Tangled Destinies. Diana Palmer

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       CHAPTER TWO

      GABY HAD JUST left the elevator on the twelfth floor of the office building where Motocraft, Inc., was located when she collided with something big and warm and solid.

      She felt his hands before she looked up and saw his face. Big, warm, firm hands that kept her from pitching to the floor. Hands that her body remembered long before her eyes flooded with helpless memory.

      “Gaby?” His deep voice ran through her like ripples on clear water, and her heart beat crazily as she straightened, drowning in the spicy scent of his cologne, a scent she’d associated with him all the long years.

      Her wide green eyes searched his black ones, and all her resolutions to hate him, to wreak vengeance, went into stark eclipse. She’d heard of people being frozen in place, but until now she’d never actually experienced it. She didn’t move. She hardly breathed. The world narrowed to Marcus Stephano’s broad, dark face, and she looked and looked until her starving heart began to expand with feeling.

      Older. He was older. There were streaks of gray in the thick straight black hair that still fell onto his forehead in unruly strands. There were lines under his eyes, beside his chiseled, wide mouth. He was heavier than he used to be but was still all muscle: broad shoulders that strained against a beautifully tailored jacket, powerful legs that were barely encased in thin, close-fitting slacks. Under his brow his dark eyes narrowed and stared down at her unblinkingly, as if he, too, were comparing memory with reality.

      It was too quick. She’d expected that she might see him, dreaded and anticipated it with wild abandon. But she hadn’t expected that it would happen suddenly, like this, before she had time to prepare herself. It was like walking into a hole in a shallow creek.

      “Marc,” she said, her voice sounding ghostly, not its normal, sweet contralto.

      His chest expanded with what looked like a deliberate breath, but his face showed nothing. Just like old times.

      “Surely I haven’t changed that much, honey?” he asked, nothing hostile in his tone. “You’ve grown up, little Gaby. I hardly recognized you.”

      Her nails gripped her small purse until she thought they might pierce the delicate leather. But somehow she smiled.

      “I’m nine years older,” she reminded him. “Twenty-six, my last birthday.”

      “Yes, I know.” He let his eyes go slowly down her body. She felt almost as if he were touching her skin, and she trembled inside. Part of her was glad that she’d chosen to wear a silky, sleeveless beige dress that clung lovingly to her body and that she’d put her hair up into a sleek chignon. She looked elegant and sophisticated, and her eyes were triumphant when she saw the masculine appreciation in his hard face. “You were a bud then. You’ve blossomed.”

      “Quite,” she said in a haughty tone.

      He still didn’t react. His eyes went past her to Joe, as if he’d only just realized that his brother was with her. Joe’s face was an emotionless mask, and his hands were jammed deeply into his pockets.

      “Ciao, mio fratello,” Marc said in Italian, and smiled pleasantly at the younger man.

      “Hi,” Joe replied. “I thought Gaby might like to see the offices and meet David Smith, our vice president in charge of advertising.”

      “Oh, yes,” Marc said. He glanced at his watch and pulled a gold cigarette case from his inside pocket, his eyes steady and curious on Gaby’s flushed face. “You’re our new image, aren’t you, Gaby?”

      He seemed so condescending that she colored. So that was how he planned to play it. Very cool, she gave him that.

      “We’re lucky to get her,” Joe broke in, sounding more belligerent than she’d ever heard him.

      “Gaby’s reached the point where she’s turning down work these days.”

      “Yes, indeed,” she agreed, laying it on thick as she peered up at the taller man and treated him to a flirtatious smile. “I’m in demand, as they say. My bankbook runneth over.” Her eyes narrowed, and the smile iced over. “Sometimes I make more than five thousand a week.”

      She’d chosen the figure deliberately, and she watched it hit home, watched his expression freeze in place. He didn’t move for a long moment.

      “Nice for you,” he said then, and the mask was in place again. It had hardly slipped at all.

      “Nice for you, if this place is indicative of your empire, Mr. Stephano,” she said, glancing around at furnishings СКАЧАТЬ