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Leonora looked up at Gabriel, who was staring after Lazaro with a hard expression. Almost bitter. She said, ‘I didn’t realise you knew each other.’
He looked at her, jaw tight. ‘I’d prefer it if we didn’t but, yes, we do.’
‘You’ve known him since before the night of the engagement party?’
‘Yes, for a few years now.’
Leonora felt sick as things slid into place in her mind. ‘A few years?’
Instinctively she moved out of his embrace and stood apart. ‘You know him and you didn’t think it worth mentioning?’
‘I didn’t think it was relevant.’
Confusion and hurt and other emotions were swirling in Leonora’s gut now. ‘Not relevant? I slept with you on the night I was due to announce my engagement to him—the night you seduced me—and you didn’t think it was relevant?’
Gabriel looked around and took Leonora’s elbow, guiding her over to a corner of the room where a large plant shielded them a little. That only made her feel more incensed.
She pulled away again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you knew him?’
‘Because he’s not someone I think about unless I have to.’
‘You don’t like him—that much is obvious.’
‘No, I don’t.’
The implications of this were huge. ‘Why were you even at the engagement announcement if you don’t like him?’
Gabriel’s jaw clenched. ‘Because I needed to know what he was up to.’
Leonora shook her head to try and understand. ‘You came after me...after the interruption. I thought it was coincidental...but it wasn’t, was it?’
‘I came after you because I wanted you. You felt it too that night. And, I was concerned about you.’
But Leonora wasn’t hearing him. She was reliving what had happened in slow motion. She looked at him, feeling the blood drain south through her body, leaving her cold all over. ‘You seduced me just to get back at him. You seized an opportunity.’
Gabriel shook his head. ‘No, I seduced you because I wanted you—for no other reason.’
Leonora was aware of a sharp pain near her heart. ‘Are you telling me you weren’t in any way aware of the fact that it might get to Lazaro if you were seen with me?’
Gabriel flushed. ‘I admit I wasn’t unaware that it might irritate him if he saw pictures of us together, leaving the hotel. But once we got back to my apartment Lazaro Sanchez was the last person on my mind.’
Leonora shook her head. ‘You’ve used me from the very start—like a pawn. Is that why you proposed? Because it was another way to strike at your adversary?’
Leonora backed away from Gabriel. She had to leave before he saw how devastating this knowledge was to her. She turned and fled, apologising as she bumped into people in her bid to get out of the function room.
She emerged into a corridor and saw an elevator. The doors were closing and she ran, catching it just before they closed all the way. She stepped in, aware of people looking at her. Her heart was pounding. She felt wild. Undone.
She’d just been a pawn all along.
She saw Gabriel emerge from the room just as the doors closed. In that moment, when their eyes met for a split second, she hated him.
She didn’t think when she got out on the ground floor. She went straight to the entrance and jumped into the first taxi she saw...
* * *
Gabriel cursed loudly and colourfully enough to make people stop and look at him at the entrance of the grand hotel. He’d just seen a flash of blue dress and bare back disappear into a taxi and th
e car was already merging into the heavy Paris traffic.
