Rose thought that no picnic could have been better. Even the clutter of branches and coconuts on the beach, not to mention the seaweed and coral that had been dredged up from the storm, was enough to ruin the perfection of the experience.
They had managed to unearth a huge blanket of sorts from a cupboard that contained various assorted items of linen, presumably used by the workmen. To Rose, this was as close to paradise as she could possibly get.
‘Now,’ Gabriel said, settling down next to her on the blanket, ‘I think there’s still a spot of sun lotion to be applied considering you’ll have to take off that very impractical skirt you’re wearing.’
He whipped the sun lotion out of the box and squirted a generous amount on to the palms of his hands. Rose gave herself over to the smell of the salty air, the warmth of the sun and the expertise of Gabriel’s hands as he stroked the cream onto her breasts, paying a disproportionate amount of attention to her nipples, which were standing stiff and erect. She felt like a luxuriating cat. Whenever she stirred, he told her to lie back and relax. He needed her, he told her huskily, to remain perfectly still if he was to do a thorough job.
‘And close your eyes,’ he commanded. His need to possess her, mentally and physically, was overpowering. He worked his way down her stomach, massaging the cream into her skin. She was silky-soft and warm from the sun.
But this time, before he could get her to that mindless point of no return, Rose scrambled up and pushed him back on to the blanket.
‘I’m going to make love to you this time,’ she told him. ‘You’ll do everything I tell you to do…and the first thing is to keep absolutely still…so that I can rub this lotion over every inch of you…’
Rose thought that she could easily get used to making love in a public place, or at least in a deserted cove on an island in the middle of the blue ocean. With this man. The man she loved and always would love to the ends of the earth.
She didn’t want to think beyond the feel of the blanket under her, the sound of the sea, gentle and docile now as it lapped against the sand, the sensation of the salty breeze on their bodies.
If Rose could have captured that moment in a bottle and hung on to it for ever, she would have because she knew that, once it was lost, it was lost for all time. They would never recapture it again.
And neither could she exist in a bubble, living from one moment to the next.
‘…much as I’d like to…’ she finished explaining to him. They had just finished having the most amazing sex and a long swim in water that was so transparently blue and calm that it was mind boggling to think of it churning against the rocks the night before. The sun was rapidly drying them. Staring up at the cloudless azure sky, it was hard to believe that she was having this conversation.
Gabriel propped himself up on one elbow and stared down at her, tilting her face so that she couldn’t avoid looking at him.
‘Who said anything about living in a bubble?’ he asked.
‘What do you call this…?’
‘I call it…my perfect secretary…’ He trailed his finger between her breasts, then circled first one nipple, then the other, finally rotating the sensitised nub of each between his fingers. His eyes lazily feasted on her body, the flat planes of her stomach, already turning a pale shade of gold, the V of soft downy hair that shielded her ripe womanhood. The taste of her still lingered in his mouth.
Rose turned on to her side to look at him seriously. ‘But it’s not reality,’ she persisted quietly. ‘Reality is London. Reality is me working for you, coming into the office in a suit, sitting at a desk…Reality isn’t the two of us on a beach. This is stolen time.’
‘It’s only stolen if we leave it here,’ Gabriel said, bending to place a kiss on the corner of her mouth. It beat the hell out of him how he could have failed to notice just how perfect her lips were. Full and well defined. Like her. ‘When we’re back in London things can carry on just as they were before…in the office. And just as they are now with you in my bed.’
But she wanted to spend the rest of her life following it through.
The kiss at the side of her mouth deepened into something more urgent, something that sent her body into immediate meltdown. He pulled her close and she rubbed herself against him, head flung back, nostrils flared in pure sensuous pleasure at the abrasive feel of his hard erection against her. When he rammed his thigh between her legs and began pushing against her, she let her thoughts fly from her head.
And that, for Gabriel, was the end of the conversation. It had literally gone from his mind. Rose knew that with unerring instinct and, for a short while, she was prepared to enjoy what was spectacularly on offer. They made love with an intensity and driving passion that was almost uncontrollable. And they overstayed their original four day plan! Rose was amused because, for Gabriel, it was unheard of. One of the bigger islands was a boat trip and short flight away and they made a day of it, buying clothes and various other luxuries not easily found on the small island.
They would stay for a week, Gabriel told her. Things were being accomplished with the villa and, besides, he needed the break. But the week turned into two. They filled the time with trips to other islands, with a bit of work, with lots of love-making. Together they even chose tiles and accessories, which felt treacherously good. At night, wakeful when Gabriel was asleep and still hot with the imprint of his touch on her, Rose lay awake and pondered her options.
Sooner or later, Gabriel would rouse from his unfamiliar slumber and the call to arms would sound its trumpet. He might like the idea of continuing with their loose affair back in London, but Rose had seen too many examples of what happened to the women he slept with once they had outlived their sell-by date. There was no doubt that, sooner or later, and probably sooner, she would end up sending the goodbye flowers to herself.
And Gabriel had no intention of committing to anything other than a fling. He never had and he never would, not until he found the right woman and it certainly wasn’t her.
Rose wasn’t going to wait until she became an embarrassment. Nor was she going to try and pin him down with questions of permanence. So when, after two weeks, he began making noises about regrettably returning to work, she did the only thing she could think of doing.
She arranged a phone call to herself. It was a little tricky. It involved a call to her neighbour, instructing her to call and to leave an urgent message. Rose would take it from there. Her neighbour was bemused but blessedly tactful and the following lunchtime, hurrying from the public telephone in the town and wearing an anxious expression, Rose told Gabriel that she would have to leave immediately. An emergency. She had run through the various emergency options in her head and had settled on one that couldn’t be fixed with money.
‘A death in the family,’ she told him, packing as she spoke so that she wouldn’t be able to make eye contact. ‘An aunt—’ she crossed her fingers ‘—very sudden. I must go. Mum…Well, they were close, put it like that…’
The clean break she had anticipated when she had returned from Australia was the only option now. If she didn’t take it, she knew that at some point she risked her longing and love for him to be transmitted, like osmosis, out of her and into him and her mind shut down when she tried to contemplate the humiliation of that eventuality.
She would see him back in London, she lied, flinging things into her case, knowing that she would get rid of everything, every last memory. Three days—she laughed, half turning to him—not long!
There was a bittersweet poignancy when he held her from behind, when his hand found those places that could send her soul soaring, when later they made love, enjoying each other for what seemed like an eternity.
She wanted to commit every second of it to memory because it would have to last.
CHAPTER NINE
GABRIEL looked at the photographs of the villa that had been scanned and emailed to him. It was virtually complete. Two and a half months ago it had withstood the fury of the we
ather and it was as if that in itself had been a catalyst for change. Equipment and materials that had been a source of problems, suddenly became available. The workforce had resumed with renewed effort. Everything had dovetailed neatly into place.
He logged off, sending the twenty-two scenic shots back into cyberspace, and pushed himself away from the desk, swivelling his chair around so that he was staring broodingly out of the window at an ever-darkening day.
The sun, the island, the passion, that night of rain and wind and untamed sex, followed by two weeks of the most liberating love-making he had ever experienced, seemed like a dream. She seemed like a dream. And not one Gabriel particularly liked springing into his head when he least expected it. Like now.
Three days after she had left, destination one deceased relative, so called, Gabriel had returned to London to find an empty office and a note.
Don’t think this is going to work after all. Please don’t contact me. I have arranged for a replacement to start work as soon as you return. Rose.
He could recall word for word what she had written because he had kept the note. He wanted it close to him at all times as a reminder of why any sort of emotional involvement with a woman was a mistake and, yes, he had become emotionally involved. Not much, of course, but enough. Too much.
He had followed his natural pattern of replacing her with someone else and had been to the right places with the right six-foot leggy blonde clutching his arm and gazing up at him in awestruck adoration but the formula for forgetfulness had failed to work. He had been distracted and unable to find the energy to court her. She, in turn, had been hurt, mortified and ultimately enraged by his apparent slur to her pulling power.
Gabriel had immediately abandoned himself to work. It would have been successful had it not been for moments like…this, when he found himself grimly subjected to the merciless power of memory.
He had no idea why he couldn’t rid himself of the inconvenient image of her popping up in his head like a burr, determined to cause maximum irritation. He assumed it was because, for the first time in his life, he had been wrong-footed by a woman. In every single instance he had always been the one who gave the rueful speech about it being time to move on. Now he had been given a taste of his own medicine and he didn’t care for it.
Not, of course, that he had any intention of seeking her out and prolonging the debate. That would have been unthinkable.
Gabriel stood up, stretched and loped over to the window. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stared down at the fading day. Curiosity, a visitor he did his utmost to repel, gnawed tenaciously at the back of his mind. What was she up to? Had she started that course of hers? Was she seeing anyone? He assumed she would have taken up again with Mr What’s-his-name she had left behind. Thinking about that made his teeth clench in anger. After she had slept with him, proved to them both that Mr What’s-his-name was one hundred per cent lacking in the sexual compatibility department, she would go back to the guy just because he represented God knew what…security, he supposed!
Gabriel glowered through the window at nothing in particular. So far up, everyone and everything looked pleasantly small. He had had nearly three months to mull over her disappearing act and had come to the conclusion that underneath the sexy, responsive woman beat a heart that longed for security. Of course, he should have guessed that she would have eventually been terrified of having an affair with him, terrified of the limitless freedom of expression he offered her. He had allowed the fiery, sexual, hungry side of her to be expressed and she had decided that it was all a little bit too much.
Serve her right if she ended up living a life of drudgery and monotony with a man she clearly didn’t love and never would!
Gabriel sat back down at his desk and glared at the computer screen, which obligingly offered him the relaxing vision of company accounts. He lightly tapped one of the keys and the screen shifted to a draft report that needed checking.
It was just as well that she’d vanished if security was the thing she longed for! Because she would know only too well that he was the last man in the world to offer that gem of a prize to any woman. When the time came he would settle down, but that time was still a long way away! The last thing he needed was a messy situation involving someone who worked for him!
He couldn’t help but speculate, with satisfaction, that she was probably bitterly regretting her hasty impulse to leave. When she sobered up, it pleased him to think that she would realise just what a financial package she had tossed down the drain. How many companies were prepared to offer an employee a part-time week at an escalated salary, with no guarantee that said employee wouldn’t walk straight out of the door the minute they qualified in their studies? Frankly, none, and especially not considering she would be a recent employee at whatever company she had deserted him to join.
No, he was pretty sure that she would be suffering.
Fortified at the thought of that, Gabriel retrieved the photos of the villa and contemplated them in a less aggrieved frame of mind, flicking through them with satisfaction because the place looked stunning even in its as yet unfinished state. Amazing what painting and decorating could achieve! The landscaping, including the golf course, was yet to be completed but that would be the last thing, and the pools, three smaller ones and one large infinity overlooking the sea, were all but up and running.
He wondered whether he would aggressively advertise it as a luxurious, fairly private resort available to a select handful of people who were willing to basically rent an island or whether he would keep this treasure to himself, lend it out to friends, enjoy it with his family whenever he could find the time. His mother was always angling for a family reunion. She could have her reunions in style there.
He was just beginning to pleasantly contemplate the myriad uses to which the villa could be put when he heard his secretary knock tentatively on his door and he bit back the immediate surge of annoyance.
Karen Davis was proving to be an excellent replacement secretary if efficiency was the only prerequisite. Unfortunately, on most other counts, she didn’t press the right buttons for him. She was too young at twenty, too timid and too reluctant to take the initiative. He told himself that he really had to give her time to grow accustomed to his ways but, whenever he thought like that, he began thinking of Rose and then his mind, freed of its leash, would gallop all over the place.
‘What?’ he snapped, modifying his voice to a more polite, ‘Yes?’ when Karen poked her head around his door.
She was thin. Some might call it fashionably thin, but to his eyes, she appeared emaciated. Her hair was very long and she was very pale and had a tendency to look away whenever he spoke to her. She was, however, extremely good when it came to the basic mechanisms of her job. Gabriel reminded himself of that and of the succession of no hopers he had employed when Rose had gone to Australia. He tried to soften his expression.
‘There’s someone here to see you, sir…’
Gabriel had tried hard to make her call him by his first name but she persisted in sticking to sir and he had given up. ‘Who? There’s nothing in my diary.’
‘No, well, sir…’
‘Tell him to book an appointment through you. I won’t be working late tonight.’
Karen hesitated and glanced over her shoulder.
Rose, standing by the door, knowing that Gabriel wouldn’t be able to actually make her out, sent her a sympathetic glance back. Poor kid. This was probably her first real job, fresh out of secretarial college, all primed on her computer skills but totally green when it came to handling a man like Gabriel. For a few seconds, Rose forgot that she, herself, felt sick to the stomach with nerves. She gently lifted one finger to her mouth, instructing the girl not to pursue the matter and noticed the flash of relief in her eyes.
Karen nodded at Gabriel, who had already lost interest in the identity of his mystery caller, and quietly shut the door.
‘You go home,’ Rose said gently. ‘And I’ll
go in.’
‘But…’ Karen looked back at the closed door and chewed nervously on her lip, ‘he’ll kill me if you just walk into his office. Part of my job is to…you know…vet the people who want to see him…’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll make sure you survive the ordeal.’ Rose smiled, although her mouth hurt from the effort. ‘Don’t forget I used to work for him. You’re not allowing a complete stranger into his hallowed presence…’Rose had met Karen briefly, on the very day she had returned to clear out her desk. Two days before Gabriel returned from the island. She knew that the young girl had been curious about the suddenness of her employment, but she had been easily convinced by the generosity of the pay package. So hers was a familiar face and if Karen suspected that she might not be an entirely welcome visitor—or else why would she have arrived unannounced for a surprise visit?—she was still happy to follow the path of least resistance. Which involved her making a quiet and speedy departure from the office.
With the outside door firmly shut, Rose drew in a deep shaky breath.
She had spent the past four days trying to predict how she would feel standing right here, inside this office. She could have come earlier in the day, but she knew how the office worked, knew that if she timed it well she would arrive when most of the staff were leaving, which would be the better option.
She had anticipated nerves, but nothing could compare to the wild, sick fluttering in her stomach now.
She smoothed her perspiring palms on her skirt and forced herself to walk towards his door. To knock or not to knock? Rose knocked and got exactly what she expected, which was a, ‘Yes! What is it now?’ that paid even less lip service to courtesy than when Karen had knocked previously.
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