live-in secretary was gone, of course. The space had been turned into a bland guest room. Except…
She saw the brand-new elliptical wooden crib beside the bed, the changing table with diapers and baby clothes and everything else Robby might need. She exclaimed with delight as she touched the smooth wood. In the closet, she saw new clothes for her, as well. Gabriel had truly thought of everything. Going to the closet, she touched a black dress with a soft, satisfied sigh.
Then she saw the size on the tag.
Well, she thought with dismay, he hadn’t thought of everything .
CHAPTER FIVE
T EN MINUTES LATER , Gabriel paced beneath the hot sun across his rooftop terrace. He stopped, staring down at Ipanema Beach across the Avenida Vieira Souto. He could hear the loud music from the crowds celebrating below. Lifting his eyes, he looked past the throngs of people, past the yellow umbrellas and food vendors to the shining waves of the surf, trying to calm his pounding heart.
Now Laura was here, everything would soon be sorted out. Oliveira and Adriana would both believe that they were in love. They had to believe. Otherwise….
No, he wouldn’t let himself think about failure, not even for an instant. He couldn’t lose his father’s company, not now that it was finally within his grasp. He gripped the railing, glaring at the bright horizon of blue ocean. All along the coastline, tall buildings vied with the sharp green mountains for domination of the sky.
He’d changed into khaki shorts and an open, button-down shirt over a tank top, with flip-flops on his feet, Carioca-style. He paced his private rooftop. Bright sunlight reflected prisms from the water of his swimming pool. Turning back, he stared down blindly at the scantily clad women on Ipanema Beach, to Leblon to the west, ending in the stark, sharp green mountain of Dois Irmãos.
Gabriel had been only nineteen when he’d lost everything. His parents. His brother. His home. His hands tightened on the rail. When he’d had the chance to sell his family’s business the day after the funeral, Gabriel had taken it. He’d fled to New York, leaving his grief behind.
Except grief had followed him. Consumed him. Even as he created an international company far larger than his father’s had ever been, the guilt of what he’d done—causing the accident, but being the only survivor; inheriting his father’s company, only to carelessly sell it—never left him. Never.
‘Well, I did it,’ Laura gasped suddenly behind him. ‘Ten minutes.’
‘Very efficient,’ he said, turning to face her. ‘You should know that—’
His words froze in his throat.
Gabriel’s eyes traced over her in shock as he watched her towel off her long wet hair. He took in the erotic vision of her obscenely full breasts overflowing the neckline of her black dress. He couldn’t look away from the fabric outlining her full buttocks and hips.
‘Where,’ he choked out, ‘did you get that dress?’
She stopped toweling her hair to look at him, tilting her head with a frown. ‘It was in the closet. Wasn’t it for me?’
‘Yes.’ He couldn’t stop his gaze from devouring her curvaceous body. He became instantly hard, filled with the memory of how it felt to have her in his arms, for the most explosive sexual night of his life. He wanted her. Here in Rio, beneath the Brazilian sunshine, suddenly he could think of nothing but taking her, right here and now. He licked his lips and said hoarsely, ‘But I didn’t expect it to look like that .’
An embarrassed blush rose to her cheeks as she pushed up her black-framed glasses in a self-conscious gesture. ‘I gained a little weight with my pregnancy,’ she mumbled. ‘I’m not so thin as I used to be.’
‘No.’ Gabriel stared at her, feeling his body tighten with lust. ‘No, you’re not.’
Willing himself to stay in control, he pulled out a chair at the table next to the pool. ‘Maria made breakfast. Come and eat.’
Laura
Dan Bigley, Debra McKinney