One Touch of Moondust Read Free Page A

a deposit. Quite possibly he’d considered the fox coat adequate. If only he knew. It was the last thing of value she owned and she could very well be forced to hock it if things didn’t turn around soon.
    Pleased with her decision to forget all about the apartment in Brooklyn and about Paul Reed, she pulled the classified ads out of her purse and began to search for another, more suitable apartment, one with a tub where it belonged and no overwhelmingly masculine roommate. But before the subway even crossed into Manhattan, her spirits sank. She could not bear the thought of looking at another dump. The brownstone which, like her, was at a turningpoint in its life seemed increasingly attractive. And Paul Reed, she decided, she could manage.
    â€œHow bad could it be?” she murmured under her breath, hoping for a stronger sense of conviction. It was only for a month after all. Four weeks. She’d handled stock portfolios worth millions. She’d dealt with avaricious, rakish men. She could handle anything for four weeks, even a man like Paul Reed. Starting Monday she’d double her efforts to find a new job. Within a month or two at the outside, she’d be back on her feet and back in Manhattan.
    An image of Paul Reed’s bold, impudent smile danced across her mind. The subway suddenly seemed much warmer. Doubts flooded back more vividly than ever.
    It was the balance in her checkbook that took the decision out of her hands. When it came right down to it, there was no choice at all. It looked as though Friday would be moving day. She’d just buy a very sturdy lock for the bedroom door.
    * * *
    Now why did you go and do a stupid thing like that? Paul asked himself repeatedly afterGabrielle had left. Oh, sure, he needed the money if he was to keep this restoration on schedule and make the monthly payments on the brownstone, but he could have insisted that she wait another month before moving in. He could even have volunteered to move downstairs with his sleeping bag. He’d lived like a vagrant amid the rubble up here for weeks now anyway. Instead he’d managed to manipulate her into sharing the place with him. Was he suffering from some need to torment himself? Hadn’t he learned anything about the unbreachable differences between the classes while he’d been growing up on Long Island? He’d been the housekeeper’s son on an estate the size of a country club. It had kept him on the fringes of high society all of his life. The women he’d met had been vain, shallow and spoiled. He’d learned the hard way that they were unsuited to anything but the most pampered way of life.
    He slammed a nail so hard it shook the door. Gabrielle Clayton belonged in a place like this the way diamonds belonged in the Bowery. She probably wouldn’t last half as long as diamondsdid in that neighborhood, either. It would give him a certain perverse satisfaction to watch her try to adapt to a life-style she quite obviously considered beneath her.
    He’d seen the way she looked at him, too, as if he were no better than a lazy, unambitious handyman. Too many people had looked at him just that way. It was about time he taught one of them a lesson about quick judgments and superficial values.
    But why Gabrielle Clayton? a voice in his head nagged. He grinned ruefully. That answer was obvious to anyone who took a good, hard look at her. With her honey-blond hair, delicate bone structure and slight Southern accent, she was a sexy bundle of contradictions wrapped in fur. Scarlett O’Hara and the ice Maiden all rolled into one. She had the kind of wide, dangerous eyes that could tempt a man to the edge of hell. There wasn’t a healthy, competitive male alive who wouldn’t want to explore the possibilities, to try to ignite a flame that would warm that cool exterior, that would put laughter on those sensuous lips.
    All he had to do now was make sure he wasn’t the one who got