who wore Chauvin. A man who could afford those precious golden watches. A man who supported wholeheartedly the old adage that it was a man's world. A man who was the perfect living example of the supreme chauvinist. He wanted to possess Rhiannon, to control her—not only sexually but emotionally, mentally and now professionally too. The slogan was really very simple. 'For the man who controls everything—including time.' Excited, she reached for her storyboard pad, sharpened her pencil and began to draw in each little television-shaped box, her green eyes glittering with unwanted desire for Gabriel Stone—the man who controlled everything—including time.

By Saturday night each section of the campaign was ready to be seen. She was exhilarated by her rapid success, and by the absolute perfection of the campaign—undoubtedly the best she had ever

created in the whole history of her career. Rather irksome to know that she owed that success in part to a man like him, but c'est la vie. And she had every intention of making him accept her appearance tonight at his dinner party as business only. So not only did she not wear the red and gold slave outfit he had demanded she wear, but she also took her portfolio along with her. If he dared to reprimand her for not wearing that slave outfit, she knew precisely what she would say in reply: That his choice of outfit was an insult to women and the freedom they had fought for. That only a bimbo or a whore would wear it. And that as she was neither she would treat it with the contempt it deserved. Of course, he would cast a slur on feminism, accuse her of being 'militant' and try to make her feel less of a desirable woman for her beliefs in women's freedom. But she had an answer to that too—one she had rehearsed daily since Monday. That for any man or woman to deride feminism was like ignoring Remembrance Day. Because when other people had fought for the freedom you now enjoy, it was your duty not only to thank them, but to treat their sacrifices with respect. Let me see him mock that, she thought triumphantly. Elegant in an emerald-green cocktail dress, Rhiannon left her mews house when the white chauffeur-driven limousine arrived, and felt the warm summer breeze in her long, loose black hair. She had known Gabriel Stone would live somewhere fabulous, but even she caught her breath as the limousine pulled up outside an elegant Georgian townhouse in Eaton Square. She carried her portfolio to the door, rang the bell to the left of one white Georgian pillar, and waited.

A butler answered the ring. 'Good evening, Miss Windmorr. Mr Stone is expecting you in the drawing room. May I take your...?' He peered uncertainly at her portfolio. No, that's quite all right,' she replied crisply. 'I'm here on business.' Very good, madam.' He stepped back, allowing her entry to the fabulously classy marble hallway—black- and-white checked floors, chandeliers gleaming softly overhead, alcoves with antique ornaments and a sweeping staircase lined with paintings. The butler opened double white-gold doors. 'Miss Windmorr, sir!' "Thank you, Kingsley,' Gabriel Stone drawled. 'Show her in.' He stood by a creamy fireplace, a glass of champagne in one hand, his other hand in the trouser pocket of a superb black evening suit, his dark face as handsome as it was tough. He looked like a glossy advertisement for the lifestyle of a multi-millionaire. Rhiannon walked into the beautiful drawing room, caught her breath, and thought immediately of Versailles Palace. Yellow and blue silk couches were dotted around a pale yellow deep-pile carpet. Long expensive 'Paris Ritz' curtains fell from floor to ceiling. A chandelier shone cool crystal overhead. A black cat was curled up on the hearth. 'Thank you, Kingsley,' Gabriel drawled again, and the butler bowed silently before closing the doors. They were alone.

Her heart thudded with violent attraction as she stared at him through her lashes, eyes hot green with resentful desire and the sheer excitement of being in the presence of such a powerful personality. 'Where are the other guests?' she asked as coolly as she could. 'You told me this was a dinner party...?' 'A private dinner party,' he murmured. 'We're the only guests.' Rhiannon's mouth tightened. She might have known he would lie to her, even about that. 'You look beautiful,' Gabriel said softly, watching her through those hooded, cynical eyelids. 'But I seem to remember asking you to wear a rather delectable little slave outfit for me tonight...?' 'That outfit—' she lifted her head, eyes disdainful '—is an insult to women and the freedom we have fought for. Only a bimbo or a whore would have agreed to wear it. As I am neither, I simply treated your request with the contempt it deserved.' 'And you've been rehearsing that little speech all the way here, have you?' Hot colour flooded her face. 'As a matter of fact, yes!' 'Good for you.' He pushed away from the fireplace and strode lazily over to her with two glasses of champagne, handing her one. 'I'm glad you didn't wear it. To be honest, I didn't expect you to. Not yet, at any rate. But you will wear it for me one day, Rhiannon. And when you do, I'll reward you.' 'How very thoughtful of you!' she said tightly, incredulous at his reply and his continuing assumption that she would one day play the slave for his pleasure.

'But I'll leave the time and place entirely up to you. After all, I want a willing slave.' 'Then want must be your master!' 'And I'll be yours,' he drawled sardonically, making her face burn hotter and her heart beat like a galloping horse. He smiled, enjoying her response. Then the blue eyes flicked to the portfolio. 'Is that the Chauvin account you have there?' Thrown off balance by the rapid change of subject, she stared for a second, then nodded. 'Yes, I... I've been working on it all week.' 'Let's take a look at it, then.' His long hands moved towards her, making her leap backwards like a startled gazelle, wide green eyes flashing up to his in consternation. 'I just want the portfolio.. for the moment,' he murmured lazily, and took it from her. Heart pounding, she watched as he strode coolly to the couch and sank down on it, crossing one long muscular leg over the other as he opened the portfolio on his lap and began to peruse it. 'Sit down,' he commanded without looking up. Rhiannon resented his command, but found herself doing as she was told. She moved to the armchair beside him, not trusting him on that couch, and sank down slowly, her legs trembling beneath her. He studied her work with a smile. She studied him with smouldering eyes. That tough profile made her shiver with desire for some crazy, reason that she couldn't fathom. The wickedness of those blue eyes, the hard cynicism of his mouth... She wanted him so much she could barely think of anything but being kissed by him till her legs gave way.

"'For the man who controls everything",' he quoted, '"including time"!' Her lashes flickered. 'Perfect.' He looked up, blue eyes meeting hers with glittering pleasure. 'I knew you'd be able to do it better than any man.' Her shocked eyes widened. 'Are you trying to tell me you seriously believe that? A chauvinist like you?' 'I may want to get you into bed,' he drawled cynically, 'and I may be using this as a lever to spend more time with you. But I can assure you I wouldn't let you anywhere near such a prestigious account as Chauvin if I thought you couldn't cut the ice.' 'You intend to go ahead with it, then? Television, radio, newspapers, magazines...' 'Everything. It's exactly what I was looking for. And the storyboard is as brilliant as the slogan.' Encouraged, she leant forward. 'I think the scenes where he flies to Washington to meet with the President underlines his power.' 'Well,' he murmured, smiling into her eyes with pleasure, 'I love it when my power is underlined.' 'It's not about you, you know!' she said hotly, defensively. 'Isn't it?' The shrewd and ruthless eyes looked directly into hers, glittering with the knowledge that she was as powerfully inspired by him as he was by her.

He knew perfectly well she had used him as the hero! How horribly embarrassing! She wanted to hide under that French antique table and die. 'Come here...' he said softly, and reached out, one strong hand curling round her wrist. With a cool flick, he jerked her out of her chair, and as she stumbled in surprise he pulled her onto his lap. Breathless, she lay against his chest, staring dazedly into those ruthless eyes, her heart pounding so hard with excitement that she couldn't move. 'I love it when you look at me like that,' he said softly. Rhiannon went scarlet, aware of the adoration in her stunned and unguarded eyes. She couldn't bear him to know how deeply he affected her. She struggled and tried to get up off his lap. 'Stay where you are, Rhiannon!' he drawled, holding her easily, a vast power controlling her—six feet six and built from solid muscle, a man who made her weak with helplessness and desire. 'Let me go.. .you can't do this...' 'I can do what I like.' He studied her arrogantly, his heavy eyelids half closed, a cynical smile on his mouth. Her hands curled helplessly on his powerful shoulders. He smiled. 'Do you have any idea how much I want to make love to you, Rhiannon?' 'I'm engaged to another man. I won't allow you—'

'Allow?' He laughed under his breath. 'That's right!' Her cheeks burnt red. 'You may be bigger and stronger than me, but if I don't allow or give my permission for you to make love to me, it will constitute force!' 'There'll never be any question of force between us, Rhiannon. You want me so badly you're shaking with it,' he drawled softly, arrogance in his blue eyes. 'Do you think I don't know that?' She lowered her head, almost hiding in the warmth of his white shirt, her face burning against his chest. What was the matter with her? He was making her behave like some breathless schoolgirl instead of a woman of twenty-six. 'Shy, suddenly?' 'I...' She was appalled at her own helplessness. Her hands curled on his broad shoulders. She couldn't look at him. She felt defencelessly feminine for the first time in her life, tiny in his hands and unable to resist his male power. 'Oh, that's lovely...' he said thickly, and she felt his heart thudding with sudden violence. His hand stroked her hair. 'Oh, yes, darling...!' He knew exactly how she felt. He loved it. His strong fingers slid under her chin, lifted her face. 'Kiss me!' 'No...' She trembled at the black intensity in his eyes. 'Do as you're told,' he said thickly, and then his mouth closed hotly, possessively over hers. Hot rushes of desire swept through her, making her tremble harder, helpless to resist him as he kissed her until her head spun, little moans of breathless pleasure coming from the back of her throat as her hands

twined up around his strong neck and her mouth moved passionately beneath his. His hands moved with firm expertise on her body. They stroked her naked throat, slid down as she shivered, glided over her full breasts and made her squirm with pleasure as they slid to her hips, caressed them briefly, then moved down to her thighs. Dizzy, she moaned softly under the hot onslaught of his kiss. He breathed rapidly, his heart thundering violently, and then his strong hand swept up to cover her breast, making her give a moan of piercing intensity. 'Oh, darling!' Gabriel Stone muttered roughly, and his long fingers began to unzip the back of her dress as he kissed her with wild, searing passion. There was a knock at the door. Gabriel broke off the kiss reluctantly and lifted his head. He was darkly flushed, breathing hard, and his heart was still thundering. 'Come in!' he called raggedly. Rhiannon tried to get up off his lap, embarrassed at the thought of the butler catching them. But Gabriel held her where she was, giving her a ruthless smile as his hard hands kept her prisoner. The door opened. 'Sir, dinner is—' The butler broke off to stare, briefly, then became the picture of discretion, lifting his gaze to the chandelier above. 'Dinner is served.' 'Thank you, Kingsley! We'll be through in a minute.'

Rhiannon was hiding in Gabriel's chest in an agony of embarrassment. Her hair was tousled, her face flushed deep pink, and her lips were bruised from his kisses. The door closed. 'How could you?' Rhiannon said hoarsely, staring up at him. 'What on earth must he think?' That I've been making love to you,' he drawled thickly. 'And if you think that bothers me, you're in for a big surprise! I wish every man who'd ever met you could see you now.' She stared, lashes flickering with astonishment. 'But why...?' 'Because I'm the only one who's ever made you look and feel like this.' His eyes glowed with dark possession. 'Aren't I, Rhiannon?' Her eyes lowered because he was right, and they both knew it. But it was so embarrassing. She was engaged to Bobby. How could she have allowed this man to reduce her to trembling, excited jelly with just one kiss? 'Answer the question,' his voice said roughly from above her head. She hesitated, then whispered, 'Yes, but it doesn't mean anything, so don't think it gives you any power over me!' Gabriel laughed deeply, and kissed the top of her head. 'As if I would!' But his hands tightened on her body and his heart began to thunder again, and suddenly he said thickly, 'Oh, yes...!' The kiss was so swift she didn't have time to refuse it, her breath catching as he lifted her head gently by the hair and began to kiss the living daylights out of her.

Dizzy, she clung to him, trying to fight but quite unable to resist, her heart hammering as fast as his and her body reduced at once to a mass of shivering, pleasure-filled flesh. With a hoarse exclamation, he broke off the kiss. 'Much as I'd prefer to stay here and totally ravish you, I'm afraid we must go in to dinner.' He drew a rough breath, his eyes dark. Then he gently pushed her off his lap. Rhiannon swayed slightly, out of breath, flushed with dazed pleasure. With trembling hands she tried to smooth her hair down into respectable order. 'You look gorgeous as you are,' Gabriel drawled thickly, standing and towering over her. 'Come on. Let's go and eat.' He led her by the wrist across the room and she shot a hot, resentful look at him, but allowed him to manipulate her because for some perverse reason it gave her pleasure—and she despised herself for it, but couldn't help it. The dining room was as grandly elegant as the marble hall and silk drawing room. Dark mahogany walls were covered with Jacobean carvings, a silver and crystal chandelier glowed dimly above the long table set with linen and silver, and a vast, striking painting of a woman in scarlet velvet kneeling at the feet of a powerful man in black caught her eye. Three members of staff stood to attention and then moved swiftly to seat both Gabriel and Rhiannon, flick their napkins across their laps and begin serving both the hors d'oeuvres and the wine. When they were alone again, Gabriel said, 'How long have you been with Solomon Associates?'

'Five years,' she replied, surprised by the neutral subject. 'I went there straight after art college.' 'Not as creative director, surely!' 'No, I started as a junior artist.' She ate a strip of smoked salmon lightly sprinkled with fresh black pepper and lemon juice. 'But I had quite a knack for slogans, so I was promoted rapidly.' 'Deservedly so, as I can see from your work.' His blue eyes glittered in the dim light from the chandelier. 'I take it your fiance has always worked there too? Since you joined?' 'Yes, that's where we met.' 'Tell me,' he drawled, pouring a little more chilled champagne into her slender crystal glass, 'about that first meeting.' Rhiannon tensed. 'What.. .how we met?' 'Yes.' He frowned, leaned back in his chair, eyes shrewd. 'Why? Is there something about your first meeting that you don't want me to know?' 'No, of course not!' she said quickly—too quickly— and her face burnt as she looked away, took a sip of champagne to cover her alarm and stole some time in the process. He watched her through half-closed lids, his clever mind ticking away, well aware of what she was doing. 'Well, let me see...' she began nervously. 'Bobby and I met in the winter of my first year at Solomon's. I remember there was a power cut. We were holed up in the office for hours without electricity. It was snowing—a blizzard, in fact.'

'I remember that winter. Snow six inches deep all over London. Everything ground to a halt.' 'That's right.' She smiled with relief, glad that she didn't have to recount too much. 'Bobby and I just ended up talking all afternoon because we had nothing better to do and no trains were running.' 'What did you talk about?' She looked away nervously. 'Oh, I forget...' 'Well, it's led to a five-year relationship, an engagement and possibly marriage!' he drawled sardonically. 'You must have talked about something pretty personal.' 'No, we didn't!' Her green eyes flashed angrily at him. 'In other words, you did but you're not going to tell me about it.' She blushed angrily and pushed her plate away. Gabriel gave a cool smile and did the same. Then he got to his feet, strode to the wall beside the painting and rang the servants' bell. 'What is that painting?' Rhiannon asked him to change the subject. He glanced round at it with a smile. 'Oh.. .an old love of mine.' Jealousy struck her without warning. 'You loved the woman?' she asked thickly, fighting the clawing of jealousy at her heart and mind. 'No, just the idea of her. The way she kneels at the man's feet. Her arm around his leg. Slavish adoration.' Ah, yes!' she said tightly. 'How could I have missed that!'

He laughed. 'Quite so. But look again. Look at her. You can see she's a powerful woman in her own right. Look at those blazing eyes.. .the strong beauty of her face.. .the supreme confidence in her own sexuality implicit in the way she wears that incredible red velvet dress...' His voice grew deep with admiration as he studied the strong woman in the painting. 'That's the kind of woman I want.' 'But you didn't actually know her?' He turned, a sardonic smile on his mouth. 'No. I found the painting at an auction in Dublin five years ago. I fell in love with it on sight—paid a fortune for it. But I never expected a woman to be jealous of it, Rhiannon!' 'I'm not jealous!' she snapped. 'Why should I be jealous of your silly painting?' But her face went scarlet. The doors opened to admit the staff as Gabriel laughed softly, and then she was spared any further embarrassment as they cleared the plates away. The butler wheeled a vast silver-domed trolley into the room. It contained roast venison cooked in a superb redcurrant sauce. The two women served fresh vegetables from silver dishes while the butler carved the meat. Soon they were alone again. 'Has your fiance seen the Chauvin storyboard?' Rhiannon looked up in surprise. 'No, he hasn't, actually.' The blue eyes narrowed shrewdly. 'Doesn't he take an interest in your work?'

'He doesn't take an interest in work full-stop,' she said with a brief sigh, and then found herself saying, 'I don't really understand it. Advertising is such an exciting business. Always changing, media-influenced, part of history in a way—moving with its era...' 'But the fiance doesn't agree? Interesting. What do you find to talk about on your cosy nights together?' 'Our future!' she said sharply. 'Oh, come on! You don't seriously think I'm going to let you marry that idiot?' She angrily put her knife and fork down. 'It's none of your business!' 'As the man who fully intends to possess, ravish and dominate every inch of you,' he drawled, 'I rather think it is my business!' 'Look—I don't like the way you're talking to me. Not about myself or about my relationship with Bobby. I came here strictly under duress, because you blackmailed me into it, but I warn you, Mr Stone, that I—' 'After the way you just responded to my kiss, I think we're beyond formalities, Rhiannon, and you should call me Gabriel.' Her face flamed scarlet as the words and tone made her heart race with overpowering desire for him. She relived those exquisite moments when he'd kissed her with such power and mastery and made her body burn with desire for him. 'Hmm.' His eyes glittered over her flushed face. 'So much for blackmail and duress.'

Her flush deepened and she said huskily, 'I'm engaged to another man, I can't help the way I respond to you. It's madness and I want it to stop. I intend to marry Bobby. I really—' 'Does he make you respond like that?' 'I...' She couldn't look him in the eye and lie. Her eyes stared at the half-eaten beautifully cooked food on her plate. 'Clearly not,' he murmured smokily. 'As I believe I recognised the minute I saw you together.' 'It's still none of your business!' she said with helpless anger. 'You're quite happy to enter a loveless marriage, are you?' His voice sniped at her suddenly, making her jump, and she stared at him as his face hardened and his eyes bit into hers. 'No love, no sex, not even shared interests? What's the big attraction? You just want to be safe? Is that it? Safe from what? Life itself? Don't you care about yourself? Don't you want happiness? Pleasure? Excitement? Do you want to end up lonely and stultified and—' 'Stop it!' 'All for a band of gold and the joy of calling yourself Mrs Pratt!' Her face flamed with humiliation. 'Was it Shakespeare who asked what was in a name?' 'Don't try to defend your own stupidity!' He got to his feet, tossed his napkin onto the table and strode round to her, eyes blazing. 'I am not letting you marry him, Rhiannon!' Shakily, she got to her feet too, heart drumming. 'Why are you doing this to me? You hardly know me! We only just met and—'

'And you reminded me of the woman in that painting from the minute I saw you!' he said under his breath, advancing on her. 'I not only want you, and am going to get you, but when I do, I'll have you like that! Strong, beautiful, sexy—and kneeling at my feet.' 'Never!' she whispered, but her eyes blazed with excitement. 'I damned well will, Rhiannon! And what's more—' The doorbell shrilled in the marble hall. Gabriel frowned sharply, dark head turning. 'Who the hell is that?' 'I don't know,' Rhiannon said fiercely, trying to move away, 'but whoever it is, I'm eternally grateful to them! Thank you for dinner. I think it's high time I left!' Moving swiftly round the table on the opposite side, she tried to make a dash for the door as they both heard the butler answer the bell and then voices ringing out. Gabriel shot after Rhiannon and his hand caught her wrist in a biting grip. 'You're not going anywhere!' 'You can't force me to stay against my will!' She struggled with him. 'Let go of me you—' There was a knock at the dining room door. Gabriel's teeth met with fury. 'What is it?' 'Miss Kim Cotterill is here, sir!' the butler said from outside the closed door. 'She refuses to leave until she speaks with you.' Rhiannon's eyes widened with terrible jealousy as she realised at once that the woman was either his mistress or his girlfriend. A second

later she was glaring at Gabriel Stone, hatred in her heart, knowing now what a total rat he really was. 'Your mistress, presumably!' she spat with jealous contempt. 'No, she is not my mistress!' he bit out under his breath. 'Not any more! I finished with her almost a year ago.' He looked towards the door, said sharply, 'Tell her I'm busy, Kingsley, and—' 'I must speak with him!' a woman's voice in the hall said passionately, and then the door burst open. 'Gabriel! Darling! Something terrible has—' She stopped in the doorway, falling silent with shock. Rhiannon stared at her jealously. She was beautiful. A petite, bird-like, ravishing blonde, with vast baby- blue eyes and a face like finely carved porcelain. Kim Cotterill was as beautiful as she was defenceless. Wearing a pale pink silk dress, she looked so young and vulnerable and weak that Rhiannon felt sick at the thought of Gabriel Stone using Kim as he was trying to use her. He ought to be shot, she thought furiously. Poor stupid, silly girl! What on earth had made her get involved with a ruthless, cynical man like Gabriel? 'What are you doing here, Kim?' Gabriel demanded, making Rhiannon give him an angry look, because his tone was so dismissive and impatient that the poor girl flinched. 'I'm sorry,' Kim whispered, her Bambi eyes filling with tears. 'It really is an emergency. Please.. .can I speak to you privately?' Gabriel's mouth tightened. 'Must you play the innocent waif? You're not fooling anybody but yourself!'

'Darling...' Kim whispered tearfully. 'Please don't be cruel to me. I couldn't bear it. Not after last night, not after—' 'Oh, very well!' he bit out, and released Rhiannon, giving her a dark look from angry blue eyes. 'I'll have to speak to her. Wait here for me. I shan't be long.' Rhiannon watched angrily as he left the room with the blonde. Her heart was racing. She felt a fool— believing his passionate declarations when all along he obviously had at least one mistress, if not millions more. And look at the way he treated his unfortunate mistress! The poor creature was little more than a silly young girl, obviously in love with him and obviously very much involved! Their footsteps moved to the drawing room. With bated breath, Rhiannon listened to the door close. She realised this was her only chance to escape. She'd have to leave her portfolio, of course, because it was in the drawing room with them, and Gabriel would never let her leave if he could stop her. Certainly she wasn't staying here for another second! Not after what she had just seen! That callous disregard for Kim's vulnerable young feelings! How could he be such a snake? On tiptoe, she left the dining room and went across the hall. The front door made no sound as she opened it. The warm breeze lifted her black hair from her face. She tried to let the front door close silently, but her hand, slipped on the doorhandle and it slammed by mistake. Irritated, she broke into a run.

Seconds later, she was hailing a taxi as it sailed past. The. front door of Gabriel's house was wrenched open. He ran out into the dimly lit street, blue eyes blazing as they scanned the area, then saw her getting into the black taxi. 'Rhiannon!' His hoarse voice echoed in the night. 'Wait!' 'Kensington!' Rhiannon said rapidly to the driver. 'And make it fast!' The wheels spun as Gabriel Stone ran down the road after the taxi, shouting furiously, 'Come back! Rhiannon...!' Rhiannon stared out of the back of the taxi as they turned a corner. The last thing she saw was Gabriel standing at the end of the road, his face furious, his blue eyes blazing. 'Go to hell!' she whispered under her breath, and then the taxi turned the corner, they drove onto the main road, and she was safe.

CHAPTER FOUR NEXT day, Bobby came round for their usual Sunday lunch. Rhiannon cooked chicken with all the trimmings while he read the Sunday papers. The kitchen was stiflingly hot. It was hot outside too, and she drew pictures on the steamed-up windows as she wondered when this heatwave would end. She was beginning to associate the heatwave with Gabriel. It had begun the day they met, and continued unabated ever since. Entirely appropriate, she thought as she wrote his name on the steamy window. G-a-b-r-i-e-1. She drew curly lines underneath it, thinking of past English kings and their signatures. Gabriel Rex... She added a little crown for good measure. A smile of grudging admiration curved her red mouth. Much as she hated him for his snake-like behaviour and his appalling treatment of the unfortunate Kim Cotterill, she couldn't help understanding why, {he women on that charity committee had swooned over him. A marvel of a man, she thought dreamily. Why did he have to be so completely and utterly unfeeling? But what was the point of even thinking about him? She must never see him again, or let him kiss her as seductively as he had done last night. If a man was ever after 'only one thing', that man was Gabriel Stone, and Rhiannon was determined never to give it to him. She and Bobby ate lunch at the dining table in the raised section of the room, close to the French windows which overlooked the garden with its black-trellised balcony and stairs.

'Gravy's a bit lumpy,' Bobby complained when she served lunch. 'I've told you to ask my mother for her recipe. Why don't you?' 'I did ask her. This is it.' He frowned down at the gravy boat. 'Still a bit lumpy.' 'Well, I'm a creative director, not a chef!' It was her usual defence against his continual criticism of her cooking. The only difference was that she usually felt guilty saying it. Today, she just looked at him with irritation an$ wondered why she put up with him. But that was such a disloyal thought. Surely if she loved and wanted to marry him she should want to cook beautifully for him? At least, that was the impression she had gleaned from other women. Unfortunately, she didn't want to. She wondered if she would be happy to cook for Gabriel Stone. Her eyes glowed at an appalling vision of 'being a woman'. She imagined herself at the stove, pleasing her man by cooking for him when he was hungry. Horrors! Why was she even thinking this way when Gabriel was clearly a lying, cheating rat with women coming out of his ears? She had seen Kim Cotterill looking emotionally distraught last night. And she had seen Gabriel clearly trying to get rid of her because Rhiannon was there. But he had run out of the house after her. And that was what she stupidly focused on. The look in his blue eyes as he had run after her taxi, shouting hoarsely, 'Rhiannon! Wait!' as though he actually cared that she had gone.

'Not up to last week's standard.' Bobby interrupted her daydream as he finished the last morsel on his plate. Rhiannon gave him another irritated look and cleared the plates away. She did the washing up at once. It stopped her having to be with Bobby. She hated herself for feeling this way. 'Game of Monopoly?' Bobby suggested when she returned. 'I'm not really in the mood for Park Lane and the Community Chest.' 'Scrabble, then?' She hesitated. 'Actually, I've still got tons of work to do. I still haven't decided on the music for the Chauvin advert. I'd like to spend the afternoon listening to fast, power-driven music and trying to select the right kind. So would you mind terribly if I sent you home now, darling?' 'Not at all.' He got to his feet with obvious relief. 'See you at work tomorrow?' Rhiannon kissed him goodbye and waved from the green front door as he got into his neat little Volvo and drove .away down the sunlit cobbled mews. He had obviously been as relieved to get away from her as she was to get rid of him. What on earth is happening to our relationship? she wondered. It can't just be Gabriel's influence. Bobby seems to be as bored with me as I am with him. Or is he just happy to be so stable and secure? She went to the wall-cupboard where she kept her enormous and varied collection of CDs. Her eyes ran over Madonna, Wagner, En Vogue, Puccini, Whitney Houston, The Beatles, The Stereo MCs...

She wondered what kind of music would suit Gabriel in powermode. Mischief gleamed in her eyes as she saw a collection of Muddy Waters' famous raunchy blues songs. She laughed softly as she remembered one in which the lyrics claimed that when he made love to a woman, she couldn't resist! But it had already been used in an advert, so she let her eyes move along the floor-to-ceiling racks, searching for something modern, powerful and very Gabriel. Suddenly the doorbell rang. Rhiannon sighed, closed the wall-cupboard and went to answer it. Bobby had obviously forgotten something. 'What have you forgotten this time, Bob—?' She broke off in horror. Gabriel Stone towered coolly in the doorway, gorgeous in a black shirt and jeans, holding her portfolio in one hand while a flashy red Ferrari gleamed behind him. She felt weak with admiration and desire. 'You left in quite a hurry last night,' he drawled sardonically. 'I thought you might be missing this.' Her gaze flashed to the portfolio. 'Thanks. Yes, I was...' He handed it to her and she took it with trembling hands, deeply aware of him as she propped it against the wall beside the door and straightened to look up into his tough, ruthless face. 'Aren't you going to ask me in?'

Her green eyes narrowed. 'No, I am not! You're lucky you chose this particular time to come anyway. A few minutes earlier and my fiance would have been here—to punch your arrogant nose for you!' 'Him and whose army?' mocked Gabriel with a justifiably superior smile, because he knew as well as she did that Bobby couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag. 'Come on.. .ask me in. I did bring your portfolio round for you. One good turn deserves another.' 'Don't tell me you brought it round for my benefit! You just used it as an excuse to see me again!' 'Conceited little thing, aren't you?' He stared down his arrogant nose at her, eyes narrowed and hard. She flushed hotly but stood her ground, lifting her pretty chin. 'Look, let's not lie to each other about the way you're chasing—' 'Yes, let's not!' he cut in ruthlessly. 'We both know you can't refuse to see me, because if you do I'll ask my old friend Jimmy Baron round for tea with Steve Solomon.' She paled, her face tightening. 'Just think of the fun we'd have,' drawled Gabriel, 'discussing his charming daughter-in-law and how she got her man.' She was impotently silent, glaring at him through her lashes. 'Is this obedience or just furious silence?' He smiled, blue eyes intimate, then murmured, 'I'm dying to kiss you. And I know you want me to...'

'If I do let you in, I have no intention of allowing any kisses at all!' she said fiercely, but her gaze flashed over him. He really did look fabulously sexy today. That black shirt showed every muscle, and the black hairs on his chest where it was unbuttoned. As for the jeans on his long, strong, muscular thighs... She looked up again into those gorgeous eyes. I can resist him, she lied to herself. And he'll only pull rank on me if I refuse to let him in. So why incur the wrath in the first place? 'OK,' she said unsteadily, stepping back. 'Come in. But only for five minutes. Then I really have to work.' He strode coolly past her, towering over her, dominating the long pale lemon and blue room as effectively as though he were a monolith. Her heart skipped rapid beats as she closed the door behind him. She felt so aware of him that just looking at that hard face and body made her want to let him do dreadfully wicked things to her. Then she remembered Kim, and felt such fierce jealousy that her heart burned with it, making her want to kill him for making love to Kim last night then coming to her the next day. Didn't he have any kind of moral conscience? 'Nice place,' he murmured, glancing around. 'It's hardly Eaton Square!' she said defensively. 'And you're not here to discuss my domestic arrangements, are you? Why don't you just get to the point and stop wasting my time?' His face hardened to a ruthless set that made shivers run down her spine. 'Very well. I spent some time thinking about you last night.'

'Was this before or after you bedded the besotted Miss Cotterill?' she demanded waspishly, aware that she was showing her jealousy but unable to stop her feelings flashing out. 'I didn't bed her. I reminded her for the millionth time that it was over between us, told her to stop interfering in my private life and then sent her home in a cab. That woman has been nothing but trouble since the day I met her.' 'If it's over between you,' she said jealously, 'what was she doing at your house last night, demanding to see you on an emotional matter?' 'She was trying to ruin my evening with you,' he said flatly. 'What's the matter with you? Don't you understand your own sex?' 'I understand men like you far better!' 'I very much doubt that!' 'Look,' she flared, 'that woman was clearly unhappy and very much in love with you! How could you treat her the way you did?' 'She's not the innocent little waif she pretends to be. Far from it. She's mercenary, manipulative and has more covert operational techniques than the KGB. Please don't spoil my belief in your intelligence by falling for that old trick!' 'Falling for your tricks is what worries me more,' she said tightly. 'A vulnerable blue-eyed blonde shows up in the middle of our private dinner, on the edge of tears, calling you darling, talking about what you did together last night... I mean, what am I supposed to think?' 'Precisely. Why do you think she did it?' Rhiannon stared for a second, disconcerted not only by his answer but by the look in his eyes as he spoke. He was terribly convincing. She

felt breathless for a second, about to believe him—but only a fool would do that. It was such an open and shut case. Wasn't it? 'Rhiannon,' Gabriel said deeply, stepping towards her with a serious look in his eyes, 'please don't fall for her act. She's more interested in my bank account than my personal charm, and her appearance last night was designed to destroy my chances with you.' She gave an uncertain laugh. 'Oh—you're telling me she set that little scene up deliberately? You must think I was born yesterday!' 'Well, sometimes,' he drawled tightly, 'there's no other possible explanation. Don't you realise that the dumb blonde is always anything but dumb?' 'She was very hurt!' 'It was an act, Rhiannon. Let me lay it on the line for you in black and white: I have a lot of money and Kim Cotterill is after it. She sees it more as a business deal than a relationship. Hence her ruthless and calculating spy strategies.' 'Nice of you to say so behind her back!' 'When it comes to "getting her man" she is much worse than the new Mrs Tony Baron, so don't you ever underestimate her!' 'Don't try to bring Lynda Baron into it!' she snapped defensively, although the barb went home, because she had to admit she had believed Lynda's sweet, innocent little country-girl act. 'You don't believe me. But you should—with your experience of Lynda Baron and the Moretti—' As he saw Rhiannon open her mouth to let fly with a stream of furious invective he held up a strong hand to silence her. 'OK, OK! Let's drop the subject of Kim.'

'Yes—because you know you won't be able to convince me!' 'No. Because I have something far more important I want to discuss with you, and I don't have much time.' He glanced at the gold Chauvin watch on his hair- roughened sexy wrist. 'I have a plane to catch.' Her heart sank in terrible, painful disappointment. 'Oh...' She struggled to hide the feelings in her heart. 'Where are you going?' 'New York. I'll be gone a week.' He stepped towards her, slid strong hands onto her waist, and the feeling was so delicious that she did not resist, which brought a smile to his tough mouth as his tone lowered and he murmured, 'Will you miss me?' 'No!' she lied huskily, trying to hide the shivers of pleasure and the delicious sense of helplessness he gave her simply by being so tall and powerful and arrogant. 'Well, if you don't miss me, I want you to think of me. I also want you to think about something else. Yourself...' 'Myself...?' 'Yes,' he said deeply. 'You see, I did think a great deal about you last night. And it seems to me that I've been concentrating on the wrong man in Mr Pratt.' Tensing, she studied him warily. 'There was someone before him,' Gabriel said smokily, watching her face with shrewd, narrowed eyes. 'Wasn't there?'

She went rigid in his arms, too shocked to speak. The mind he had! How the hell had he worked that out? Memories of Jack Ratchett flooded into her tortured mind, making her tremble with anger at the thought of her slavish devotion to him—and, worse, with humiliation and shame at the thought of that awful night with him. And Gabriel expected her to tell him about it! The possibility of telling him anything was absolutely nonexistent Wild horses wouldn't have dragged it from her. Certainly not for him. 'I can see from the look on your face that I'm right,' he murmured. 'But don't start flying off the handle. You don't need to tell me about it right now. I just want you to prepare yourself to tell me at some point in the future. Preferably next week.' She went cold with fear. In desperation she hunted her mind for something to throw him off the scent, aware that her face and body looked vulnerable enough to betray the truth. 'He's the one who pushed you into Bobby's arms, isn't he?' Gabriel went on softly. 'Bobby's just the man protecting you from whatever happened to you in the past. And my guess is that it happened when you were twenty-one—directly before you met Bobby and—' 'Shut up!' she said hoarsely, desperate to stop him. 'Just shut up! You don't know what you're talking about and I have absolutely no intention of seeing you, either next week or the week after! Now, get your hands off me and leave my house!' There was a little silence while his ruthless eyes narrowed. Rhiannon's heart beat too fast. Her eyes stared hotly into his from below her lashes. Her hands curled helplessly on his shoulders. She was suddenly reminded forcibly of how much bigger he was than her.

'Not trying to give me orders, are you, Rhiannon?' he demanded in a cool voice laced with menace. 'I won't be threatened by you any more...' she said thickly, staring up at him and feeling excited. 'I mean it, Gabriel. I won't see you next week or—' 'Let's sit down and discuss this,' he drawled softly, and his hand suddenly curled around her wrist and he pulled her across the room with him, ignoring her angry gasp as he strode to the couch. 'Just a minute!' she began hotly. He sat down, pulling her onto his lap, and once again she was breathless as she found herself helpless in his power, unable to resist him when he turned on the heat, lying on his lap staring dazedly up into that tough, ruthless face. 'Well, well, well..he drawled, an arrogant smile playing over his hard mouth. 'Back in my lap so soon. I'll have to give you a reward for that!' She gasped as he bent his dark head towards her. 'Don't...!' 'Don't want me to kiss you?' he murmured, and slid one lazy finger over her full red mouth, then down to her naked throat while she shivered, then on down to her breast. She caught her breath as his strong hand moved under her left breast. 'What are you doing...? Don't...!' 'Just feeling your heartbeat,' he said softly, watching her through half-closed lids. 'It's going very fast.'

'Out of anger!' she whispered thickly as her heart banged harder. 'And fear. You're much bigger than me, you know! And I'm alone with you here! I'd be a fool not to be afraid of you.' 'Glad to hear it,' he murmured arrogantly. 'For a minute back there I thought I'd have to remind you who's in control around here.' 'How could I ever possibly forget?' she said bitterly, but her hands curled on his broad and powerful shoulders, her eyes watched him hotly through her lashes, and her lips were moist, parted, ready for the kiss she desired so much from this man. 'Don't look at me like that,' he said thickly, staring. 'I have something to tell you before I ravish you. I don't want to forget just because you can't wait for me to make love to you.' Desire blazed so strongly in her that she had to fight her own feelings and stop herself wrapping her arms around his strong neck and begging him to kiss her till she lost her mind. 'As I said before,' he murmured, studying her mouth, 'I have to fly to New York tonight. I want you to have dinner with me next Saturday night, as soon as I get back.' 'Why should I want to have dinner with you?' she demanded, trying to look unaffected by being on his lap again, when the truth was she was going slowly mad with her own desire for him. 'So I can kiss you till your head spins, Rhiannon.' 'If it spins, it's out of dislike!' 'We'll,' he murmured with an arrogant smile, 'I'll put that to the test in just a minute. But I'm not kissing you until I have your promise for dinner next Saturday.'

'And if you don't get it, you'll have me fired?' He inclined his dark head with a lazy smile, watching her through those half-closed sexy eyelids of his. She glared at him mutinously, then said, 'You know very well, don't you, that I have to say yes?' 'In each and every case, darling,' he murmured thickly, and then his eyes darkened with desire, dropped to study her red mouth, and as her heart beat frantically with excitement he lowered his powerful head to kiss her. She was melting from the minute his mouth claimed hers. Her arms moved around his strong neck, all thought of rebellion left her, and she just reeled with pleasure-filled sensation. Her head went back across his strong forearm, long black hair sliding in silky disarray. He kissed her more deeply, more passionately. His strong hands moved over her body. I can't help myself, she thought as she let the last trace of resistance slip away like seaweed in a hot, drugging sea, and let herself float on her own desire and his, their mouths merging hotly, breath and tongues sliding together in mutual hunger. 'I want you!' he bit out thickly against her mouth, and then his hand was moving up to cup her breast, making her moan in hoarse excitement. His fingers stroked the erect nipple. Deftly, they began to undo her T-shirt. She moaned again, unable to stop him, trying to think of Bobby, of fidelity, of moral behaviour... But her desire was too strong, and the dammed up frustration of years was ready to pour over this man's body like hot lava at last released from the heat of the volcano she had trapped it in for so long.

He freed her hot, aching breast from the confines of her bra, and she almost cried with pleasure as his fingers stroked her naked flesh. 'Oh...!' She was insensible, delirious. Her hands moved with blind passion in his dark hair as her voice whispered incoherently, 'Gabriel.. . Gabriel...!' Darkly flushed, he bent his head, hot mouth taking her nipple to suck it, making her moan even louder, running blind fingers through his hair, sliding her body over his lap with dazed abandon. Then his mouth came back to hers. She kissed him passionately, making little sounds of restless excitement, her body wriggling on his lap with desire. 'Oh, that's lovely, darling...!' he said with an edge of hoarse anger to his voice that made her bones turn to jelly. 'Tell me how much you want me! Stop denying it.. .tell me!' 'No...!' she whispered shakily against his lips. His hot eyes opened, staring darkly down at her. He was breathing rapidly. His heart was banging hard at his powerful chest. He was as angry as he was passionate. 'You won't say it for me?' 'No...!' Dazed and burning with excitement, she shook her head. He nodded, eyes narrowing, then drawled, 'You'll say it for me one day, Rhiannon! Maybe even when you're wearing that little slave outfit. And the longer you leave it before you admit it, the more I'll make you beg in the end.'

'You'll never make me beg,' she whispered, but the thought of it turned her on so much that she despised herself and couldn't hide it, not this close, with their mouths still almost touching. 'Is that so?' he murmured, kissing her briefly, making her sigh with pleasure. 'Well, maybe I'll make you tell me next Saturday night, Rhiannon, because I won't stop until you do. Understand me?' Desire pulsed in her veins. She adored his arrogance. She loved his ruthlessness. She found everything about him more exciting every time she saw him, spoke to him, kissed him, touched him... 'Understand me?' he demanded thickly. 'Yes...' she heard herself whisper, and a thrill of pleasure shivered along her spine at this, her first willing submission to the power of his will. His eyes glittered with triumph. 'Good.' To her disappointment he dropped one more kiss on her bruised lips, then gently rebuttoned her T-shirt with long fingers. 'And now I'm afraid I really have to go. I've been racing around all day trying to get things organised. My flight leaves at six. Come on.. .slide off my lap...' He gently pushed her now that she was dressed. Rhiannon slid off his lap like an obedient pussycat, her eyes dazed with desire and off-balance emotion. She had never felt so completely feminine in her life. 'You look lovely,' Gabriel said hoarsely, staring. She blushed and lowered her lashes, astonished at her own capacity for schoolgirlish response after so many years of no response at all—none, not even a glimmer of feminine desire or feeling.

He smiled and got to his feet, came close to her. 'And while I'm gone,' he said deeply, 'I want you to think very long and hard about telling me the truth. Do you promise to do that?' 'I must be a fool for allowing this...' she whispered, full of horror at the depths of her own self-betrayal in letting him make her feel like this, behave like this, respond to him like this. And she wasn't going to tell him anything next week. 'Don't fight me,' he said huskily, touching her cheek with a tender finger and making her heart somersault. 'I know it's very sudden and very difficult, but when I come back we'll discuss it in depth, I promise. Agreed?' She looked into his face helplessly. 'Gabriel, I—' 'No arguments.' He kissed her mouth briefly, burningly. 'I'll see myself out. And I'll see you at eight o'clock next Saturday night. The chauffeur will pick you up at seven-thirty.' Rhiannon watched him leave, feeling a tug of emotion, as though she wanted to run after him and clamour for another kiss, another touch, one more moment in the circle of his powerful arms. The front door closed behind him. Dazed, she sank down on the couch, her legs shaking so badly she thought they might give way beneath her. How on earth had he managed to involve her so deeply, so emotionally, in such a short time? And how could she have let him leave like that, as though she really would consider discussing Jack Ratchett and her past next time she saw him? Would she be able to bring herself to speak about it all? And where would she begin? Jack had had such a traumatic effect on her life and

on her feelings towards men, to say nothing of the massive impact he had had on her sexuality... Groaning, she ran her hands through her love- tousled hair and wondered what on earth she was going to do next time she saw Gabriel. I'll probably just flip with growing love, admiration and desire, she admitted grudgingly. Just look at the way he's made me feel in such a short time. And how could she have allowed herself to fall so quickly, so heavily, after seeing the way he had treated that poor young girl last night? But his words about Kim had rung true. Much as she didn't want to believe that the girl was manipulative, something in Gabriel's tone had made her believe him. Also, his comparison with Lynda Baron's betrayal had been clever and convincing. She remembered all too well how Lynda had looked: sweet and homely in a floral cotton dress, her blonde hair fixed with an Alice Band, radiating virtue.. .when she had really been a shameless betrayer in disguise. Horrors. If Lynda could pull it off, why not Kim Cotterill? Oh, dear, she thought in despair, what a mess! I find him so fatally attractive, and he really does seem to feel the same. It would be so wonderful finally to deal with the ghost of Jack—especially with a man as powerfully intelligent as Gabriel. She had spent the -last five years struggling to pretend she had forgotten the effect Jack had had on her. But that was a lie she could no longer live with. The ghost of Jack still affected her life. Gabriel was right. Jack was behind her relationship with Bobby, her sexless lifestyle and her one-track, ambition-driven mind.

But was Gabriel Stone really the right man to tell? Had he really been telling the truth about Kim? Or was he an arch-manipulator who had managed to make her believe terrible lies? More to the point, she thought grimly, how could I have forgotten Bobby so easily? Only two hours ago she and Bobby had eaten lunch together, just as they had every Sunday for the last five years. What was she—some kind of trollop? Self-loathing threatened her. Angrily she got to her feet and paced the floor. I didn't ask Gabriel Stone to come round here just now and kiss me, she thought defensively. Any more than I asked him to start chasing me, to give me his account to work on, blackmail me into having dinner with him. If this relationships—for that was what it was becoming—was anybody's fault, it was Gabriel's, not hers.

rapidly

But she felt a heel for thinking that too, because he could, hardly force her into a relationship unless she wanted one. And if her love for Bobby was true... It can't be true, she realised in a moment of pained honesty. My love for Bobby has never really been true. It's always been just an escape for me, a way of running and hiding from the past, from sex, from men who want me... But what was her relationship with Gabriel? Was it just desire...? Or the beginnings of true love?

Next day, her face was radiant with secret love as she walked into the black glass building on Tottenham Court Road. Luckily nobody seemed to notice, certainly not Bobby, and she was able to get on with her work in peace, although she found it difficult to concentrate and kept staring out of her window at London, still shimmering in the heatwave, wondering what Gabriel was doing. He was in New York. A smile touched her fanciful lips. Had he flown there on Concorde? Or his own private jet? And what kind of dynamic, powerful, multi-million dollar deal was he putting together with that razor-sharp mind and that cool, arrogant voice? She hated herself for admiring him. But it was so natural to her. How could she fight what was natural? And her feelings for Bobby seemed to be dying naturally too. Much as she hated recognising it, she had to be truthful to herself. Her feelings for Bobby simply were not what they had once been. While this total confusion reigned in her life she would have to fight hard to behave with honour and decency. So she cancelled her proposed lunch with Bobby and decided to eat at her desk. At one o'clock she left the offices, walking out onto noisy, life-filled Tottenham Court Road to head for Rocco's, the Italian delicatessan near Centre Point. 'Prime Minister in tax row!' cried the newspaper- seller on the corner—an old man in cloth cap standing beside his placard. Rhiannon glanced at the front page and went white. There was a photograph of Gabriel Stone with Kim Cotterill walking into Heathrow Airport. She snatched it up, shaking.

'You buying, love?' the man asked in a cheerful cockney voice. Scrabbling in her purse for coins, she handed them to him and carried on reading, horrified by the extent of Gabriel's lies and double-dealing. She read the brief article below the photo. Business tycoon Gabriel Stone last night flew to New York with model Kim Cotterill, who was once more wearing the diamond engagement ring he bought her last year. They arrived at Heathrow together and appeared to be having a passionate row as they hurried to the Concorde lounge. Does this mean the long-standing on-off romance is very much on again? Or will Europe's most eligible bachelor back out of marriage to the lovely Kim once more? Rhiannon stood where she was, white as a sheet. People pushed past her, hurrying along in their lunch-hours. A man in a grey suit stopped to buy a newspaper and gave Rhiannon a polite smile, saying, 'Excuse me...' Like a ghost, she moved away, the newspaper clutched in her nerveless fingers. Why had she believed Gabriel when he had denied any involvement with Kim? He was engaged to her! What was more, he'd obviously taken the woman to New York with him and was probably making love to her in some fabulous five- star hotel right at this very moment. Rhiannon went back to the office without stopping to buy lunch. The thought of eating made her feel physically ill. All afternoon she sat at her desk remembering his words of yesterday, his kisses, his love-making, his tenderness... He really was the most practised seducer she had ever encountered. How could he do it? How could he live with himself?

He was worse than that most awful of all snakes— the married man looking for a mistress. He was engaged to marry Kim, and yet was trying to get Rhiannon on the side while lying to both women! And to think she had considered telling him about Jack! Rage flooded her veins as she thought of it, remembering how she'd spent hours yesterday rehearsing conversations with him in her mind where she told him in detail of her young love for Jack Ratchett and why she'd ended up in that awful scene with him... I'll never forgive Gabriel Stone for this, she thought fiercely. Never. To think he was engaged to be married all the time! How completely I was fooled by him... But his affection and respect had been so convincing... Tears stung her eyes at the memory of those tender moments with him, the times when his tough face had softened or his ruthless voice had grown husky with emotion... She mourned the loss of his friendship as much as the loss of his love-making. It was like being bereaved. Like being told someone you loved was dead. How else could one look at it when a man one loved suddenly made it clear that he had never really existed in the first place? 'I'm off now!' Bobby said at five-thirty, wandering amiably into her office with his hands in his trouser pockets. 'Got to help Mother with the new washing machine. It's apparently causing trouble.' 'Give her my love,' Rhiannon said automatically, and tried to smile, aware of tears hovering suddenly in her eyes.

Bobby looked at the front page of the paper. 'Gabriel Stone and Kim Cotterill? Lucky guy! She's really stunning. Imagine marrying a top model like her!' Rhiannon stared at him, pole-axed. 'And all I get is a creative director with green eyes!' Bobby teased affectionately. 'Ah, well, can't win them all! As Mother always says—the best girls are always the homely ones, never the glamour-pusses.' White with pain and anger, Rhiannon snapped, 'I thought you were going to mend her boring old washing machine!' 'No need to be bad-tempered!' he said, doing a double-take. She gritted her teeth. 'I've had a bad day! I've still got tons of work to do.' 'Workaholic!' He grinned fondly at her. 'I do love you, darling. I'll tell Mother not to worry too much about us rushing to the altar. You always have far too much work to do...' He kissed her and left. Rhiannon watched him go, her face furious. Not only had he not recognised the deep emotional changes in her, failed to see that she was close to tears and talked interminably about his mother—but he had praised Kim Cotterill to the skies and called her, Rhiannon, homely! She had had enough. Gathering her things together, she left Solomon's and went home in the heatwave-gleaming London traffic. She could at least cry in peace once behind her own dark green front door.

Once she was safely at home she let herself cry until there were no more tears left. By that time it was dark, she was exhausted, and her life stretched ahead into an intolerable future as Mrs Robert Pratt. I mustn't marry him if I feel like this, she realised. But how can I tell him that? And how can I bear to " spend the rest of my life knowing that I fell in love with Gabriel Stone, who made a total fool of me? 'I stand at a crossroads...' she intoned passionately to the dark drawing room of her home. She tried to look into the future and see something hopeful, but all she saw was a choice between an unacceptable marriage to a man who probably did not love her—if his behaviour today was anything to go by—or an unbearable love for a man who not only did not love her but was also a total rat. How had her well-ordered, streamlined, totally- under-control life turned into such a spaghetti junction? Suddenly the telephone jangled in the silent room. 'Hello?' Rhiannon said huskily into the receiver. The line crackled transatlantically. 'Rhiannon?' Her heart stopped beating. She felt sick. Just the sound of that dark, powerful voice made every muscle in her body tense with angry excitement and love and hate and... 'Rhiannon? Are you there?' 'Yes.' Her voice was automatic in the darkness; her palms were damp.

'Look, darling,' he said with deep urgency, 'I've just received a fax of the front page of the evening paper, and I wanted to reassure you that the whole thing is a lie. Kim is not my fiancee, she is not here with me and—' Rhiannon slammed the phone down and sat rigidly staring at it as her heart thundered into the dark silence. It rang again. She let it ring thirty times, then picked it up angrily. 'Yes?' 'Rhiannon, don't hang up! I need to—' Again she slammed the phone down on him. Then she switched the answering machine on. The next call came through almost immediately. Her message played loudly in the silent house, then Gabriel's deep, passionate voice was sniping at her. 'Pick up the phone, you obstinate woman! I said, pick it up!' Rhiannon sat there listening to him with a combination of love, hate and possessive desire as he spoke onto the tape, his voice rising with fury when she didn't obey him and pick up the receiver. 'I'm not leaving a personal message on this blasted tape, Rhiannon!' he said harshly, when his demands for her to answer him were met with silence. 'I can't afford to, not with the Press on my back about Kim as it is. But I do want to explain it to you privately. So come on.. .pick up the phone and talk to me.. .listen to me...' She desperately wanted to. 'Darling...' His smoky voice curled around her body with as much seductive power as those strong arms of his.

Her hand hovered over the phone. But she knew what it would mean. She'd just end up believing his lies again because she wanted to believe them, wanted to believe he was a handsome prince instead of a dangerous wolf, even when all the evidence pointed to the contrary. So she sat there unmoving on her pale lemon sofa, and Gabriel's anger rose three thousand miles away in New York City. 'Damn you, Rhiannon!' She imagined him at The Plaza, in a sexy dark suit, tie loosened at the throat, a glass of brandy in one strong hand as he stood at the window of a luxurious suite watching the razzle-dazzle of Manhattan's lights. The Chrysler Building, Donald Trump's skyscraper and the world-famous Empire State. 'Right!' he bit out suddenly. 'Play it your way! But I'll be back in London on Saturday, and I'll deal with you then!' The telephone crashed down. Rhiannon was crying silently, hot tears sliding down her face, telling herself she must not weaken, must not allow him to get to her heart and make her believe he loved her. She had weakened for Gabriel Stone so many times since she had met him. Each time had been a mistake. Look at his protestations about Kim last time she had talked to him. And what had happened? Within twenty-four hours he had been photographed at Heathrow Airport with the woman who had been wearing his engagement ring all along. 'Rat!' she whispered with appalled fascination, and resolved to be strong enough to end this roller-coaster relationship while she was still in one piece. But she took the tape to bed and listened to it over and over again as she lay awake, staring at the hot darkness and thinking of his laser-blue eyes, his tough mouth and his long, hard hands...

'Gabriel,' she whispered, curling up and kissing her pillow. 'Gabriel...' Oh, dear, she thought, realising what she was doing. What hope is there for me?

CHAPTER FIVE SATURDAY hurtled towards her like a meteor. Gabriel would be coming home from New York. He would want to see her. She definitely wanted to see him, fool that she was, and she fought against her feelings for him as hard as she could, telling herself that she was indifferent to him, to his return and to Saturday... But the more she wanted it to go away, the faster it came. The more she tried not to think about Gabriel, the more she felt gripped by excitement. And the more she told herself she really loved Bobby, the more she couldn't bear to think of marrying him. His remarks of last Monday still stung. Frequently she thought of them, and wanted to slap him for being so stupid and insensitive. But if Bobby realised something was wrong between them, he had no intention of discussing it, and eventually Rhiannon realised that she would have to be the one to bring the subject up. 'Bobby,' she said on Saturday afternoon, 'we need to talk.' 'What about?' 'Us.' They were lying on the grass in the back garden of her Kensington home. It was so hot they were both wearing swimsuits, sunbathing together in uneasy peace while the radio played lazy love-songs and the scent of newly baked bread wafted softly from old Mrs Plummet's kitchen next door. 'What about us?' he demanded, looking shifty. 'Well... I genuinely feel this relationship isn't working as well as it once did, and I think it's because it no longer truly satisfies our

personal needs.' She couldn't believe she'd said it all so calmly, and in just one sentence. 'What personal needs?' asked Bobby. 'Well, love and passion, to be honest. We don't have any.' 'And we never have had, because we don't want love or passion—we just want a nice platonic relationship.' She drew a deep breath. 'That may have been true once, Bobby, but not any more. Not for me, at any rate. I...' Her voice faltered, but then she reminded herself how much she wanted Gabriel, and how quickly Bobby was fading in her affections. 'I feel everything's changing. I feel as though I'm evolving into a totally new person, a new woman—the kind of woman I once believed I was and—' She broke off, playing with the grass. 'Oh, I know it all sounds terribly complicated and—' 'Not complicated, Rhiannon. In fact, it's really very simple.' He patted her hand with a kindly smile. 'These are just bridal nerves. My mother warned me to expect—' 'How can my feelings have anything to do with bridal nerves when we haven't even set the date for our wedding?' 'You can get bridal nerves without a wedding date. Mother says—' 'Bobby,' she said tightly, 'please stop bringing your mother into the conversation!' 'She only wants what's best for me.' 'And I want what's best for me!'

'Selfish to the last, aren't you?' He got to his feet suddenly, his body pale as a milk bottle in some places, burnt scarlet in others as he stood in his black trunks with his hands on his plump hips. 'All you can do is talk about yourself! Me, me, me—' 'I'm being forced to think of myself.' Rhiannon stood up too, slender and sensual in her emerald-green swimsuit. 'The changes are already in motion. I can't fight them. They're just happening to me without my say-so! I keep telling myself I ought to marry you and settle down happily, but something in me has changed, Bobby, and we need to talk about it!' He studied her for a long moment in silence, his face so obstinate that she knew he would never take her seriously. What he would do—what he had always done—would be to try to rubbish her feelings, refuse to accept them and back away from any kind of emotional discussion. He looked at his watch. 'It's getting late. And you're obviously in a difficult mood. I'd better go.' 'Oh, Bobby...' she followed him to the black metal steps leading to her living room. 'Can't you at least agree to discuss—?' 'What's to discuss?' He strode into the living room, picked up his trousers, began struggling into them. 'You're just in an emotional mood. Women get like that from time to time.' 'I suppose you're going to say it's just that time of the month, are you?' she demanded angrily. He went pink. 'I don't wish to discuss women's things. It's most indelicate. Besides—we've both been sunbathing all afternoon. Your silly mood swings are probably just a bad case of sunstroke.'

'These are not mood swings. These are long-delayed, long-awaited changes.' 'Utter nonsense.' Bobby pulled his shirt on, buttoning it with steady hands. 'Never heard anything like it.' 'Then perhaps it's time you tried listening to me instead of always listening to your mother!' 'That's a dreadful thing to say! Mother tries to help us more than either of your parents do!' 'That's because my parents wouldn't interfere in my life!' 'Are you accusing my mother of interfering?' 'Well, isn't that what she does? And what difference does it make what she thinks? My feelings are my feelings, and your mother's opinion about them is a matter of complete indifference to me! I wish she'd just—' 'Not another word!' Bobby shouted, red in the face. 'Not one more word, Rhiannon, or I'll end our engagement here and now!' She stared, astonished. 'But Bobby, you must see that—' 'No, I shan't listen to another word! I am going to leave now. I shall be at Mother's if you want me.' He strode angrily to the front door. 'You may telephone me there when you're ready to apologise. When you've apologised everything will be fine, and we'll stop all this pre-marital nerves nonsense once and for all.' The front door slammed behind him. Rhiannon stood there listening as the engine of his Volvo flared. He drove away down the cobbled mews.. .to his mother.

What was she going to do with him? Couldn't he see how deep and very real the problems were in their relationship? She had tried to tell him the truth just now, tried hard to get through to him and make him see how deeply her emotions were changing. But he'd just put it down to 'women's things', the way he always did, and what on earth was she supposed to say to that? How had she ever got involved with him in the first place? But she knew the answer to that only too well. She had wanted a man who was locked away from his emotions. She had wanted a man who was hiding from his sexuality. Bobby had been perfect for her when they'd first met precisely because he did not want to get fully involved with a woman on an emotional and sexual level. That was what she herself had wanted back then. But not any more. Not since she had met Gabriel Stone and felt the pure rush of desire. Regardless of whether her response to him had brought her pain because of the man Gabriel was, she still knew she had changed for ever. There was no going back to the woman she had been when she needed Bobby. I'm never going to be able to marry him, she realised. Should I thank Gabriel for making me see that—or hate him for it? Awash with powerful emotions for Gabriel and weary defeat over Bobby, Rhiannon went upstairs to take a shower and spent the rest of the afternoon in her bedroom, attempting to read a family saga—which was quite impossible because all she could think of was how to end it with Bobby—and how to recover from her disastrous love for Gabriel.

Eventually she gave up fighting her feelings and put that silly tape on again, listening to his dark, sexy voice and wanting him. 'Pick up the phone, Rhiannon!' The spools of the tape revolved softly on the hi-fi, a faint transatlantic hiss filling her bedroom. 'I have to talk to you...' She lay on her back, eyes filled with confusion. His urgency sounded so real, even now. How could any man sound so sincere when he was really just a lying snake? At five o'clock she heard a car pull up outside. Heart thudding with some sixth sense, she went to the window, looked out and saw the white limousine glide to a standstill. Then the door flashed open as Gabriel Stone stepped out. Her eyes ran with dark, possessive hunger over his powerful body, the light grey suit hugging his broad shoulders, the sunglasses hiding his eyes, giving him a sinister air of mystery as the Chauvin watch flashed below his white cuffs. The doorbell rang. She ignored it. She wanted desperately to go down, fling her arms around his strong neck, let him kiss her till her knees buckled and then listen to his sweet lies— believe them, even—and not think about the terrible pain he would inflict once she was his to command. But she didn't move. The doorbell rang again, then again. 'Rhiannon!' Gabriel's voice echoed in the sunlit cobbled mews. With a gasp, she leapt back out of sight, heart thudding.

'I know you're in there!' he shouted, making the lace curtains in neighbours' windows twitch curiously. 'Let me in or I'll cause a scene!' Pulses racing, she realised she'd have to get away. He could easily either break down the door or come in through the back-alley and the French windows. If he got her alone, she'd never resist him. She was too crazy about him. Tugging off her white towelling robe, she was naked for a second, then pulled a white cotton sundress over her head. There wasn't time for lingerie. Not if she wanted to escape. And she'd only be gone for five minutes at the most, hanging around waiting till that white limousine drove away. Seconds later she was tiptoeing downstairs. 'Let me in, Rhiannon!' Gabriel's voice said from outside the front door. She slipped a pair of flat sandals on and crept out through the French windows, down the black metal steps and across the garden, and then used her keys to unlock the narrow back-alley door. The busy Kensington street was a shock to the system after the sanctuary of her home. She felt very conscious of her nudity beneath the white cotton sundress. But nobody stared, so it couldn't have been transparently obvious that she wore nothing beneath it. 'There she is, sir!' a voice called from a distance. She swung round to see the chauffeur standing on the corner. Gabriel's footsteps clattered along the cobbled mews in pursuit of her. Furious, she broke into a run too, pelting across the road dodging

traffic, cars blaring their horns, a lorry driver whistling at her, while Gabriel followed with a face like thunder. He caught her by the wrist just as she reached the other side. 'Not so fast!' he bit out thickly, towering over her as his long fingers crushed her wrist. 'What the hell do you think you're playing at? Running out like that, ignoring me when I—' 'I don't want to see you, Gabriel!' 'Oh, you want to see me all right! You just don't want to listen to me!' 'Why should I?' she demanded fiercely, the warm breeze lifting strands of dark hair from around her flushed face and slim, bare shoulders. 'You're only going to feed me some more lies. What's the point of even listening when I'm not going to believe you?' His mouth tightened. He looked around suddenly, and the sun flashed off his dark glasses, though she could not see his eyes behind them. 'We'll talk in the park,' he said flatly, and strode towards the small green, dragging Rhiannon along in his wake, his hand still firmly around her wrist. 'I just told you I didn't want to talk!' she snapped, but found herself falling obediently into step beside him, admiring his long-legged powerful stride. 'Don't argue with me. It's pointless. You know me well enough by now to realise that.' A wry smile touched her mouth. 'Besides...' He stopped walking and sank down onto a green wooden bench, then yanked at her wrist to make her fall breathlessly onto his

lap. He looked down at her flushed, excited face with wicked eyes. 'I know you well enough to guess what you really want!' Staring up into that cynical, clever face, she almost swooned. Her heart was thudding painfully. She was still aware that her body was naked beneath the white cotton sundress. She was off balance with the sheer excitement of being with him again. 'And what,' she asked huskily, 'do I really want?' 'Me,' he said deeply, and slid his dark glasses off, smiling. For a second she smiled idiotically at him, dazzled by those blue, blue eyes. Then she thought of Kim, and pain cut her heart, so she jerked her gaze from his. His smile faded. Silence fell between them as he read and gauged correctly every twist of emotion on her face. Children played a few yards away—young boys kicking a football around the green while their dog went barmy trying to chase it. And Rhiannon glanced at the boys with poignant regret, wondering if she would ever have children now; now that she loved this arrogant man and had lost her steadfast fiance. 'Hey,' Gabriel said softly, watching her averted face, 'it'll stop hurting if we talk about this.' Her face tightened with angry pride, but she couldn't deny her pain, not when he could see it so clearly. 'No, it won't. It'll just get worse. None of this should have happened. None of it.' She took an unsteady breath, forced herself to look him in the eye. 'You knew I was engaged when we met. You knew I was spoken for. You shouldn't have tried to break down my defences the way you did, and I certainly shouldn't have let you. Well, I'm paying for it now.'

'Because of Kim?' he said. 'Because of that stupid newspaper report? I tried to tell you over the phone from New York that that was just a pack of lies.' 'Of course it's a pack of lies. It would be, wouldn't it? After all, how else can you get me to do as you want except by denying the whole story?' 'Rhiannon, it really isn't true.' She looked at him with a hurt smile. She badly wanted to believe what he said, and that just made her a sitting duck for his lies and manipulations. 'I can see you don't believe me,' Gabriel drawled tightly, and his smile was as hard and cynical as hers was hurt. 'But I'm not letting you get up off my lap until you have listened to and fully accepted my explanation.' 'What's to explain? I know you're engaged to Kim and—' 'You don't know any such thing, Rhiannon. You're just reacting emotionally, and while that's understandable, it's also destructive.' 'You're telling me!' She heard the bitter feeling in her own voice. 'I got the biggest shock of my life when I saw that newspaper! I really believed you were going to New York alone on business and—' 'I was and I did,' he cut in coolly. 'Kim did not arrive with me in the limousine, nor had I asked her to fly with me on Concorde.' 'Oh, then where did they get all that from? And how did they manage to photograph the two of you arriving at Heathrow Airport?' Her eyes flared with angry pride. 'No, no! Please don't tell me about it! I really don't want to know!'

'Why not? It's obviously upsetting you!' 'It'll upset me a whole lot more to have you lie to me and then walk off with Kim again and make me look and feel like a complete fool!' 'Darling,' he said with a sudden smile, cradling her slender body on his lap in a way that made her shiver with pleasure, 'I wish I wasn't so pleased to see how jealous you are, but I must admit that I'm delighted!' 'Don't you dare try to humiliate me!' 'What's wrong with being pleased that you're jealous?' His smile made her heart somersault. 'I think it's rather romantic.' 'Don't try to prey on my own stupid romanticism! I won't be made a fool of by you!' 'I wouldn't want you so much if I thought you really were a fool.' 'Want being the operative word! Your intentions are about as dishonourable as they can get!' Flushed with anger and unwanted arousal, she wriggled on his lap. 'Now, let go of me and—' 'Oh, don't wriggle like that unless you want me to...' His voice trailed off into the summer sunshine as he stared at her in shock, his long hands moving rapidly up and down her hips. Her face burnt scarlet. 'Stop that! Don't touch me!' 'You're naked under that dress!' he whispered thickly, and his face burnt with dark, passionate colour: 'Wow... Oh, Rhiannon...' His breathing quickened, and she felt the sudden hot reflex beneath her thigh as his powerful body leapt in fierce sexual response. 'Darling.. .look what you're doing to me...'

'I'd had a shower,' she whispered rapidly, mortified and shamed. 'I had to get out of the house fast and-—' 'Don't feel guilty about it.' His hands shook as they clutched her hips and his eyes stared intently at the dusky outline of her full breasts. 'You're driving me crazy here. I don't think I want to talk any more.. .let's get back to the house.' 'No!' she cried in hot panic, and flung her arms around his neck, trying to stop him standing up. 'No, no! I want to stay here! I'm not going anywhere with you, certainly not like this!' He stared through half-closed eyelids, breathing rapidly. 'Rhiannon, I want you so badly right now that I—' 'I am not going back to the house with you!' A muscle jerked in his cheek. 'OK. Why not?' 'Because you know as well as I do that you're trying to drag me into a triangle with you and that woman!' 'That woman...?' His heart thudded an excited rhythm. 'You really are jealous, aren't you?' 'Stop laughing at me!' she burst out hoarsely. 'All right, I'm sorry.' He raked a hand through his jet-black hair, but his eyes stared fixedly at the pointed thrust of her bare nipples against the white dress. 'OK. Kim... Look, I'm really not engaged to her. I finished the relationship.' 'You wouldn't know a relationship if it came up and bit you! And I'm not going to listen to another lie about Kim Cotterill! I never want to see you again! Now, let me go or I'll scream!'

'I don't want to let you go,' he said thickly, holding her close. Her eyes closed briefly; she wanted to believe that he meant it, but she was afraid to. 'Gabriel...' she whispered in torment. 'There's nothing to hold us together... You're obviously involved with Kim, and—' 'I'm not. I keep trying to tell you that.' His hot mouth was against her neck. 'She was wearing your ring!' 'Because she won't accept that it's over between us.' 'Fine!' She was desperate to stop being this close to him. 'But it's over between us too.' 1 won't let you end it!' he cut in harshly. The rough passion of his voice reached her. She grew aware of the tension in his body, the hard thud of his heart, the fierce grip of his long fingers. Did he really care...? Oh, no. Her heart was somersaulting with the wild hope that he might feel the same about her as she felt for him. I mustn't let him get to me like this, she thought furiously. He's a rat, a double-dealer, a womaniser. He doesn't love me and never will. The reason for his thudding heart is sexual excitement—not love. 'I mean it!' Gabriel said thickly, holding her against his body, his heart thundering against her breasts. 'I won't let you leave me, Rhiannon, or end our relationship. Not until you've listened to the truth.'

'Gabriel...' Her voice trembled with emotion as she looked up into his tough, passionate face. 'What do you want from me?' 'The truth,' he said deeply, staring into her eyes. 'We stay right here and talk until this is resolved. That's what I want. And that's what I fully intend to get. Even if I have to keep you captive on my lap for the next twenty years.' 'You...' Her voice faltered as hope blazed through her like wildfire. 'You mean the truth about me? About you? Or about Kim?' 'All three. I want our relationship to get back on track and run smoothly. There's only one way to do that—tell the truth. Are you brave enough to do it?' 'Of course I am,' she said huskily, moved by his passionate insistence. 'I guess I just didn't think you were. Most men aren't.' 'I'm not "most men".' 'No,' she murmured, smiling, 'you're definitely not most men!' There was a brief, tense silence. She knew she was an idiot to let him talk her round, but she felt so much for him, and the urgent passion in his voice was irresistible. She couldn't tell him to go away. Not like this... 'All right.' She nodded jerkily, her voice husky now with emotion. 'But you must let me go. I—I can't concentrate like this.' 'That makes two of us,' he said thickly, staring at her red lips, and then his dark head swooped suddenly, swiftly, and that mouth touched hers like a bolt of lightning.

She gasped softly with sweet pleasure and let herself kiss him, one hand fluttering up to caress his strong, clean-shaven jaw. How she wanted him. She wanted to melt in his arms and forget everything but him. Her mouth opened beneath his. He was her reality now, she knew that deep inside, knew he had conquered her heart already... 'Rhiannon!' he muttered against her lips, and his long hands began to caress her body, so soft and slender and naked beneath the white dress. 'No!'She wriggled on his lap. 'Oh, darling!' he bit out hoarsely as that powerful thrust of male flesh jerked against her through their clothes, and his kiss deepened considerably as he pulled her even closer, his heart banging like crazy against his chest as his hands moved over her with fierce sexual excitement. 'Stop it!' she cried in sudden panic, and jerked her head back, eyes blazing with blind fear and answering passion. 'You promised you'd let me go!' 'But I don't want to let you go...' he whispered thickly, and his face was burning up. 'Then I refuse to discuss anything with you!' He studied her with hot blue eyes. 'Mule!' he drawled unsteadily, but he did release her, albeit with grim reluctance. With a curious mix of relief and disappointment she slid off his lap, seeing the wince of intolerable excitement on his face as he watched her, staring intently, his eyes racing over her body.

Rhiannon slithered down next to him on the park bench, watching him through dark lashes, her eyes alight with love. He raked a hand through his dark hair, gave her a sideways glance through heavy-lidded cynical eyelids. Then his strong hand slipped into hers and linked fingers with her. 'OK,' he said deeply, 'you want to know about me and Kim? I'll start at the beginning.' She watched him in breathless silence, unable to believe he was holding her hand like this, that they were sitting in the park together like two young lovers of seventeen, her and this powerful billionaire... 'Kim is one of those women who genuinely believe that being a twenty-four-hour presence in a man's life will lead to love and marriage,' Gabriel told her wryly. 'That's why she follows me around. She thinks I'll get used to her again.' Jealousy burned her veins. 'Then you were in love with her once?' 'Not really.' He sighed, threw her a wry smile. 'I just wanted a wife. A showpiece wife. The kind who looks good in magazine photos and does what she's told. But...' He laughed with cool self-deprecation. 'I was taught a hard lesson in how important the woman behind the image is.' Her lashes flickered as she studied his tough, cynical face. 'Kim rapidly proved herself to be mercenary once we were engaged. It took a while for me to realise she was more interested in my bank balance than in me, but once I did I wanted shot of her.' Rhiannon frowned, said suspiciously, 'But if she's a successful model in her own right why would she be so mercenary with you?'

'Because she's not a successful model in her own right,' he drawled cynically. 'Far from it. She owes almost all her success to the fact that she is the niece of the chairwoman of La Creme.' 'Ellen Brown is her aunt?' she said in astonishment, because she knew Ellen very well—Solomon's had frequently used models from the La Creme agency in her adverts, although Rhiannon herself had never handled any of the negotiations. 'Yes, and she's helped Kim succeed out of family loyalty.' He arched his brows coolly. 'Of course, Kim has the looks and works hard to keep them. But she's completely unprofessional—turns up late, doesn't work hard enough and generally behaves .like a spoilt brat.' 'That must be bad for Ellen's business.' 'Very bad, because nobody dared tell her how her niece was behaving. Nobody, that was, until she tangled with Kurt Heathfield.' Rhiannon laughed unsteadily. 'Nobody tangles with him!' Kurt was the monstre sacre of fashion, stamping about with his ponytail, flashing eyes and tight-lipped face.' 'Quite!' drawled Gabriel. 'And Kim arrived in Paris for his spring collection minutes before the show was due to start. She was so drunk that she fell on her way to the catwalk and ripped the dress. Luckily no one saw, so the show itself wasn't a laughing stock. But Kurt Heathfield went ballistic. He insisted Kim apologise publicly. She refused. Ellen had to make the apology for her.' 'Poor Ellen!' 'Oh, yes, and I was horrified. I had a massive row with Kim about it and told her if she didn't make that apology, I'd end our engagement.' 'You broke up with her over that?'

'I would have ended it anyway,' he said, tracing her palm with one long finger. 'I knew by then she was after my money. Couldn't blame her for that, of course, given that I only wanted her looks. But the whole incident revealed such a horrifying lack of character. That woman was her aunt and Kurt Heathfield one of her biggest clients. How could anyone with any decency or loyalty have done a thing like that? After the trouble Ellen had gone to to get her into the business. After the kindness she had shown in getting her high-paying jobs. How could she have been so selfish? What kind of woman was she? What kind of mother would she make for my children?' His eyes were cold, hard and very cynical blue steel. 'I wasn't going to marry her once I realised what she was really made of.' Rhiannon's dark hair fanned softly in the warm breeze as they sat hand-in-hand together on that park bench and she studied him in silence. Listing decency and loyalty as prerequisites for marriage was not what she had anticipated from Gabriel Stone. They were high on her own list of priorities but she had genuinely believed for a long time now that Gabriel had no use for them. 'So I broke off the engagement,' Gabriel continued. 'Told her to keep the ring and wished her luck. Twelve months later, she's still following me around and wearing that damned ring just to cause trouble. I'd have an injunction taken out against her if I didn't think it would make matters worse.' 'Is that why you took her to New York?' Rhiannon asked waspishly, and knew her jealous pain flared in her green eyes. 'Darling,' he said softly, still stroking her hand, 'I didn't take her to New York. Nor did I travel to the airport with her in my limousine.'

'How newspapers lie!' she said huskily, knocked off balance by his use of the word darling and the way he stroked her, which made her melt again. Honestly, was she turning into an ice-cream or was it just this endless heatwave? 'The Press just embroider what little facts they can get hold of. The truth is that Kim was waiting for me at the airport, had a ticket to New York on Concorde and tried to buzz around me all week while my bodyguard, chauffeur and aide-de-camp kept her away.' Her lashes flickered with admiration for his power. She felt her determination to hate him silently begin to keel over, leaving her fighting nothing but her own blazing love. 'Your bodyguard...?' She smiled, heart skipping. 'Do you always go around with bodyguards?' 'Better safe than sorry,' he murmured, and smiled right at her, giving her the full benefit of those laser- blue, eyes as the breeze lifted strands of black hair at his strong forehead. Her heart raced as she stared into those eyes, dazzled by him, adoring every powerful inch of him, wishing she wasn't so weak... 'And...' She cleared her throat, fought to keep her head and ask the questions she needed to ask. 'And you didn't see her the whole time you were in New York? Not even once?' 'Not even once.' She breathed deeply, afraid to believe him, afraid of how quickly she would lose her heart if she let him convince her. How many times had he done this to her, after all? Explained away something suspicious only to have it come back twice as suspicious the next time around?

If she let him talk his way back into her trust, she might very well end up even more hurt than she had been this time. And she never again wanted to feel as she had on seeing that newspaper report. 'Look...' she said carefully. 'I admit that your explanation is convincing. But nevertheless I only have your word for it. For all I know it could be a complete fabrication from start to finish.' His mouth tightened in angry silence and she saw those blue eyes harden to steel. She shifted, aware that she was being too implacable. 'You have to admit that it's a convoluted story.' 'No, I don't!' 'All right, then. It's unlikely!' 'You can check it out,' he enunciated with harsh anger. 'Every last detail of it. All you have to do is make the calls.' 'I can't go around ringing people to dig up personal dirt on you and your fiancee!' 'She is not my fiancee!' he exploded, making her jump. 'Don't you shout at me like that! I read in the newspapers only last week that—' 'I've just told you that that was a pack of lies!' 'And I'd be a fool to believe you!' 'Right!' he bit out, and stood suddenly, catching her with strong hands and steadying her on her feet as his fingers curled around her wrist. 'I am not letting her get away with this!'

Gasping, Rhiannon was once more pulled along after him as he strode off, scattering pigeons into the hot blue sky, his hand holding her wrist with an implacable iron grip. 'Let me go!' she cried, struggling to keep up with him anyway. 'Stop pulling me around like this, Gabriel, and let go of me!' 'I damned well won't! I've had just about enough of Miss Cotterill and her selfishness! I'm going to take you round to her place and demand that she tell you the truth!' Rhiannon dug her heels into the path. 'You'll do no such thing!' 'Just try and stop me!' He pulled her effortlessly along and strode out of the small green park and across the road with her. 'I'm not going there!' she shouted as cars flashed past them. 'And I'm not letting her win!' 'She's not winning anything!' she said as they entered the sunlit cobbled mews where the white limousine still stood outside her green front door, the chauffeur reading his newspaper in the front seat. 'She is winning, Rhiannon!' Gabriel bit out. 'She's destroying our relationship!' 'We don't have a relationship!' It was a red rag to a bull. 'We do have a relationship!' he thundered, spinning round furiously on her as they stood outside her front door. 'I've done everything in my power to build it, against all the odds! Giving you Chauvin—the jewel in my crown! Praising your work—out of sincere respect!

Telling you how much I want you—I hardly need to dwell on the sincerity of that!' 'Keep your voice down!' she whispered frantically, aware of lace curtains twitching in windows. 'The neighbours!' 'To hell with the neighbours!' he bellowed, and Rhiannon was sure she heard a gasp from old Mrs Plummet next door. Furious, she unlocked the front door. 'Come inside if you're going to shout like that!' 'I'm not shouting!' he shouted, striding into the house. 'But I refuse to let that wretched woman destroy what I've worked so hard on and what I want so much!' '"Want" again being the operative word!' Rhiannon said bitterly, shutting the front door behind her, facing him alone in the pale lemon drawing room. 'Why don't you just admit it?'He spun to glower at her. 'Admit what?' 'That you've only worked so hard to get me into your bed!' She threw her keys onto the telephone table with a clunk. 'That's all you want from me, isn't it? Just sex!' 'So what?' he bit out. 'I'm a man! It's my prerogative to want sex!' For a second she couldn't speak. She was too shocked. After all the wonderful things he had said, the passion they had shared in the park, the way he had held her hand... You stupid, romantic fool, she thought, with cold, realistic horror. Why did you listen to him? Why did you let him see how you felt about him? Why did you let him talk to you at all?

It was true. Her greatest fear was now a reality. All he wanted was sex, and he was happy to admit it. She looked away from him, felt the build-up of emotion suddenly break and tried to hide it from him, but she felt the hot tears start to force their way out over her lashes and her mouth was trembling so hard she felt like a defenceless child. 'Hey.. .come on,' Gabriel said tightly, realising his mistake too late as he stared down at her. 'I didn't mean it like that. 'Oh, shut up!' she whispered hoarsely, and stuck a hand in front of her trembling mouth as the tears streamed unstoppably over her cheeks. 'Rhiannon...' 'Just leave me alone!' she cried tearfully. As though something inside him had snapped, his eyes suddenly blazed, he bit out a hoarse epithet under his breath, then strode over to her, grabbed her shoulders and whirled her to face him. 'Stop crying!' he said deeply, and something in the tone of his voice made her stop, made her look into his eyes. 'Stop doing this every time I tell you I want you.' Hypnotised suddenly, she held his gaze. 'You won't make me ashamed of it,' he said thickly. 'Darling, sex is a normal appetite. I'm a normal red- blooded male. When I meet a woman who's a combination of everything I've ever dreamed of—what could be more natural than to want to make love to her?' 'But I...' She blushed scarlet in the face of his incredible directness, knowing that he was right.

'Just because you've been hiding from sex with that idiot for years doesn't mean I have to let you carry on doing it!' 'I—I'm not hiding from sex,' she stammered. 'Then let me hold you.' He pulled her slowly into his arms, eliciting a gasp of pleasure as their bodies touched, hers naked beneath the dress, his hard with excitement. 'Gabriel...' she whispered as her hands moved to his broad shoulders with longing. 'Oh, darling...' His breathing quickened as his hands moved over the soft, naked flesh under that dress. 'I really want you. Don't think of the past. Don't think of sex. Just think of me.' 'I... I am...' she whispered, her heart thudding harder. "That's why I'm afraid...' 'Because you want me?' he said unsteadily. 'Is that it? Is that what scares you?' Breathless, she nodded, and her hands curled trustingly on his broad shoulders. His body was rigid with excitement against hers. 'Then think of the love-making we've shared. Think how much you want me. And then ask yourself whether it's right to deny yourself that pleasure.' 'Gabriel, I can't let you do this to me, not like—' 'But it's not a question of letting me do anything,' he said quietly. 'It's you. Letting yourself do what you want.' Staring hotly into his eyes, she felt her heart pound faster, and somehow found the courage to whisper, 'I— I do want to touch you.'

His breathing quickened, his skin burnt hot. 'Then touch me...' 'Like.. .like this...?' she asked shakily, and ran her hands along his neck. 'Uh-huh.' His heart was thudding hard as he watched her through heavy-lidded eyes. 'I... I want to.. .do this...' She tugged his silk tie loose while he stared, and as it slid with a swish to the floor her trembling fingers began to undo the top three buttons of his shirt. 'Darling...' he said thickly, staring at the hard nipples thrusting at her white dress. She buried her burning face in his strong throat, kissing him, kissing the black hairs that curled on his chest. 'Do you want me?' he muttered hoarsely. 'I need to hear you say it. Just tell me, and everything will be OK, I promise, and I'll stop whenever you ask me to...' His hands moved up and down her hips, his breathing thick and fast. 'I won't force you to do anything you don't want to do, but you must tell me you want me or—' 'I... I want you!' 'Yes...!' he said fiercely, hot colour burning his face. 'Yes...!' Then his dark head swooped, a fevered expression in his eyes as he gave in at last to the need for physical expression that had raged between them, and as their mouths met they were both clamouring for the deep, passionate kiss which swept them both away on a tide of desire. With a moan of sweet surrender, she let her arms slide around his neck and her body press against his, exciting a rough exclamation

from him as his own body leapt it} fierce response against her and his strong hands moved swiftly down to cup her naked rear. 'Rhiannon—Rhiannon...!' He sounded drugged, his hands lifting her skirt a fraction, just enough to feel the bare curve of her buttocks at the top of her thighs. 'Oh, Gabriel...!' she whispered against his hot lips, moaning with pleasure as he fondled her. She felt nervous in case she did the wrong thing, but pushed instinctively against him, aware of the wetness between her thighs, of her body trembling with sexual excitement. He was kissing her blindly, dazedly, his mouth hot and passionate as he drowned in his desire and hers, the light touch of his fingers exquisite to them both as they stroked her curved and quivering buttocks. Suddenly he gave a hoarse exclamation of desire and lifted her in the air, carried her to the couch, and as she opened her fevered eyes to stare at him she saw the dark colour on his tough cheekbones, the fire in his eyes, and heard the thunder of his heart. For a split-second their eyes met, and he kissed her again, deeply, before sliding her onto the couch, moving his hard body beside hers, breathing rapidly as his mouth closed over hers with the most commanding passion she'd ever felt. His long hands moved to her rear again, touching and stroking her bare skin, sliding her long thighs apart, sliding them around his own legs. She moaned softly, burning up, kissing him, telling herself he loved her, he must love her, and even if he didn't she couldn't stop this happening any longer—the relief was too great, the desire too overpowering. Her fingers fumbled with his shirt. She wanted to see and feel him, and undid the buttons of his shirt while he groaned harshly, kissing

her mouth like a drowning man and stroking her bare thighs as they wrapped sensuously around him. 'Yes, yes!' he muttered thickly as he helped her, shouldering out of his shirt and jacket and throwing them to the floor, leaving himself bare-chested, magnificent, the muscles powerful and the black hairs gleaming as she ran her fingers over, his body, that fabulous, sinewy body she had desired for so long. Then his mouth was on hers again, his hands were moving up to fumble with the zip of her dress, and as he tugged it down to her waist her bare breasts bounced free, nipples painful now, hurting with the need to be touched by him. 'Rhiannon...!' he whispered hoarsely, staring at her as she lay stripped to the waist, her eyes drugged with desire and her skirt rucked up to mid-thigh. Then he kissed her deeply as his hands cupped her full breasts. She cried out with pleasure, and when he bent his head to suck the nipples she thrust her fingers blindly into his hair, whispering his name as she felt his teeth graze her delicate skin. Their naked torsos slid together. The feel of naked skin on naked skin was delicious, wonderful, fantastic. .. His heart was thundering at a gallop; so was hers. Her thighs spread for him and she moaned against his mouth as she felt the hard pressure of his intolerable excitement, then the answering heat and slippery wetness between her own parted thighs. 'You're so beautiful...!' Gabriel breathed as his strong hands slid up her naked thighs, pushed up her skirt a little more, slid long fingers to the silky inner skin of her thighs. 'Oh, darling, let me feel how much you want me...!'

She knew what he meant and didn't try to stop him, just gasped against his mouth with increasing passion as she felt his forceful fingers sliding up her nude thighs, parting them gently, moving up towards the centre of her body which was hot, wet, aching for his touch. His finger slid against the slippery flesh. He groaned with delirious excitement, burning up as he heard and felt her wildly excited response, her semi-nude body writhing deliriously against his hand and his body. A footfall from the French doors shattered the spell. Gabriel's mouth wrenched away from hers. Darkly flushed, dazed with passion, he turned to stare at the doorway as Rhiannon gazed blindly over his broad bare shoulder. They had both expected to see Kim Cotterill standing there with an expression of frozen horror on her face. But it wasn't Kim. It was Bobby.

CHAPTER SIX BOBBY'S face was waxen, his eyes blank with shock as he stood in the open French windows, staring at them. Like a two-backed monster, Rhiannon and Gabriel lay frozen, locked in intimacy, their half-naked bodies sheened with the sweat of fierce arousal. Her naked thighs were still spread and sliding around him, her bare breasts gleaming in the warm sunlight; her face was half-crazed with excitement and her eyes glittered like a tigress's. Bobby turned and ran. His footsteps clattered down the metal stairs, thudded in the hot, sunny garden. A dog barked in the distance. A motorbike whined along a parallel mews. And the radio played yet another love-song. 'Oh, no...!' Rhiannon whispered, struggling to free herself. 'I must go after him! Let me go!' 'No!' Gabriel's heart still banged a violently excited rhythm as he looked down at her. 'That's the last thing you must do.' 'He'll be terribly hurt! Let me go—let me get up!' 'Rhiannon, he had to find out sooner or later! It's better that he knows the truth now. I know it'll be hell for him, but he has to go through it.' In the distance, in the lazy summer evening, they heard the roar of a car engine, the screech of tyres. They both lay there in silence, listening to it. When the noise had completely disappeared Rhiannon looked up at Gabriel with hurt eyes, horrified by how distraught Bobby must be—he was normally such a sedate driver.

He must have come back to apologise, she realised. Maybe he'd decided he'd been too hasty, decided Rhiannon had been right to ask for a serious discussion about their relationship. And for him to walk back in and find this... 'Oh, poor Bobby...' she whispered, thinking aloud. 'Don't start feeling sorry for him.' Gabriel slid one strong hand over her bare thigh. 'It's about time he looked at the reality of his relationship with you. Does the man think there's nothing wrong with a sexless marriage? I mean—what is the matter with him?' Rhiannon looked away. She couldn't deny what he said. The days when a sexless relationship would have suited her were well and truly over. 'Now...' Gabriel muttered hoarsely, sliding his hand over her bare breast, then down to her naked spread thighs again, staring while his body burnt hotter with fierce excitement. 'Where were we?' Her eyes widened in horror. 'For heaven's sake, Gabriel! I've been caught betraying my fiance with another man! The last thing I want to do is carry on where we left off!' His mouth tightened. She saw the muscle jerk in his cheek, heard the fierce, thud of his heart, felt the burning heat of his skin. 'Please...' she said huskily. 'Let me sit up...' Gabriel hesitated for just a second, then gave a harsh sigh and released her, sitting up and moving to the side of the couch, bare brown chest gleaming, matted with hair and solid with muscle. Shakily she slid away from him and got to her feet, blushing scarlet as she pulled her skirt down into place, pulled the bodice up to cover her

nudity. She did not feel comfortable until she'd zipped the dress up again and looked respectable. In many ways she was grateful to Bobby for interrupting them. If he hadn't walked in when he had, things could have got very rapidly out of hand. In fact it was quite horrifying to look back on how she had felt before he'd stumbled in—the level of sheer sexual excitement had been beyond anything she'd ever experienced before, even with Jack five years ago—and she still felt it keenly, the soft skin between her thighs still hot and damp with the extent of her desire for Gabriel. But look at what she had done... Betrayed Bobby like that, let him see her lying there, brazen and uninhibited in her excitement. She hated herself for it. Not just because she wasn't used to this kind of behaviour, but also because she had known her relationship with Bobby was finished after that hopeless, pointless, frustrating argument. And she had been gearing herself up to finding a way to end it as kindly and decently as possible. How could she end it decently now? 'Where do you think he'll have gone?' Gabriel brooded on the couch like some wild animal, impossibly sexy with his magnificent naked chest. 'To get drunk,y/ith one of his friends?' 'No, I expect he'll be at his mother's house.' 'A mummy's boy!' he drawled contemptuously. 'I might have known it! This is absolute textbook stuff! He's still tied to his mother's apron-strings.' 'He's very close to her,' she admitted reluctantly. 'Close?' His face was cynical. 'Not only is he not man enough to make love to you, but he clearly puts his mother before you in the emotional

stakes! In fact— what has he got to recommend him? Let's take a good look at this man you're planning to marry.' 'No, let's not!' she recognised the note in his voice and knew he was about to assassinate Bobby's character again. She couldn't face it. Not after what had just happened. It made her feel scared and uncertain and cheap. It was bad enough having betrayed him like this, without Gabriel trying to stab him in the back once he'd gone too. 'I'd rather you kept your opinions to yourself. You've caused nothing but trouble here today.' 'I caused trouble?' he demanded sardonically, remaining on his back like a lazy tiger. 'I may have kissed you and carried you over here to the couch, but after that you were one hundred percent responsible for what happened—just as I was!' Hot colour burned her face and she turned her head away. Maybe I am no better than I ought to be, she thought in despair. Maybe that's why I chose Bobby, a man who's afraid of sex. Maybe I knew deep down that any other way of life would lead me to behave like this—so wantonly, so uninhibitedly, revelling in desire and passion like some oversexed scarlet woman. Jack Ratchett saw it in me, she thought in sudden panic. That's why he treated me as he did. And Gabriel Stone saw it too, from the very beginning—that's why he's so successfully chased me. 'Rhiannon,' he said deeply, 'I know it's painful for you to accept the death of your engagement, but you must let it die. It may have been right for you once, but—' 'I don't want to talk about it!' she said as fear began to pump through her veins—fear of what was happening, fear of the disintegration of her engagement, and fear of the future too.

Was this what the future held for her? Life as a mistress to Gabriel Stone? No! she thought fiercely. I won't let it happen! I won't be his mistress! 'Your relationship with Bobby,' drawled Gabriel with an arrogant lift of dark brows, 'has been dead for a long time and now it's over. You must accept—' 'Get out!' she said thickly, raising her head, tears stinging her green eyes and making her mouth tremble. 'Go on—get out of my house and out of my life!' Shock made him tense. He gave a brief, harsh laugh. 'Hey, come on, you can't blame me for—' 'I do blame you!' she whispered fiercely. 'You came here to seduce me and you got precisely what you wanted!' He paled, staring. 'But you must see that—' 'The only thing I see is that you've walked into my life and smashed it to pieces!' she cried bitterly, and heard him catch his breath. 'Now get out!' Suddenly he was on his feet, striding to her. 'Calm down. You're hysterical. You're working yourself up into—' 'Get away from me!' she cried hoarsely. 'My engagement is in ruins, my reputation is shot to pieces, and you're standing there half naked waiting to finish what you started!' 'I haven't had time to get dressed!' he bit out, but his face was ashen and his eyes were no longer arrogant. 'Be reasonable!' 'Why should I be reasonable? Every time I'm reasonable with you we end up making love!'

His hand moved to touch her. 'Darling, it's—' 'And don't call me darling!' She stepped back angrily. 'Get out of my house at once! I have no intention of letting this get even further out of hand than it is already!' 'You can't just throw me out,' he said harshly. 'You have to listen to—' 'I don't have to listen to another word, but you obviously do, so get this straight once and for all!' Her eyes flared with passionate anger. 'I will not be your mistress! Do you understand me? I refuse to allow—' 'Darling, please don't lose control like this!' he bit out roughly, reaching for her. 'Look, just let me—' 'No!' She slapped his hands away. 'I mean it, Gabriel! I want you out of my house and out of my life—now!' 'OK,' he muttered hoarsely, thrusting his hands through his hair. 'Look, maybe we should start again. I can see that I've been a little insensitive—' 'A little insensitive?' 'Well, what else is it?' His eyes glittered black with wild emotion. 'I've been trying to free you! That relationship is over! It was over when I met you. You just hadn't accepted it. But I know how you feel, Rhiannon. I went through it myself with Kim. I know it's cruel, but there's only one way to do it. Walk out and then adjust. A clean break is the most painless—' 'That wasn't a clean break! He walked in to find us half naked and making love! What he saw just now was terrible!' 'What he saw just now is that you love sex!' Her breath caught and she stared at him, eyes wide with passionate denial, although she knew

what he said was true. It Was what she'd been thinking herself ever since Bobby had walked in, and she couldn't bear to recognise it, felt so scared of where it would lead. 'Don't look at me like that!' he said thickly. 'You were so excited you were practically melting all over me! I've never felt anything like it! I nearly went berserk!' 'No...' She shook her head fearfully. 'No...' 'Rhiannon, you wanted me so much you couldn't have stopped me taking you! And I was just about to carry you upstairs when he interrupted us. Because as God is my witness, I couldn't have held out much longer myself!' 'N-no...' she stammered. 'It—it isn't true! I wouldn't have let you!' 'Darling, remember what we talked about before I started to make love to you!' he said urgently. 'About sex being natural, being normal and good and pure between two people who—' 'This is how you got me in the first place!' Breathless with fear that it would all happen again, and that this time she would find herself naked in bed with him, she turned her back on him, whispering, 'I'm not going to listen!' 'Oh, yes, you damned well are!' His hard hands caught her shoulders, whirled her to face him, and his eyes were ruthless as he said, 'That relationship is over! He's kept your fires banked right down for five years. Not for your sake, but for his own. It worked once but it doesn't work any more. The minute you met me, you knew we'd be lovers and—' 'Stop it!' she cut in rawly. 'Just stop, Gabriel! I hate you for what you've done today, and I never want to see you again!'

'Rhiannon, I—' 'I mean it Gabriel! I never want to see you again, now just get out!' Tears stung her eyes without warning, but she couldn't pinpoint the emotions behind them. Her blood was racing, her legs were weak and shaky, she felt sick. His eyes narrowed shrewdly. 'I think I know what's upsetting you most.' He reached for her again. 'You were too strongly excited when he interrupted us. Your body's going haywire and you're suffering from some mild form of shock. Let me put you on the couch again and—' 'All you ever think about is sex, sex, sex!' she flung bitterly, and tried to slap his face, but she missed because he jerked his head back just in time. 'You make me sick!' For a second they just stared at each other in silence. Then his face changed, and his eyes were suddenly hard, determined, ruthless. 'I think perhaps you're right,' he said curtly. 'It's time I left.' Turning on his heel, he strode to the couch and picked up his scattered clothes, dragging his shirt on and buttoning it with long, strong fingers. Rhiannon suddenly stopped feeling angry. All she felt was desperation to run to him, to stop him getting dressed, stop him leaving. The closeness they had found before had been ripped to pieces. The sweet, warm, loving trust they had established in the moments just

before they'd begun to make love was now disintegrating before her eyes. She knew she'd done it herself by rejecting him so totally. She knew she could stop the process just by running after him, flinging her arms around his strong neck and begging him to forgive her. But she couldn't move. Fear of what might happen kept her nailed to the spot. If she let him touch her once more tonight they'd end up in bed, and she couldn't cope with the thought of that. Neither could she cope with the thought of losing him for ever. 'Gabriel...' she whispered shakily. 'I'm sorry, but I feel so bad. There are two men in my life now. I've never had that before. I can't help judging myself, and if that means I judge you too, then—' 'Forget it!' he drawled cynically as he shouldered into his expensive grey jacket. White with fear that he was leaving for good, she said, 'I don't want to forget it. I—I mean, I don't want to forget you.' He stopped tying his tie, shooting her an intense look. 'That doesn't mean I want you to stay, or try to take me to bed again!' she burst out defensively. 'Sure!' He gave a cynical smile, finished tying his tie. 'Well, you leave it to me, darling. I'll take charge from here on in.' 'You've always taken charge!' 'Oh, have I, Rhiannon?' His eyes were ruthless. 'You think I've been wielding power over you? Believe me, sweetheart, you haven't even begun to see the kind of muscle I could exert if I wanted to!'

'Meaning what?' she demanded, with a breathless tinge of excitement. 'That I've tried doing this the nice way. But you just won't let me, will you?' He looked at her with his dark head bent, a dangerous steely glimmer in his eyes and a look of cold, hard determination on his face. 'Now we play it my way. I'm taking the gloves off from now on.' He strode to the front door, tall and powerful and ruthless. 'Next time we're alone together like this I'm going to get what I want from you, make no mistake about it!' He opened the door and left without a backward glance. Rhiannon flinched as the door slammed. Outside, his footsteps rang on the cobbled mews. Run after him! her heart screamed. Stop him. Tell him you love him, you want him, you'll never defy him again... But she just couldn't move. No matter how much she loved him she would not be his mistress, and that was all he wanted from her. He had made that painfully clear. She heard the chauffeur-driven limousine purr along to collect him, the slam of the door, then the throb of power as it drove him back to Eaton Square. I'm in love, she thought, lifting her head as tears filled her eyes and blurred her vision. And this is what love really feels like—it's not wonderful at all. It's painful and terrible and inescapable. Especially when the man concerned doesn't want anything but sex from you, and all your love for him might just as well be cast on stony ground. Hie tears started again, and she let herself cry until she was exhausted, lying on the couch and sobbing hoarsely at the emotional mess she found herself in.

If only Gabriel had tried to help her recover from the shock of Bobby finding them together. Oh, she knew he had eventually realised how she felt and had tried to alter his behaviour, but it had been too late—much too late—especially coupled with his insistence on sex. 'Next time we're alone together like this,' he had said before he left, 'I'm going to get what I want from you...' She shivered with a mixture of fear and excitement at the thought of it. Gabriel was such a powerful man, and she knew only too well that he was capable of that kind of ruthlessness. But he couldn't love her. Not if he was prepared to do absolutely anything to get her. The tears started again, but she was too exhausted to move, so she just lay where she was, feeling them slide silently over her cheeks while she contemplated the wreckage of her personal life. Her engagement was well and truly over now. Finding her half naked with another man was the one thing guaranteed to destroy it for ever. If she had wanted a twenty-four-carat reason to break it off with Bobby Gabriel had given it to her. After all, Bobby had taken her on five years ago precisely because she had told him how horrified she was by sex. What he had seen today would have shattered that myth for ever. Of course, she had never told him why she was afraid of sex. Never told him what had happened with Jack Ratchett in that dark bedroom miles away in her home town. Never told him, either, how much she had hated herself for enjoying it... She hadn't hated herself for enjoying it with Gabriel.

He had the knack of making her feel good about sex, no matter what kind it was, and she thanked him for that--she had always wanted to experience the kind of deep, sweet pleasure he had given her tonight, and the memory of her own fierce excitement still made her want him, made her want to throw caution to the winds and let him do it, let him make wild, passionate love to her. But I won't be his mistress, she thought. I can't. I'm not cut out for it. I'm just not mistress material. The thought of it made her want to run screaming to her room and curl up in a little ball, saying, No, no, no. Oh, she could imagine what kind of woman she would become if she ever agreed to be Gabriel Stone's mistress: flying off with him to exotic locations, dressing in silk lingerie and stockings, wearing red lipstick, letting him do wicked things to her.. .and hating herself more and more each day as she saw the respect slowly die in his eyes. His respect would always be more important to her than his lovemaking. Perhaps Gabriel would never understand that. Perhaps he'd just keep right on digging away at her, trying to turn her into his kind of woman and get her where he wanted her. But what could she do about that? Just accept that she loved him and that her love would never come to fulfilment? It hurt so much. But it was a funny kind of hurt. A deep, unalterable truth which made her sad. An adult kind of sadness. Like accepting, finally and for ever, that your beloved father was not the god he had seemed in childhood. Just so she had to accept now that Gabriel was not the passionate man who would love and cherish her. He was the kind of man who wanted to make her his mistress, to pamper and seduce her for a while, then cast her aside once his respect was completely erased.

No, she thought, crying silently. I cannot be a mistress, not even for Gabriel Stone—not even for the man I worship. No matter how much I love him, I cannot be his mistress. *** Next morning, she drove round to Bobby's Fulham flat in her silver open-topped Mercedes sports. He wasn't in, of course, and his little blue Volvo was not parked anywhere in the street. He must be at his mother's, she realised, and shuddered at the thought of going round there. Mildred was always so nasty to her. Plump, homely Mildred, in her floral dresses and nice little pinnies, fussing around Robert like the mother hen she was whilst directing as much spite and criticism towards Rhiannon as possible. There was something sinister about her suffocating love for Robert. She wondered why she hadn't seen it before. Perhaps it was because she had not truly loved Robert, and so had not seen his mother for the rival she really was. Robert couldn't see it. Even Rhiannon herself had spent the first two years wondering whether she was imagining it. But eventually, there had been no denying that Mildred hated Rhiannon and undermined her whenever possible. But always with the sweetest possible smile, of course... Half an hour later she arrived at Mildred's solid, respectable house. In a leafy residential street in Clapham, its windows were festooned with lace and little plant-pots. The garden was neat and pretty. A gnome in a jaunty red hat sat fishing by the side of a little pond. Mildred answered the front door herself, wearing a blue dress covered in yellow flowers. Her faded blonde hair was a mass of

permed salt-and-pepper curls. A very faint moustache hovered incipiently on her upper lip. 'Well, well, well!' she said, tight-lipped with disapproval. 'If it isn't Lucrezia Borgia!' 'Is Bobby in?' Rhiannon asked politely. 'I don't think I want you to see him.' Mildred Pratt drew herself up to her full height of five feet two and folded her plump arms. 'I always said you were bad for my boy, and I've been proved right.' 'Please let me see him, Mildred. I need to speak with him.' Mildred eyed her with dislike. 'Very well.' She held the door open and called into the house, where the scent of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding radiated from the kitchen. 'Bobby, dear! Come here for a second!' 'Yes, Mummy?' Bobby called from another room. 'Jezebel is here! Fully dressed too, which must make a nice change!' Rhiannon's face burned in an agony of shame. So Bobby really had told his mother everything. She couldn't look at Mildred, knowing full well now that she knew precisely what had happened yesterday. Mildred gave her a nasty smile and walked away to the kitchen. Rhiannon waited until she had disappeared, then stepped into the cosy hallway, closed the front door behind her and waited for Bobby. He came out of the living room, looking coldly furious. He wore jeans and a white shirt, his hands shoved in his pockets, hair neatly brushed, face brick- red. 'I don't want to see you, Rhiannon. Kindly leave.'

'Bobby, I understand how you feel, but—' 'You can't possibly understand how I feel, and I would appreciate it if you would consider our engagement at an end.' 'Bobby, please don't be so cold and unemotional about this. Let me explain. I—' 'I don't want to hear, Rhiannon,' he said brutally. 'I've never been so disgusted in all my life. What I saw yesterday was nauseating. I would never have believed you capable of it. Such immorality!' He shuddered, mouth writhing with distaste. 'I can hardly bring myself to look at you now that I know what sort of woman you really are.' Rhiannon looked away with a mixture of anger and embarrassment. It would have been better if he had been jealous. But to be so totally anti-sex revealed an unpleasant side to his nature that she'd never seen before. She'd always thought he was sweet, gentle and rather scared of sex, just as she herself had been. Now she could see that he was prudish, hung-up and very much at odds with nature. 'Bobby,' she said huskily, struggling to repair the damage none the less, 'I can understand that it was a shock. And I can understand that you feel betrayed. But how can you call it nauseating?' 'You would have found it nauseating once!' His eyes blazed with misery. 'When we first met sex was anathema to you!' 'Yes, it was,' she said thickly. 'But something's changed in me, Bobby. I tried to tell you that yesterday—but you wouldn't listen. And to be honest, I didn't notice the change until I met Gabriel Stone. Maybe it changed because I met him; I don't know. Whatever the reason—I don't think I can live like that anymore.'

His, face was contemptuous. 'I saw yesterday how you want to live!' She flinched but kept her dignity. 'I'm not particularly proud of myself, Bobby. But I'm human. I'm a woman who hasn't been made love to for a very long time, and I lost my head. There's something about Gabriel that just makes me lose control.' 'Then go and lose control with him for ever! But don't come near me again!' Rhiannon moved towards him urgently. 'Bobby, we mustn't end it like this! It'll hurt us both if we don't come to some sort of amicable arrangement. We've been together for five years. We must make an effort to remain friends, no matter—' 'Don't let her talk her way out of it.' Mildred appeared in the hallway again. 'She'll have you believing she's sweet, little innocent Bo Peep all over again if you let her.' 'Mildred,' Rhiannon said tightly, flicking an angry glance at the woman, 'please don't interfere. This is none of your business and—' 'None of my business? My boy's private life is none of my business? His betrayal by a little trollop like you is none of my business? His—' 'Mother, darling, please!' Bobby shuffled his feet. 'I'll deal with this!' 'Be quiet, Bobby!' Mildred snapped. 'You've made a mess of it, just as I told you you would. But you never listen to me, do you? I told you as soon as I met her that she was trouble.' 'Yes, Mother, you did.' 'A man-eater pretending to be Bo Peep. Isn't that what I said?'

'Why don't you leave him alone to think for himself?' Rhiannon heard herself say furiously. Mildred's eyes narrowed on her. 'Found a tongue at last, have you? You wouldn't have dared answer me back five years ago! I wonder where you've got the confidence from now? Could it be because you've caught yourself a nice big fish in Gabriel Stone?' Rhiannon reddened angrily. 'I have not caught Gabriel—' 'No, and nor will you. You thought you could reel him in and keep my Bobby around for security, just in case Gabriel Stone didn't propose marriage.' 'That is not what I—' 'Well, you were mistaken, missy! Men like Gabriel Stone never propose marriage. He's only after you for sex!' Rhiannon went white because it was the truth. Gabriel had said it himself yesterday, and had then gone on to prove it by seducing her and trying to continue it even after Bobby had caught them. 'Now, you heard my boy!' Mildred stamped over to her like a human tank. 'Your engagement is over. So take your lies and your scheming and get out of my house!' She felt humiliated, of course, but she had very little choice. She certainly wasn't hanging around to be insulted further. Turning without another word, she left the house and walked back on shaky legs to her car. So much for five years of friendship, she thought incredulously. He didn't even let me explain. Wouldn't even listen to a word I had to say. After five years...

Gabriel would have listened, she thought suddenly, and knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that she was right. Gabriel would not only have listened, but he would have handled the whole thing differently right from the beginning, including today—and particularly yesterday evening. In Bobby's shoes Gabriel would not have turned and run. No, he would have exploded, torn the other man off Rhiannon, beat him to a pulp, thrown him out, turned on Rhiannon when they were alone, called her seventy-seven different names, then taken her to bed, taken his rage and pain out on her... And then he would have listened to her explanation. But he would have listened. It just showed how little she and Bobby had had all along, that he could behave like this in the end. He didn't want to retain her friendship. That was abundantly clear. She took her engagement ring off, shoved it in her jeans pocket and made a mental note to return it to him tomorrow at work. The rest of the day was spent thinking. And crying over Gabriel. She knew now how it felt to truly love a man for everything he was. Everything. That was the worst part—that she loved his arrogance, his power, his ruthlessness. She loved his tenderness, his sensitivity and his kindness. And she loved.. .loved.. .loved his touch. It was such a new experience for her that it altered all her old perceptions of love, deepening and enriching them.

But what difference does that make? she thought despairingly at midnight when she went to bed. Gabriel doesn't love me, and he never will. And I'll never stop hurting because of it...

CHAPTER SEVEN NEXT morning, when she arrived at work, she made a point of bravely stopping at Bobby's office to try to get the day off to a realistic start by returning his ring and attempting another apology, but he wasn't there. 'Looking for Bobby?' Jerry called from her desk in the centre of the palm-filled open-plan office. 'He called in sick ten minutes ago.' Rhiannon walked to her desk in concern. 'Is it serious?' 'No, he rang personally and he sounded fine to me.' Jerry was toying with a bottle of nail varnish. 'He said he had a bad headache. Why—didn't you see him over the weekend?' 'Yes, but he seemed fine then.' Rhiannon turned to walk away, hoping nobody would notice she was not wearing her engagement ring and remembering how many times people had said never to get involved with someone you had to work with. 'Don't go away!' Jerry called after her. 'Solomon wants you in his office right away!' She turned, frowning. 'What—now?' 'Soon as you arrived, he said.' Jerry carried on painting her nails shimmering pink. Rhiannon hesitated, then gave a sigh and walked straight to the lifts. It must be something to do with Carillo's Cuban coffee, she thought irritably. Martin's probably botched it up. He should have organised another meeting with the team to discuss it. But that was the trouble with Martin. Once he had full power over an account he just lost all common sense and team spirit.

She really should have known Gabriel Stone better by now. She certainly shouldn't have been surprised to find him in Solomon's office, lounging coolly by the long window, looking devastating in a dark blue suit, with a pale blue silk tie at his throat and a silver watch-chain gleaming across his taut waistcoat. Lovestruck, she stood there for a second, staring with her mouth open while her heart banged like the kickback of a gun, and every nerve-ending came alive with feeling. 'Miss Windmorr!' drawled Gabriel with a wicked smile. 'What a pleasant surprise! You look as lovely as you did on Saturday night! Or should I say almost as lovely? There's nothing quite so beautiful as a woman who's just been kissed to within an inch of her life.' Hot colour flooded her face betrayingly. How could he say that in front of Steve? She didn't know where to look. 'We were having,' said Gabriel, 'an interesting discussion on Saturday night, about ways in which to utilise the sexes in advertising campaigns.' Steve stared at him, then managed to stammer, 'Ah, yes!' Rhiannon closed her eyes, heart drumming, horrified that she was so powerless in the face of his absolute ruthlessness. How could he humiliate her like this? Make Steve think she was already his mistress? 'And Miss Windmorr's proposed campaign,' Gabriel went on, capitalising on the fact that they were both still speechless, 'does nothing if not utilise the sexes. Which is fine in television and women's magazines. But I think we need something a little more technological for the quality press.'

Steve struggled to sound lucid. 'Yes, er.. .highlighting the fact that the watches are all handmade.' 'Precisely. And that's why this trip to Geneva would be even more useful for her in terms of—' 'What trip to Geneva?' Rhiannon asked in breathless horror. Gabriel turned and smiled at her like a lazy tiger. 'Why, haven't you been told?' 'No, I have not been told!' Her face was burning with angry colour as she turned to glare at her boss. 'What on earth is going on?' Steve Solomon fingered his collar uneasily. 'Well— Mr Stone thinks you should see the Chauvin headquarters for yourself. Take a tour of the workshops and showrooms. Get some ideas for a more technological—' 'And when—' Rhiannon was hoarse with outrage '—do you propose I go to Geneva?' 'First thing tomorrow morning,' drawled Gabriel ruthlessly. 'With me.' She wanted to kill him. 'We leave on the ten o'clock flight, arriving just in time for lunch.' Fury blazed in her eyes as she realised how effectively he had trapped her. 'We'll be staying at a hotel together—' 'This is absolutely unacceptable!' Rhiannon choked out, turning to Solomon. 'I refuse to be sent off to Geneva with this—this—'

'Perhaps Miss Windmorr and I should be left alone to discuss it, Solomon?' Gabriel arched cold, authoritative brows at her boss. 'Yes, of course, Mr Stone!' Solomon at once marched towards the door, like the despicable coward he was. 'Don't you dare walk out like this!' Rhiannon said fiercely to his departing back. 'Don't you dare—!' The door closed hastily behind him. Rhiannon stood staring at it in speechless fury for a few seconds, her face hot with anger. 'Silly girl!' Gabriel's voice was pure steel. 'You don't seriously think he's going to defy me, do you?' She whirled round. 'I could report the pair of you for this! I'd be quite within my rights! This is nothing short of blackmail, sexual harassment—' 'It's just a business trip. Separate bedrooms and all expenses paid for a very valid professional purpose.' 'You lying—' 'Temper, temper!' 'Don't you dare laugh at me!' she said hoarsely. 'Separate bedrooms or not, we both know that this trip to Geneva is just an excuse for you to get me into bed and—' 'Judging from your response on Saturday, I'd say getting you into bed was going to be a simple matter.' 'Why, you—'

'So I hardly need to take you off to Geneva to get what I want. And besides—plenty of people of mixed sexes go on business trips together, stay at the same hotel and spend time with each other. It doesn't mean anything improper happens between them.' 'If you seriously expect me to believe you have valid business reasons for this trip, you must think I need my head examined!' He gave a ruthless smile, watching her through heavy-lidded, cynical eyes. 'It's not your head I want to examine, darling.' She stood very still, clenching and unclenching her fists for a long moment, breathing hard, her face coloured with anger, eyes sparkling with rage. 'And to think I actually believed you wanted to help me yesterday!' she said in a low, shaking voice. 'What a fool I am! You don't want me to be happy, do you? You just want to get me into bed. That's all it's ever been with you, isn't it? And just look at what you're prepared to do to get it. Just look at what you're trying to turn me into! Your mistress, your courtesan, your—' 'I warned you what I would do if you continued to defy me. Don't complain because I've stuck to my guns.' 'You don't need to use any guns on me!' she burst out hoarsely. 'I'm already powerless against you! You knew that the first time you saw me and you've capitalised on it ever since!' The blue eyes widened as he stared at her, then his tough face softened, and Rhiannon realised with horror how she had betrayed her true feelings to him. At once she lowered her head, blushing hotly. She couldn't let him see that she was in love with him. He must never know. The pain of

unrequited love was bad enough, but to add humiliation to it was just too much to bear. Gabriel was silent for a long moment, then he took a cool step forwards. His blue eyes flashed down to her left hand. Rhiannon stood there, head lowered, heart pounding. 'I see your engagement ring has gone,' he said deeply. She lifted her head to meet his eyes bravely. 'Observant of you!' 'Do I take it the long-dead relationship between you and Mr Pratt is finally officially over?' 'Yes,' she said tightly. 'I went to see him yesterday. There's nothing left between us.' He watched her intently, eyes probing hers to read her emotions, and how clever he was at it, how sensitive to every single flicker of feeling in her heart. 'You ended it yourself?' he murmured. 'It was your own decision? And you have no regrets?' 'I regret that it ended as badly as it did!' she flung accusingly. 'Him walking in to find us like that was the worst thing that could possibly have happened.' At once his eyes narrowed. 'Was it hellish, Rhiannon? Was he furious?' 'Of course he was,' she cut in huskily, unable to bear hearing him say that word. 'What do you expect after what he saw?'

'I rather think that's nothing compared with what he would have seen in a few days' time,' he murmured lazily. 'Once we've been to Geneva and back!' Her face whitened as she stared at him, heart thudding with anger at the painful recognition of his determination to make her his mistress. 'You will, of course, be accompanying me,' he said softly, watching her face. 'Won't you, my darling?' I mustn't let this happen to me, she thought in wild panic. It will destroy me if I become his mistress. And what else could happen once they reached Geneva, once he had her alone, far from home, possibly even tricked into a bedroom with him and...? Suddenly she knew what she had to do—resign. There was no other way to stop him trying to use his power over her. And she couldn't allow him to get away with it any longer, Moretti-Baron scandal or no. She would rather die than be his mistress. 'No!' she said tightly, her decision made. 'I will not be going to Geneva with you. I will not allow you to blackmail me any more with the Moretti-Baron scandal. I'm going to resign from Solomon's as of this moment, and I'll tell Steve on my way out!' She turned on her heel and strode to the door. He was across the room in three strides, breathing hard as he caught her. 'What the hell are you talking about? You can't resign!' 'Just watch me!' She tried to push past him. 'No!' he bit out thickly, holding her with hard hands. 'I will not allow you to resign!' 'And I won't allow you to blackmail me into becoming your mistress!'

'You stupid woman! I'm not trying to blackmail you into it! The reason behind this trip to Geneva has nothing to do with sex and everything to do with me and you!' 'Oh, yes!' She gave a hurt laugh, tears stinging her eyes. 'Sure...!' 'Rhiannon, I want to get you away from everything here in London!' 'Yes, so you can get me into bed!' 'No!'. His voice roughened with intensity. 'So I can get you away from all this! Away from Bobby and Kim and Solomon's. Away from Ellen Brown and the Moretti-Baron scandal and everything that's formed a backdrop to our relationship! It's all irrelevant to us, Rhiannon, and it's becoming intrusive. I want it completely out of the picture.' She stared at him, fighting her feelings, fighting not to believe him. How did he manage to sound so sincere when he was nothing but a rat and a snake? Or was it just that she wanted to believe him because she was in love with him, and she couldn't face the pain of knowing the man she loved was never going to be her knight in shining armour but was going to try to make her his cheap little mistress instead of treating her with respect and marrying her? 'We both need to get away from London!' Gabriel said, watching her with those powerful, persuasive eyes. 'That's why I'm taking you to Geneva. It's a purely business capital for me and always has been. There are no emotional ties for me in that city.' 'I'm surprised to hear there are any emotional ties for you anywhere!' His face darkened with temper. 'Stop fighting me! I'm doing this for both of us! From the minute we met other influences have come between us. I admit I picked Geneva because Chauvin headquarters are there and I want you to see them, but that's not the only reason. It's

also because Geneva is neutral, both in world politics and in terms of you and me. I want to make sure I've got you alone somewhere where there are no ghosts for either of us.' Her lashes flickered uncertainly. 'Ghosts...?' 'Old memories,' he said thickly. 'Lost loves. Past involvements of any kind.' She looked away, trying to resist him, trying not to believe him, struggling so hard against her own foolish heart and the enormity of her love for him. 'Well?' he demanded, hands tight on her shoulders. 'Are there any ghosts there for you?' 'No...' 'Good. Then it's the perfect place for you to tell me your story.' 'What story?' 'The one about the man who hurt you before you met Bobby Pratt.' She suddenly felt as though she were in a lift, plummeting seventy-five floors in two seconds. 'Don't look so scared,' he drawled with an oddly tender smile. 'I've made it clear all along that I know there's a ghost in your heart. Some man you never quite recovered from. Now that Bobby's out of the way you can deal with him, and I'm going to insist that you do, Rhiannon, once we get to Geneva.' White, she shook her head. 'If that's what you have in mind, you're wasting your time! I won't discuss it with you, and if you try to force me to I'll slap your face so hard you'll hear bells ring!'

His ruthless eyes softened. 'I heard bells ring the day I first met you.' 'Wh-what?' she stammered, totally disarmed. 'Bells?' 'All the bells on my bedroom switchboard,' he drawled cynically. 'What other bells could you think I meant?' Her heart nose-dived in an agony of disappointment. 'Back to sex again, then! Always sex!' 'You didn't seriously imagine I meant wedding bells, did you?' His eyes were wicked. 'Ah.. .what a romantic little heart you have! I can't bring myself to crush your girlish dreams!' 'Shut up!' she choked out hoarsely, hurt and humiliated. 'And get out of my way! I want to give Steve Solomon my verbal resignation at once! I'm not going to let you take power over me any more!' 'No!' He held her tightly, the smile wiped off his face as he obstinately refused to let her go, no matter how hard she struggled. 'I'm not letting you leave this room until you've promised me you won't resign! At least— not until we get back from Geneva!' 'I'll never give you that promise and I'll never go to Geneva with you!' His face slowly turned hard and ruthless. 'Then I'll have to find a way to force it from you!' For a second they studied each other in tense silence. Then he abruptly pulled her into his powerful arms. With a gasp she landed against his hard body and felt the shock of excitement rush through her as her hands moved automatically to his broad shoulders and she felt the power of those strong thighs pressing against her own.

Her heart was pounding violently, her legs suddenly felt like jelly; she wanted him so much it was all she could do to remain standing. 'Don't...' she whispered helplessly against his powerful chest, against the sound of his rapid heartbeat. 'Give me your promise,' he muttered thickly. 'Or I'll lock this door and start making love to you, and I won't stop until I have that promise from you.' 'How can I promise you anything?' She lifted her head, and her voice shook with emotion as her true thoughts and feelings poured out. 'I'll just get conned into becoming your mistress and I can't let that happen! I might just as well sign away my self-respect for the rest of my life! I couldn't live with myself if I was your mistress! I couldn't bear it, Gabriel. I'd feel such self- loathing, such self-contempt! I'm just not that kind of woman. I'm not cut out for it. I'm... I'm not mistress- material.' 'I know,' he said deeply, and smiled, blue eyes moving over her lovely young face with an emotion she did not understand. For a second she just stared up at him, waiting for him to finish what she had assumed was a sentence, waiting for the buts to come, for the excuses, the lies, the con-tricks... But they never came. That was all he said. 'I know.' Then he stroked her hair with one strong hand, bent his dark head to kiss her flushed cheek, making her eyes flutter briefly shut, overcome with love. Please love me as I love you, she thought in weak despair, but she couldn't let herself believe it, it was too dangerous, he would tear her to pieces if she did— not at once, and not in a flash, but slowly and

painfully as his respect dwindled, which it undoubtedly would if she ever agreed to an affair with him. 'Now,' he said deeply, 'I want that promise from you. No thought of resigning from Solomon's until we return from Geneva.' Rhiannon sighed and shook her head. 'How can I promise you—?' 'Then let me promise you,' he cut in coolly. 'We will fly to Geneva in the morning—on business. We will go direct to Chauvin—on business. We will speak of nothing but business until after the board meeting. Then...' he gave a lazy, sardonic smile '.. .and only then, we will begin more personal discussions.' She studied his tough face in silence for a long time. She knew she was at liberty just to walk out, to tell him to go to hell and then hand in her notice. But the truth was that she wanted to go with him. Especially after what he had said. That his desire to take her there stemmed from a need to find out what had happened to her in the past, and, however scared she was of telling him, a part of her—a very small, frightened part, deep inside her heart and psyche— knew that this was the only way forwards. She had run from Jack, and from love, straight into Bobby's arms. There she had hidden for five long years until this man had come along to free her. Even if she refused to be his mistress—and she didn't believe for one second that he would attempt to force her—she wanted to tell someone about her past, wanted to be rid of it, free of it, cleansed and able to move on.

I could go to Geneva, she told herself frantically, and see how I feel once we get there. After all, he couldn't make her tell him. Any more than he could make her accept a role as his mistress. The final refusal would always lie with her. And she didn't really want to resign. Or walk out on her beloved work. She was proud of her Chauvin advertisement. And she hated not seeing a project through to completion. This one was so good, and so exciting. It could possibly even lead to more awards, and, although she no longer placed awards so highly in her heart, losing her personal life completely would leave an empty space in months to come, one that awards might just help fill. She'd worked so hard on this account, had held so many meetings with the creative team, the market research team, the financiers... How could she just give the whole thing up to get back at Gabriel? It would be childish and stupid, like cutting her nose off to spite her face. So long as she and Gabriel had separate bedrooms— and he had already assured her they would—she knew she'd be able to keep him at bay sexually. Surely that was all that mattered? She hardly needed to worry about herself giving in and agreeing to be his mistress. That would never, ever happen. Never, she thought, staring deep into his eyes with love. Never...

They landed in Geneva at midday.

A limousine met them at the airport and whisked them away. Tension ached between them as they sat in the luxurious silver leather seats of the car. They had both been wary of each other ever since he'd collected her this morning. It was as though they both knew that this was make or break, and neither could completely cope with that—or at least Rhiannon couldn't, eaten up with love for him and fear of what would happen when the business of the day was over and they were alone together at that fabled palace, L'Hotel Richemond. Geneva was a sophisticated European capital that spoke of numbered bank accounts, stolen diamonds and hidden power. With its grand white buildings and cool white lake, it had a mythical ambience. 'Do you intend to spend the whole day ignoring me?' Gabriel enquired with a charming smile as they rode across the city. 'I'm not ignoring you,' she replied huskily, shooting a quick sidelong glance at him. 'I'm just being businesslike. This is, after all, supposed to be a purely business trip, isn't it?' 'Yes, of course!' he murmured cynically, making her heart leap with the sardonic smile on his tough mouth. 'And try to keep it that way in the board meeting. I want them to treat your campaign with the respect it deserves.' She gave a hurt, angry smile. 'Oh, don't tell me you care whether the board of Chauvin treat me with respect or not, because I don't believe it!' 'Of course I care,' he said flatly, frowning. 'I've gone to a great deal of trouble to set this meeting up with all the power on your side. This is the last stage of the game. They know I've hired a new firm, but they don't realise the creative director is a woman.'

'What?' She stared in open-mouthed disbelief. 'Are you seriously trying to tell me they'll object to my sex?' 'They're not on the board of Chauvin for nothing!' he drawled, with a mercurial smile that lit his blue eyes and made her heart turn over with love. 'But isn't it all your decision?' she asked huskily. 'I thought you owned the company lock, stock and barrel?' 'I do. And of course I hold all the power. They can't cross me. But they can gossip amongst themselves, and I certainly don't want them to have any ammunition. After all, an unwise business decision is an unwise business decision—no matter how powerful the man who makes it. It's important to me that they realise I'm one hundred percent right in choosing you. So don't let me down.' Furious pride flared in her green eyes. 'Are you telling me you no longer believe in my work? Why, you—' 'I believe implicitly in your work,' he cut in coolly. 'But you're very emotional today, and with good reason.' She lowered her lashes, blushing angrily. 'I can assure you I won't allow that to interfere with my professionalism!' 'No.' His strong hand moved to hers, stroking her palm with a long linger and making her heart melt as she remembered the way he had sat beside her on that park bench, confessing his past, hand-in-hand with her like a lovesick teenager. 'But you might feel daunted by their objections to your sex. And I want you to turn to me if you do. If at any point you feel unable to handle it because of what's happening between us— just catch my eye and mouth the word "help!".'

Moved, she wanted suddenly to slide into his powerful arms and rest her head against his chest. But he could easily be showing such tenderness and sensitivity in order to make sure she capitulated later, when he got her alone in their hotel. His motives, at every turn, were so double-edged. That was one of the worst things about him. She could never be sure which were his true motives—the pure or the impure. Because there was always that choice to make in everything he did or said. Determined not to fall for it and be made a fool of, she said fiercely, 'I won't let you down. And I can certainly handle getting on with my job as professionally as possible—regardless of what's happening between us!' 'Good,' he murmured and let his hand slide to her thigh. Breathless, she just stared down at it, at the long fingers resting on the black and white check of her Chanel skirt, and the silver buttons of her matching jacket flashed in the sunlight. 'Have you thought about our little discussion?' Gabriel watched her through cynical eyes. 'Of course I have,' she said thickly, not wanting to remove his hand from her thigh because it felt too delicious. 'I couldn't sleep last night for thinking of it, if you must know!' 'I wish I'd been there,' he said softly, smiling. 'But we have tonight, don't we?' She shot him a hot look from below her lashes.

'And you will be telling me about your past as soon as we reach the hotel...?' 'I'll think about it!' she muttered rawly, and then the car came to a standstill, saving her from saying anything else. She looked up. The Chauvin headquarters gleamed in oak and glass on the banks of Lake Geneva. The crest above the door glittered pure gold in the sunlight. 'The last bastion of male privilege!' drawled Gabriel with some pride as a liveried doorman raced down the white steps towards the limousine. Gabriel stepped out of the car. 'Bienvenu, Monsieur Stone!' The doorman saluted him. He gave a cool nod, reached in a hand to take Rhiannon's and helped her out personally, making her heart somersault as she stepped onto the pavement with him towering beside her, tall and powerful and unutterably sexy. As they entered the hushed marble and gold halls of Chauvin people gasped and stared and rushed to pay homage to Gabriel Stone, their visiting king. He just strode through, giving a cool, cursory nod to one or two people, his strong hand at the small of Rhiannon's back as he guided her towards the gold lifts, and she couldn't help feeling proud to be with this powerful, successful and gorgeous man. 'When did you buy Chauvin?' she asked as they rode up in the lift.

'A few years ago.' He jingled the change in the trouser pockets of his superb grey Savile Row suit, every inch chairman of the board. 'I've always worn Chauvin watches. The sexism of it appeals to me.' 'I bet!' she said softly, staring at that tough profile with foolish admiration. The lift doors slid open. Gabriel took her wrist with commanding fingers and led her across the deep-pile elegant hallway to the double oak doors which led to the gold-crested boardroom. As soon as they entered, Gabriel was swamped by obsequious minions. 'Monsieur Stone...!' 'Bienvenu, encore!' How the men in sharp Swiss suits rushed to worship him—getting him coffee, crowding around him in the vast mahogany boardroom—and Gabriel stood coolly aloof, head and shoulders above every other man in the room, his powerful black head a stark outline against the views of Lake Geneva beyond the wide windows. Finally the meeting began. Everyone took their seats around the long polished table. Gabriel sat at the head of it, as a king should, dark head back against the vast leather chair, listening with cool concentration to everything that was said and making all the decisions. Soon it was close to three o'clock, and Philippe Valeche was summing up a market research report.

'And I therefore recommend,' Philippe Valeche concluded, 'that our advertising continues to be handled exclusively by men. Chauvin is a male-dominated—' 'Miss Windmorr will be handling all advertising for Chauvin from now on,' Gabriel interrupted coolly. There was a brief, stunned silence. All heads turned to stare at Rhiannon, sitting at the right hand of Gabriel Stone, looking smart, beautiful, intelligent—and female. 'But she's a woman!' 'Oh, she's all woman,' drawled Gabriel with a sardonic smile. The men laughed knowingly, making Rhiannon prickle as she realised just how ingrained their sexism was. And what could be done about it? It was their prerogative to hire any advertising executive they wanted, regardless of the basis on which they hired them. 'Monsieur Stone!' Philippe Valeche leaned forward, his paunch resting on the table. 'With all due respect, how can a woman be trusted with the advertising for a company such as Chauvin?' 'Because she is an experienced creative director,' he stated tersely, 'and she understands our requirements better than the whole pack of you.' They all stared in disbelief. 'But for a woman to handle this account!' protested Valeche. 'It's unheard of! In our entire history, since 1897, we've never—' 'Are you trying to tell me how to run my own company?' Gabriel's voice held an edge of steely menace.

Valeche's plump, perspiring face went white. 'Why, no, of course not, but I—' 'Then shut up while Miss Windmorr outlines her proposed campaign for us all.' His blue eyes were ruthless, his mouth a hard, uncompromising line,- and not one man in the room would have dared disobey, defy or challenge him. They all cowered visibly. Valeche swallowed hard, clearly shaken. 'Yes, sir.' 'Miss Windmorr...?' Gabriel flicked her a cool smile. 'Yes, of course.' She got to her feet, unzipped the vast leather portfolio and took out the copies of her proposal and handed them around the table whilst beginning her speech. 'Our slogan will be: "For everything—including time..."'

the

man

who

controls

Every man in the room beamed at once. Pack of chauvinists, she thought, wryly amused, and continued with her speech. It took only ten minutes, but by the time she had finished every face in the room was wreathed in smiles, including Philippe Valeche's. Proud of herself, she couldn't help flashing a look at Gabriel, and her heart soared with love as she saw the answering pride glittering in his blue eyes. 'Well?' Gabriel asked arrogantly, looking round the table. 'Brilliant,' Valeche conceded with a smile. 'I retract every word, Miss Windmorr. You understand our requirements better than any other advertising executive has ever done.'

'Thank you.' She smiled. He studied her for a second: 'Is it.. .because of a man in your life?' 'A man...?' She tensed, aware of Gabriel's eyes on her. 'Your lover, perhaps?' Valeche went on. 'A man with all the qualities of a Chauvin customer? Someone powerful, masculine, very much in control?' 'I...' She was breathless, afraid to speak. 'I ask,' said Valeche, 'because I think only your love for a chauvinistic man could have produced this campaign.' She went scarlet, not daring to look at Gabriel. 'You're hardly the kind of woman who would automatically adore a sexist swine. So you must genuinely love the chauvinist in your life.' There was a tense silence while Rhiannon stood there, feeling stripped naked in front of them all, afraid to look at Gabriel in case he guessed how accurate Valeche's words had been. Gabriel appeared to take pity on her, however, and suddenly got to his feet, drawling, 'I think that concludes the business of the day, gentlemen!' As they all shook hands with Gabriel and Rhiannon before filing out she managed to appear coolly professional. But she couldn't look at Gabriel. Not directly in the eye. Damn Philippe Valeche! Didn't he have any sense of tact? The door closed after the last executive.

Gabriel turned to look at her, his eyes dark and intense. He was thinking the same thing as her. She could see it in his face. Her heart raced with fear at the thought of discussing it with him. She didn't want the word 'love' to enter the conversation... 'Well...' she said huskily, clumsily. 'That seems to have gone better than expected—doesn't it?' 'Not trying to sidle out of the conversation, are you, Rhiannon?' 'What conversation?' Her heart drummed loudly. 'The one about the chauvinist you love.' He towered over her, making her body jangle with an excitement that she fought. 'Or are you suddenly averse to discussing chauvinists?' She jerked her gaze away, breathing hard, her heart beating so violently she was sure he must hear it. For some stupid reason she could not lie to him. And if he asked her directly—Do you love me?—she knew the truth would show in her eyes, her face, her demeanour. He could read her feelings too well. He was so shrewd, so clever, so completely attuned to every emotion in her. 'Rhiannon?' he asked softly, watching her with those gorgeous, arrogant, unfathomable eyes. 'Yes?' she said huskily, sneaking a quick glance up at him through her lashes and feeling as though she was going to collapse at his feet. 'Your response, please,' he murmured. 'On the subject of male chauvinists and how you might feel about them.'

She kept her head lowered, breathing rapidly, overwhelmed with love and desire but unable to show it, too convinced that he didn't care, and too afraid of being a fool, of losing his respect and her own. Suddenly he said, 'I think it's time we checked in at our hotel, don't you?' 'We do have separate bedrooms?' she demanded shakily. 'Don't we?' 'Very separate.' 'So I can just go to my room? While you go to yours? I mean—you're not planning a full-scale seduction for the rest of the afternoon, are you?' 'Of course not,' he said expressionlessly, and as his heavy lids drooped cynically over the hot fire of his blue eyes they both knew he was lying. Minutes later, they walked down the steps of Chauvin and into the sunlight. 'Le Richemond,' Gabriel tersely instructed the chauffeur, and then the wheels spun as they drove across the city to that legendary hotel near Jardin Brunswick. Desire and emotion crackled between them as they rode in silence, their eyes hungrily eating each other in the luxurious rear of the limousine, although neither of them spoke—neither of them dared. It was fast reaching make or break, and the tension was now unbearable. When they reached the hotel Gabriel leapt out fast, his strong hand pulling her after him, and strode up the steps to the fabulously expensive foyer, where chandeliers glittered and people spoke in hushed voices.

'Monsieur Stone!' The concierge bowed low. 'Everything is ready for you. If you'd just like to complete the usual forms...' Rhiannon waited, heart thudding, while he filled in the forms. What would happen once they got upstairs? How would she cope when he demanded she tell him about her past? After what had just happened in the boardroom of Chauvin, she knew she still had his utmost respect. And if he respected her that much, enough to defend and champion her as he had today, surely he must feel something for her? But did that mean she could trust him? Gabriel turned suddenly. 'Come on, let's go!' Let's go, she thought, walking along blindly beside him. The words seemed to hammer into her consciousness as though she had waited all her life to hear him say them. But did he actually care anything for her beyond sexual desire? Did he...? The yearning in her heart was so strong now that she didn't think she could bear to go on with this without breaking down and asking him outright if he loved her. But she was so afraid to hear his reply... The lift doors slid open on the seventh floor and Gabriel led her along an impressive corridor to a set of double doors with gleaming gold handles. 'Is this my room?' she asked, frowning as he unlocked the doors. 'No, it's our suite,' he said thickly. Her eyes widened and she tried to run, but he caught her by the shoulders and pushed her forcibly into the luxurious private hallway.

'I'm not staying in a suite with you!' Rhiannon cried hoarsely. He kicked the door shut. 'The bedrooms are still separate!' 'There are no locks on them, though!' 'No, but I promise I will not make love to you fully unless you ask me to!' His voice roughened as he held her, refused to let her get away. 'Rhiannon, I give you my word. You must believe me. Nothing is going to happen between us unless you agree to it.' Rhiannon laughed bitterly, but she did stop struggling. For a second he looked down at her with intense eyes, and she refused to meet them, breathing hard as she stood there with her head lowered, more vulnerable than she had ever felt in her life. Gabriel released her slowly, but he kept hold of her wrist. 'I think we can go inside now—don't you?' She gave a shaky nod. 'I... I suppose so...' He led her into the drawing room, decorated in pale cream and gold, with long French windows giving a dazzling view across Geneva while long lace curtains fluttered softly in the warm breeze. In the centre of the pale cream carpet he released his tough grip on her and slid his strong hands to her waist, holding her. 'I haven't brought you here for sex. I've brought you here to talk. Anu you know damned well what I want to talk about.' She looked away, breathing rapidly. 'I've been very patient with you, Rhiannon. I've moved every obstacle in my way and I've done it with the minimum hurt I could possibly

inflict on you in the process. I know things were tough with Bobby, but he had to go.' She moistened her lips, hands clinging to his powerful shoulders. 'He's not the one who's really been standing in my way,' Gabriel said under his breath. 'He was never the biggest obstacle. That particular accolade goes to the man before him.' She avoided his eyes, breathless with fear. 'The man who scared you off sex.' He was merciless now he had her cornered. 'The man who made you run into Bobby's arms and hide there for five years. The man I'm going to help you come to terms with.' 'How can you help me come to terms with him?' she demanded in a low, angry voice as she began to accept the inevitability of telling him the truth. 'You have no idea what he did to me, what he—' 'Rhiannon, I know this is going to be difficult for you—' 'How do you know that? You don't know anything!' Her eyes blazed as she pushed away from him. 'All you know is an equation. Something happened to me five years ago. Something that must have been connected with sex. So don't stand there telling me how much you know, and how you can help me come to terms with it, because the truth is that you don't know anything about it—not even the first thing!' Turning her back on him, she walked slowly to the open French doors at the far end of the extravagant and aristocratic drawing room, aware that the moment of truth had come and needing a moment's respite. She stepped out onto the balcony. Lake Geneva gleamed in the sunlight, and far away the Alps shimmered in the heat haze.

Drawing a shaky breath, she leaned against the stone balcony, let the sun warm her skin. The scent of freshly mown grass reached her nostrils from Jardin Brunswick; she could hear children playing. Well, she thought with a shaky smile, this is it. I've got to tell him. He's left me almost no choice... and it'll do me good in the long run. The whole thing had become a Gordian knot, and only one man was ruthless enough to cut it: Gabriel Stone. His cool footsteps sounded behind her on the balcony. Turning her head, she saw that he had removed his grey jacket. The tight grey waistcoat looked very sexy with the white shirt unbuttoned at the throat; the tie was gone now and that gold Chauvin watch was gleaming in the sunlight. They studied one another in silence. 'Was it rape?' he asked gently. Rhiannon shook her dark head, laughing under her breath as she looked back across the vista of lake and Alps, the warm breeze lifting her black hair in soft tendrils. 'No.. .it wasn't rape.' 'Good,' he said softly, smiling, and she knew he meant it. 'Then why not start at the beginning and tell me what happened, step by step?' She looked at the powerful man standing beside her, towering over her, and she felt his strength surrounding her, protecting her. No matter what she told him, he could cope. He wouldn't condemn her for it. He would support her. He was strong, really strong, in that he had his own weaknesses and recognised them, accepted them.

He was as ruthless as he was sensitive, as arrogant as he was kind, but the boy inside the man had been hurt too, so he would hold her hand and help her, as a friend, no matter how bad her past. 'Yes...' she heard herself say huskily. 'Yes, I'll tell you everything...'

CHAPTER EIGHT SHE felt his silent support, as powerful and immovable as the distant Alps, which shimmered far away on the horizon while Gabriel stood right beside her. 'His name was Jack,' she said softly. 'Jack Ratchett. He cut quite a dash in my home town. He was tall, dark and handsome.' 'How old were you when you met him?' 'Twenty-one. I didn't know him for very long. I was ambitious, you see. I studied hard for my A levels, then went straight to St Martin's College of Art in London. While I was there all I thought about was art, art, art. I certainly wasn't interested in boyfriends, although I went on a few dates. But basically I was only concerned with ambition. It wasn't until I left college and got a job at Solomon's that I relaxed and started thinking about love.' 'Which is precisely when you met Jack Ratchett?' Her eyes flicked away from him. 'Yes, I went home for Christmas that year and met him at a Boxing Day party. We started going out together at once. There were, £ lot of passionate kisses, but nothing else at first—although he did try to make love to me, and I managed to hold him off. He came up to London a lot after that, and each time we went out his kisses became more passionate.' 'How long did you see each other for?' 'Six months,' she said softly. 'That's all it was. And he began to put pressure on me to make love. After a while, it became such a big issue that I was afraid I'd lose him if I continued to refuse.' 'So when did you finally agree to go to bed with him?'

'I...' Her heart skipped with fear, but she forced herself to go on. 'We were spending the weekend in my home town. Jack took me out, got me drunk on champagne, then demanded I go back to his place. As soon as we got there he took me upstairs to his bedroom. I was excited, of course, but terrified too. I'd heard stories about how much it hurt. But I was in love, and determined to keep him.' 'So what happened?' he asked deeply, studying her averted face. 'Take your time, Rhiannon. You must tell me everything.' Fear made her tremble, but when she looked at Gabriel's strong, serious face she knew he would not condemn or judge her. And that was what she had always needed for her to be able to talk about this. She took a deep breath. 'He started kissing me. He— well, he got me onto the bed. Everything was going really well. I remember being naked with him and being scared and thinking, Just relax! This is natural! But then...' Her voice shook. "Then he started to make love properly, and it was so painful I just screamed and screamed...' She drew a shaky breath. 'He tried to keep going, but I was kicking and scratching and telling him to stop. It just hurt so much. Eventually he pulled out, but I was crying by then, and I think that made him even more angry.' Gabriel's blue eyes burned intently on her. 'What did he do?' 'He...' She was shaking like a leaf but determined to tell him now. 'He comforted me for a while, but I could tell he was irritated about having to. Then he said the reason it had hurt was because I wasn't enjoying it. He said it would be much easier for us both if he made me climax before he made love to me. He said it would relax my body and stop the pain. He said he had a good idea of what would turn me on, and I wasn't to be alarmed by anything he did.' Gabriel's ruthless eyes narrowed. 'Oh, yes...?'

'So he...' 'Yes...?' 'He tied me up.' 'Ah...' 'Don't say it like that! As though you knew that was what had happened all along!' 'Hey, come on...' He touched her flushed face with one strong hand, and his inner strength flowed through her. 'Don't lose sight of why you're telling me this.' She pushed a hand through her hair, managed to calm down a little. 'Yes.. .yes, I must tell you everything. But.. .it's so embarrassing! I can't believe it... all the things he did while I was tied up!' 'Such as?' 'Oh, don't tell me you can't imagine it!' 'I can, but I'd much rather hear you say it.' 'Yes, I bet you would!' she flung fiercely. 'It's probably straight out of one of your fantasies! A helpless woman, tied up and being dominated like that!' 'I'm much more interested in how you felt about it!' Hot colour flooded her face. She looked away, heart banging with fear.

I can't tell him the truth, she thought. He'll despise me. He'll treat me with contempt, just as I treated myself, and then I'll lose the respect he has for me. 'I...' She felt the half-truths tripping onto her tongue. 'I was appalled. I hated him for what he had done to me.' 'This was afterwards, was it?' he asked coolly. 'Yes,' she said thickly. 'Afterwards.' The blue eyes watched her knowingly. 'I see.' Her face burnt so hot she thought it would burst into flames, but still she could not look at him, and still she clung to her half-truths, that bag of assorted self- deceptions she had been carrying around for five years. 'Afterwards,' she said with emphasis, 'he untied me and acted as though everything was normal. I must have been in shock, because I remember wondering why sex with him hadn't been the wonderful, romantic experience I'd expected. I was distressed, so I told him I loved him. He tensed, then he looked at me and said, "Look, don't take me too seriously. I'm only in this for good times."' 'Did you ever see him again?' 'I bumped into him in a shop the next day and he just ignored me.' 'Shabby little creep,' Gabriel said with contempt. 'Yes. All he'd wanted from me all along was sex, and the minute he got it—he dumped me. I couldn't believe it. He spent six months getting me into bed. Six months!' She shook her head incredulously. 'Why did he go to such lengths?'

'You had an impeccable reputation. If none of the local boys had managed to get a kiss out of you, this guy probably couldn't resist the challenge of actually bedding you.' 'Yes, Jack had heard all about me...' 'But that wasn't what put you off sex, was it? Just being dumped like that would have hurt, but not destroyed your capacity for sex.' Her lashes flickered. 'No, it.. .it wasn't that.' 'Are you going to tell me what it was, then? Or shall I say it for you? It was what he did to you in bed. It was—' 'Gabriel, I—' 'It was the sexual angle that terrified you, made you run—' 'Please—' 'You enjoyed it.' Her eyes closed in defeat. On the stone balcony her fingers were white-knuckled, and all she could feel was the sun on her face, the breeze in her black hair and the humiliation of her secret desires. Gabriel said deeply, 'It's not that unusual, Rhiannon.' 'Don't, please...' she whispered, horrified at herself. 'I can't let you think the wrong thing about me. I—I admit I enjoyed it. But I didn't... I—I didn't actually...' 'Climax?' he murmured, and she nodded, head bent. 'No, I was too afraid of what was happening. I did enjoy it, but not to the fullest extent.' Her fingers traced over the balcony as she stared

down at it. 'I never understood that. How I could find it so incredibly exciting but be unable to—' 'Because he was the wrong man,' Gabriel said softly. 'That's all it boils down to.' Her eyes flashed to his face, searching for an answer. 'You're a strong, ambitious woman,' he said with a smile. 'It excites you to be dominated by a man who is stronger than you.' 'Is that why I... I enjoyed it and let him do all of that to me?' 'No,' he said flatly, unequivocally, his mouth a hard, angry line suddenly. 'You didn't have much of a choice where Ratchett was concerned. You were young, innocent and deeply in love. He ought to be put up against a wall and shot for what he did to you.' Her breath caught in astonishment. 'But I thought you said—' 'Rhiannon, most people experiment in bed. But it should only be done within the safety of a stable, loving relationship. It should be done gradually, slowly, with enormous trust and patience. And both parties must agree to what is about to take place.' 'You.. .you mean other people do that kind of thing too?' 'Well, of course they do,' he said gently, and touched her cheek with one strong hand. 'Darling, we're all human. We all have strange and sometimes forbidden desires. Nobody in a strong, loving relationship just goes to bed and uses the missionary position night after night, sometimes for forty years without a break.' 'Well, they surely don't tie each other up!' 'Why not?'

She gaped like a goldfish out of water. 'Well... because... I—well...!' 'Darling!' he laughed deeply. 'Sex is a natural reflection of every colour of the soul. But it's something you have to learn and get used to. You can't just jump in at the deep end like that.' Breathless, she heard herself say, 'Well, it—it did feel as though I was in some kind of shock...' 'Of course you were!' he said angrily. 'You were a virgin. Totally inexperienced and innocent. You should have been handled with kid gloves, introduced to that kind of experimental sex slowly, as part of a longstanding relationship.' 'So.. .so other people really might do that kind of thing?' She was still agog. 'Nice people? Good people? Normal people?' 'Yes, darling. There are plenty of normal people, all over the world, who do the most interesting things to each other in the privacy of their own bedrooms.' 'Really? What do they do?' Then her face ran scarlet. 'Oh! You shouldn't talk about things like that! It isn't nice!' 'It would certainly be a lot nicer if we were discussing it in bed together. Rhiannon tensed, her face draining of all colour as the fear came back at her like a rocket. His first chance to persuade her into the bedroom had come up, and he had taken it. Pain and anger sliced through her. How much clearer could he make it that all he wanted from her was sex? 'Well?' Gabriel asked softly, watching her face. 'Will you come into the bedroom with me?'

'No!' Her voice shook with the force of her rage and pain. 'No, I will not come into the bedroom with you. You—' 'Hey, I only suggested it as—' 'Oh, please, spare me the excuses!' she spat, shaking suddenly from head to foot as the atmosphere of total trust disintegrated completely. 'It's bad enough that you've conned me into telling you all the details of my one venture into womanhood! But to actually try to capitalise on it by getting me into bed—' 'I'm trying to help!' 'You're trying to help yourself!' she said hoarsely. 'And you ought to know that I despise you for it! How can you even attempt it after what I've just told you? Don't you know how much courage it took for me to say all of that? Or don't you care?' 'I care more than you know!' he bit out thickly, his mouth a hard line. 'Why must you always suspect my motives?' 'Because you're the most cynical, calculating man I've ever met!' 'That doesn't mean I don't have feelings!' 'The only feelings you have are below your waist!' she flung fiercely, and turned blindly to run from the balcony, unable to bear this a second longer. He ran after her. She ran faster, though, driven by pain and her desperation to escape. How could he live with himself? Just look at what he had done to her! Getting her to tell him everything, every last gory detail of her night with Jack. The humiliation she felt was beyond endurance. But the

worst part was the realisation that she would always be a fool to trust him, because he simply did not love her—and she had been stupid to believe, as they had left the boardroom of Chauvin, that he did. 'Stop it!' Gabriel suddenly caught her at the hall doors, grabbing her arm and pulling her back into the drawing room, breathing hard. 'Stop running out on me every time the going gets rough!' 'It couldn't get much rougher, could it?' She struggled angrily. 'Next thing I know you'll get me to confess my sexual fantasies! And I can just imagine how quickly you'll get me into bed over—' 'That's not what you're running from!' he bit out harshly. 'You're just plain terrified at the thought of what's happening between us!' 'Yes, because all you want is sex and—' 'Liar!' he shouted hoarsely. 'You did exactly the same when Bobby caught us together! You turned on me, blamed me, tried to tear up our relationship and then told me to get out! It was exactly the same!' 'I had every right to feel that way!' 'Only because I was stupid enough to give you a good reason to blame me!' he bit out. 'I know I was brutal and insensitive with you then, and I'm sorry. It was because I felt so triumphant. I couldn't believe I'd finally beaten the little pest! But this is different, Rhiannon. This is one finale you must not run from!' 'I'm not running!' she said furiously, hating him. 'I'm walking out, finally and for ever, on a disastrous mess that you keep trying to turn into a sordid little affair!' 'I asked you to bed because I genuinely feel—'

'Shut up!' Rhiannon exploded, tears stinging her eyes as she hit his broad shoulders with fierce hands. 'How many times must I tell you? I will not be your mistress!' 'I don't want you to be my mistress!' 'You lying—' 'I want you to be my wife!' Silence. Sunlight filled the aristocratic drawing room, filtering the particles of dust in the air. His face was darkly flushed, his blue eyes almost black with emotion. 'Damn you to hell!' he muttered hoarsely, then reached into the pocket of his grey waistcoat, withdrew a black velvet box. Rhiannon stared at it, breathless. 'I didn't want it to be like this! I wanted to do it properly, down on one knee...' His tough mouth twisted; his eyes were boyish with hurt. 'I might have known I'd end up blowing it at the last minute! Here!' He tossed the box carelessly at her and muttered huskily, 'Will you marry me?' She felt as though the world had tipped on its axis, sending her spinning dizzily into a fairy tale where love was real, life was wonderful and dreams really did come true. 'Gabriel...' she whispered, opening the box with trembling fingers, seeing the vast emerald surrounded by diamonds, then looking up into his face. 'I can't believe you mean it...!'

His eyes were brilliant with pain. 'Every last word. I've been in love with you for so long now, Rhiannon, that I—' 'I love you.' She flung herself into his arms, throwing caution to the winds as she let the box slip from her nerveless^ fingers. It thudded softly onto the carpet as she let her love flow out all over him, her mouth against his neck, kissing him endlessly as she whispered, 'I love you, I love you, I love you...' His arms went around her. His heart was slamming against his chest. 'Darling!' he muttered hoarsely, and buried his face in her hair. 'Say it again.. .say it for ever!' 'I've been in love with you all along, I think!' she whispered. 'I've been trying to hide it because I really did believe you only wanted sex, and—' 'Oh, darling,' he said thickly, kissing her hair. 'If only you knew how little sex really matters to an adult man. You might just as well offer to scratch my back as give me some free, casual sex. What on earth makes you think I'd go to all this trouble, put myself through emotional hell and chase you into the ground, just to get sex?' 'You kept talking about it.' 'Because I knew you needed help.' He drew back to look at her with love in his eyes. 'Darling, you have every right to enjoy a normal, natural sex life with the man who loves you. And I want you to be happy. You have no idea how important your happiness is to me.' Tears filled her eyes. 'I can't believe I've been so stupid. Hiding my love from you all this time, fighting you at every step...' 'Oh, don't regret it!' he whispered, smiling. 'If you only knew how heavily I fell, how quickly... It was as though I'd set a series of tests

for you and didn't know it. But you passed every one with flying colours, and I just toppled deeper and deeper in love with you.' 'It felt like a series of tests sometimes!' 'You were everything I'd dreamed of!' he said softly. 'When I first saw you at that fete you were the absolute living embodiment of my ideal woman. I wanted you on the spot. Then I asked the host who you were, and he told me you were Rhiannon Windmorr, creative director of Solomon's!' He laughed. 'I was thrilled! I'd heard so much about you already!' Her eyes widened with shock. 'You'd heard of me?' 'Jimmy Baron told me—remember? It was clear to both of us that Lynda was a little viper, and although Jimmy took her betrayal and used it he did feel bad about it. We were both sitting in a bar in Soho, getting drunk with the boys, when your replacement advert came over on the television.' She shook her head in disbelief. 'I don't believe it!' 'What an advert!' he drawled, laughing. 'The jungle, the panther, and then that car, long and sleek and black, shooting out from the trees like a bullet from a gun while the music came blasting in: "Wild thing"!' 'It was my first award-winner.' She smiled nostalgically. 'They said it was very Henri Rousseau!' 'It was superb,' Gabriel said softly. 'And I first saw it with Jimmy, in that bar. He turned and said to me, "I should have told my boneheaded son to marry Rhiannon Windmorr instead of that brazen hussy, Lynda!" But of course he knew he couldn't approach you after stealing your slogan, so he just left it at that. But he did regret it. And

I couldn't believe it when I found out that the gorgeous, sexy little gypsy I fancied like mad was the one and only Rhiannon Windmorr!' Blushing with pleasure at his compliments, she said, 'That was sneaky of you, to know so much about me and not tell me!' 'I know,' he confessed with a cynical smile. 'But I was far too interested in making love to you when I first saw you to stop and think that I might be about to fall headlong in love.' 'So I saw when you came into my tent making outrageous statements! No man had ever spoken to me like that in my life!' He laughed. 'Well, I wanted you. And I didn't know your true character. That's why I told you precisely who I was and then wrote out a fat cheque. I bet no one else has ever paid you a cool grand to read their cards!' 'Only you!' 'But you weren't impressed.' His tough face softened with love. 'In fact, you as good as told me to clear off with my name and my power and my money. And that's when I began to hope, really hope, that you might be my princess after all. The one woman who would see beyond the billions to the man, and love me for who I am.' 'You were so unbelievably cynical with me! I hated you for it! I'd never met such a ruthless, calculating and determined man!' His dark lashes flickered with uncertainty. 'You didn't want me at all, then? When we first met?' 'Oh...' She felt breathless, her heart banging. 'I wanted you very much, darling. I couldn't stop thinking about you from the moment I first saw you.'

'Me neither,' he confessed huskily. 'I went home in a state of tremendous excitement and started planning my next move. I figured if I approached you again like that, you'd just smack my face. That's why I hit on the idea of getting you to work for me on the Chauvin account.' 'I was furious with you for that. I hated myself for not just calling your bluff, or going to Steve myself to confess.' 'I'm glad you didn't,' he drawled softly. 'It was the only leverage I had with you. And I was so pleased with your work that night you came for dinner. It was everything that I'd expected and more. You really are quite brilliant, darling.' Her eyes loved him. 'Thank you.. .you don't know how much it means to me to know that you really do respect me.' 'More than you know,' he said softly, kissing her mouth. 'You have a brilliant future and I want to share it with you. My mother's a clever career woman too. I'm sure you'll get on with each other. I must take you out to New York soon to meet her.' 'That sounds fun.. .what does she do?' 'She's the editorial director of Style magazine,' he said proudly. 'I've already told her all about you. I didn't mention the fact that I was in love with you, of course, because it's not the sort of thing a man tells his mother.' She laughed softly, kissing his tough, cynical mouth. 'No...' 'But I'm sure she guessed,' he drawled sardonically. 'As did Kim. That's why she followed me to the airport that day. She took one look at your brave, honest face and knew you were the kind of woman I'd been waiting for.'

Rhiannon caught her breath in amazement. 'Did she tell you that?' 'Of course not,' he said cynically, his eyes flashing like blue steel. 'She just criticised you, put you down— generally tried to change my opinion of you. It didn't work, of course. I knew perfectly well what she was up to.' 'Did you, darling?' 'Hey—why do you think I set so many tests for you? Because I've never known a woman who was young, beautiful, sexy, intelligent and honest. Ever since I made my first fifty million—' Her eyes rounded at the sum, but he seemed to think nothing of it; he might just as well have been talking about fifty pounds. '—women have tried to get me to the altar. And they've tried every last trick in the book, Rhiannon. I got used to believing that all women were liars, cheats, gold-diggers and.. .shall we say.. .loose?' 'I can't remember you ever treating me like that.' 'No, but I gave you every opportunity to prove that that was what you were.' The cynical eyes watched her through drooping eyelids. 'Remember the slave outfit?' 'How could I ever forget?' she said flatly, shaking her head. 'I was so offended! What an outrage! Sending it to me with that disrespectful little note!' 'Darling—you don't know how many women would have put that slave outfit on. And then seductively removed it for me before dinner had even been served.' She lifted her head, green eyes blazing with self- respect. 'Not me!'

'I know!' he said softly, and bent his dark head to kiss her, a smile of love and pride in her on his tough mouth. 'And I was so thrilled when you arrived in your classy, sexy little suit—with your prepared speech on women's rights!' He laughed. 'I wanted to kiss you from head to foot!' 'You laughed at me!' she accused, narrowing her eyes but laughing softly too. 'Only because I didn't want you to guess how deeply I was falling in love,' he said huskily, and then his face tightened as he added bitingly, 'I was absolutely livid when Kim turned up. I could have killed her. She ruined a perfect evening and she did it deliberately. And then, to compound the crime, she managed to destroy it all over again by turning up at the damned airport! Talk about a bad penny!' 'I was so hurt when I saw that newspaper report...' She shuddered, closing her eyes. 'I was already in love with you then. I knew it the night you left for New York. But I was fighting it, darling. I was so scared...' 'I know,' he said gently. 'That's why I rang you from New York. My aide faxed me the article and I knew at once you'd be hurt. I also assumed, quite rightly, that you'd think I was a complete rat and would refuse to have anything more to do with me.' 'What else was I supposed to do?' 'You could have listened.' He made a wry face. 'I was going crazy on the other end of the line, talking endlessly, but unable to say the truth in case anyone else got hold of that tape.' She smiled and blushed, and said quietly, 'I—I kept the tape. I used to lie in bed and listen to it, just to hear your voice...' His tough face softened with love. 'Oh, darling...'

'I felt such a fool!' she whispered. 'But I was already so deeply in love with you that I couldn't help myself— even though I was scared, even though I knew the evidence was mounting up against you...' 'That's why I took it as slowly as I could. I know it must seem as though I rushed you off your feet, but I was scared too. One false move and I could have lost you to Bobby for ever. Another false move and I could have lost you to Jack's memory.' He sighed harshly. 'In fact, I could have lost you full-stop with all my insistence and domination tactics.' 'I love the dominant side of you,' she said huskily. 'It excited me so. You were right about that. The fact that you'll never let me dominate you is one of the reasons I love you. Because you make me a woman just by being the man you are.' 'I'm bigger and stronger than you, and don't you forget it!' he drawled, with an arrogant flash in his eyes that made her pulses race. 'I don't want to. Just one look at those ruthless eyes makes me want you so much I can barely stand...' 'Uh-huh!' he murmured, watching her through cynical eyelids. Shivers of sexual excitement shot through her. 'Oh, darling...' She buried her face in his throat, bowing to his power at last. 'The only man who's ever made me want to surrender!' 'And you're the only woman who's ever made me want to surrender, but not sexually. That's not my style. I take power sexually. You made me want to surrender to love!' 'Nothing else would ever have made me agree to your terms,' she said softly, stroking his dark hair.

'I know, and I'm glad,' he muttered thickly, holding her tight. 'I stopped believing in love when I was a teenager. I turned cold and hard and ruthless. And then, when I was ready for marriage.. .you came along with your honest heart and made me feel like a boy again.' She kissed him, whispering, 'I love everything you are!' 'Ditto,' he murmured huskily, kissing her. 'I love your naivety and your incredible sex appeal. What's more—I need your virtue and your intelligence. I need the fact that you can't be bought with money, and I admire the way you refused to betray your fiance, even though you clearly didn't love him. You're honest and brave and loyal and I...' He kissed her tenderly, whispering, 'I love you very much...' Her mouth opened beneath his as the kiss deepened, and she let her fingers caress his neck, slide through his dark silky hair, shivers of excitement rippling through her body. The kiss took fire. He gave a rough groan, pressing her closer, the hot onslaught of his mouth making passion flare between them as they wrapped themselves around each other. 'I want you so much!' he muttered hoarsely against her mouth. 'Yes...!' she whispered fiercely, her heart hammering with that sweet rush of desire that had become a regular occurrence since she had met him. 'Gabriel, take me to bed and teach me everything you know!' 'Oh, Rhiannon!' He groaned thickly and his heart started slamming against his chest again as his hands tightened on her waist. 'Are you sure? I can wait, you know, if you're still scared...' 'I've waited all my life, I think. And now that I've found the only man who can make me a woman, now that I trust you and believe in your love...' Her heart hammered with excitement and fear. 'I'm not saying I won't be scared. But I believe you'll help me. And I also believe

you're wicked enough to make me forget the fear when you do all those delicious things to me in the name of love.' 'Oh, yes,' he muttered fiercely. 'Oh, yes, yes, yes...!' Suddenly he scooped her up in his arms, and she gasped, watching his hard, handsome face with loving eyes as he began to carry her off to the land of passion. She buried her face in his throat, kissing him, trembling with excitement, telling herself that he loved her, he really loved her, that it would all be all right now, sex would never again be a source of fear and shame for her, not while this man was hers. He kicked open a door, strode into an unfamiliar bedroom, but it didn't matter because all they cared about was each other, and the explosion of pent-up longing which was about to send them both into ecstasy. 'You're not wearing your ring!' he said deeply as he laid her on the bed. 'Does that mean anything?' He slid on top of her, breathing rapidly. 'Are you going to accept my proposal? Will you—?' 'Yes!' Her hands reached up to slide over his neck, pull his tough, cynical face down for a kiss. 'Darling, I'd marry you any time, any place, anywhere!' 'Oh, thank God!' He kissed her, laughing unsteadily. 'But you didn't like the ring? I can get you another. It's not—' 'I love the ring!' she said softly, kissing him. 'It's just that possessions don't mean much to me. Especially when the man I love is proposing and telling me he loves me! Good heavens—who cares about a silly ring at a time like that?'

Moved, he kissed her deeply, and said with fierce emotion, 'And children? You'll have children with me? Lots of them?' 'A little dynasty for Gabriel Stone!' she whispered, tears of love in her eyes. 'A little rugby team!' 'I love you!' he muttered hoarsely against her mouth as he started to kiss her with feverish passion, and Rhiannon gave herself up to it, eager and naive and trembling with desire. He was going to be slow and gentle with her, she could tell. For he had fallen heavily in love, this powerful billionaire, and had lost his cynicism in her arms, recapturing the sweet romantic heart he'd once had, long ago, before all the disillusion and the harshness. Now it was his once more, along with all the dreams that came with it. And perhaps, she thought as the kiss deepened, that was as it should be. For only a man like him could ever have f6ught for her as valiantly as he had. Only a man like him could have completed her. Just as only a woman like her could have saved him from a life of hard cynicism without love, because only a woman like her could possibly have won his trust and brought his romantic heart back from its long- forgotten grave. He kissed her, held her close, told her he loved her as he began to undress her with shaking hands. She whispered, 'I'm yours.. .do with me as you will.' And he did.