by Cathy Quinn
"Dress Skimpy."
"Oh."
"Another one thrown in for free: Act Seductively."
"How exactly do I do that?"
Susan shrugged. "Sashay and coo?"
***
When Gabriel strode into the restaurant, just a few minutes after Alice had sat down at a table with her blind date, the first thing she noticed was that for once he wasn’t wearing jeans. And he was definitely not wearing a garish t-shirt.
He wasn’t dressed formally either. Instead he was wearing black, all black, and he looked so good she forgot to breathe for so long that she felt faint by the time she finally gasped for oxygen again.
And he wasn’t her date, she remembered with a sigh. He was her bodyguard. Damn.
Gabriel sauntered between the tables in the wake of a waiter, and was seated at the next table. As he lowered himself to the chair he gave her a look that told her again just how he felt about her blind date plan.
She held back her smile, but a giggle got loose when she noticed him pull a notebook out of his pocket and plop it down on the table with a thud, tapping it with two fingers to draw her attention to it. He pulled a pen out of his inner jacket pocket and yanked the cap off with his teeth, glaring at her date before proceeding to write something down.
Alice’s grin widened. What was he going to do? Write down the guy’s description in case they needed police intervention?
She tried to stop grinning, and instead scowl inconspicuously at him, but her scowl melted into a badly concealed giggle when he pulled a tiny digital camera out of his pocket and placed it on top of the notebook.
Poor Alex. Gabriel would have him on a Wanted poster in a split second if he so much as breathed wrong.
"Did I say something funny?" Alex was looking bewildered.
"I’m sorry, no, just a stray thought. You were saying...?"
She noticed that Gabriel’s notepad and camera was producing interesting side effects. The waiter who served both their tables had hurried towards the kitchen, and now the maitre d’ was heading towards Gabriel. She pressed the napkin to her mouth to stifle another chuckle. They must assume he was a restaurant critic. Terrific.
Would be even more terrific if the waiters got a glimpse of what he was writing down.
Just what was he writing down?
Alice got sidetracked again trying to decude what Gabriel was writing by the movements of his pen, and awoke to reality to find her date staring at her expectantly. "Uh... I’m sorry..." she stammered. Why didn’t her brain have a rewind button? She’d obviously missed a question. What had he said? "I’m sorry," she ended up repeating with an apologetic look. "I spaced out there for a minute. You were saying?"
She managed to keep her mind on small-talk for only five minutes.
"Gabriel!" The loud voice turned her attention again away from Alex. Someone was standing between her and Gabriel. Someone blonde, beautiful and worst of all: tall. Alice scowled at the silk-clad back, and wished she could take her jealousy demon and have it sink its teeth into the woman’s behind to make her run screaming away from Gabriel.
"Isabella. Hi." Gabriel stood up and Alice craned her neck trying to see just where that kiss landed. She didn’t succeed, but the way Gabriel wiped off his lips with his napkin was a dead giveaway. She frowned and the jealousy demon clawed itself out of her subconscious and broke the surface, snarling with rage.
"It’s Bella, darling," the woman purred. "I was supposed to meet a friend here, but guess what, his wife went into labor thirty minutes ago." She paused. "Are you meeting someone?"
Alice almost growled. Why didn’t she just sit in his lap? And meeting someone whose wife was in labor? What kind of a woman was this? And how did she know Gabriel? How well did she know Gabriel?
"Well... no. I’m by myself too," Gabriel said. He hesitated. "You’re welcome to join me, of course."
The evening seemed endless and it hadn’t even started yet.
Alice sighed as she finished her appetizer and pushed the plate away. Gabriel and "Bella, darling" seemed to be having a lot more fun than she was having. The waiters were so busy hovering around Gabriel’s table that it took forever for Alex to get their attention.
Alice frowned some more. She’d have to talk to the restaurant critic at the magazine. Gabriel and "Bella-darling" had waiters dancing around them, while she and Alex hadn’t even been served their food yet. It had to be at least half an hour since their orders had been taken.
"Excuse me for asking this, Alice, but do you have epilepsy by any chance?"
"Huh?" She stared at Alex. Had she just had the first seizure of her life and missed it?
"You seem to space off a lot. My sister’s kid does it all the time, and it’s supposed to be some sort of epilepsy."
"Uh. No. I’m fine. No epilepsy. Just a bit absentminded..."
Alex gestured towards her. "You haven’t touched your food."
Alice blinked. Indeed, she discovered, looking down, there was a plate of delicious looking food right there in front of her, and she hadn’t even noticed that they’d brought it.
She forced a smile and put on imaginary blinders. She would ignore Gabriel and Bella-darling for the rest of the evening. She would.
"We’ll keep in touch," Alex said with a forced smile as he waved and left for his car. Terrific. She didn’t even warrant a standard "I’ll call you" lie. And she was definitely not in the mood for being a 21st century woman and asking for his phone number.
Alice sighed as she entered the taxi, dutifully adhering to Gabriel’s "precautions" and asking the driver to wait until Alex’s car had vanished. She’d been too busy paying attention to the next table to get to know Alex. And, not surprisingly, he was thinking she was more than a little strange.
Alice thanked heavens for the dulling effects of that one glass of wine she’d drunk. Tomorrow she would look back on this date and cringe in embarrassment at her own behavior, but right now she was too dizzy to care.
But all in all, this was a wasted evening. At least for her. There was no telling what Gabriel and Bella-darling were up to. They had left after Alice. Together. They had taken the next cab. Together.
She was dying to call and check up on him, but that wouldn’t be right.
Would it?
Of course, she had the perfect right to call and ask what he thought about Alex. She’d consented to let him come along as a bodyguard -- she had every right to ask him about the long report no doubt written down in his notebook.
Somehow, her hand was on the phone as soon as she got inside her apartment. She opened her mouth at the sound of Gabriel’s voice, but realized it was his answering machine. She slammed the phone down.
So he wasn’t picking up.
He was probably still with that bimbo.
After all, he hadn’t taught that one to ride a bike and scarred her knee for life. He was allowed to flirt and do whatever he liked with Bella-darling because she wasn’t his best friend’s sister, and she wasn’t looking for a perfect guy to share a burial plot with.
Fine. His loss.
Alice threw a cushion on top of the phone and stomped to her bedroom. She yanked her clothes off and threw them over the foot of the bed, and replaced them with thick white socks and her favorite cotton pajamas with a print of a smiling pair of polar bears.
She’d grab some canned peaches, squirt chocolate over them and eat them all syrupy and gooey from the can while drowning her sorrows under a blanket in front of the television.
Luxury of the single woman, she told herself as she plopped down on the sofa and speared a peach with her fork. Nobody to have her committed when she shoveled in the most disgusting comfort food imaginable.
She switched the TV on and searched for a mindless sit-com.
Tomorrow might be another day, but it was a long lonely night away.
Chapter 7
"Rise and shine!"
Gabriel blinked against the light and reminded himself yet again to get
a shade for that bulb.
"Whazzat?" he mumbled, covering his eyes with a pillow.
"We’ve got work to do." Something landed on him. "Your clothes. Let’s get going."
Parts of his brain woke up enough to wonder what the hell was going on, and if he should care, or just huddle down and wait for her to go away again.
"Gabriel, it’s almost eight o’clock. Were you up late last night?"
A challenging tone was added to the cheerful bossiness. Then the covers were torn off him.
"Remind me to get you pajamas for your birthday," Alice said as he opened one eye so that he could at least attempt to glare at her. "You’ll need them for the winter."
She was looking him over, without even trying to conceal her interest. Now he was an anatomy lesson. Terrific.
"It’s too warm for pajamas," he muttered and reached for the clothes that now lay in a heap on the floor. "Get the hell out of here while I get dressed."
"So modest all of a sudden?" Alice snorted. She backed towards the door, but didn’t leave. "It’s not like I haven’t seen everything already."
"Voyeur," he muttered. "What are you doing here? How was your date, anyway?"
She stared at him. "You tell me. You’re the one with the notepad and the camera."
"Right. Go make coffee, will you?"
To his amazement, she left the room without him having to resort to a cattle prod, leaving him in peace. His watch told him it was ten minutes to eight. He took his time getting dressed and brushed his teeth before wandering out to the kitchen. What was she up to?
At least she had made the coffee.
"So, Gabriel, what did you think of Alex? He didn’t pull an axe on me, so he has to get pointers for that. Right?"
Gabriel dug a cup out of the dishwasher and helped himself to coffee. "Poor guy. You spent the entire evening glaring at me, and ignoring him."
Alice fiddled with the ends of her hair, and – yeah, she seemed to be blushing. "I know. Poor Alex. But your Bella-darling distracted me," she added defensively. "I worried I might have to take drastic action to prevent her from devouring you as dessert."
"I can take care of myself." His brain felt a lot clearer now that he had caffeine in his system, and the fire in Alice’s eyes wasn’t too much of a mystery.
She was jealous as hell.
Against all rational thought, the idea made him smile. He turned away to hide what she’d probably call a smirk and stared out the window, still inhaling caffeine from the almost empty mug. "You still haven’t told me what you’re doing here."
"Yes, I did. Checking if you’d been devoured by Bella-darling."
"Wouldn’t that be my business?"
Out of the corner of his eye he watched Alice bite her lip. "In theory, yes."
"But..."
"You’re looking out for me, it’s only fair I look out for you," she said defensively. "And my female intuition tells me that woman was up to no good!"
"Her intentions were not honorable?"
"No! I mean..." Alice banged her palm on the table. "You’d love it for her to have dishonorable intentions, wouldn’t you? I mean – you’d love it if she were here this morning, instead of me, wouldn’t you? You’d want her to stand here in her birthday suit, making you coffee. Right?"
Gabriel raised a sardonic eyebrow. "None of your business. Is it?"
Good question.
Gabriel’s tone was challenging. Alice vividly remembered the woman’s cleavage and the way she’d practically shoved it in Gabriel’s face when she’d sat down next to him. "Never mind." She banged her mug on the table and twisted around, stalking out of the house.
"Alice!"
She ignored him, jumped into her car and drove away, blinking ridiculous tears out of her eyes. She shouldn’t have come here. It had been a ridiculous idea. Barging into his bedroom at eight in the morning – to check up on him?
She was being stupid. More than stupid. She was wearing her heart on her sleeve too. And it had been even more stupid to run out of there like that.
What would Gabriel be thinking?
Unfortunately she had a pretty good idea of what he was thinking, and damnit, he would probably be right. She had balanced on the edge practically forever, but now she’d fallen helplessly – in lust at the very least.
She was very much afraid it might be the other L-word too.
Nothing to it – she’d just have to stay away from him for a while. She’d get over him – and if she was lucky, he’d forget all about this adolescent little phase.
A red light at the very first intersection. Not a car in sight, but a red light. Damn. She stopped, and used the chance to check her face. The rearview mirror gleefully informed her she looked dreadful.
"Yeah. Like I care," she muttered, yanking some Kleenex out of her purse. She blew her nose, then nearly hit her head on the ceiling and shrieked when her door was yanked open.
"What the hell are you doing, Gabriel? I’m at a red light, for God’s sake."
Gabriel was staring down at her with a certain amount of exasperation. "You’re acting like a five-year-old. I thought you didn’t throw tantrums anymore."
"Tantrums?"
"We hadn’t finished our discussion when you ran out of there slamming doors!"
"Tough. I don’t want to discuss anything." She pulled the door closed and locked it for good measure. Gabriel looked at her mildly through the open window. "Don’t you think you’re overreacting just a little bit?"
She sniffed. "So?"
"What’s your problem? Why are you acting like this? And why the hell are you crying? Is this thing with Bella really so big a deal?"
Did he have to ask? Did he want it spelled out? Her jealousy flared up again at hearing Bella-darling’s name. The light turned green – probably not for the first time since she’d stopped – and she drove on. In the rearview mirror she could see Gabriel jump into his own car.
And follow her.
She cursed. What was that persistence about? Why didn’t he just shrug and leave it be? This was embarrassing. Humiliating.
She parked outside her parent’s house, and as always when she pulled in, promised herself she’d work on finding an apartment to rent soon. Gabriel pulled in behind her and was already there when she stepped out of the car. She ignored him as she headed up the stairs.
"Alice!"
She opened the door, and meant to stomp inside and slam it in his face. Only it didn’t quite work out that way, and they ended up both on the inside. The door did get slammed, though. Half a victory, but she couldn’t gloat because he had her trapped against the door and she couldn’t decide how it made her feel. "What do you want, Gabriel?"
"You," he said, and her heart stopped beating for a moment. Gabriel looked at her mouth for a long moment, and she whimpered as he leaned closer. He met her gaze, grinned, and brushed away a tiny piece of tissue stuck to her lip.
"It’s Saturday. We have a class today." He glanced at his watch. "In an hour, in fact. So, let’s get over this little tantrum. I need you there to help me out."
Alice told her heart to start beating again. She pushed him away hard and scurried to the kitchenette. Wouldn’t do for him to notice how agitated she was.
She was such a sucker.
Had she really thought he’d meant that he wanted her, that he was feeling the same things she was, and wanted to act on them?
She was such an idiot.
Worse, she was out of ice-cream.
But at least she had some milk and a whole package of chocolate chip cookies. She grabbed both and headed for her tiny living room. She also had a television and sole custody of the remote. Who needed men?
She’d ignore him. She’d pretend he was invisible, and then he’d have to give up and go away. Eventually.
"Alice!" Gabriel cursed. "Why are you acting like I committed some heinous crime? You’re being a spoiled brat again."
She could not ignore that.
"Again? What d
o you mean again?"
"You were a spoiled kid. You improved some when you grew up, but obviously you’ve got some way to go yet."
"Are you, Mr. Rich Boy, calling me spoiled?"
"Spoiled doesn’t have to have anything to do with money."
"Go away, Gabriel."
He spread out his hands in an angry gesture of defeat. "Fine. I’ll find someone else to work the class with me."
He didn’t even slam the door behind him, which made Alice feel even more like the five-year-old brat Gabriel had described.
And for the next hour, she felt worse and worse. She’d behaved like a complete jerk. A spoiled passive-aggressive jerk. All because she’d been blinded by jealousy, and she didn’t even have any right to be possessive of Gabriel.
She groaned. Was this what she was like? Was she a spoiled, self-centered, over-possessive brat? If she ever found Mr. Right, would she be the type to check his pockets for incriminating evidence, to spy on him and be paranoid whenever he had to work late?
Embarrassment almost made her draw the blinds and crawl into bed to hide for a week or two, but instead she dragged herself out to the car and drove to the center. She’d missed the first class, but she’d be there in time for the second one.
***
The second class was about to start by the time she made it to the gym. Gabriel hadn’t been lying about being eaten alive by the college girls. She couldn’t help but giggle. It was hard to be jealous when the poor man was looking so terrified. They’d actually cornered him off.
She strode towards the small group and tapped shoulders until she reached him. His expression of relief was followed by confusion and then wariness.