Wear My Ring: The Secret Wedding Dress / The Millionaire's Marriage Claim

CHAPTER FOUR

PAIGE’S phone rang, but no matter how hard she reached, how hard she tried, it was never enough. She couldn’t connect.

She woke up with a start, her heart thumping in her chest, her legs entangled in a mess of sheets, to find light pouring through her bedroom window. A quick glance at her bedside clock told her it was after ten. Once she realised it was a Sunday she relaxed. Wow, she hadn’t slept in that late in—

The buzzing of her landline told her she hadn’t dreamt that part at least.

She reached out, grabbed the phone, lay back on her bed with the back of her hand over her eyes to block out the light. Expecting it to be her mum, she sighed, ‘Hiya.’

‘Sleep well?’

Words became impossible as her mouth fell wide open. She had to swallow, twice, before saying, ‘Gabe?’

‘Making sure you got home okay last night.’

Her head was spinning. How did he get her number? She hadn’t given it to him. He’d looked her up? He’d looked her up! Oh, calm down. It doesn’t mean anything. He’s just being gentlemanly. Though what he’d done to her up against the doorjamb the night before was so far from gentlemanly she had to cross her legs to keep from suffering a relapse.

‘Paige?’

‘I hardly had to brave the night. I’m four floors down.’

‘As I well know.’ The heat in Gabe’s voice had Paige sliding deeper under her sheets. Until he added, ‘By way of a lift that, according to you, is contrary.’

‘You still think I’m making it up, don’t you?’

‘Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. In fact I’ve developed a soft spot for the thing.’

She could all but see his seductive smile down the phone. Feel his warm breath on her neck. His hot hands on her skin. How had she convinced herself a night with Gabe Hamilton would be enough? Maybe it would have been, if either of them had come with protection. And maybe she’d turn into a monkey at the next full moon.

Whatever might have been, after last night he’d been left wanting, and she was left wanting more. And not just getting out there and dating again more. Him more. Big dark Gabe Hamilton more. That was what came of diving in head first when she’d meant to test the water with a tentative toe. But it was too late to think about what she should have done. She was in this thing now. Why not make the most of it?

‘Where are you?’ she asked. Her body began to feel hot and soft by turns at the hope he would say he was outside her door.

‘Why?’

‘No reason.’

‘Liar,’ he rumbled. Not only did the man have a voice that could send a nun into a fit of hot trembles, he knew what to do with it. ‘I’m at Customs. Tearing the place down in search of my bed.’

‘Couldn’t sleep?’

‘Not so much. You?’

‘I slept fine.’ Deep, dreamy, delicious.

The low notes of Gabe’s laughter vibrated down the phone. And Paige bit her lip so as not to say anything else incriminating.

‘Glad to hear you’re safe and sound. And well slept. Now I’ve gotta see a man about a bed. See you ‘round, Eighth Floor.’ And then he was gone.

Paige pressed the phone to her hot ear a moment longer before she let her arm flop sideways, the phone dangling from her hand. She stared at the ceiling, at the bouncing blobs of sunlight reflecting off the prism dangling from the corner of her dressing-table mirror.

He’d checked to see if she made it home. Which was actually quite lovely. Kind of a good guy thing to do, in fact. But then he’d made no noise about when, or even if, she’d see him again before Friday’s party. Which was a decidedly bad boy thing to do.

She rolled onto her tummy and pressed her face into her pillow. If only he were outside her door with a condom tucked in the back pocket of his old jeans. Then he could have his wicked way with her, and they’d be even, and that would be that. Perhaps. Probably not.

It was a Sunday, she had nowhere else to be, so she closed her eyes and pictured herself flinging open her front door to find him standing there after all, though this time in her head he wore black leather trousers, a loose white shirt open to the navel, an eye-patch. He was so big and tall he’d fill her small kitchen—

Her eyes flew open and she sat up with a start as she remembered the wedding dress in its fluorescent bag still hanging over her dining chair.

She rubbed the heels of her palms against her eye socket and breathed out hard. Then she caught a glimpse of herself in the dressing-table mirror. Her eyes were smudged with old eyeliner, her hair a scrambled mess. And her mouth? It tasted like three-week-old bread.

Looking as she looked, with a wedding dress in her kitchen, hearing one note of that voice and she would still have let him into her apartment in half a second flat. No, she would have dragged him in. Had she completely lost her self-control?

That was that. Until his party Friday she was using the stairs.

As Gabe leaned against the wall of the lift transporting him silently to the fifteenth floor offices of BonaVenture Capital he couldn’t help comparing it with the one at the Botany Apartments. Light, bright, luxuriously spacious and prompt as this one was, it hadn’t the added benefit of having deposited pure temptation in the shape of a leggy blonde at his door two nights before. He knew which he preferred, hands down.

He was quite sure this casual dalliance would end up being a most welcome postscript to the unwelcome trip. Casual being the key word.

He liked women. Downright adored some of them. He’d been raised by a strong woman—his gran, after his parents died a week before his tenth birthday—so he respected the hell out of them. But his work kept him on the move, which made casual more workable. That, and the fact that the one and only time he’d attempted a hearts and roses relationship he’d been burned to a crisp.

He shifted his stance, but the discomfort that had settled over him remained. He preferred not to look back to that time. It was a big black hole in his past with the capability to suck him in if he gave it half a chance. Being back in Melbourne, heading into the BonaVenture offices where it had all come to a head made it nearby impossible not to remember, but he was determined to try.

And if losing himself in the warm, willing arms of Paige Danforth every now and then helped, then who was he to argue?

He was rubbing at the bite marks she’d left on his shoulder when the lift dinged. He pressed his feet into the floor and held his breath, only to lose it in a rush when the doors opened to an expansive foyer with a shining dark wooden floor, blood-red walls, and sunlight seeming to pour from every corner of the place even though he couldn’t see a single window.

He glanced back at the floor number to make sure lifts all over the city hadn’t suddenly gone mad.

It was only when he looked up that he saw a sign twice as long as he was tall advertising BonaVenture Capital in elegant white type that he was sure he was in the right place. This was his company, only nothing like it had been when he’d last been in Melbourne. Two years before? Three? Now he remembered Nate carrying on about paint swatches during a lot of emails and calls at one point. He’d agreed to Nate spending whatever he liked on the refit so long as he didn’t have to read another memo about the critical difference between Egg White Omelette and Alabaster Dream. Whichever way Nate had gone, it worked.

‘Wow,’ he bit out, shocked laughter rumbling in his chest.

Shrugging his laptop bag higher on his shoulder, Gabe slowly walked through the foyer dodging the hive of men and women in sharp suits bustling back and forth to and from hallways hidden away to the sides. To think it had been less than ten years since they’d started their venture capital firm with Nate’s trust fund, Gabe’s hard-earned savings from every job he’d had since he was twelve years old, and a business plan mapped out on a handful of beer napkins in a dark corner of their favourite pub while their college mates downed shots at the same table.

He remembered like it was yesterday, walking through the city the next morning, while the grey city turned gold with the magic touch of sunlight, feeling as if his life was finally about to begin. As if he literally had the whole world at his feet. As if brilliance was within his grasp.

And then a smidge under three years later he’d nearly lost it all. And he’d spent every second of the last seven years of his life making up for it.

He pressed his boots into the expensive floor and for the first time since that time he let himself wonder if they might have finally pulled through.

‘Buddy!’ Nate said, appearing from nowhere as if by osmosis. He must have noticed the surprise on Gabe’s face as he laughed loud enough to turn heads. ‘So what do you think? Gorgeous right?’

‘Egg White Omelette?’ he asked, pointing a thumb at the company name.

‘Plain old White,’ Nate said.

‘Who’d have thought?’

‘Want to see your office?’

‘Hell, yeah,’ Gabe said. Though for half a second he wondered if he deserved anything more than a hole in the wall considering how often he used the place. But Nate’s excitement soon had him feeling a glimmer of anticipation at what lay beyond the doors Nate had led him to. ‘So what does a partner in a schmancy joint like this get for his buck?’

Nate grinned as he opened the doors with a flourish to reveal a corner office big enough to host a pool tournament. Huge gleaming glass desk. Acres of lush dark carpet so thick you could swim in it. And that was it.

Gabe found himself forced to school his face so as not to show his intense disappointment at its lack of … something. Nate had decked it out exactly the same as his apartment. Bare. Static. Distinctly lacking garnish.

Nate slapped him on the back. ‘I’ll give you a minute to settle in. Take a lap or ten. Spin around like Julie Andrews on the hilltop.’

Then he was out of the door, leaving Gabe alone in the big empty room.

Feeling tight and antsy, he whipped the beanie off his head and ran his fingers hard through his hair, realising it needed a cut. At the rustle of his leather jacket sleeve it occurred to him he was probably the only person on the entire floor not in a suit.

‘And this is why I don’t come back here,’ he told the walls, which could only be Light Grey. Turned out slapping on a fresh coat of paint didn’t nullify his history with the place after all. He could feel it pressing in on him from every angle.

The only time he hadn’t felt the pressure was when he was with Paige. Deep in the rush he got when a blush rose up her elegant neck. In pounding lust every time he witnessed the love-affair her teeth had with her bottom lip. Drunk on the taste of her sweet skin. Unleashed by the bottomless wells of desire clouding her big blue eyes.

That was that. When he wasn’t doing what he came to Melbourne to do, he’d bury himself to the hilt in a most agreeable leggy blonde. And once the job was over, he wouldn’t be seen for dust.

His relief was short-lived when he saw Nate’s arms were filled with a pile of daunting-looking binders. Throwing them on the desk with a hearty thump, Nate said, ‘No need to tell you, I’m sure, how hush-hush this has to be.’

Gabe merely stared at Nate while he waited for the irony to sink in that he was telling that to the one man who’d learned that lesson the hard way.

‘Right,’ Nate said, with the good grace to look sheepish. ‘Now read up. And then I need your take. Are we going to list BonaVenture on the stock market, or what?’

Paige walked along the promenade, the heels of her ankle boots clacking rhythmically against the cobblestones, her long skirt clinging to her tights with static, her wool scarf flapping behind her. No wonder she loved winter. It had been nearly two days since her sexual jump start, and still every shift of fabric on her skin felt like a caress.

Her stomach rumbled expectantly at the scent of warm food flowing from the open doors of the run of restaurants below the apartment buildings lining the waterside. What the heck? She’d order The Brasserie’s melt-in-your-mouth steak and chips to go.

It had been a good day. The girl who delivered morning tea had brought her favourite raspberry and white-chocolate muffins. The first product for Ménage à Moi’s summer line arrived into the warehouse and looked gorgeous; all luscious fabrics and rich decadent colours, as sexy and sensuous as Carnival itself.

In fact she couldn’t remember enjoying her work so much in a good while. The past few months she’d found herself growing frustrated there too, hence the hyper-motivation to get the Brazil proposal off the ground. Discontent seemed to have crept into more parts of her life than she’d realised, which made no sense. Her life was exactly as she’d always planned for it to be. A great apartment, a great job, a great social life, and all of it on her own terms. What more could she want?

She shook her head. What mattered was that things were looking up. At work, and in the bedroom if the number of men who’d smiled at her that day was anything to go by. She’d felt so many eyes on her it was as if she were surrounded by a cloud of flirtatious energy. She’d smiled back but kept on walking. Happy to take her time, now her wheels were back on the track.

Her mobile beeped. For a brief second she imagined a naughty message from Gabe, not that she’d heard from him since that phone call the morning before. The one that had left her with so much idle sexual energy she’d cleaned her entire kitchen, oven included.

Until she remembered he didn’t have her mobile number, as only her home number was listed. He didn’t even know which apartment was hers as far as she knew, only her floor. Enough to track her down if he wanted to. Which in nearly forty-eight hours he hadn’t.

Why hadn’t he? Unless his phone call the day before had really been about making sure she’d made it home all right and nothing more.

She shook her head again. They weren’t dating. They were barely even lovers. She’d taken this thing as it had come so far and would continue to do so until it faded. Or he left. And that was that.

Nevertheless, when she checked her phone it was with a level of anticipation that left her knees quaking so much she had to pull over to the side of the cobbled path. When she saw the message was from her mum Paige’s good mood took a little trip sideways.

Miss you, darling, the message read. Paige grimaced. She knew that tone. It was the one where her mum was feeling sorry for herself, and wondering, even all these years later, if divorcing Paige’s dad had been the right thing to do.

Miss you too! Paige tapped into her phone, looking up every second or two to make sure nobody barrelled into her. Want me to come over for dinner?

You’re busy. You probably have plans.

Paige bit her lip at the thought of the steak and chips for one she had planned. But her day really had been so good. And if she had any intention of retaining the new lightness in her step she really needed it to stay that way.

Next weekend, then, she tapped in. Shopping. Last of the big spenders.

Perfect. Love you, baby.

Paige slid her phone into her huge bag with a sigh.

She loved her mum. They’d always been close. They’d had to be. When her dad was home, it felt as if he was biding his time till his next tour. And when he was off overseas playing cricket it was for months at a time. And as it had turned out most of that time was spent shacked up with some girl or another while her mum looked the other way …

Paige would never let herself be taken advantage of in that way. Never let someone mean so much it would be to the detriment of her own dreams. Never be made a fool of for love. Not for all the raspberry white-chocolate muffins on the planet.

When she felt the deepening evening crowd parting around her, Paige shoved her hands under her armpits to get the feeling back into them as she walked a little more slowly home.

Her recent malaise really made no sense at all. Her life was perfect because she was in complete control.

And she knew how to prove it.

Gabe lounged on his huge uncomfortable leather couch; still in his jacket and boots, legs splayed in front, neck resting against the hard back, eyes closed to the cool moonlight spilling over him.