CHAPTER SIX
ABBY GASPED AGAINST his mouth, then her eyes were closing and her mouth opening up to the heady pleasure of his exploring tongue.
It was a long, lingering, sweetly seductive kiss. No rush, no hurry, but a kiss that took its time. She raised her hands, pressing them flat against his chest. She wanted to do so much more than that, though. She wanted to push them under his shirt, run them over every inch of his broad, hard chest. She wanted to go further, to dip her fingers beneath the waistband of his jeans, unzip them and find the erotic bulge of his manhood.
With a yelp, she came to her senses and gave him a determined shove.
She turned around and tried to look as casual as she could when her body was on the point of exploding. Ava was smiling with satisfaction.
‘I was just on my way out into the garden,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you come and join me, my dear, if that grandson of mine insists on working? You could have a swim in the pool. It’s a wonderful day.’
‘No swimsuit.’ Abby shook her head ruefully because splashing around in the pool was relatively low on her agenda. It smacked of being on holiday and, whilst she wasn’t exactly doing the kind of work she had come out to do, relaxing to that extent felt wrong.
‘Gabriel,’ Ava chided. ‘Why didn’t you tell Abby that there was a pool here? He made sure there was a pool here,’ she confided, ‘Because he was insistent that I get some daily exercise, but swimming’s far too energetic for an old woman like me so it’s just sitting there, unused, except when friends visit and bring their grandchildren with them.’ She looked at Gabriel meaningfully. ‘Some ladies are lucky enough to have grandchildren and great-grandchildren as well.’
‘Let’s not run before we can walk,’ Gabriel commented wryly. ‘No swimsuit...’ He looked at Abby, head tilted to one side. ‘Pity. My grandmother’s right, it’s a shame not to use the pool while we’re here, and I would certainly feel far better if I knew you were having fun outside while I worked.’
‘I’m happy to help with your work.’ Abby turned to Ava. ‘We’ve found that, incredibly, we work really well together! I’m a PA by profession, so I can get the hang of things fairly quickly, and when Gabriel’s discussed work I’ve found that I just seem to catch on to what he’s saying.’
‘But you’re not going to work while you’re here,’ Ava said firmly, and Gabriel strolled towards Abby, his eyes never leaving her face until she was remembering that brief kiss and burning up all over again.
‘You’re right, Grandmama.’ He slung his arm around Abby’s shoulders and pulled her close against him, then he dipped to kiss the top of her head, and for a few seconds breathed in that strangely seductive scent of hers, which had nothing to do with perfume but was the completely natural scent of soap and shampoo.
She was much slighter than any of the women he had ever dated, including Lucy, who was very tall and very rangy, and whilst he’d always assumed his type to be full-figured and tall he liked her smallness, liked the way it made him feel—as though she needed protecting.
Hilarious, considering she was as sharp as a tack.
Yet vulnerable.
That thought came from nowhere and lodged in his head, forcing him to analyse it. She was romantic, she was vulnerable and she’d had a terrible relationship with a guy who’d obviously dumped her, having built her expectations up towards a wedding with all the frills and lace that went with it.
Abby was still grinning but her jaw was beginning to ache from the effort.
‘I don’t think it’s fair of me to abandon my fiancée because I need to close a multi-million-pound deal.’
‘Oh, you won’t be abandoning me, darling. I quite understand! Don’t forget I’m a PA, as you know, and I’ve seen first-hand how driven some men can be when it comes to work! I’ve become quite accustomed to my boss forgetting everything when he’s in the middle of a big deal!’
She edged away from Gabriel’s embrace, but not far, because he settled his grip ever firmer, anchoring her next to him. ‘Between you and me,’ she said to Ava in a woman-to-woman, confiding tone, ‘My boss can be a huge bore when it comes to work...’
‘Tut, tut, I don’t believe that for a second! Now, enough of this. You don’t have a swimsuit, so I’m going to take you shopping. Show you the delights of Seville.’ He broke apart and held her at arm’s length so that he could inspect her in such a leisurely fashion that Abby had to grit her teeth not to say something snappy to him. ‘New wardrobe,’ he said briskly.
‘Gabriel, darling,’ his grandmother said. ‘I never thought I’d ever hear you volunteer to go shopping. You’ve always told me that it’s your least favourite pastime, but I expect going shopping with the woman you love turns it into a pleasure.’
‘I don’t need any clothes, Gabriel.’
‘Shh...’ Gabriel placed one long, brown finger over her lips and smiled. ‘You’re far too proud. Jeans are all well and good, but I shall be taking you both to a couple of excellent restaurants while we’re here and I’ll want to show you off.’
Trapped, Abby mentally said goodbye to the remainder of her day. In a fog, she heard him invite his grandmother out for the excursion, but before she could get her hopes up that Ava might accompany them she heard his grandmother make her excuses.
What was wrong with her jeans, the handful of skirts she had brought over? She’d thought she’d be in conference rooms in front of her tablet. Was it her fault that that plan had been turned on its head?
Abby might indulge a secret desire for naughty in her underwear and her sexy night gowns, but that was where it ended. She’d grown up in a tiny village, the only child of doting parents, and she’d never been one to wear daring outfits. Her very traditional background had trained her to dress in a certain kind of way and she felt safe with that.
Besides, she’d never felt that she had the sort of figure to pull off small, tight clothes anyway. She’d always left that to well-endowed friends who’d been keen to display their assets.
She’d thought that that was what Jason had loved about her, her lack of showiness. She’d been wrong. Another woman might have reacted by changing her look, but Abby had had the confidence knocked out of her, and she had been happy to become even more retiring in her dress than she had been before.
‘This is stupid,’ were her opening words just as soon as they were in the four-wheel drive Gabriel had had delivered to the house the day before.
It was a beautiful day, sunny with a clear blue sky, but Abby was too busy fuming to enjoy the loveliness around her as the car slowly eased away from the villa and out of the compound onto open road.
‘Is there any point in time when you’re not going to argue with me?’
Abby reddened. ‘I just don’t need any clothes, and I can’t afford to buy a new wardrobe.’
‘Whoever said anything about you paying for it? You’re doing me a favour. I will be writing the cheque.’
‘I’m not doing you a favour. This is a transaction. A business transaction.’ Earlier—with some embarrassment, because accepting money from someone, however justifiable it might be, stuck in her throat—she had written down what she surmised her father would have spent on the recuperative round-the-world cruise with her mother.
She’d known roughly because he had discussed it with her months ago, on the proviso she said nothing to her mother.
‘She’d worry,’ her father had confided. ‘And you know that’s the last thing she should be doing.’
Then he’d named the sum and the blood had drained from Abby’s face.
Well, Gabriel naturally hadn’t batted an eyelid at the figure, because to him it was loose change. He had promptly doubled the figure she had given him and she knew that the online transfer of funds to her bank account had already been done.
So the business transaction was complete.
But a brand-new wardrobe wasn’t part of any business transaction.
‘And quibbling about it is going to mak
e my grandmother suspicious. Not only do most women enjoy having clothes lavished on them...’
‘I don’t.’
‘But my grandmother knows that I am exceedingly generous when it comes to women. It would strike her as odd that you’ve come over here in clothes better suited to an office, and she would be appalled if you refused to accept my largesse.’
‘I’ll pay you back.’
Gabriel didn’t say anything. His mouth tightened and he continued driving until they approached the busy outskirts of the city. He found parking with ease, killed the engine and then turned to her.
‘You’re not going to pay me back, Abby, and you’re going to stop acting like a badly behaved child.’
‘That’s not fair!’
‘This is all part and parcel of our little transaction, the object of which was to ensure that my grandmother was relieved of all the stress that has seen her possibly reach for too many tablets.’ He paused, eyes narrowed. ‘Is this how you were with your ex?’
Abby was so shocked by the directness of his question that she could only stare at him, open-mouthed.
‘Did you knock him back whenever he tried to do something for you?’ Gabriel knew that he was pushing it, but he couldn’t deny that he’d been curious about her past, curious enough now to barge straight past all ‘no entry’ signs.
‘How dare you?’
‘How dare I what? Ask you a simple question about your past?’
‘It’s none of your business what happened between Jason and myself!’
‘Did you love him?’ Gabriel asked gently.
It was the tone of his voice that did it. He’d moved from cool to tender in a heartbeat and it caught her on the hop.
Abby hadn’t spoken to anyone about the break-up. Not really. She had put a brave face on it, smiled and pulled through and everyone had marvelled that she’d got her act together so well. One less thing for her parents to worry about, she had reasoned. Besides, she had always been private by nature. It hadn’t been difficult to bury the hurt under silence and a stiff upper lip.
‘It was a long time ago,’ she said tightly.
‘Tell me what happened.’
Abby opened her mouth to tell him that, actually, it was none of his business, but instead she gave a strangled little sound and looked away, biting down on her lip to keep the tumult of her emotions under control.
Gabriel had little time for female histrionics and uncontrolled sobbing jags. They always left him feeling uncomfortable. He was strangely moved to see that she was trying hard not to cry.
Instead of swiftly closing off the conversation, he said, ‘Things that happen long ago can still cast long shadows. What happened?’
‘We were childhood sweethearts, you could say.’ Abby took a deep breath, blinked back the onset of tears and felt a certain release at opening up about something that, yes, had cast something of a shadow whether she cared to admit that or not. ‘We grew up in the same small village in Somerset, Jason and I...’ She slid a sideways glance at the big, overwhelming man sitting next to her, his body angled so that he was facing her. ‘I bet you don’t even know where that is, Gabriel.’ She smiled and he returned the smile with a crooked one of his own.
‘It rings a bell.’
‘Well,’ she laughed, ‘It would be your nightmare destination. Everyone knows everyone else. We went out, and got more serious when we were seventeen. It never occurred to either of us that university might test the relationship, and it didn’t. I went to do my IT course close by, and Jason went to Exeter University, but really he was back often and things seemed closer than ever between us. He said he thought that the girls at university were immature. Am I boring you?’
‘Do I look bored?’
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’ She sighed and leaned back, her eyes half-closed.
‘Because I’m your fiancé,’ he teased and she smiled but didn’t look at him or open her eyes. ‘Carry on.’
‘We got engaged. Everyone was excited—parents, friends, cousins, great-aunts...over the moon.’ She looked at the finger where once she’d worn another engagement ring. It felt like a century ago that her heart had been broken, which made her realise that she was over it and had been for a lot longer than she’d thought. This was what happened when you verbalised, she thought wryly.
‘I’d already got a job in the village, but we were planning on moving to Exeter, or maybe Southampton. But then Jason got a job in London working for one of the investment banks and everything just went pear-shaped after that.’
‘Investment banks can do that to a person.’
‘To you?’
‘I don’t succumb to lack of self-control,’ Gabriel told her with scorching honesty. ‘When I get involved with someone, it’s because I choose to, and not because my head’s been somehow turned in the heat of the moment. Is that what happened?’
‘He was suddenly in demand by lots of women, and they weren’t the immature variety he’d met at university. Bit by bit our relationship was chipped away until there was nothing left of it. I barely saw him. When I did, he no longer had time for me. I’d become the old, comfortable shoe he was no longer interested in wearing.’
Self-pity swamped her and she didn’t stop the tear from trickling down her cheek. When Gabriel pushed a handkerchief into her hand, she took it, still without looking at him, and dashed the stupid tear off her cheek.
‘So that’s my tale of woe.’ She turned to look at him. God, he was beautiful. Especially now, when the harsh lines of his face were relaxed. Her grey eyes drifted to his sensual mouth and lingered.
Gabriel wondered whether she was aware of what she was doing, of the directness of her gaze, of what she was capable of rousing in a guy with that look.
‘Okay.’ Abby roused herself from the trance-like torpor that had suddenly settled over her. ‘I see your point about the wardrobe but I’m not going to be letting you buy me the sort of clothes the women you go out with wear.’
Gabriel grinned and pushed open his car door, then he stepped out into the balmy sunshine and circled to open the passenger door.
‘You’re the woman I plan on marrying,’ he said in a low, husky voice. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you out of the house in anything but modest dresses with high necks and low hems.’
You’re the woman I plan on marrying...
For a few seconds, something swept through her, a tidal rush of colourful scenarios in which those words actually came from the heart, and she was appalled by the very fact that she’d given in to wild imaginings like that.
‘Then isn’t it brilliant that I’m not that girl?’ she asked tartly. ‘Because I may not be heading down the aisle with the micro-minis but I certainly won’t be going for the granny look.’
She felt buoyant. Confession was obviously good for the soul, even if it was a confession delivered to the last person on earth she’d ever expected to deliver it to.
She relaxed, looked around her and let his words wash over her as he told her about the city, a potted history of the place.
The Moorish architecture was there in the graceful arches and the stucco he pointed out. Then came the churches and the palaces. They meandered, and she looked and listened. The city was charming, the sepia colours reminiscent of a bygone era. They wandered through an enchanting maze of streets that were cool and whitewashed, and by the time they hit the shopping area Abby was as relaxed as she never thought she would be, given the circumstances.
Housed in ornate old buildings, the selection of boutiques from the outside seemed to offer everything and a thrill of pure feminine pleasure rippled through her.
‘I’m better off shopping on my own,’ she said firmly. She had to remind herself that this was all make-believe. They weren’t the happy loved-up couple doing everything together. ‘If you point me in the right direction, I can meet you in, say, an hour, maybe a bit longer. And, now that your grandmother isn’t here, we can maybe discuss work. I feel lik
e I’m playing truant and I’m a little uncomfortable with that.’
‘Well, we wouldn’t want that, would we?’ He gave her the name of a restaurant, pointed out where she should be walking, and told her that it was famous so, if she ended up lost, she would easily be directed to the right place.
He walked off and she felt...strangely bereft.
It was as though he had left a hole behind him and she had to shake her head to clear the silly feeling away.
He’d left her his credit card and she stared at it...then she gave in to purely girlish anticipation and pushed open the glass door to boutique number one.
* * *
Gabriel glanced at his watch. His grandmother’s driver had ferried her to friends for the evening.
‘You two love birds can enjoy yourselves without having to entertain an old lady!’ she had carolled as she’d been ushered into the back of the car.
On some fronts, this was cause for some unease to Gabriel. Yes, it was good that she was clearly in high spirits and whatever depression she had been suffering had been temporarily shelved. However, the gusto with which she had embraced the phoney engagement surpassed anything he had foreseen. Whilst previously the ends had soundly justified the means, he was now beginning to see the difficulties that might lie ahead when the time came for him sorrowfully to break the news that their fake engagement had bitten the dust.
She would definitely have to move to London, close by where he could keep an eye on her, but how easy was it going to be to take her away from familiar surroundings?
He would also, while in the process of recovering from a broken engagement, have to rustle up some enthusiasm for the whole prospect of finding someone else with whom to tie the knot.
Except, for some reason, the thought of that as yet unknown woman filled him with a certain distaste.
He had worked out what this woman would be like, not in great detail but as a rough sketch, but now that he had found himself discovering complex sides to his PA’s personality he was beginning to revise the one-dimensional cardboard parameters he had had in place. He also knew that whoever he ended up with would have to be sharp, would have to be someone who got him and who understood his sense of humour.
A Diamond Deal With Her Boss Page 9