The Dominant Male

She looked down at the note in her unsteady hands. It wasn’t just the condescending and insolent tone that offended her. Nor even the curt commands, issued as though she were some kind of minor domestic employee. What made her most furious was the total lack of respect which permeated his letter from start to finish.

‘Gabriel Stone!’ Jerry gasped, reading over Rhiannon’s shoulder. ‘Gosh, you lucky thing!’

‘Lucky…?’

‘Oh, yes! He’s the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen!’

‘Optically challenged, are you?’ Rhiannon snapped.

‘Oh, come on! He’s got more animal magnetism than any man has a right to! You should have seen him when he walked in here twenty minutes ago! Those blue eyes, that tough face—’

‘Walked in here?’ Rhiannon whispered, almost collapsing like a tower of jelly on the spot. ‘You mean—here? He’s here? In the building?’

‘Yes, he’s upstairs with Steve Solomon.’

Rhiannon swayed, aware of the excitement gripping her body like an electric fist, knowing she was a fool to feel it—a lemming rushing blindly over a cliff to destruction. How stupid to feel excited at the prospect of her own unquestionable doom if she ever let him near her.

‘Maybe he’s going to switch to Solomon Associates!’ Jerry mused. ‘All his companies have been with Rawdon and Taylor for years. They’re so old-fashioned, though. Did you see—?’

‘Even if Gabriel Stone does switch to us, I won’t have anything to do with him! Just look at this note! Have you ever seen anything so conceited? Demanding I come to his party like a performing monkey!’

‘I’d perform for him any old day!’

‘Oh, Jerry! Must you think of sex, sex—?’

The telephone rang sharply.

Rhiannon snatched it up, her voice unsteady. ‘Rhiannon Windmorr!’

‘Ah, Miss Windmorr!’ Steve Solomon, the chairman, drawled, like the lazy fat-cat he was. ‘Get up to my office right away, please. We have a potential new client I’d like you to meet.’

‘But, sir, I—’

The line went dead.

For a second Rhiannon just stood there, clutching the receiver with a damp hand while Jerry waited with bated breath.

Trembling, she clumsily put the receiver down.

‘Well?’ Jerry asked eagerly.

‘I have to go up to Solomon’s office right away,’ she said huskily. ‘To meet a new client.’ She smoothed her damp palms on her skirt. How could she face him? She felt so vulnerable…

‘It must be Gabriel Stone!’

‘Yes, well, I think that’s perfectly obvious!’ Rhiannon looked down at the package. ‘I’ll have to go up and see him, I suppose.’ Her voice was still husky, and she heard the unsteady desire throbbing in her voice, knew she wanted him and hated herself for it.

‘Ooh!’ Jerry said dreamily. ‘Let me know what happens!’

Rhiannon gave her a sharp look and left the office, striding as purposefully as she could across the open-plan area with its potted palms and air-conditioning, heading for the chairman’s lift.

The lift took her to the fifteenth floor with luxurious speed.

Her reflection in the mirrored wall undermined her confidence. The shimmer of helpless femininity in her green eyes was so severe she could barely look at it herself.

Nervous, she tidied her long black hair, but it still fell softly around her flushed pink face, making her look girlish despite the smart red skirt-suit she wore—and even that made her look desirably female, with its nipped-in waist and figure-hugging cut.

Walking out of the lift and onto the plush oyster-coloured carpets, she tried to look confident, but inside her heart was thudding hard and her legs were actually shaking.

‘Miss Windmorr!’ The secretary smiled as she entered the outer rooms. ‘Mr Solomon is expecting you.’

‘Thank you!’ she said unsteadily.

‘Gabriel Stone is with him!’ breathed the secretary. ‘He is the sexiest man I’ve ever seen in my life! Lucky you, being invited in to meet him!’

‘Lucky old me!’ Rhiannon said thickly, and knocked on the door, then entered at Solomon’s shout.

Gabriel Stone was standing by the windows, with Steve Solomon next to him. Both men were in an attitude of old friends, but it was clear—so clear—who was the more powerful of the two, because not only did Gabriel Stone tower over Steve Solomon but everything about him, from the cut of his impeccable grey suit to the lift of his dark head, shouted, Power. Authority. Masculinity. Superiority.

He turned with a cool smile to look at her, ruthless blue eyes glittering with mockery.

In silence she met his gaze measure for measure, but her heart was beating like a crazy drum.

She wanted him so much she could barely stand.

And he knew it. How could he fail to notice that her eyes flashed over him with desire? Flashed over the hard muscles emphasised by the grey suit, the taut waistcoat, the silver watch-chain gleaming across it and the dark red silk tie knotted at his throat.

‘Miss Windmorr!’ he drawled smokily. ‘We meet again.’

‘Hello, Mr Stone.’ Her voice was more confident than she could have prayed for it to be. ‘What brings you to my offices?’

‘Oh, are they yours? I was under the impression that they belonged to Steve Solomon, here.’

‘Yes, of course. Forgive me.’ Humiliating colour stung her cheeks. ‘Welcome to Solomon Associates, Mr Stone. How may we help you?’

He smiled with lazy satisfaction. ‘Well, now, that’s the kind of welcome I prefer!’

Rhiannon’s green eyes filled with furious rebellion as she thought to herself, You rotten, power-wielding snake!

‘I’ve been discussing the possibility of switching all my accounts from Rawdon and Taylor to Solomon’s. I’d prefer to test the water first, so I’ll only hand over one account initially. I’d like you, Miss Windmorr, to work on it for me.’

‘I’m afraid I can’t at the moment,’ she informed him. ‘I’m still working on Carillo’s Cuban coffee.’

‘What a pity,’ said Gabriel softly. ‘In that case, I’ll have to withdraw my offer.’

Her jaw dropped in shock.

‘Er, Mr Stone,’ Steve said rapidly, shooting a furious glare at her, ‘I’m sure Rhiannon will be pleased to work for—’

‘I did want her to handle my account,’ said Gabriel with a smile and a sinister note in his voice. ‘Only her. Nobody else.’

‘I’m sure she’ll agree to—’

‘But, if she prefers not to—’ Gabriel strode coolly past her towards the door ‘—I shall have to take my business elsewhere.’

‘Rhiannon!’ Steve exploded, dark eyes blazing.

‘Yes, all right!’ she muttered thickly, and turned, calling resentfully, ‘Please wait, Mr Stone!’

He turned, a mocking smile on his hard mouth.

She hated him—and desired him—more in that moment, standing there with the light of victory in his eyes, than she could ever have thought possible.

‘Of course I’ll work on the account,’ she said tightly.

‘I’m delighted to hear it,’ Gabriel drawled with a cynical smile, and moved back into the room, arrogance itself as he stood there, dark head lifted with authority. ‘Mr Solomon—would you be so good as to leave us alone now, to discuss the details?’

‘Yes, of course!’ Steve hurriedly moved away while Rhiannon stood rigidly, aware that she was being set up but helpless to stop it. ‘Just tell my secretary when my office is free again.’

Gabriel Stone gave a cool nod, and a second later the door had closed, leaving them alone.

The silence between them seethed with sexual attraction, fierce cross-currents of emotion, and an awareness of each other that was nothing short of electrifying.

Rhiannon spoke first—out of necessity as well as nerves.

‘How did you engineer this?’

‘Simple,’ he drawled. ‘I just had my secretary ring your boss and say the magic words: “Mr Gabriel Stone would like to meet with you in one hour’s time.”‘ He smiled lazily. ‘Of course, he said yes. They always do.’

‘Must be nice to be so powerful!’

He laughed softly. ‘Yes, it is!’

‘And what about the rest of your plan? Sending that ridiculous gift, that insulting invitation and—’

‘I wanted you to be angry by the time your boss summoned you. I wanted you to refuse to work with me in his presence, just to make sure you understood your position.’

‘And what is my position?’

‘Powerless,’ he drawled mockingly.

Rage blazed through her veins so fiercely that she practically had to nail herself to the floor to stop herself hitting his dark, arrogant face.

He smiled. ‘I suppose you want to slap my face. That’s only natural. A pity your hands are so effectively tied.’

‘My hands are not tied!’ she choked out ‘I can hit you any time I want!’

‘Go on, then. See where it gets you.’

She fumed impotently, hands curling into fists at her sides.

‘Darling,’ he murmured, ‘never make a threat you’re not prepared to carry out.’

‘Don’t you dare call me darling!’ she said under her breath, tears spurting suddenly to sting her eyes. ‘I loathe you for what you’re doing. And just what do you hope to achieve by it anyway?’

‘I would have thought that was perfectly obvious!’

‘Sex?’ she whispered fiercely, her vision blurring.

‘No need to say it like that!’ He frowned. ‘I saw and felt how much I turned you on. I can assure you the feeling is mutual. Surely, after years of a sexless relationship with that clown, you should be eager to feel like a woman again? So why the frightened whisper? Anyone would think I wanted to do something terrible to you instead of make love to you.’

Rhiannon had already looked away, breathless with horror at the continuing accuracy of his guesses—not only about her response to him as a woman, but about her sexless relationship with Bobby.

There was a tense silence.

She didn’t look round but she could feel his eyes on her, and she knew he was thinking—thinking hard, trying to figure out why her reaction should be this way.

‘Rhiannon…?’ he said under his breath, sensing the depth of the change in her emotions.

The note of compassion in his voice made tears sting her eyes, and she went rigid with the fear that she might break down.

His footsteps sounded behind her. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing!’

A big gentle hand touched her shoulder. ‘Hey…look at me…’

‘No!’ she said thickly, feeling pathetic as she struggled not to cry, standing with her back to him like an obstinate child while the tears burned at her eyes.

The seconds ticked away in tense silence and Gabriel Stone felt the tremors of emotion in her shoulders as he held her.

‘Come on,’ he said softly. ‘Why the big emotional display?’

‘I’m not being emotional!’

‘Then what are you doing?’ He laughed seductively. ‘Any minute now you’ll stamp your foot like a little girl and—’

She reacted as though stung. ‘Don’t laugh at me! My personal feelings are none of your business!’

‘But I’m going to make them my business.’ He turned her with infinite care, as though she were a precious piece of porcelain.

Her tear-filled eyes met his.

‘Ah…’ The tough face softened.

‘And don’t patronise me either!’

‘Forgive me,’ he murmured with a smile. ‘But it melts the strongest heart to see you show such helpless femininity. You’re quite a powerful woman, you know, Rhiannon. It’s touching to see how very female you can be.’

Rhiannon felt absurdly flattered, and hated herself for it. ‘I suppose that brings us very neatly to the point, doesn’t it? You want to dedicate yourself to reducing me to a state of helpless femininity!’

‘Why, so I do!’ he drawled with a flash of mockery in his eyes. ‘But I thought my intentions towards you were understood. Or weren’t you listening to me on Saturday?’

‘I was listening…’ She lowered her lashes, staring at the dark red silk tie against the white shirt and powerful chest.

‘Then you know,’ he said deeply, ‘that I want you badly enough to find out why you’re involved in that dull, sexless relationship.’

‘You have no proof that it’s dull or sexless!’

‘Rhiannon, I could see it with my own eyes.’

‘Because he didn’t kiss me? How do you know he didn’t ravish me as soon as we got home that night?’

He tensed, frowning. ‘I don’t believe it!’

She carried on staring at his chest.

‘Well?’ he demanded thickly. ‘Did he make love to you? Has he ever made love to you?’

I could lie, she thought, holding her breath. I could say Bobby made love to me and then he’d go away, never come back…never make wild, passionate love to me…

‘Tell me!’ Gabriel bit out under his breath, and his long fingers tightened on her shoulders. ‘Tell me, damn you, or I’ll—!’

‘No.’

He relaxed. He even drew a sharp breath. Those eyes moved rapidly over her face and the white line of his mouth curved as he gave a wry smile.

‘I was right, then,’ he drawled arrogantly. ‘He is a wimp!’

Her eyes flashed angrily up to meet his from under her lashes.

‘Was I right about everything, Rhiannon? Oh, I can see from that look that I was!’ He laughed under his breath as she tried angrily to get away from him. ‘No, you don’t! You’re staying right here until I’ve got what I wanted from you!’

‘You’re never going to get that, Mr Stone!’ she said furiously, fighting to escape those hard fingers. ‘I am engaged to another man. When will you get that through your thick head?’

‘My head is many things, but thick isn’t one of them. And if I want to take you to bed, I damned well will.’

‘The only way you’ll get me into bed is as a corpse!’

‘Oh, you’ll be very much alive. You’ll also be powerless, naked and more than willing.’

Without stopping to think, she moved to slap him hard—and missed.

He was too quick for her, catching her hand at the wrist and leaving her struggling impotently once more while he grinned down at her, amused.

‘Darling!’ he mocked. ‘You don’t have to go to such lengths to show me you’re climbing the walls with sexual frustration.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that?’ she gibbered. ‘How dare you?’

‘Because I want you to be happy, you stupid, obstinate female!’

‘I’ll only be happy when you get out of my life!’

‘I’m here to stay, Rhiannon!’

‘But why? Why? I don’t want you here!’

‘And I don’t want to see a woman like you marrying a pompous, half-witted, sexless little idiot like Bobby—what’s his name?’

‘Pratt,’ she snapped, without thinking of the repercussions, and then realised precisely what she had done.

There was a long, stunned silence. The hot sunlight blazed over them from the wide airy windows and London’s skyscrapers glittered far above the stately white palaces of centuries past.

Gabriel started to laugh. ‘What? You’re kidding me! His name is not Pratt!’

‘It’s not his fault!’ She glared at him furiously.

‘Oh, I quite agree!’ He was laughing so much his powerful chest was shaking. ‘He can’t help being a complete and utter—’

‘Right, that’s it! I am not staying here to listen to my fiancé being insulted by a swine like you!’

‘Oh, come on! Where’s your sense of humour?’ The light in his eyes was so incandescent that it was irresistible to her, making her heart move and her own eyes light up in response to his personality, his wit, his soul. ‘Darling, the man’s been living up to his name for years! You can’t marry him! And I absolutely refuse to allow you to become a Pratt yourself!’

She looked away, obstinately refusing to be moved by him. He could be as charming as he liked. She refused point-blank to be swayed by him.

Apart from that—she had to confess that from the moment she had met Bobby his surname had been one of her strongest objections to him. But she didn’t want Gabriel Stone to know that.

He smiled, his eyes filled with affection. ‘You know what I’m saying is right. So come on…stop fighting me. The cards predicted we’d be lovers. Why don’t you just give in to destiny—and to me?’

‘I’m in control of my destiny,’ she said in a husky voice. ‘Not a set of tarot cards, and certainly not you!’

‘Fine. I want you to be in control of your destiny. It’s your body I’m going to take control of.’

She raised her head. ‘And what if I won’t let you?’

‘Oh, you’ll let me!’ he drawled, eyes hardening to ruthless steel so suddenly that she caught her breath with excitement just to see the different reflections of this multi-faceted man: ‘You’ll let me all right, Rhiannon! I’m going to encourage you to submit—and then I’m going to make a woman out of you!’

‘You think I’d give my consent to that kind of thing?’

‘Even a tiger knows how to roll onto its back and let itself be stroked.’

She was breathless again, staring at his arrogant face, thinking of her first oil painting: a tiger moving stealthily through a darkened jungle towards a dark man asleep beneath a tree. Her tutor had told her that the tiger was herself…a man-eater.

‘Glad to see you’re being more agreeable,’ Gabriel murmured with a smile, misinterpreting her stare. ‘So let’s see what else you’re agreeable to, shall we? We agree, for instance, that you have to take this job. We agree that I currently have total professional control over you. And we also agree that we will one day be lovers.’

‘I never agreed to the last one!’ she told him flatly, lifting her dark head and trying to look convincing.

‘That’s because I’m going to demand submission, darling. And I’ll start on Saturday night, when you arrive at my house.’

‘Ah, yes! Saturday night! I’d forgotten, in all this non-excitement, about your insulting little note and that truly humiliating costume!’

‘But you’ll look sensational,’ he said deeply, and the sudden tenderness of his voice made her heart melt like an ice-cream in a microwave. ‘How can you possibly see that as humiliating?’

She hesitated while her stupid heart carried on melting: ‘I…’ She felt her skin shiver with excitement: ‘Well, I…I just have no intention of wearing it—or of attending your dinner party.’

‘You will, or I’ll have you fired.’

‘Fired!’ She was so furious she could hardly speak coherently. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr Stone, but I am a highly qualified, highly respected woman, and I do not need your say-so to remain employed!’ Her eyes flashed with rage. ‘I can walk into another top job anywhere in advertising, and don’t you forget it!’

‘That may be so.’ His eyes turned ruthless. ‘But I happen to know all about the Moretti account.’

Her breath caught in horror. ‘The Moretti account…?’

‘Mmm. Shall we talk about it alone? Or shall I call Steve back in here to make it a cosy threesome?’

Rhiannon’s face paled with disbelief. He sounded so sure, so arrogant. He must know all the gory details. And she certainly wasn’t about to put it to the test. Not the Moretti scandal…

It had been her first major account as creative director, three years ago. She had been working on a top-secret campaign for Moretti Cars to launch the Panther, a long, sleek sports car they had just built to corner the market in affordable glamour.

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