An image of Abby flashed through his head and he frowned. Anyone who had high expectations of romantic love and everything that entailed would definitely be out. Lucy had been a vital learning curve when it came to that.
Absorbed in a bout of unusual introspection, he neither heard nor noticed Abby as she paused at the top of the short flight of stairs to look down at him as he stood, still frowning, by the front door.
They were going to one the fancy restaurants he had mentioned earlier. When he had announced this, she had immediately countered with the perfectly logical suggestion that they should use the evening to meet some of the clients whom they’d arranged to see before they’d left London, considering his grandmother had decided not to join them, and initially he had agreed.
He felt, rather than heard, her presence and looked up. Then looked again, then found that all he seemed capable of doing was looking.
Her hair was loose, silky, straight and falling just past her shoulders in a shiny sweep. Her eyes looked different, smoky and sultry, and the shiny gloss of her lipstick emphasised the soft fullness of her mouth.
But it was the transformation of her figure that really captured his attention and held it.
The dress was short, revealing long, slim, shapely legs. There was nothing revealing about it, because it was a simple shift, but somehow the pale turquoise silk hit all the right curves in all the right places so that the eye was drawn to the swell of small breasts and the dip of a narrow waist.
She tucked some hair behind one ear as she walked towards him and he noticed that she was wearing big hoop earrings, which was vaguely shocking, because he’d never thought of her as the big hoop-earring type.
‘Are you okay?’ Abby asked politely, standing in front of him, quietly pleased at the expression on his face, because he was a guy who was way too casual when it came to beautiful women. She knew she was no beauty, especially compared to the women usually to be found hanging onto his arm, but he’d only ever seen her in working clothes or jeans and trainers since she had been here, and the change obviously stunned him. Good! ‘You look as though you’ve seen a ghost.’
Gabriel quickly found his voice. ‘Slight change of plans. I’ve rearranged several of the meetings for London and I have managed to touch base with the CEO of the electronics company,’ he announced, watching Abby closely. ‘I can follow up on that conversation by email. Both companies are keen for a deal, so I don’t anticipate any lost opportunities because our original schedule has had to be changed.’
‘What? I honestly don’t feel as though I’m doing what I’m being paid to do,’ she protested.
‘You’re obeying the boss’s orders,’ Gabriel said silkily. ‘What’s there to complain about? Enjoy the change of pace.’
It irked him to realise that she baulked at accepting what any other woman would have grabbed with both hands outstretched. Maybe, he thought, he’d grown accustomed to excessive female gratitude when in receipt of his attention and his lavish gifts.
Abby was more than a bit annoyed. With next to no notice, he had informed her that the clients they had arranged to meet had cancelled! At this point, hair washed and with Ava hovering to see them off, Abby had no option but to stick to the ‘fancy restaurant’ plan, which now felt like a date and not like a safe business event with manageable parameters.
Gabriel gathered himself, disconcerted to have been thrown by Abby’s appearance. ‘Right. We should go.’ He spun round and preceded her to the door.
‘I hope I look okay, even though there won’t be any client to impress,’ something mischievous in her prompted Abby to say, and she gave him a disingenuously anxious look from under her sooty lashes.
Their eyes met and she regretted that mischievous impulse when he smiled at her slowly. ‘Fishing? I didn’t think you were the sort...’
‘Of course I wasn’t fishing!’ she protested, standing back and fiddling with the strap of her shoulder bag, which was the only thing about her outfit that hadn’t been bought three hours previously. ‘I just hoped, er, that where we’re going...that I’m dressed appropriately for wherever we happen to be going. I... I don’t have a great deal of experience when it comes to eating out in fancy restaurants.’ Under normal circumstances, going to a restaurant to entertain a client with him would have had her reaching for something sober and, yes, grey, but with Ava around and the family heirloom on her finger she’d gone for...the right outfit for the part she was playing.
‘Sexy,’ he purred, back to his usual self. He lounged against the doorframe, shoved his hand in his trouser pocket and stared down at her.
Skewered by those deep, dark eyes, Abby shifted her gaze, but he filled her line of vision. Had he just called her sexy? Her?
When it came to sexy, he was the one who fitted the description! In a simple white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows and a pair of dark trousers, he was the epitome of exotic, elegant, casual cool.
‘Thank you very much, although there’s no need for the compliment, considering your grandmother isn’t around.’
‘Accept it for what it is,’ Gabriel murmured. ‘There’s nothing more unattractive than a woman who snaps when a guy pays her a compliment.’
Abby bristled and he burst out laughing. ‘Right about now, you can start telling me what a dinosaur I am, but in the meantime let’s get to the restaurant. We’re running behind time and I wouldn’t want the manager of the place to give our table to someone else.’
‘I doubt he’d dare.’ Thankfully her breathing had returned to normal.
Gabriel dealt her a slashing sideways smile. ‘You have a point.
Never mix work and pleasure. Gabriel spent the evening reminding himself of the thousands of ways his libido could ambush his common sense, but he still caught himself staring at her doing the most mundane of things: reading the menu...turning to smile at the waiter as he took the order...playing with the stem of her wine glass and then half-closing her eyes as she took the first sip...
He also noticed all those covert glances other men gave her. When she sashayed her way to the ladies’ just before they were ready to leave, he could swear tongues were hanging from mouths, and never before had he found such overt displays of attraction so repulsive.
Especially when you considered that the majority of the men there had said goodbye to their forties a while back and were sitting opposite women who presumably were their wives!
They made the trip back to the villa in record time. It had been a long meal, a taster menu that had continued for over two hours, and the lights in the villa were out by the time Gabriel inserted the key into the front door and pushed it open.
She brushed past him and even that vague passing physical contact made him ache.
‘Enjoyed the evening, I hope?’ he asked gruffly, moving out of harm’s way and wondering when he had suddenly turned into a horny adolescent, and why. ‘In spite of there being no clients at the table to keep us busy?’
Abby smiled. She’d loved every second of it. She’d loved the food, the ambience, the glorious old elegance of the restaurant. She’d loved the choice of wine, the strength of the coffee, the novelty of the amuse-bouche...
She’d loved his company.
He’d been amusing, witty and charming, and all of that had gone to her head faster than the several glasses of wine she had drunk, barely aware of her glass being topped up the minute it looked as though it might need a refill.
He’d stopped being her boss. Even on night one, when she had lain on that bed, frozen like a statue while he’d worked next to her, he’d been her boss. And the following night she hadn’t seen him at all, because he’d worked until late and then risen before she’d opened her eyes in the morning. Through all those deliberate touches for the sake of his grandmother, she hadn’t forgotten that they were playing a game and that reality awaited them when they were back in London and she donned her neat little suit and pumps and sat down in front of him to go through work for the day.
It had started when she had walked into that boutique and abandoned herself to doing something she had never given much thought to—shopping.
Then later, when she had stood in front of him and smelled the scent of attraction, sensed that he was seeing her, maybe for the first time, as a woman and not his efficient PA, something had changed in her.
She’d stopped being the well-behaved, neat, tidy woman who sorted his life out for him, did her job and worked overtime without complaining.
She’d been herself, and had allowed herself to open up and respond as though they were two people just out having a good time.
It was dangerous.
And it was dangerous how much she knew him, how easy it was to be lulled by his sexy, seductive banter. Who even knew whether he was deliberately flirting? Who could tell whether it had meant anything when he’d looked at her for just a bit too long with those lazy, dark eyes as he’d relaxed back in his chair and sipped from his glass of wine?
‘It was wonderful. The restaurant is to die for and the food was heavenly. Your grandmother is very lucky to have something of that standard just round the corner.’
Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair and half-turned away. She looked so damned glorious that he wanted to step forward, yank her towards him, kiss her senseless, then take her up to the bedroom and do all sorts of other things to her that would leave her even more senseless.
He’d been plagued with uncomfortable arousal for the duration of the evening, and he knew that if he carried on looking at her now and letting his imagination run riot he wouldn’t be the only one to notice his excitement. It would be evident to her as well.
‘Not sure she makes a habit of going to five-star restaurants. Her diet has been, through necessity, a simple one.’
Silence. And this time the king of silence was finding it hard to deal with—although she, it had to be said, was as controlled as he was restless. The shoe was most firmly on the other foot.
‘Think I’ll get some work in,’ he said abruptly, spinning round on his heels and heading in the direction of the office at the end of the long villa.
Left alone, Abby felt a shard of disappointment pierce her, and she fiercely reminded herself that whilst she might have let pretend-world merge with real world he obviously had a lot more control.
‘Good idea!’ she said brightly, moving off in the opposite direction towards the staircase.
‘Don’t wait up.’ Safer to sleep in the office, he thought, even if it meant a dodgy back the next day. ‘I might do an all-nighter.’
Abby laughed and squashed the thought that an empty bed was the most unappealing thing in the world, especially after one of the best evenings of her life. She turned round and threw over her shoulder without looking at him, ‘Wouldn’t dream of it.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
GABRIEL LOOKED AT his watch. He hadn’t thought it possible for time to move as slowly as it had. He’d been cooped up in the office for the past two hours and it had felt like a lifetime.
Was he going to sleep there? Not a chance. One look at the sleeping options had put paid to any such plan. Besides, he’d managed to spend the past two nights sharing a bed with her. She’d stuck to her side, as though glued to the space, and he’d had his usual brief sleep, waking while she was enjoying her first dream and heading downstairs for strong coffee and a backlog of emails.
Touching hadn’t been on his mind. He’d reined in any hint of his imagination getting frisky and had told himself that there was no way he was going to jeopardise his professional relationship with her by making a pass.
Even though the combination of him, a bed and a sexy woman didn’t bear thinking about.
But tonight...
Something had been different, a little shift that had made his blood run hot.
He got up and flexed, stretching out the stiffness of having been sitting for two hours. When he looked at his watch, it was to find that it was after one in the morning, and he was pretty sure she would be sound asleep. For someone who had been as skittish as a colt about sharing a bed with him, she’d managed to fall asleep for the past two nights with no problem at all.
Still in the clothes he had worn to go to the restaurant, Gabriel began heading up the stairs, making sure not to switch on any lights.
His movements were as stealthy as a panther. By the time he was standing outside the bedroom, he had unbuttoned his shirt and tugged it out of the waistband of his trousers.
She had left the door slightly ajar, as she had the night before, and he had easily read the motive behind that. Don’t wake me, that gesture had shrieked. There was no way she would find it comfortable to be awake when he slipped under the sheets. He grinned at the thought of her blushing discomfort, but then sobered up when he realised that he would find it all slightly awkward as well, even though he was an expert when it came to all things between the sheets.
Indeed, he had spent at least one night sleeping next to a woman with whom he had had no intention of making love but with whom, for reasons beyond his control, he had found himself sharing a bed. She had come onto him with the clumsy determination of someone who’d had just a tiny bit too much to drink, and he had had no problem gently swatting away her advances until she had nodded off into snoring slumber. He could have been sleeping next to a mannequin for all the temptation he had felt to touch.
He pushed open the door very gently and shut it just as gently behind him. He heard the soft click and then, reassured by Abby’s even breathing, Gabriel padded towards the bathroom, stripping off his shirt en route and tossing it onto the floor.
Abby didn’t move a muscle. Wasn’t he supposed to be sleeping in the office? Doing an all-nighter? She would never have dreamt of reading her book for an hour if she’d known that—she would have been on red alert to fall asleep and be asleep in record-breaking time because he was returning to the bedroom!
It was dark in the room, but not so dark that she hadn’t seen the ripple of muscled torso as he’d begun removing his shirt.
Abby felt wired. She wanted to keep still but suddenly had to move because she was beginning to get pins and needles in her feet.
She moved just as Gabriel exited the bathroom, the light behind him throwing his body into shadow. His torso was bare. Was that how he had slept next to her for the past two nights? Had she been sharing the bed with a half-naked Gabriel? Thankfully he was in a pair of loose drawstring bottoms which were slung low on his hips and looked ridiculously sexy.
‘Did I wake you?’ Gabriel reached to turn off the bathroom light and the bedroom was plunged into immediate darkness, but then within seconds his eyes acclimatised because the moon was managing to seep through the shutters, casting just enough of a dim light to outline the dark shapes in the room.
Abby didn’t say anything because her tongue was suddenly glued to the roof of her mouth.
‘I thought,’ Gabriel said conversationally as he strolled towards the bed, sending her nervous system into panicked overdrive, ‘You would have been asleep by now.’ He slipped under the covers and propped himself up on his side to look at her.
‘Are you finished working already?’ Abby wondered how likely it was that she could introduce some kind of work-related issues into whatever brief, embarrassing conversation she would have to have with the wretched man who looked infuriatingly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed from what she could make out in the darkness.
‘It’s after one. I might not need much sleep, Abby, but an entire night without any would test even me.’
‘I thought you mentioned that you might be sleeping in the office.’
‘Is that why you’re still awake?’
‘Of course not!’
‘Oh, good. Because, were that to be the case, then I would have to question your assertion that you could share a bed naked with me and not notice my presence.’
‘I never said that.’
The conversation was being condu
cted in hushed whispers and that made Abby feel as though they were being naughty kids indulging in something that would get them into trouble should they get caught. She cleared her throat and frantically tried to think of a good way to end the conversation, because her whole body was on fire.
In between the self-indulgent buying of designer clothes, she’d somehow contrived to forget that she meant to buy a set of drab pyjamas. Probably because such an item hadn’t been stocked in any of the boutiques she’d entered. Rich women who wore silk and cashmere obviously didn’t do flannelette as well.
‘My mistake,’ Gabriel murmured. He shifted. Thought about that glimpse of the very sexy night gown he had glimpsed on the single passing occasion.
‘Well...’ Abby faked a yawn. ‘I should get some sleep. Busy day tomorrow if we plan on touching base with the CEO of Mira Holdings.’
‘No plans there.’
‘But I thought...’
‘I know. However, as you can surmise by now, all plans are in a state of flux. I don’t want my grandmother suspecting that this is anything but the real deal, and as a guy who is supposedly newly loved up, rushing off clutching a briefcase with a row of pens in my top pocket isn’t going to cut it. I’m keeping on top of things in London, getting through essential emails, and I’ve done what I can do about the deals I had lined up to work on over here—but that’s about as far as I can go for the rest of the time we’re here.’
‘You grandmother obviously doesn’t know you,’ Abby couldn’t resist saying in a tart undertone. ‘If she thinks that you would actually take time off to relax when there’s work to be done.’
‘Maybe she thinks I would if I were loved up enough.’
‘And would you?’
‘Never been there, so couldn’t tell you.’
‘I should get some sleep.’
‘You looked beautiful tonight.’
Abby’s breath caught in her throat and her eyes widened. She clamped her thighs tightly together but she could feel the dampness between her legs and the push of her nipples against her soft, silky nightie. With every pore in her being, she was aware of just how scantily dressed she was under the protection of the cover.
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