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Except it wasn’t her. Some chap answered.
“I’d like to speak to Gabrielle Hargreave,” I said.
“And who’s asking?” So, I’d gotten the correct number for her at least, but the voice on the other end of the line was hostile, so I figured there was nothing to lose.
“My name is Everley and I want to speak with her about a job she was hired to do at my home.”
“Well, she doesn’t want your blasted job, and she’s not coming back there ever, you arse.”
“Who is this speaking?”
“Someone who cares about her. Someone who cares that she’s ill with a fever right now, and worn out from the crazy shit you bloody well know you put her through. Who abandons a woman out in a storm for hours and then tells her she needs to leave as soon as she arrives? Who does that and then bothers her with messages to come back there?”
“I’ve made a mistake and I need to speak with her. Can you tell her to ring me?”
“I doubt it, but what I can tell you is that you’re going to fuck off now.”
Then the line went dead.
I’d bet money he wasn’t her man because he’d have said so if he was. She’d never corrected me when I’d addressed her as “Miss” either. Whoever that was who’d answered her mobile was somebody close, yes, but he wasn’t her husband and he wasn’t her boyfriend.
He said she was il
l, and that part didn’t sit well with me.
I felt badly about her being frightened and feeling unwell as she tried to find the house in the storm. I felt even worse about how I’d blown up at her when I saw her in the light and got a good look. What were the odds of that happening? She was such a goddamn mystery, no doubt about it. Was she an escort sent to dig up more sordid dirt on me, or had that part been all a misunderstanding as well? She claimed over and over she wasn’t working for any escort service. Langley was appalled at the suggestion. Finnegan had labeled me a tyrant, as had her unnamed telephone champion. Was I way off the mark with Gabrielle Hargreave?
I couldn’t stop thinking about the way she’d been in that closet with me at the National Gallery, though. It played and replayed over and over in my head. My body remembered all too well how she felt deliciously melted in my arms, submissive and content after I’d made her come. How she’d wanted everything we did together in those too-short minutes. That encounter had been all about the sex. Crazy, raging, filthy sex. I wanted to have her like that again. I wanted to believe she was just a grad student sent to do some important work, who just happened to have some incredible chemistry with me. I could still remember how she tasted, sweet and exotic, and how she let me have my way.
Tantalizing infuriating woman.
I went outside for my daily therapy in hopes of figuring it all out.
As I shot arrow after arrow into the targets, I thought about what had happened with her, and wondered if I would ever see her again. Or if I did manage to find her, would she ever allow me to apologize and make it up to her? It bothered me very much she was ill and had to travel on her own while feeling that way. I was sorry for upsetting her to the point of tears and driving her away. I needed to see her again so I could attempt to figure out where things had turned so horribly wrong. How had I read her so inaccurately?
I’d get my chance eventually. Despite my lot in life, I was genuinely optimistic about most things. And confident. It was just part of how I’d been made, and I knew how to fight for the win. I’d done it plenty of times, and under extreme pressures most people would never understand.
I did have her number. Gabrielle Hargreave would have to answer her own mobile phone sooner or later. And I would be on the other end of the line when she did.
SEVEN
London
15th August
“ARE you one hundred percent recovered, my lovely?”
“Getting there. You’ll be pleased to know I am not carrying any pathogens capable of sending you to bed for a week straight. I’m still on antibiotics for another ten days.”
“Depends on who’s in the bed with me, love.” Ben loved to tease with innuendo.
I laughed at him. “Well, trust me, you wouldn’t be thinking about sex for the next century if you felt like I did this past week. Strep throat is killer on the libido, Benny.”
“The main cause of strep throat is stress, you know. If you had more sex, you wouldn’t be so stressed.”
“Oh please. You are not feeding me that old line to go have random sex with some strange penis to avoid getting sick.”
He cocked a brow at me and smirked. “Do I ever seem stressed to you?”
