A Bargain with the Enemy by Carole Mortimer Page A

didn’t even occur to him that Bryn—or any other woman, for that matter—would ever think of turning down a dinner invitation with the darkly attractive and eminently eligible Gabriel D’Angelo?
    Bryn had a feeling that both of those things were true, but going out to dinner with him, discussing whatever her problem was with him or his gallery, was not an option.
    Gabriel could almost see the struggle going on inside Bryn’s beautiful head as she tried to find a polite way of refusing his invitation.
    An invitation Gabriel knew he never should have made when he couldn’t even look at Bryn without wanting her and she so obviously detested the very sight of him.
    This prickly Bryn was so different from the Sabryna of five years ago, but even then Gabriel had known how much her beauty and innocence had appealed to him. He had only kissed her the once, a sweet and yet arousing kiss, a kiss that had affected him so deeply he had continued to think about her for months after her father’s trial was over and she had refused to so much as see Gabriel again, and off and on in the years that followed too, as he’d found himself wondering what she was doing with her life, if she was happy.
    That single meeting with her earlier today had shown him that the woman she had become, the woman she was now, had just as deep an effect on him.
    So much so that being alone in his office with her, knowing he would have been able to touch her soft and creamy skin if he had just lifted his hand, and that unique spicy, womanly smell of her had invaded his senses, had resulting in his thinking of nothing else but her for the past six hours.
    As for his arousal...! That had been a pounding ache for those same six hours, and even now the hardness of his shaft was pressing painfully against the restricting material of his jeans.
    Which was as good a reason as any for him to get the hell as far away from Bryn Jones as was possible.
    ‘Obviously not,’ he dismissed harshly, pushing his cooling mug of coffee away from him before standing up abruptly. ‘These are yours, I believe,’ he rasped abruptly as he withdrew a silver metal tube from the front pocket of his jeans.
    Bryn was still so shocked by Gabriel’s suggestion that the two of them have dinner together this evening that it took several seconds for her to register the significance of the metal tube he held out to her. ‘My reading glasses...’ she finally recognised softly as she took the tube from him, glancing up at him quickly—guiltily—as she realised he really had come here this evening to return something that had obviously fallen out of her handbag earlier.
    She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue before speaking. ‘It was very kind of you to return them to me so promptly and in person.’
    He gave a hard, derisive smile. ‘That sounded as if it actually hurt.’
    ‘Of course it didn’t.’ Her cheeks had warmed at the taunt. ‘And I apologise if you think my manner towards you has been...less than polite. I really am grateful for the opportunity to show my paintings at Archangel.’
    ‘As far as you’re concerned, Bryn, I am the Archangel Gallery,’ he admonished harshly.
    And quite what she was going to do about that Bryn had no idea; she only knew, having come this far, having worked so hard and for so many years towards this, it was now totally unthinkable she should be forced to withdraw her paintings from the exhibition because of the man who owned and ran the gallery! Or for Gabriel to decide her manner was so unacceptable he decided to withdraw them for her.
    ‘I’m not sure what you mean by that, Mr D’Angelo,’ she prompted uncertainly; she hadn’t forgotten those few brief moments of intimacy between them in his office earlier, when she had been certain that he was going to touch or kiss her breasts. But, grateful as she was that he hadn’t recognised her, if Gabriel believed for one moment that his position as owner of the Archangel