The Man She Can't Forget

‘Does it?’ A visible muscle flinched at the side of his carved cheekbone. ‘At any rate, I’d advise you not to lose any sleep trying to figure it out.’

‘Meaning you don’t think I’m intelligent enough to understand?’

‘You always did take umbrage when you thought I was being mocking, didn’t you? Perhaps you should try not to take things so personally.’

As Lara mulled over the comment, to try and ascertain exactly what he meant, Gabriel moved across to where she sat, leaned down and gathered her hands in his. Then he silently pulled her to her feet.

There wasn’t an adequate description for the huge wave of both panic and pleasure that suddenly engulfed her...except maybe abject disbelief that it was happening. Over the years, she had fantasised many times about what it might be like if Gabriel ever touched her or held her close as if he meant it, and while her heart sang to have him near she couldn’t help but remember the time when he’d so purposefully moved her away from him and told her he could never be for her. But even that agonising memory couldn’t stop her from thinking that being close to him like this felt so—so right.

Then she realised that his brilliant blue gaze was examining her with a searching intensity that couldn’t help but make her apprehensive.

‘Tell me about Sean,’ he commanded quietly, his tone almost reverent, as though even uttering his friend’s name out loud distressed him.

Relieved that it wasn’t anything she’d inadvertently done or said that had made him study her so intently, Lara took a nervous swallow. It still upset her terribly to talk about Sean and remember afresh that he had died. The thought was akin to sharpened cold steel being plunged into her heart.

‘What do you want to know?’

Gabriel didn’t release her and she found she was in no hurry to be free. His hands were large and warm and they made her feel strangely secure, made her ache for the kind of loving, sensual protection that only a man like him could provide. She was suddenly aware of a small vein throbbing in his forehead.

‘Why—how did he contract malaria?’ he enquired huskily. ‘Don’t volunteers have to have some kind of protection before going out into these godforsaken places?’

‘Of course they do.’ Lara was taken aback by the underlying rage she heard in his voice...touched that he still felt so strongly about Sean after all these years.

She was angry, too, that the brother she’d loved so dearly had been ripped from her so suddenly and without warning, and the wounds of that loss were so great she feared they might never heal. Yet she wouldn’t run away from grief, no matter how hard it hurt. She’d made a vow to face it head-on and not wound her heart further by denying how she felt. Something told her that it would be disrespectful to Sean if she did. But still, she utterly sympathised with Gabriel’s confusion and pain.

‘He had all the necessary jabs and medical examinations before he went over there,’ she said softly, ‘but malaria is caused by a mosquito bite from an infected mosquito, as I’m sure you probably know. Shortly after his death, a tear in the netting over his bed was discovered. Unfortunately the charity was always short of the money to be able to replace the old ones when they were no longer any good.’

‘So he was given a faulty mosquito net?’ His tone disparaging, Gabriel abruptly dropped Lara’s hands and stepped away.

Feeling both bereft of his touch and chilled by the memory of how Sean had died, she crossed her arms over her cotton shirt and nodded sadly. ‘It seems so.’

As if he didn’t know what to do with his rage to contain it, he strode over to the other side of the room to stare blindly out at the sunlit garden. Suddenly he spun round again to face her. ‘How could Sean have been such an idiot?’ he asked angrily.

‘What?’ The brutal question had the same effect on Lara as if Gabriel had slapped her hard across the face.

‘I mean, why didn’t he think of the consequences of being so careless about his own welfare? Probably because he’d never dream of putting himself first—and that was the problem. Why else would he accept a faulty net and risk being bitten? Even if he hadn’t realised it wasn’t intact. He should have checked. But he was always too busy thinking about others, wasn’t he? No wonder he went into charity work. What a waste that turned out to be.’

His blue eyes glittered with fury and then, seconds later, looked utterly desolate.

‘He was a genius at maths and science. He could have gone into any investment bank or financial concern and gone straight to the top. If it was so important to him to support worthy causes he could have done so from the safety of his office, using as much of his money as he wanted, without putting himself in the eye of the damn storm! It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there—a world where it’s every man for himself—and if you don’t make yourself number one then you’re dead in the water.’

As Gabriel angrily scraped his fingers through his hair it was clear that it was near impossible for him to contain his growing frustration.

‘God knows I told him that enough times. You’d think he would have had the common sense to take it on board.’

Taking a deep breath in, Lara slowly breathed out again. Her anxious heartbeat started to ease and return to a calmer rhythm. Gabriel hadn’t been being cruel when he’d asked how Sean could have been such an idiot—he was merely angry and frustrated at the senseless waste of his friend’s life. As they all were.

‘My brother was a good man—as I’m sure you know, Gabriel. And he was happy doing the work he’d chosen, helping others less fortunate than he was. It simply wasn’t in his nature to put himself first. I don’t know about you, but that’s the way I want to remember him. Happy and fulfilled and enjoying his life. I know that if he were still here he’d want you to be happy and fulfilled and enjoying your life, too. Are you?’

Her question hung suspended in the air like the sword of Damocles. Gabriel was staring at her as though transfixed, but then he rubbed his hand round his jaw in a bid to stir himself from the seeming trance he’d fallen into and shrugged.

‘In my view, being happy is given too much credence in this world. A far better goal is to aim to be successful. If you’re successful then that’s fulfilling. That at least gives you choices in life. Anyway...’

Moving back to his chair, he lifted his cup of tea to his lips and took a long draught. Then he put the cup and saucer back down and gave Lara a haunting smile that was part regret, part anguish.

‘I’m sorry if I upset you with my rant about Sean. But he was a good friend to me—probably the best friend I’ve ever had. I only wish I’d realised it sooner. I should have stayed in touch with him—but it’s too late now, isn’t it? It’s an absolute crime and a travesty that he was taken from us so soon. Please convey my heartfelt condolences to your parents, won’t you? I’m sorry they aren’t here for me to speak to personally. At any rate, I think it’s probably about time I went.’

The thought that he was leaving and that she might never see him again hit Lara like a thunderbolt.

Before she was sufficiently recovered from the shock to think it through properly, she blurted out, ‘Must you go? If you stay for a while we can have lunch together. You can even come for a walk with me and Barney first, if you like? A walk is the perfect remedy to blow the cobwebs away and clear your head. We’ve got woods at the back of the house, remember? I wish you’d seen them when the primroses were out in the spring—they were a picture.’

It was at that very moment that Gabriel knew he couldn’t walk away from this woman as easily as he wanted to—as easily as he should walk away. Because he knew if he stayed he would only hurt her. The savage hunger and need that he had buried inside for so long—and from time to time had sought to assuage with pretty bodies who only saw him as a ‘golden ticket’ to the lavish and expensive lifestyle they craved—would only end up consuming the innocent Lara and filling her with the most bitter regret for issuing that invitation to stay a while.

But Gabriel knew already that he couldn’t resist accepting it. And who could blame him for seeking sanctuary in her fresh and innocent company for a little while longer?

‘All right, then. I’ll stay...at least for lunch and a walk with Barney.’

‘That’s great. But you do realise I have an ulterior motive for asking?’

She smiled, and for the first time Gabriel noticed the two engaging and rather sexy dimples in her cheeks. But her words suddenly made him stiffen. He wasn’t ready for his illusions about her—if illusions were what they were—to be shattered so soon.

‘What motive would that be?’ he asked warily.

She lifted her slender shoulders, then dropped them again. ‘It’s just that I’ve been a bit lonely here on my own, surrounded by memories of my brother. It would be nice to have some company for a change to help take my mind off things.... That’s all I meant.’

Feeling ridiculously pleased at the admission, Gabriel relaxed. ‘Then far be it from me to deny you the one thing I can give you today. Shall we go for that walk now? The sun is shining and it’s a beautiful day. It would be a shame to waste it staying indoors.’

‘I agree.’ Lifting her long dark hair off her shoulders and dropping it down again behind her back, Lara moved gracefully across to the door. ‘I’ll just go and get my walking boots on—the terrain in the woods is quite rough and uneven in places. Will you be okay walking in those?’ Her glance was doubtful as she surveyed the ebony Italian loafers that he wore. ‘They look pretty chic and expensive.’

‘I would have brought something more suitable to change into if I’d known you were going to entice me into the woods with you,’ he remarked drolly, and his lips split into a grin when she blushed vividly.

‘Don’t kid yourself I’d even dream of such a thing. For one thing, I wouldn’t know how.’

Beneath his immaculate white shirt Gabriel’s heart started to pound disturbingly. More than that, a profoundly arousing heat invaded his blood.

‘Now, there’s a challenge if ever I heard one...’ he commented huskily.

‘I didn’t mean it as a challenge. I was only— Oh, never mind. I’ll go and get my boots on.’

Clearly flustered, Lara hurriedly left the room, and straight away Gabriel missed her presence and longed for her to return.

* * *

He was being introduced to a completely different world from the one he was used to inhabiting—a world that he realised he’d been missing for far too long.

Walking through the woods with the beauty he had once known as ‘Sean’s little sister’ by his side was delightful. She laughed often and unselfconsciously—a huskily engaging sound that made all the hairs stand up on the back of his neck. And every now and then a waft of the delightful perfume she wore, which smelled like a bouquet of wild flowers, deluged Gabriel’s senses and hit him in the gut. Coupled with the earthy, resinous scents that abounded in the woods, it made for a sensual experience bar none—a million miles away from the tense, charged atmosphere of Wall Street that was his usual daily experience.

‘I’m going to take Barney’s lead off now. This is his favourite neck of the woods. We know it well and I like to let him have a run.’