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A Bargain with the Enemy
Carole Mortimer
Gabriel D’Angelo: renowned and ruthlessArtist Bryn Jones has never forgiven Gabriel for sending her father to prison, tearing her family apart and breaking her heart in the process. But she has forged herself a new identity, away from the scandal and disgrace…until she wins the chance to exhibit at D’Angelo’s prestigious London gallery!International tycoon Gabriel D’Angelo is haunted by the unforgiving eyes that once stared at him across a crowded courtroom. Now the enticing Bryn is back, and this time she’ll play by his rules to get what she wants – and Gabriel’s determined that this bargain will be mutually pleasurable!‘Please help! I can’t put this book down!’ – Beverley, 67, WandsworthDiscover more at www.millsandboon.co.uk/carolemortimer


Bryn looked up at Gabriel sharply. ‘I don’t see how, when my name and appearance are so different from five years ago.’
He gave a humourless smile. ‘It’s unlikely I’d ever forget the young woman who glared her hatred across a courtroom at me for days on end; those eyes alone would have given you away.’
Bryn had never forgotten him either, but for quite a different reason.
Gabriel D’Angelo was quite simply the most charismatic and darkly intriguing man she had ever set eyes on. But it was more than that—he was more than that. Gabriel had awakened something deep inside the eighteen-year-old Sabryna that had filled her night-time fantasies for weeks before her father’s arrest, and months after the trial had ended.
The same fantasies had filled all of her nights since meeting Gabriel again a week ago. The same desire had caused her breath to catch in her throat when she turned to look at him. This man—Gabriel—awakened that hunger inside her just by being in the same room with her.
THE DEVILISH D’ANGELOS
Sinners named for saints …
Known around the world for the prestigious Archangel auction houses and galleries, in London, New York and Paris, the D’Angelo brothers are notorious for their prowess in the art world … and even more so for their exploits in their personal lives.
These Italian heartthrobs might have been named for angels, but their ruthless natures and powerful personas make them anything but angelic …
Soar to LONDON for Gabriel D’Angelo’s story in: A BARGAIN WITH THE ENEMY February 2014
Sail to NEW YORK for Raphael D’Angelo’s story in: A PRIZE BEYOND JEWELS April 2014
And coming soon …
Fly to PARIS for Michael D’Angelo’s story in: A D’ANGELO LIKE NO OTHER March 2014
Enter the exclusive world of the D’Angelos in this dazzling new trilogy from Carole Mortimer!
A Bargain with the Enemy
Carole Mortimer

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CAROLE MORTIMER was born in England, the youngest of three children. She began writing in 1978, and has now written over one hundred and fifty books for Harlequin Mills & Boon
. Carole has six sons: Matthew, Joshua, Timothy, Michael, David and Peter. She says, ‘I’m happily married to Peter senior; we’re best friends as well as lovers, which is probably the best recipe for a successful relationship. We live in a lovely part of England.’
Recent titles by the same author:
RUMOURS ON THE RED CARPET
(Scandal in the Spotlight) A TOUCH OF NOTORIETY A TASTE OF THE FORBIDDEN (Buenos Aires Nights) HIS REPUTATION PRECEDES HIM (The Lyonedes Legacy)
Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk
To my six wonderful sons. I am so proud of you all.
Contents
PROLOGUE (#ub485801c-f44c-5b13-be5b-1537098988e3)
CHAPTER ONE (#u8244084c-4772-5c19-ac9c-ce7495659a73)
CHAPTER TWO (#u5185db5b-d09f-55ea-af6f-2731afdd02f2)
CHAPTER THREE (#u0164deaa-3b65-58b1-8e8d-1bce822e4cc0)
CHAPTER FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SIX (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER NINE (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)
CHAPTER TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)
PROLOGUE
‘DON’T WORRY, MIK, he’ll be here.’
‘Take your damned feet off the desk,’ Michael snapped in reply to his brother’s reassurance, not even glancing up from the papers he was currently reading in the study at Archangel’s Rest, the secluded Berkshire home of the D’Angelo family. ‘And I’m not worried.’
‘Like hell you’re not!’ Rafe drawled lazily, making no effort to swing his black-booted feet down from where they rested on the front of his older brother’s desk.
‘I’m really not, Rafe,’ Michael assured mildly.
‘Do you know if—?’
‘I’m sure it can’t have escaped your notice that I’m trying to read!’ Michael sighed his impatience as he glared across the desk. He was dressed formally, as usual, in a pale blue shirt and neatly knotted navy blue silk tie, dark waistcoat and tailored trousers, the jacket to his suit draped over the back of his leather chair.
It had always been something of a family joke that their mother had chosen to name her three sons Michael, Raphael and Gabriel to go with the surname D’Angelo, and the three brothers had certainly taken their fair share of teasing about it when they were at boarding school. Not so much now they were all in their thirties, and the three of them had been able to utilise their names by making the three Archangel auction houses and galleries in London, New York and Paris the most prestigious privately owned galleries in the world.
Their grandfather, Carlo D’Angelo, had managed to bring his wealth with him when he fled Italy and settled in England almost seventy years ago before marrying an English girl, and producing a son, Giorgio: Michael, Raphael and Gabriel’s father.
Like his father before him, Giorgio had been an astute businessman, opening the first Archangel auction house and gallery in London thirty years ago, and adding to the D’Angelo wealth. When Giorgio retired ten years ago and he and his wife Ellen settled permanently in their Florida home, their three sons had turned that comfortable wealth into a veritable fortune by opening up similar Archangel galleries in New York and Paris, resulting in them now all being millionaires many times over.
‘And don’t call me Mik,’ Michael instructed harshly as he continued to read from the file in front of him. ‘You know how much I hate it.’
Of course Rafe knew that, and he considered it part of his job description as a younger brother to annoy the hell out of his older sibling!
Not that he had as many opportunities to do that nowadays with the three brothers usually at a different gallery at any one time. But they always made a point of meeting up for Christmas and each of their birthdays, and today was Michael’s thirty-fifth birthday. Rafe was a year younger and Gabriel, the ‘baby’ of the family, another year younger at thirty-three.
‘I last spoke to Gabriel a week or so ago.’ Rafe made a face.
‘Why the grimace?’ Michael quirked a dark brow.
‘No reason in particular—we all know that Gabe’s been in a bad mood for the past five years. I never understood the attraction myself.’ He shrugged. ‘She looked a mousy little thing to me, with just those big—’
‘Rafe!’ Michael cautioned in a growl.
‘—grey eyes to recommend her,’ Rafe completed dryly.
Michael’s mouth thinned. ‘I spoke to Gabriel two days ago.’
‘And?’ Rafe prompted impatiently when it became obvious his older brother was doing his usual clam impersonation.
Michael shrugged. ‘And he said he would arrive here in time for dinner this evening.’
‘Why the hell couldn’t you have just told me that earlier?’
Rafe swung his booted feet impatiently down onto the carpeted floor before rising restlessly to his feet. He ran an irritated hand through the short thickness of his sable-dark hair as he paced the room, tall and leanly muscled in a fitted black T-shirt and faded denims. ‘That would have been too easy, I suppose.’ He paused his pacing to glower at his older brother.
‘No doubt.’ Michael gave the ghost of a smile, eyes dark and unreadable, also as usual.
The three brothers had similar colouring, height and build; all a couple inches over six feet tall, with the same sable-black hair. Michael kept his hair short, his eyes so dark a brown they gleamed black and unfathomable.
Rafe’s hair was long enough to curl down onto his shoulders, his eyes so pale a brown they glowed a deep gold.
‘Well?’ he rasped impatiently as Michael added nothing to his earlier statement.
‘Well, what?’ His brother arched an arrogant brow as he relaxed back in his leather chair.
‘How was he?’
Michael shrugged. ‘As you said, as bad tempered as ever.’
Rafe grimaced. ‘You two are the pot and the kettle!’
‘I’m not bad tempered, Rafe, I just don’t choose to suffer fools gladly.’
He raised dark brows. ‘I trust I wasn’t included in that sweeping statement...?’
‘Hardly.’ Michael relaxed slightly. ‘And I prefer to think of all three of us as perhaps being just a little...intense.’
Some of Rafe’s own tension eased as he gave a rueful grin in acknowledgement of the probable reason none of them had ever married. The women they met were more often than not attracted to that dangerous edge so prevalent in the D’Angelo men, as much as they were to their obvious wealth. Obviously not a basis for a relationship other than the purely—or not so purely!—physical.
‘Maybe,’ he conceded dryly. ‘So what’s in the file you’ve been looking at so intently since I arrived?’
‘Ah.’ Michael grimaced.
Rafe eyed him warily. ‘Why do I have the feeling I’m not going to like this...?’
‘Probably because you aren’t.’ His brother turned the file around and pushed it across the desk.
Rafe read the name at the top of the file. ‘And who might Bryn Jones be?’
‘One of the entrants for the New Artists Exhibition being held at the London gallery next month,’ Michael supplied tersely.
‘Damn it, that’s the reason you knew Gabriel would be back today!’ He glared at his brother. ‘I’d totally forgotten that Gabriel’s taking over from you in London during the organisation of the exhibition.’
‘And I get to go to Paris for a while, yes,’ Michael drawled with satisfaction.
‘Intending to see the beautiful Lisette while you’re there?’ He eyed his brother knowingly.
Michael’s mouth tightened. ‘Who?’
The dismissive tone of his brother’s voice was enough to tell Rafe that Michael’s relationship with the ‘beautiful Lisette’ was not only over, but already forgotten. ‘So what’s so special about this Bryn Jones that you have a security file on him?’
Rafe knew there had to be a reason for Michael’s interest in this particular artist. There had been dozens of eager applicants for the New Artists Exhibition; since Gabriel had organised the first one in Paris three months ago and it had been such a success, they had decided to go ahead and hold a similar one in London next month.
‘Bryn Jones is a she,’ Michael corrected dryly.
Rafe’s brows rose. ‘I see....’
‘Somehow I doubt that,’ his brother drawled dismissively. ‘Maybe this picture will help....’ Michael lifted the top sheet of paper to pull out a black and white photograph. ‘I had Security download the image from one of the security discs at Archangel yesterday—’ which explained the slightly grainy quality of the picture ‘—when she came into the gallery to personally deliver her portfolio to Eric Sanders.’ Eric was their in-house art expert at the London gallery.
Rafe picked up the photograph so that he could take a closer look at the young woman pictured coming through the glass doors into the marbled entrance hall of the London gallery.
She was probably in her early to mid-twenties. The black-and-white photograph made it difficult to tell her exact colouring. Her just-below-ear-length hair, in a perky flicked-up style, looked to be light in shade, her appearance businesslike in a dark jacket and knee-length skirt, with a pale blouse beneath the jacket—none of which detracted in the least from the curvaceous body beneath!
She had a hauntingly beautiful face, Rafe acknowledged as he continued to study the photograph: heart-shaped, eyes light in colour, pert little nose between high cheekbones, her lips full and poutingly sensual with a delicately pointed chin above the slenderness of her throat.
A very arresting, and slightly familiar, face.
‘Why do I have the feeling that I know her?’ Rafe asked, lifting his head.
‘Probably because you do. We all do,’ Michael added tersely. ‘Try imagining her slightly more...rounded, with heavy, black-framed glasses, and long mousy-brown hair.’
‘Doesn’t sound like the sort of woman any of us would ever be attracted to—’ Rafe broke off abruptly, his gaze narrowing sharply, suspiciously, on the black-and-white photograph in front of him.
‘Oh, yes.... I forgot to mention that perhaps you should look closely at...the eyes,’ Michael drawled dryly.
Rafe glanced up quickly. ‘It can’t be! Can it?’ He studied the photograph more closely. ‘Are you saying this beautiful woman is Sabryna Harper?’
‘Yes,’ Michael bit out crisply.
‘William Harper’s daughter?’
‘The same.’ Michael nodded grimly.
Rafe’s jaw tightened as he easily recalled the uproar five years ago when William Harper had offered a supposedly previously unknown Turner for sale at their London gallery. Ordinarily the painting would have remained a secret until after authentication had been made and confirmed by the experts, but somehow its existence had been leaked to the press, sending the art world and the media into an excited frenzy as speculation about the painting’s authenticity became rife.
Gabriel had been in charge of the London gallery at the time, had gone to the Harper family home several times to discuss the painting while it was being authenticated, meeting both the wife and daughter of William Harper on those occasions. This made it doubly difficult for him when he’d had to declare the painting, having undergone extensive examination by the experts they had brought in from all over the world, to be a near-perfect forgery. Worse than that, the police investigation had proved that William Harper was solely responsible for the forgery, resulting in the other man being arrested and sent to prison for his crime.
His wife and teenage daughter had been hounded by the media throughout the trial and the whole sorry story had blown up again when Harper had died in prison just four months later, after which his wife and daughter had simply disappeared.
Until now, it would seem....
Rafe eyed Michael warily. ‘Are you absolutely sure it’s her?’
‘The file you’re looking at is from the private investigator I hired after I saw her at the gallery yesterday—’
‘You spoke to her?’
Michael shook his head. ‘I was passing through the entrance hall when Eric walked by with her. As I said, I thought I recognised her, and the private investigator was able to establish that Mary Harper resumed using her maiden name just weeks after her husband’s death, and her daughter’s surname was changed to the same by deed poll.’
‘And this Bryn Jones is really her?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what do you intend doing about it?’
‘Doing about what?’
Rafe breathed his impatience with his brother’s continued calm. ‘Well, she obviously can’t be one of the six new artists exhibited at Archangel next month.’
Michael raised dark brows. ‘Why can’t she?’
‘Well, for one thing her father was put in prison for attempting to involve one of our galleries in selling a forged painting!’ He eyed his brother. ‘Not only that, but Gabriel went to court and helped to put him there!’
‘And the sins of the father are to be passed down onto the daughter, is that it?’
‘No, of course that isn’t it! But—with a father like that, how do you even know the paintings in her portfolio are her own?’
‘They are.’ Michael nodded. ‘It’s all in the file. She attained a first-class arts degree. Has been trying to sell her paintings to other galleries for the past two years with very little success. I’ve looked at her portfolio, Rafe, and, despite what those other galleries may have thought, she’s good. More than good, she’s original, which is probably why the other galleries refused to take a chance on her work. Their loss is our gain. So much so that I have every intention of buying a Bryn Jones painting for my own collection.’
‘She’s going to be one of the final six artists?’
‘Without a doubt.’
‘And what about Gabriel?’
‘What about him?’
‘We warned him repeatedly but he refused to listen. She’s the reason he’s been in a bad mood for five years—how do you think he’s going to feel when he realises exactly who Bryn Jones really is?’ Rafe bit out exasperatedly.
‘Well, I think you’ll agree, she’s definitely improved with age!’ Michael said dryly.
There was no doubt about that. ‘This is just— Damn it, Michael!’
Michael’s mouth firmed. ‘Bryn Jones is a very talented artist, and she deserves her chance of being exhibited at Archangel.’
‘Have you even stopped to think why she might be doing this?’ Rafe frowned. ‘That she might have some ulterior motive, maybe some sort of revenge plot against us or Gabriel for what happened to her father?’
‘It did occur to me, yes.’ Michael nodded calmly.
‘And?’
He shrugged. ‘I’m willing to give her the benefit of the doubt at this stage.’
‘And Gabriel?’
‘Has assured me on numerous occasions that he’s an adult, and certainly doesn’t need his big brother interfering in his life, thank you very much!’ Michael drawled dryly.
Rafe gave an exasperated shake of his head as he began pacing the study. ‘You seriously don’t intend to tell Gabriel who she is?’
‘As I said, not at this stage,’ Michael confirmed. ‘Do you?’
Rafe had no idea yet what he was going to do with this information....
CHAPTER ONE
One week later...
SHE WAS ENTERING the enemy camp—again!—Bryn realised with a frown as she paused outside on the pavement to look up at the marble frontispiece of the biggest and the best of the privately owned galleries and auction houses in London, the name Archangel in large gold italics glittering in the sunlight above the wide glass entrance doors. Doors that swung open automatically as she stepped forward before walking purposefully into the high-ceilinged entrance hall.
Purposefully, because this really was the enemy camp as far as Bryn was concerned. The D’Angelos, Gabriel in particular, had been responsible for both breaking her heart and sending her father to prison five years ago....
She couldn’t think of that now, couldn’t allow herself to think of that now. She had to focus on the fact that the past two years of rejection from gallery after gallery were what had brought her to this desperate moment. The same two years, after leaving university with her degree, when she had believed the world was now her oyster, only to learn that the recognition she craved for her paintings was ever elusive.
Many of her friends from university had caved to the pressure of family and stretched finances and entered advertising or teaching instead of following their real dream of painting for a living. But not Bryn. Oh, no, she had stuck doggedly to her desire to have her paintings exhibited in a London gallery, believing that one day she would be able to make her mother proud of her and erase the shame of her family’s past.
Two years later she had been forced to admit defeat, not by abandoning her paintings, but by being left with no choice but to enter the New Artists competition at Archangel.
‘Miss Jones?’
She turned to look enquiringly at one of the two receptionists sitting behind the elegant cream-and-rose marble desk, which was an exact match for the rest of the marbled entrance hall; several huge columns in the same marble stretched from floor to ceiling, with beautiful glass cabinets protecting the priceless artefacts and magnificent jewellery on display.
And this was only the entrance hall; Bryn knew from her previous visit to the Archangel Gallery that the six salons leading off this vast hallway all housed yet more unique and beautiful treasures, and there were many more being prepared for auction in the vast basement beneath the building.
She straightened, determined not to be intimidated—or at least not to reveal that she was intimidated—by her elegant surroundings, or by the cool blonde and elegant receptionist who couldn’t be much older than her own twenty-three years. ‘Yes, I’m Miss Jones.’
‘Linda,’ the other woman supplied as she stood up from behind the desk and walked across the entrance hall, the three-inch heels of her black shoes clicking on the marble floor as she joined a hesitant Bryn still standing near the doorway.
Bryn felt distinctly underdressed in the fitted black trousers and loose flowered silk shirt she had chosen to wear for her second meeting with Eric Sanders, the gallery’s in-house art expert. ‘I have an appointment with Mr Sanders,’ she supplied softly.
Linda nodded. ‘If you would care to follow me to the lift? Mr D’Angelo left instructions for me to take you upstairs to his office as soon as you arrived.’
Bryn instantly stiffened, her feet suddenly feeling so leaden they appeared to have become weighted to the marble floor. ‘My appointment is with Mr Sanders.’
Linda turned with a swish of that perfectly groomed blonde hair as she realised Bryn wasn’t following her. ‘Mr D’Angelo is conducting the interviews this morning.’
Bryn’s tongue felt as if it were stuck to the roof of her suddenly dry mouth. ‘Mr D’Angelo?’ she managed to squeak.
The older woman nodded. ‘One of the three brothers who own this gallery.’ Bryn knew exactly who the three D’Angelo brothers were. She just had no idea which one Linda was referring to when she said ‘Mr D’Angelo’. The haughty and cold Michael? The arrogant playboy Raphael? Or the cruel Gabriel, who had taken her naive heart and trampled all over it?
It didn’t really matter which of the D’Angelo brothers it was; they were all arrogant and ruthless as far as Bryn was concerned, and she wouldn’t have come within twenty feet of a single one of them if not for the fact that she was as determined to become one of the six artists chosen to take part in the Archangel New Artists Exhibition next month, as she was desperate.
She gave a slow shake of her head. ‘I think there’s been some sort of mistake.’ She frowned. ‘Mr Sanders’ secretary phoned me and made the appointment.’
‘Because Mr D’Angelo was out of the country at the time,’ Linda said, nodding.
Bryn could only stand and stare at the other woman, wondering if it was too late for her to just cut and run while she still had the chance....
* * *
Gabriel rested his elbows on his desktop as he watched the link to the security camera in the entrance hall of the gallery on his laptop.
He had recognised Bryn Jones the moment she entered the gallery, of course. Seen the way she hesitated, before her expression turned to one of confusion as Linda spoke to her, followed by total stillness as her face went completely blank, making it easy for Gabriel to guess the moment Linda had told her that her appointment this morning was now with him rather than Eric.
Bryn Jones...
Or, more accurately, Sabryna Harper.
The last time Gabriel had seen Sabryna had been five years ago, day after day across a crowded courtroom. She had glared her dislike of him with glittering but velvet-soft dove-grey eyes from behind dark-framed glasses every time she so much as glanced at him. And she had glanced at him a lot!
Sabryna Harper had only been eighteen at the time, her figure voluptuously rounded, her manner a little clumsy and self-conscious, light brown hair growing silky and straight to just below her shoulders, dark-framed glasses making her eyes appear large and vulnerable. A vulnerability and appeal that Gabriel had been inexplicably drawn to.
Her figure had slimmed down to a svelte elegance that was shown to full advantage in a loose floral blouse and fitted trousers. The light brown hair looked as if it had been given blonde highlights, as well as being expertly cut and styled as it winged out perkily about her ears, nape and creamy, smooth brow. And she had dispensed with the dark-framed glasses, probably in favour of contact lenses. She also possessed a new self-confidence that had allowed her to walk into Archangel with purpose and determination.
The loss of weight was even more noticeable in her face; there were now slight hollows in her cheeks, revealing sculptured cheekbones either side of a pert little nose. Her mouth— Thank God Rafe had warned him about that sexy mouth. As it was, he had an arousal that would need several minutes to subside—the same minutes it would take Linda to bring Bryn Jones to his office, he hoped.
Would Gabriel have recognised this beautiful and confident young woman as the Sabryna Harper of five years ago if Rafe hadn’t prewarned him of her real identity, after Michael had decided to act with his usual arrogance by remaining silent on the subject?
Oh, yes, Gabriel had no doubts he would have recognised Sabryna. Voluptuous or slender, glasses or no glasses, slightly gauche or elegantly poised, he would have known Sabryna under any guise she cared to take on.
The question was, would she betray by word or deed that she remembered him too?
* * *
Delicious, decadent, sinful, melted-chocolate brown. It was the only way to describe the colour of Gabriel D’Angelo’s eyes, Bryn acknowledged with self-disgust as, Linda having delivered her to his office, she now stood in front of the marble desk looking at the man she had long considered her nemesis. The man who, with the whiplash of his arrogant and ruthless tongue, had not only helped to send her father to prison, but also succeeded in killing Sabryna Harper and necessitating that Bryn Jones rise from her ashes.
The same man that the youthful Sabryna had been beguiled by, kissed by and lost her heart to five years ago.
The same man who only weeks later had stood in a courtroom and condemned her father to prison.
The same man that Sabryna had looked at across that courtroom and known that she still wanted, despite what he was doing to her father. Just looking at him had aroused her when she should have felt nothing but hatred for him, robbing her of both breath and speech.
A reaction, a dangerous attraction, that in the years that followed Bryn had convinced herself she hadn’t felt. That the emotions that had bombarded her whenever she looked at him must have been dislike, perhaps even hate, because she couldn’t have still been attracted to him after what he had done to her family.
One look at him now and Bryn knew that she had been lying to herself for all these years; that Gabriel D’Angelo, despite being the one man she should never have been attracted to, never have allowed herself to be flattered by or allowed to kiss her, had then, and still now, held a dangerous fascination for her.
So much so that she could feel how his overpowering presence managed to dominate the dramatic and opulent elegance of the huge office with floor-to-ceiling windows looking out over the London skyline and original artwork adorning all of the delicate pink-silk-covered walls.
Gabriel D’Angelo...
A man who should by now—Bryn had many times wished it so!—be balding, running to fat, with lines of dissipation etched into his overbloated and self-indulgent face.
Instead, he was still well over six feet of taut, lean muscle, all shown to advantage in a dark and tailored designer-label suit that probably cost as much as a year of Bryn’s university fees! And his hair was just as thick and dark as she remembered it too, brushed casually back from his face to fall in silky ebony waves to just below the collar of his cream silk shirt.
As for his face...!
It was the face of a male model. The sort of face that women of all ages would have drooled over before buying whatever it was he was selling; a high intelligent brow above those sinful brown eyes, his nose aquiline, cheekbones high and sharply defined against light olive skin—with not a line in sight, of dissipation or otherwise! He had perfect chiselled lips—the top one fuller than the bottom—and the strong line of his jaw was exactly as Bryn remembered it: square and ruthlessly determined.
‘Miss Jones.’ His cultured voice, as Bryn had discovered five years ago, wasn’t in the least accented, as might have been expected from his name, but was as English as her own. The same deep and husky rumble of a voice that had once caused Bryn’s knees to quake, and had still done so even as she had listened to that voice condemn her father and seal his fate.
Bryn almost took a step back as Gabriel D’Angelo stood up and moved out from behind the marble desk. She managed to stand her ground as she realised he had only risen to his feet in order to hold out his hand to her in greeting. A lean and elegant hand totally in keeping with the strength Bryn could discern in every leanly muscled inch of him.
The sort of strength that she had no doubts was capable of crushing every bone in her own much smaller hand, if he chose to exert it.
Bryn gave an inward jolt as she realised he was studying her just as closely through narrowed lids, those melted chocolate-brown eyes appearing to see everything and miss nothing.
Would he recognise her as Sabryna Harper? Somehow she doubted it, given the fact that the gauche Sabryna, despite Gabriel having kissed her once, would have made very little impact on the life of a man like Gabriel D’Angelo, and there would have been so many other women in his life—and his bed!—during the past five years.
Besides which, her name was different, and she looked dramatically different: she was twenty pounds lighter, her hair was now cut short with blonde highlights, her face thinner, more angled, and she wore contact lenses rather than dark-framed glasses.
But was it possible—could Gabriel D’Angelo have recognised her, despite those changes?
Bryn moved one sweat-dampened hand surreptitiously against the thigh of her trousers before raising it with the intention of brushing it as briefly as possible against his much larger hand. A move Gabriel D’Angelo instantly circumvented as those long, lean fingers closed firmly about, and retained hold, of Bryn’s—instantly renewing and deepening that jolt of electricity, the sexual awareness, as it throbbed from his hand into hers, moving the length of her arm before settling in the fullness of her breasts, causing her nipples to tingle and harden beneath her blouse.
A jolt that Gabriel D’Angelo also felt, if the tightening of his fingers about hers and the increased narrowing of those captivating eyes, was any indication.
‘We meet at last, Miss Jones,’ Gabriel murmured as he deliberately continued to hold the slenderness of her hand firmly within his own.
Bryn blinked, her expression suddenly wary, those dove-grey eyes even more beautiful now that they weren’t hidden behind glasses. ‘I—I’m not sure what you mean.’
Gabriel wasn’t completely sure what he meant either!
Rafe’s advice, when the two brothers had met for dinner before he flew back to New York five days ago, had been that the easiest and best way for Gabriel to avoid any further unpleasantness with the Harper family was to simply tell Eric Sanders to take Bryn Jones off the list of possible candidates for the upcoming New Artists Exhibition.
And on a professional level Gabriel understood exactly why his brother had given him that advice; given the circumstances of his past history with her late father William Harper, it was sound, even necessary, advice.
Except...
Gabriel had a history with Bryn too. Brief, admittedly, just a stolen kiss when he had driven her home from visiting Archangel one evening, but he had hoped for more at the time, had thought of Bryn often the past five years, had wondered, speculated, what would have become of the two of them if not for the scandal that had ripped them apart.
Gabriel wasn’t in the least proud of the part he had played in the events of five years ago. Not William Harper’s conviction and incarceration for fraud, his death in prison just months later or the way in which his wife and teenage daughter had been hounded and harassed during the whole ordeal.
Against his brother’s advice Gabriel had tried to see Sabryna, both during the trial and after her father was sent to prison, but she had turned him away every time, refusing to answer the door to him and changing her number so he couldn’t call her either. Gabriel had decided to step back, to give her time, before approaching her again. And then William Harper had died in prison, putting an end to any hopes Gabriel might have had for himself and Sabryna ever having a relationship.
He had also taken an objective look, a purely professional look, over the past few days at the paintings Bryn Jones had submitted to the competition. They were really good—her still-life paintings so delicately executed it was almost possible for him to smell the rose petals falling gently down from the vase. To want to reach out and touch the ethereal beauty in a woman’s eyes as she looked down at the baby she held in her arms.
Gabriel could see genuine talent in every brush stroke, the sort of rare artistic talent that would one day make Bryn Jones’ paintings highly collectable, as both objects of beauty as well as a sound investment. Because of this Gabriel didn’t feel he could eliminate her as a candidate for the New Artists Exhibition just to save himself from the discomfort of facing her and having her hate every breath of air he took.
He did, however, have every intention of keeping the question of Bryn Jones’ own motivation for entering the competition in the forefront of any of his future dealings with her.
Gabriel released her hand abruptly before moving to retake his seat behind the desk, very aware that his earlier arousal had returned with a vengeance the moment he had touched the silky softness of Bryn’s hand. ‘I was referring to the fact that you’re the seventh, and last, candidate to have been interviewed in the past two days.’ The only candidate that Gabriel was interviewing personally, but she didn’t need to know that.
Her cheeks slowly paled. ‘The seventh candidate?’
He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘It’s always best to have a reserve, don’t you think?’
She was a reserve?
Bryn had been so desperate she had swallowed her pride, her dislike of all things D’Angelo, to enter their damned competition, only to be told she was a reserve?
Bryn had thought—believed—that being asked to come in to Archangel for another interview meant that she had been chosen as one of the final six artists for the Archangel New Artists Exhibition. And now Gabriel D’Angelo was telling her she was a reserve! Like an actor who was expected to learn all the lines and then stand in the wings of the theatre every night, in the full knowledge they might never have the chance to appear on the stage!
Had she been recognised after all? And if she had, was this Gabriel D’Angelo’s idea of amusing himself, of extracting further retribution for the scandal her father had brought upon the Archangel Gallery, and the three brothers who owned it, five years ago?
‘Are you quite well, Miss Jones?’ A frown now creased Gabriel’s brow as he stood up once again and moved round the desk. ‘You’ve gone very pale....’
No, Bryn wasn’t ‘well’. In fact she was feeling far from well! So much so that she didn’t even attempt to back away as Gabriel moved far too close to her. She had swallowed her pride, risked everything, the whole persona and life she had made for herself these past five years, by even bringing herself to the attention of the D’Angelo brothers, only to now be told she wasn’t good enough!
‘I— Is it possible I could have a glass of water?’ She raised a slightly shaking hand up to the dampness of her brow.
‘Of course.’ Gabriel was still frowning darkly as he strode across to the bar.
She was a reserve.
How disappointing was that?
How humiliating was that?
Damn it, she had been living in a state of nervous tension since entering the competition and this was the thanks she got at the end of all that anxiety, all that swallowed pride: to be made the reserve artist for the Exhibition!
‘I’ve changed my mind about the water,’ she snapped tautly as she straightened. ‘Do you have any whisky in there?’
Gabriel turned slowly, eyes narrowing as he saw that colour had returned to Bryn Jones’ cheeks, her eyes taking on a similar angry glow. A glow he easily recognised as being the same one he had felt directed at him across the courtroom. Why was Bryn suddenly so angry? They had been in the middle of a conversation about—
Ah. Gabriel had stated she was the seventh candidate being interviewed in a six-candidate competition.
Gabriel strolled back with the glass of whisky she had asked for. ‘I believe there’s been a misunderstanding—’
‘There certainly has.’ She nodded, taking the crystal glass of whisky he held out to her and drinking it down in one swallow, only to breathe in with a gasp before coughing as the fiery alcohol hit the back of her throat.
‘I think you’ll find that thirty-year-old single-malt whisky is meant to be sipped and savoured rather than guzzled down like lemonade at a child’s birthday party,’ Gabriel drawled dryly as he took the empty glass from her slightly lax fingers and placed it safely on his desk as she bent over at the waist, obviously still fighting for breath. ‘Should I—?’
‘Do not even think about slapping me on the back!’ she warned through gritted teeth as she straightened and saw his raised hand, her cheeks now a fiery red, eyes ringed with unshed tears caused by her choking fit.
At least, Gabriel hoped they were caused by her choking fit and not from disappointment. She had obviously misunderstood his earlier comment; he had caused this woman enough heartache already in her young life. ‘Would you care for that glass of water now...?’
She glared even more fiercely. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she snapped. ‘As for your offer, Mr D’Angelo—’
‘Gabriel.’
She blinked long silky lashes. ‘I beg your pardon?’
‘I asked that you call me Gabriel,’ he invited warmly.
A frown settled on her face. ‘What possible reason could I have for wanting to do that?’
Gabriel eyed her mockingly; with her hair styled in that short spiky fashion, at the moment she looked very much like a bristly, indignant hedgehog! ‘I thought, perhaps, in the interest of...a friendlier working relationship?’
She gave an inelegant snort. ‘We have no relationship, Mr D’Angelo, friendly, working or otherwise.’ She picked up her shoulder bag from where it had fallen to the floor during her choking fit. ‘And, while I’m sure many artists would feel flattered to be chosen seventh out of a six-candidate competition, I’m afraid I’m not one of them.’ She turned sharply on her heel and marched towards the door.
‘Bryn.’
She came to an abrupt halt at hearing her name spoken in that throaty rumble through those perfectly sculptured lips. The same chiselled lips that had once kissed her, that had filled her fantasies every night for months before, during, and after her father’s trial and incarceration.
Her name sounded...sensual, when spoken in that husky voice. Soft, seductive and definitely sensual. A sensuality Bryn’s body instantly responded to, her breasts once again feeling fuller, the nipples firming, aching.
Bryn turned slowly, her expression wary as she acknowledged, inwardly at least, that her traitorous body still thought Gabriel D’Angelo was the most decadent, wickedly attractive man she had ever set eyes on.
And it shouldn’t.
She shouldn’t.
How could she possibly still feel this way when this man had been instrumental in destroying her family?
They had been five tough years for both Bryn and her mother. The two of them had remained living in London while her father was in prison, only changing their surname and moving out of London after he had died.
On top of their grief had come the ordeal of finding somewhere to live, finally moving into the cottage they had found to rent in a little Welsh village.
Then had come the difficulty of Bryn finding and getting into a university that allowed her to live at home; she hadn’t wanted to leave her still-devastated mother on her own. Her mother was a trained nurse, and had found a job at a local hospital, but Bryn had had to settle for working in a local café and fitting her hours of study around her work shifts.
In amongst all that change and struggle there hadn’t been a lot of time for men in Bryn’s life—the odd date here and there, but never anything prolonged or intimate. Besides which, any serious involvement would have eventually necessitated that she confide her real name wasn’t Bryn Jones at all, and that her father had been William Harper, something she had been loath to do.
At least Bryn had thought, until now, that was the reason she had avoided any serious involvement....
To look at Gabriel D’Angelo now, however, to hear his voice again, and realise that he was the reason behind her lack of interest in other men, was humiliating in the extreme.
To realise, to know, that it was this man’s sensual good looks, that deep voice, that filled her senses and created a sexual tension within her without even trying.
To acknowledge that the hateful Gabriel D’Angelo, a man who had kissed her just the once, a kiss he had no doubt regretted as soon as it had happened, had been the yardstick against which Bryn had judged all other men for the past five years, was not only masochistic madness on her part, but disloyal to both her mother, and her father’s memory....
CHAPTER TWO
‘YOU’VE GONE PALE again,’ Gabriel said, striding determinedly towards where Bryn now stood transfixed and unmoving by the closed door of his office. A dark scowl creased his brow as he saw how the colour had once again leeched from those creamily smooth cheeks. ‘Perhaps you should sit down for a minute—’
‘Please don’t!’ She stepped back and away from the hand Gabriel had raised with the intention of lightly grasping her arm, her fingers tightly clutching her bag, her eyes deep pools of dark and angry velvet-grey as she gave a determined shake of her head. ‘I have to go.’
Gabriel’s mouth tightened at her aversion to his even touching her. ‘We haven’t finished our discussion yet, Bryn—’
‘Oh, it’s definitely finished, Mr D’Angelo,’ she assured him spiritedly. ‘As I said, thank you for the—the honour, of being chosen as the seventh candidate, but I really have no interest, or time, to waste on being a runner-up.’ Her eyes flashed darkly. ‘And I have no idea why you would ever have thought that I—’
‘You were far and away the best of the six candidates to be chosen for the exhibition, Bryn,’ Gabriel bit out briskly—before she had chance to dig a bigger hole for herself by insulting him even further. ‘I saved the best till last,’ he added dryly.
‘That I might be, so thank you for your interest, but—’ She broke off her tirade to stare up at him blankly as his words finally trickled through the haze of her anger. She moistened her lips—those sexily pouting lips!—with the tip of her tongue before speaking again. ‘Did you just say...?’
‘I did,’ Gabriel confirmed grimly.
‘But earlier you said— You told me that I was the seventh person being interviewed—’
‘And one of the previous six is the reserve. And happy to be so,’ he added harshly.
Bryn stared up at Gabriel as the full horror of what she had just done, what she had said, was replayed back to her in stark detail. At the same time realising he was right; at no time had Gabriel said she was the seventh-place candidate, only that she was the seventh artist being interviewed.
She swallowed as the nausea washed over her, and then swallowed again, to absolutely no avail, the single-malt whisky she had ‘guzzled down like lemonade at a child’s birthday party’ obviously at war with her empty stomach; she had been far too tense about coming back to the gallery to be able to eat any breakfast this morning. ‘I think I’m going to be sick!’ she gasped as she raised a hand over her mouth.
‘The bathroom is this way,’ Gabriel said quickly, lightly grasping her arm and pulling her towards a closed door on the opposite side of the office.
Bryn didn’t fight his hold on her this time, too busy trying to control the nausea to bother resisting as he threw open the bathroom door and pushed her inside. Bathroom? It was more like something you would find in a private home, with a full glass-enclosed walk-in shower along one wall, along with the cream porcelain facilities, and had to be as big as the whole of the bedsit in which Bryn had lived and painted this past year!
Bryn dropped her bag to the floor and ran across the room to hang her head over the toilet only just in time, as she immediately lost her battle with the nausea and was violently and disgustingly sick.
‘Well, that really was a complete waste of a thirty-year-old single-malt whisky!’ Gabriel commented dryly some minutes later, when it became obvious from Bryn’s dry retching that she had nothing else left in her stomach to bring up.
Adding further to her humiliation Bryn realised he must have remained in the bathroom the whole time she was being physically ill. ‘I’ll buy you a replacement bottle,’ she muttered as she flushed the toilet, and avoided so much as glancing at the dark figure looming in the doorway as she moved to the sink to turn on one of the gold taps and splash cold water onto her clammy cheeks.
‘At a thousand pounds a bottle?’
Bryn’s eyes were round with shock as she lowered the towel she had been patting against her cheeks, before turning to look at him as he leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across the broad width of his muscled chest.
She instantly wished she hadn’t looked at him as mockery gleamed evidently in his eyes. ‘Who pays that sort of money for—? You do, obviously,’ she acknowledged heavily as he raised his dark brows. ‘Okay, so maybe I can’t afford to buy you a replacement bottle right now.’
He gave an appreciative and throaty chuckle. And instantly threw Bryn into a state of rapid, heart-thumping awareness.
It had been years since she had seen Gabriel laugh—there had been no room for humour or soft words between them once her father had been arrested!—and the transformation that laughter made to his harshly handsome face reminded her of exactly why she had fallen so hard for him all those years ago.
She had believed—hoped—that if they should ever meet by chance, she wouldn’t still respond to him like this, but the warmth that now shone in his eyes, the laughter lines beside those eyes and the grooves that had appeared in his chiselled cheeks, along with the flash of straight white teeth between those sculptured and deeply sensual lips, instantly proved how wrong she had been to hope. Gabriel might be sinfully handsome when he wasn’t smiling, but he became lethally so when he was!
Bryn abruptly averted her gaze to finish drying her face and hands before checking her appearance in the mirror behind the sink—dark shadows beneath tired eyes, pale cheeks, throat slender and vulnerable. A vulnerability she simply couldn’t afford in this man’s presence.
She took a deep, controlling breath before turning back to face Gabriel. ‘I apologise for my comments earlier, Mr D’Angelo. They were both rude and premature—’
‘Stop there, Bryn,’ he interrupted as he straightened. ‘Abject apology doesn’t sit well on your defensive shoulders,’ he explained as she looked at him warily.
Angry colour rushed back into her cheeks. ‘You could have at least let me finish my apology before mocking me.’
He was obviously having difficulty holding back another smile as he answered her. ‘As I just said, abject apology doesn’t appear to come naturally to you!’
She sighed at the deserved rebuke. ‘I apologise once again.’ Bryn didn’t even attempt to meet his mocking gaze now as she instead kept her gaze fixed on the beautiful marble floor. She might know exactly why she harboured such resentment against this man, but as she had guessed—hoped—Gabriel didn’t remember her at all, and she didn’t want to do or say anything that would make him do so either.
‘Shall we go and finish our conversation now?’ he prompted briskly. ‘Or do you need to hang over my toilet for a while longer?’
Bryn gave a pained frown. ‘It was the whisky on top of an empty stomach.’ And the fact that she knew, as did he, that she had prejudged his words without so much as a single hesitation!
‘Of course it was,’ Gabriel humoured dryly as he stood aside for Bryn to precede him back into the office, only too well aware that it was her resentment towards him for past deeds that was responsible for her having jumped to the wrong conclusions. ‘And it’s sacrilege to drink single-malt whisky any other way but neat.’
‘At that price I can see that it would be, yes,’ he heard Bryn mutter derisively. A mutter he chose to ignore as he instead returned to the reason for her being there in the first place. ‘As I said, you are definitely one of the six candidates to have been chosen for the New Artists Exhibition being held in the gallery next month. Shall we sit down and discuss the details?’ He indicated the comfortable brown leather sofa and chairs arranged about the coffee table in front of those floor-to-ceiling picture windows.
‘Of course.’ She noticeably chose to sit in one of the armchairs, rather than on the sofa, before crossing one of her knees neatly over the other and looking up at him questioningly.
Gabriel didn’t join her immediately, but went to the bar instead to take a bottle of water from the refrigerator, collecting a clean glass as well, then walking back to place them both down on the coffee table in front of her before lowering his length down into the chair opposite hers.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured softly, taking the top off the bottle and pouring the water into the glass. She took a long, grateful swallow before speaking again. ‘Mr Sanders told me some of the details last week but obviously I’m interested in knowing more...’ Her tone was businesslike.
Gabriel studied her through narrowed lids as they went on to discuss the details of the exhibition more fully, Bryn writing down the details in a notebook she had taken from her bulky shoulder bag.
Five years ago this woman had still been sweetly innocent, a young woman poised on the cusp of womanhood, a combination that had both intrigued and fascinated him. The passing of those years had stripped away all that innocence, in regard to people and events, at least; Gabriel had no way of knowing whether Bryn was still physically innocent, although somehow he doubted it. Five years was a long time.
But not only had Bryn grown more beautiful during those years, she had also grown in confidence, especially where her art was concerned, and she talked on the subject with great knowledge and appreciation.
‘Have you ever thought of working in a gallery like Archangel?’ Gabriel prompted as their conversation drew to an end half an hour later.
Bryn looked up from placing her notebook back into her handbag. ‘Sorry?’
He shrugged. ‘You’re obviously knowledgeable on the subject, enthusiastic and bright, and those things would make you an asset to any gallery, not just Archangel.’
Bryn frowned as she looked warily at Gabriel across the glass coffee table, not sure if she had understood him correctly. ‘Are you offering me a job?’ she finally prompted incredulously.
He returned her gaze unblinkingly. ‘And if I was?’
‘Then my answer would have to be no! Thank you,’ she added belatedly as she realised she was once again being rude, a rudeness that was totally out of keeping with her expected role as one of the grateful finalists in the New Artists Exhibition.
‘Why would it?’
‘Why?’ She gave an impatient shake of her head at his even having to ask that question. ‘Because I want my paintings to hang in a gallery, to hopefully be sold in a gallery, not to work as an assistant in one!’
He shrugged. ‘Do you have something against taking a job to help pay the bills until that happens?’
Bryn eyed him guardedly, only too aware that her rent was due to be paid next week and that she had other bills that had reached the red-reminder stage too. And yes, a job did help to pay the bills, but she already had a job, at yet another café, even if it didn’t pay nearly well enough to cover both her monthly rent and the bills, no matter how much she tried to economise.
It was almost as if Gabriel had guessed that and was offering her charity....
She instantly chided herself; of course Gabriel D’Angelo wasn’t trying to help her. He just knew, as she did, that she was more than capable of doing the job he was offering, and he had no doubt assumed she would jump at the chance to work at Archangel, based on the fact that, historically, artists were known for starving in garrets.
Bryn wasn’t starving, exactly, she just didn’t eat some days. And while her third-floor bedsit wasn’t exactly a garret, it was barely big enough to swing the proverbial cat in, with one half of the room put aside for sleeping and cooking and the other half utilised as her studio.
‘No, of course not,’ she answered him lightly. ‘But I already have a job—’
‘At another gallery?’
Bryn frowned as she heard the sharpness in his tone. ‘What does it matter where I work?’
He raised dark brows. ‘It matters in this case because it would hardly be appropriate for your paintings to be displayed at Archangel when you’re working for another gallery.’
Good point, Bryn acknowledged ruefully. ‘Right.’ She nodded. ‘Well, I don’t work for another gallery. But I do have a job,’ she continued briskly as she bent down to retrieve her bag from the floor. ‘And my next shift starts in half an hour, so—’
‘Your next...shift?’
‘Yes, my next shift,’ Bryn confirmed abruptly, stung by the incredulity in his cultured voice. ‘I work behind the counter in a well-known coffee-shop franchise.’
His brows rose. ‘Latte, cappuccino, espresso and a low-calorie muffin? That sort of coffee-shop franchise?’
The previous half an hour of conversation had gone smoothly; it had even been enjoyable at times, as they’d discussed which paintings from her portfolio Bryn was going to show at the exhibition next month, the timelines and other necessary details. But that had so obviously only been a brief lull in the tension between them if Gabriel had now decided to pull his arrogant-millionaire rank on her. Bryn eyed him challengingly. ‘You have something against coffee shops?’
Those sculptured lips thinned. ‘I don’t recall ever having been inside one.’
Of course he hadn’t; people as rich as Gabriel D’Angelo frequented exclusive restaurants and fashionable bars, not high-street coffee shops.
‘But I do have something against one of my artists working in one of them, yes,’ he continued evenly.
She stiffened. ‘One of your artists?’
‘This will be your first public exhibition, I believe?’ he prompted evenly.
‘I’ve sold one or two paintings in smaller galleries in the past couple years,’ she came back with defensively.
‘But am I right in thinking this will be the first time that so many Bryn Jones paintings have been shown together in an official exhibition?’
‘Yes...’ Bryn confirmed slowly.
He nodded. ‘Then in future, whether you like it or not, your name will be linked with the Archangel Gallery.’
Bryn certainly didn’t like it. It had felt as if she were being forced to walk over burning-hot coals by even entering her paintings in a competition being run by the hateful D’Angelo brothers; she certainly didn’t like the idea of her name being for ever linked with either them or their galleries.
She hadn’t even told her mother of the desperation that had forced her to enter the competition, dreaded thinking how her mother would react if she were to ever find out Bryn was having her work shown at this gallery!
And maybe Bryn should have thought about that a little more deeply before deciding to walk over those burning hot coals and enter the competition.
Gabriel could almost actually see the war being waged inside Bryn’s head. The natural desire to have her artistic talent not only shown for the first time but also recognised for the talent that it was, obviously totally at war with her desire not to be in the least beholden, or associated with in the future, either the D’Angelo name or the Archangel Gallery. Yet another indication of how much she still disliked him and all he stood for. If he had needed any. Which he didn’t.
‘Your point being?’ Bryn now prompted guardedly.
He grimaced. ‘I think it would look better in the catalogue being printed and sent out to our clients before the exhibition if you weren’t listed as currently working in a coffee shop.’
‘Better for whom?’
Gabriel bit back his irritation with her challenging tone, having no intention of admitting that he had already known about her working in a coffee shop—and that it was him, personally, who didn’t like the idea of her working there. He might never have been into such an establishment, but he had driven past them numerous times, and the thought of Bryn being run ragged in such an establishment, day after day—evening after evening—just so that she could pay her bills every month, wasn’t particularly appealing.
Besides which, Gabriel also knew, from the discreet enquiries he had made about her once Rafe had told him exactly who she was, that Bryn Jones suffered a constant struggle to pay those bills. A job as an assistant at Archangel would go a long way to relieving her of that burden, at least.
A dark frown creased his brow. ‘What possible reason could you have for refusing a job here if it was offered to you?’
‘Let me see...’ She lifted a finger to her chin in exaggerated thought. ‘First, I don’t want to work in a gallery. Second, I don’t want to work in a gallery. And third, I don’t want to work in a gallery!’ Her eyes glittered determinedly.
‘This gallery in particular, or just any gallery?’ Gabriel questioned evenly.
‘Any gallery,’ Bryn answered firmly. ‘Besides, couldn’t it be considered as a little...incestuous, if I were to start working at Archangel now?’ she forestalled Gabriel D’Angelo’s next comment lightly.
‘Because of your inclusion in the exhibition?’
‘Exactly,’ she confirmed with satisfaction.
His mouth tightened. ‘And that’s your final answer?’
‘It is.’
He scowled darkly. ‘You’re very...intractable in your attitude, Miss Jones.’
‘I prefer to think of it as maintaining my independence, Mr D’Angelo,’ Bryn came back sharply.
‘Perhaps,’ he drawled as he stood up in one fluid movement, the dryness of his tone implying he thought the opposite. ‘I think we’ve said all that needs to be said for today. I have another appointment in—’ he glanced at the expensive-looking gold watch on his wrist ‘—ten minutes or so.’ He looked at her expectantly as she remained seated.
‘Oh. Right.’ Bryn stood up so hastily she accidentally kicked her bag across the floor, instantly scattering the contents far and wide. ‘Hells bells and blast it!’ She immediately dropped to her knees on the carpeted floor, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she began collecting up her scattered belongings, some of which were personal in the extreme, and cramming them back into her handbag.
‘I’ve always wondered what women kept in their handbags,’ Gabriel D’Angelo drawled in amusement.
‘Well, now you know!’ Bryn had paused to glare up at him, and instantly became aware of how his well over six feet of lean muscle towered over her so ominously. ‘And I would get this done a whole lot quicker if you were to help rather than just stand there grinning!’ Like an idiot, she could have added, but didn’t, because it wouldn’t have been the truth.
The last thing Gabriel was, or looked like when he grinned in that way, was an idiot; devilishly rakish, devastatingly attractive—lazily, sensuously so—and maybe even boyishly mischievous, as that grin knocked years off his age, but he certainly didn’t look like an idiot.
Besides which he had stopped grinning now, those chocolate-brown eyes narrowed on her in totally male assessment.
A frown creased Gabriel’s brow as he looked down at Bryn on her hands and knees in front of him. It was a...provocative pose, to say the least. As the ever-increasing bulge in his trousers testified.
Bryn’s cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly moist and parted and it should be illegal what those black trousers did for her heart-shaped bottom—and Gabriel’s arousal—bent over like that...!
‘Right,’ he rasped harshly as he crouched down beside her, his gaze averted as he gathered up the notebook and pen she had been using to make notes in earlier, as well as a small bottle of hand cream and a lip salve. ‘Hell’s bells and blast it...?’ he prompted gruffly, aware of her perfume now; nothing so anaemic as something floral for Bryn Jones, she was a mixture of spices, with an underlying hint of sensual woman.
He saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye. ‘My mother has never approved of a woman swearing, so I learnt to improvise at an early age.’
Gabriel only half listened to her answer as he moved down onto his knees. The smell of those spices—cinnamon, something fruity, maybe a hint of honey and that more elusive smell of sensual woman—all served to increase his awareness of the woman beside him. ‘A pot of white pepper, Bryn?’ he questioned as he held it up for inspection.
‘It’s cheaper than pepper spray!’ She snatched the pot from his hand before thrusting it back into her bag.
Gabriel sat back on his heels to look at her. ‘Pepper spray?’
‘I have to walk home late at night several times a week.’ She dismissed his concern without looking up, missing the frown of disapproval that clouded Gabriel’s face.
‘From the coffee shop,’ he said stiffly.
She gave him a brief glance before looking away again. ‘Why does that bother you so much?’
Good question. But not one Gabriel could answer. Not without revealing that he knew exactly who she was, and the part he felt he had played in her current circumstances—something her defensive attitude told him she definitely didn’t want from him.
And the past half hour in Bryn Jones’ company was enough to tell him that what she claimed as independence was actually defensive pride, and that she had more than her fair share of it.
Because of the scandal involving her father five years ago? No doubt that was a contributing factor, but Gabriel had a feeling she would have always been more than a little prickly; her feistiness was all too apparent in those flashing eyes and the stubborn tilt of her pointed chin.
‘I thought you had another appointment in a few minutes?’ She gave Gabriel a pointed look as he knelt unmoving beside her.
Make that a whole lot prickly! ‘I was just wondering what a third party, if they should walk into my office right now, would make of the two of us being down here on the floor together like this,’ Gabriel came back with deliberate and husky provocation.
‘We may just find out if your next appointment arrives early!’ Colour warmed her cheeks as she bent over to retrieve a lipstick from beneath the coffee table.
As that next appointment was the elderly Lord David Simmons, an avid art collector, Gabriel worried the other man might have a heart attack on the spot if he should catch so much as a glimpse of Bryn’s shapely backside!
‘Did I say something amusing?’ Bryn sat back on her heels to look at Gabriel, who was grinning again, his dark hair having fallen rakishly over his forehead, causing Bryn’s hands to curl into fists as she resisted the impulse to touch those silky dark locks.
‘Private joke.’ His grin faded, his eyes deepening almost to black as he continued to look at her intently.
Except Gabriel wasn’t looking at all of her, Bryn realised self-consciously, just her lips. Moist and slightly parted lips that she immediately clamped shut as she rose abruptly to her feet and slung her bag over her shoulder.
Only to as quickly freeze in place as she realised, with their difference in height, that Gabriel’s face was now level with her breasts.
A fact he took full advantage of as he made no effort to hide his interest in the fact that he could see Bryn’s bared breasts beneath the gauzy material of her floral blouse....
CHAPTER THREE
‘MR D’ANGELO...?’
‘Hmm?’ Gabriel couldn’t look up from the mesmerising view he currently had of Bryn’s breasts, full and perfect breasts, tipped by rosy areolas and plump nipples. Rapidly firming nipples that deepened in colour even as he continued to gaze at them.
‘Mr D’Angelo? Gabriel!’ Bryn’s voice became more urgent as he failed to respond.
Gabriel ran the tip of his tongue moistly over his lips as he imagined taking those nipples into his mouth and suckling hungrily, his roused shaft instantly throbbing its approval of the idea. ‘You aren’t wearing a bra....’
‘No. I—’
‘Do you intend to wear this blouse to work today?’ He scowled at the thought of Bryn’s seminaked breasts being ogled by other men across the counter of a high-street coffee shop.
‘We’re all required to wear a black T-shirt with the franchise logo on it,’ Bryn answered him dismissively. ‘And will you please get up!’ She grasped hold of his arm and tried to pull him to his feet.
A move that jiggled those plumped and roused breasts temptingly in front of Gabriel’s heated gaze. If he just moved forward, ever so slightly, he would be able to put his mouth on them and actually taste—
‘Damn it, Gabriel, someone is knocking on the door!’ Bryn hissed. The urgency of her tone, as much as the words, finally broke through Gabriel’s sexual haze, causing him to frown darkly as he realised exactly what he was doing. What he had been thinking of doing.
And with whom....
Bryn breathed out shakily as Gabriel finally rose abruptly to his feet, running his fingers impatiently through his hair as he shot her a scowling glance before striding across the room to wrench open the outer door.
‘I’m sorry, Mr D’Angelo, I didn’t realise Miss Jones was still here.’ The receptionist took a wary step back as she obviously saw and recognised the aggression in Gabriel’s scowling expression.
‘Good to see you again, Gabriel!’ The elderly man at the receptionist’s side appeared less concerned as he greeted the younger man warmly before stepping into the room and giving Bryn a friendly if curious glance. ‘Are you going to introduce me to your young lady?’ he prompted Gabriel.
‘I’m just Mr D’Angelo’s previous appointment,’ Bryn supplied quickly, dismissing even the suggestion of her and the arrogant Gabriel D’Angelo ever being a couple. ‘And I’ve already taken up far too much of his time,’ she added lightly as she joined them near the open doorway before turning a cool gaze on the still-frowning Gabriel.
Damn it, she was doing her best to allay the speculation she had seen in the receptionist’s eyes and the curiosity in Gabriel’s visitor’s. The least Gabriel could do was try to reciprocate rather than continuing to scowl his irritation at the interruption!
An interruption of what? Bryn wondered....
There had been no doubting the hunger she had seen in those seductive eyes as Gabriel had looked at her breasts so appreciatively, or the flush of arousal high in those sculptured cheeks as he had begun to lean towards her. Evidence that, if they hadn’t been interrupted by the knock on the door, he would have acted on that unmistakable hunger, and actually kissed her breasts? Perhaps more than kissed them?
Bryn felt her knees go weak just thinking of having those sculptured lips latching on to her aroused nipple, suckling deeply, his tongue a hot and arousing rasp—
‘Bryn, this is Lord David Simmons.’ Gabriel’s voice was harsh as he made the introduction. ‘David, this is Bryn Jones.’ His tone softened to politeness. ‘One of the six artists whose paintings will be appearing in the New Artists Exhibition next month.’
‘Indeed?’ David Simmons’ warm blue eyes lit up with pleasure as he and Bryn shook hands. ‘I’m very much looking forward to attending the exhibition,’ he informed Bryn warmly as he retained a hold on her hand. ‘I flew over to Paris two months ago to attend the New Artists Exhibition at the Archangel Gallery there, and I can assure you you’re in good hands with Gabriel here. He has a definite eye for recognising new talent.’
Bryn’s smile froze on her lips, not just at being told she was in good hands with Gabriel but also because she knew, only too well, that Gabriel had a definite eye for spotting a forgery too. She released her hand from David Simmons’.
‘Then no doubt I’ll see you again next month, Lord Simmons—’
‘Please, call me David,’ he invited warmly.
‘Bryn,’ she returned tautly, very much aware of Gabriel’s brooding presence beside her. ‘Now, if you will all excuse me...? I have another appointment as well.’
Gabriel knew Bryn’s other ‘appointment’ was her shift at the coffee shop, a fact that still displeased him greatly. His bad mood was added to by the way David Simmons, a man old enough to be Bryn’s grandfather, had maintained far too long a hold of her hand when introduced.
‘Linda, please make an appointment for Miss Jones, before she leaves, for her to see Eric on Monday,’ Gabriel instructed abruptly.
‘Certainly, Mr D’Angelo,’ the receptionist responded brightly.
Bryn blinked her long lashes. ‘May I ask what for?’
Gabriel’s mouth tightened. ‘We need more personal information and photographs for the catalogue we’re sending out to existing clients—as I believe we discussed earlier?’
Her cheeks coloured slightly at the rebuke, and a flash of anger illuminated her eyes. ‘Obviously I must have been so overwhelmed at being told I was one of the six artists chosen for the exhibition that I didn’t hear all the details that followed.’
Some of Gabriel’s tension eased as he saw the continued anger in Bryn’s eyes accompany her too-sweetly-made statement. It also reminded him that Bryn had actually been physically ill, rather than ‘overwhelmed’, once he had fully explained her inclusion in the exhibition, a nausea she had no doubt still been suffering from when the two of them had sat down together and discussed the details of what still had to be done before the exhibition.
Not to mention the distracting attention he had given her breasts a few minutes ago!
Not that Gabriel was particularly proud of that lapse; he had recognised five years ago that she represented a danger to his self-control, and his meeting today with the older and more self-assured—even more beautiful!—Bryn Jones had shown him that danger still existed. Very much so...
Perhaps he should have taken Rafe’s advice after all and stayed well away from Bryn Jones.
‘Just make the appointment, Bryn,’ he bit out tersely. ‘I’ll instruct Eric that he needs to explain those details to you again on Monday.’
She turned to give the older man a warm smile. ‘It was a pleasure to meet you, Lord Simmons. Mr D’Angelo.’ Her voice had noticeably cooled, and there was no smile, or mention of her feeling any of that same pleasure in meeting Gabriel.
‘Pretty girl,’ David Simmons remarked as the two men watched Bryn join Linda out in the hallway before closing the door firmly behind her.
‘Linda?’ Gabriel deliberately misunderstood the older man.
David gave him a knowing glance. ‘Does Miss Jones paint as beautifully as she looks?’
‘More so, if anything,’ Gabriel answered truthfully; Bryn’s work really was exceptional, and he had no doubt that David Simmons would recognise that talent as easily as he had, and would most likely be happy to buy one of her paintings in the exhibition next month.
‘Interesting...’ The older man nodded as he followed Gabriel to the seating area in front of the window.
It wasn’t until much later, after his business with David had been concluded and Linda had escorted the older man down the stairs that Gabriel was able to pause and replay his meeting with Bryn from earlier.
The prickly outspokenness she had been unable to hide had shown that she hadn’t even begun to forgive him for the part he had played in her father’s downfall. A defensive manner that was also an indication of the resentment she felt at having to be even slightly beholden to the D’Angelo family—clearly telling Gabriel that Bryn wouldn’t have entered the New Artists competition, or the Archangel Gallery, if she hadn’t considered it the very last resort. It was—
A glance across the office showed something glinting from beneath one of the armchairs. A something that, upon closer inspection, proved to be an item that he knew must have fallen out of Bryn’s handbag earlier.
* * *
‘And what can I get you to drink this evening— Gabriel?’ The last word came out much louder than Bryn would have wished after glancing up and seeing that her next customer was Gabriel D’Angelo.
A Gabriel D’Angelo who was much more casually dressed—but no less lethally attractive—than he had been in his office earlier today; he wore a thin black cashmere sweater, the sleeves pulled up to just below his elbows—which emphasised every toned muscle and dip of those broad shoulders, chest, and the flatness of his stomach—with faded denims resting comfortably on the leanness of his hips. His overlong dark hair had also been slightly tousled by the warm evening breeze outside and fell softly, rakishly, onto his brow.
He’d claimed earlier never to have been inside a coffee shop, which posed the question of what was he doing in one now? And not just any coffee shop, but the one in which Bryn worked, because there was no way she believed his being here was just a coincidence.

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