One Touch of Moondust (9 page)

“Yes. I mean you're an attractive woman. A man would have to be dead not to respond to you, even though he knows it's an impossible situation.”

“And you are far from dead,” she concluded.

“Exactly.”

“Would it help if I wore baggy clothes?”

He grinned at that. “I don't think so. I have a feeling you could wear a gunny sack and I'd see right through it. So to speak,” he amended.

“Any other suggestions?”

He stared at her helplessly, then shook his head.

She considered their situation analytically. Normally it was something she was very good
at. “Maybe we're going about this all wrong. Maybe we should just get this right out in the open. You're attracted to me. I'm attracted to you. We both know we shouldn't do anything about it, so that makes it forbidden and, therefore, all the more interesting.”

He held up a hand to interrupt her. “There's only one problem with that particular logic. Taken to its natural conclusion, we should just go right ahead and explore the possibilities and see where these feelings take us.”

Gabrielle swallowed hard. The idea had far more merit than she cared to admit. Every time she glanced at Paul's strong hands, she recalled the magic in his most casual caress. She glanced at them now and her skin burned. “I see what you mean,” she said shakily. “You think we'd be in even more trouble than we're in now.”

“I know it,” he said with such conviction that she smiled.

“Okay, I'm open to suggestions.” She leaned forward, eyes wide, and propped her chin in her hand.

Paul's eyes widened and he leaned away from her hurriedly. “Don't do that.”

“What?”

“Look so damnably inviting. You could tempt a man to ruin with that look.”

She did laugh at that. “If something's going to happen between us, it will be with our mutual consent, right? Since you want to keep this strictly platonic and so do I, we should have no problem. We're not a couple of lusty kids with no sense. It should be even easier beginning tomorrow. You'll be back at work. I'll be job-hunting. We probably won't even see each other.”

He seized on her logical, unemotional comments with transparent relief. “Absolutely. That's right.” He got to his feet looking far more relaxed than he had when he'd joined her a half hour earlier. She was surprised he didn't hold out his hand to be shaken. He was even whistling when he went back inside.

So, she thought when he had gone, it was all out in the open. Discussed and resolved exactly the way it should be between two rational, mature adults who knew a mistake when it stared them in the face.

Now all they had to do was live with it. And that was complicated by the realization that
with every hour that passed, she was having more and more difficulty recalling why she and Paul were so terribly wrong for each other. It sure as hell didn't have anything to do with artichokes. She didn't like them, either.

CHAPTER SIX

I
n the morning their unemotional, carefully conceived plan went wildly awry.

Still half-asleep and suffering from a splitting morning headache that she blamed totally on Paul's seductive invasion of her dreams, Gabrielle wandered barefooted into the chilly kitchen. She began running water for her bath, only dimly aware that there seemed to be plenty of hot water. Yawning, she slipped off her robe and climbed into the tub, sinking slowly down into the luxurious warmth. She
slid lower, sighed and rested her head against the back of the tub. Some of the tension began to ease in her shoulders and neck.

The she heard a door open. The bathroom door! Not five feet away. And only one person could possibly be opening that door at this hour of the morning, unless a particularly fastidious burglar had stopped in to shave.

“Paul, don't you dare come into this room!” Admittedly overly hysterical and definitely wide-awake, her screech echoed off the walls and made her head throb even more.

The door slammed shut, the noise like a shotgun blast reverberating through her head. She prayed he was on the far side of it.

“Dammit all, Gaby, we had a schedule.”

He had retreated. But even through the door, she could hear that his indignation was tempered by a slight breathlessness. Apparently her warning shout hadn't been quite in time to prevent a very thorough look at her unclad body. The temperature in the kitchen seemed to warm by several degrees, setting her cheeks aflame.

“I forgot it,” she said with unaccustomed meekness as embarrassment washed over her.

“It was your schedule. You wanted me out of the kitchen by seven-thirty. It is now seven-twelve.”

“Okay. So I didn't look at the clock. Are you going to kill me over eighteen measly little minutes?”

“I wouldn't if I were anywhere other than trapped in this bathroom. Get out of the tub. You'll have to finish your bath later, after I've had mine.”

She did not want to get out of this water, now that she was in it. She knew instinctively that there was not enough hot water in the entire building to give her a second bath this temperature. “Give me ten minutes. That's all.”

“Out,” he repeated with stubborn insistence. “You're on my time.”

“Five minutes,” she bargained, reaching hurriedly for the soap.

“Forget it. I have to get to work. I'm already running late. I might as well forget about my own bath. I'll be doing good just to make it across town. I am coming out now.”

It occurred to her that for a man she'd pegged as irresponsible, he was suddenly awfully conscious of time management. Under
the circumstances, the turnaround seemed extraordinarily suspicious.

“Don't you…” She began the warning with haughty indignation. It failed her as she heard the latch click. She stared at the opening door with a growing sense of incredulity and dismay. He was actually coming out. Wearing a towel and a frown. Her heart thumped unsteadily. His arms and shoulders were every bit as muscled as she'd imagined. His stomach… well, never mind. His stomach was much too low and definitely too bare for a lady to be studying.

Then she considered her own predicament. She glanced down. There were no bubbles in this water. No frothy covering. Not even a bar of soap floating on the surface. Come to think of it, there wasn't even a towel nearby. She hadn't been nearly alert enough to remember to bring one. Towels belonged in bathrooms. Then, again, so did tubs. Logic aside, the fact of the matter was that there probably wasn't a decent covering within twenty or thirty feet. In his current belligerent mood, she certainly couldn't count on Paul to supply one…except
perhaps for the one he was wearing and that would create far more problems than it solved.

“Paul Reed, if you're going to insist on walking through here, then you can at least close your eyes,” she said imperiously, lifting her gaze—very hurriedly—to clash defiantly with his. It was a tactic she'd seen her mother use with extraordinary success with everyone from her father to the gardener. They, however, had not reacted with the same amusement that played about Paul's lips.

“If I close my eyes, I'm liable to trip and join you in that water,” he pointed out, clearly unimpressed by the command in her tone. In fact, he looked as though he was beginning to enjoy her discomfort.

She switched to a heartfelt plea. “Then look at the counter. That'll guide you right out of here. Please.”

It was only after he'd done just that with her watching him warily, that she realized she was essentially trapped in the kitchen—in the damned tub—until he left the apartment. Of course, she could retreat to her room soaking wet, leaving a trail of water for Paul to complain about and wearing a silk robe that, when
wet, would reveal almost as much as it concealed. Or she could break down and request a towel.

She was still debating the relative merits of the alternatives when she heard a sharp intake of breath behind her. She held her own breath for the impatient outburst that was sure to follow.

“Dammit, Gaby, aren't you out of here yet?”

She sank lower in the now murky, icy water. She wanted very badly to respond to the exasperated tone. She wanted almost more than anything to tell him exactly where he could go with his badgering and his self-righteous indignation. She wanted to lambast his insensitivity to her predicament. She wanted to remind him of how any gentleman would have handled the situation.

The fact remained that she needed a towel and there wasn't a gentleman in sight.

“If you'll bring me a towel, I will be happy to get out of your way,” she said, substituting stiff formality for angry charges.

To her surprise he did exactly as she asked without a murmur. When he returned, however
, he lingered just a shade too long in the doorway. The ragged sound of his breathing warned her of his presence nearby. He was either dramatically out of shape or he'd paused to take in the view. She'd seen his well-toned muscles and bet readily on the latter. He was gawking again. Despite the rapidly cooling water, her skin burned under his slow, thorough surveillance. She recalled the smoldering deep blue of his eyes in the moonlit living room on Saturday night, the quickening then of his breath and her pulse.

Finally she heard his footsteps, soft and coming heart-stoppingly close. Unless his nobility was far stronger than she had any reason to credit him with, he could see quite clearly the tightening of her nipples just below the surface of the water, the bare plane of her belly, the shadowy triangle of hair below. Swallowing hard, she held out her hand for the towel.

“I'll hold it for you,” he said thickly.

They both knew it was not a gentlemanly gesture. Far from it. It was temptation. It was daring all sanity. But short of staying stubbornly right where she was so Paul could witness the deepening rose of a blush in her
cheeks and God knows where else, there seemed to be little alternative.

Furious, yet undeniably intrigued by the sensations rocketing through her, she shot a quick peek up. The indiscreet glance caught the visible rise and fall of his chest, saw the lines of tension at the corners of his mouth, the blatant hunger in his eyes as he caught her gaze and held it for an eternity.

Just when Gabrielle thought he'd stolen her breath forever with something as simple as a look, he closed his eyes and murmured something that sounded like a cross between a curse and a sigh of regret. He dropped the towel and left, slamming the front door behind him. The sound echoed through her soul.

Surrounded by deafening silence, Gabrielle trembled violently at the nearness of her escape.
Their
escape. She dressed hurriedly and left the apartment with a sense of urgency, trying to leave behind the undeniable thrill of pleasure she had felt for one all-too-brief, maddening moment under his hot, longing gaze. With pesky, troubling persistence, it followed her, creating distraction in its wake.

She remembered her all-important briefcase
midway to Manhattan. She snagged her last pair of expensive hose on a torn subway seat she would ordinarily have been alert enough to avoid. She filled out the first two-page job application with visibly shaky handwriting that bore little resemblance to her usual firm script. For a few panicky seconds she couldn't recall her new address. During her first interview, she found herself staring blankly at her prospective employer, unable to recall his name or his question, but remembering Paul's face all too vividly.

The interview ended shortly afterward with a noncommittal and unpromising handshake. For the first time in her life Gabrielle found herself ordering a drink with lunch. She downed the martini in two quick gulps and was tempted to order another. Only rigid selfdiscipline and the prospect of that two o'clock interview kept her from it. She never touched her salad. Her thoughts in turmoil, she ripped the crisp French roll into a mound of crumbs, then stared at the resulting mess in astonishment.

In the ladies' room, she examined herself in the mirror and caught the confusion in her
eyes. No man had ever taken her so much by surprise. No man had ever breached her defenses so skillfully, though many had tried. Worse, Paul wasn't even trying. He was as shaken as she was by the attraction that warred with an incompatibility so basic only a fool would ignore it. If ever their common sense failed simultaneously, however, she had no doubt the resulting explosion of desire would be thrilling beyond imagination. Sadly, their broken hearts would be destined to lie in the ultimate rubble of that explosion.

If she were wise, she would move out now. She would take an offer of temporary shelter with one of her friends and make Paul Reed nothing more than a distant memory. Without a doubt, she knew she should go while there were no wounds to heal. And yet.…

* * *

The hammer slipped, missing the nail and leaving a semicircular gash in the expensive mahogany paneling. Cursing, Paul glared at the offensive hammer. It wasn't his. His was at home, left behind with all of his other tools in his frantic race from the apartment that morning. Rather than returning for them and
risking yet another disconcerting encounter with Gabrielle, he'd been borrowing what he needed from the men he'd hired to work with him on this renovation job in an increasingly swank section of Brooklyn Heights.

Still muttering under his breath, he yanked out the few properly placed nails that held the damaged strip of wood, then tossed it aside. He was about to replace it when he heard a nervous cough.

“Uh, boss?”

Only one of his workers respectfully called him “boss.” He turned to stare into the concerned eyes of the skinny, blond eighteen-year-old he'd been training as a carpenter's assistant. His own expression softened. Underneath the often cocky demeanor and bitter cynicism, Mike was a good kid. He'd just needed somebody to believe in him, not unlike Paul himself had at that age.

“What's up, Mike?”

“Don't you think maybe you ought to take a break?” he said cautiously.