by Lynne Graham
Was it Gabriel’s overwhelming vitality that made her feel slow and sluggish in comparison? Was it the fact that she was the dullard behind the computer who booked the exciting events for exciting women?
‘Turns out she didn’t have what it takes. Admittedly, she was sexy as hell,’ he mused lazily. ‘But sadly the legs, the curves, the winning pout...weren’t enough to save her from being interminably boring.’
Alice’s rictus smile felt strained at the edges. Another one bites the dust, she thought with simmering resentment. Time to move on to another model and, fingers crossed, the legs, the curves and yet another winning pout might be combined with half a personality. While other normal people stuck things out because life was just not one long array of delectable dishes to be sampled and discarded, the Man Who Had It All just couldn’t be bothered with little niceties like that.
‘Maybe,’ he continued in the same musing, sexy voice, ‘I should incorporate that into your job description... Maybe I should delegate you to finding me someone who won’t prove tiresome after five seconds. Think you can handle it?’
Anger replaced resentment and, suddenly, Alice saw red. Who the heck did he think she was? Some kind of facilitator to ensure that even less effort was required by him when it came to finding a woman? Did he have any idea how condescending he sounded? How terminally dull he made her feel? Did he even care?
‘You...you...you have to be the laziest man I have ever met in my entire life!’
‘Come again?’
‘You heard me, Gabriel. You’re lazy!’ Hot, angry eyes raked over that sexy, prone body with the silk dressing gown allowing her far too wide-ranging a view of hard muscle and sinew. ‘You may work like the Devil, and you may have the Midas touch, but you can’t even be bothered to sort your own emotional life out! Why don’t you put some thought into booking the stuff you decide to do with your women? Why don’t you field your own calls and make your own excuses when you don’t want to see someone? You even got me to choose a parting gift for Georgia after she stormed out of your office! Something conciliatory, you said, money no object—and you never even bothered to find out what I’d chosen! How lazy is that?’
She had picked out a huge bouquet of flowers and a designer scarf in the colours of the coat the other woman had been wearing when she had had her hissy fit in his office. It had been eye-wateringly expensive but she doubted he would even raise an eyebrow when it showed up on his statement.
‘You’re going beyond your brief,’ Gabriel told her coolly. Lazy? Him? Hell, he worked all the hours God made! He had climbed the ladder no one thought he could and he had climbed it to the very top and built a castle there!
But she hadn’t been referring to his unparalleled success on the work front, had she? She had gone straight to the emotional side of his life. Typical of a woman, he told himself without the slightest inclination to analyse what she had said. As far as he was concerned, he had come from nothing and now had everything. He could have any woman he wanted. They flocked to him and he was astute enough to suspect that his sizeable bank balance had a lot to do with it. Would they still have flocked in their droves if he had never climbed that ladder? If the foster-care kid had become the welfare-dependent adult? Somehow, he didn’t think so.
No, the only thing he could rely upon was his ability to make money and to use his wealth to buy himself absolute freedom. Everything else fell by the wayside in comparison.
But the description still left a sour taste in his mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice told him without hesitation. ‘I didn’t mean to be critical.’
Gabriel could have taken her up on that insincere assertion. He didn’t. Instead, he turned to the reason she was there in the first place and the next three hours were spent poring over the files she had brought with her.
She had a good brain. She had creative and different ways of looking at potential problems. She could quickly do the maths when it came to sounding out the viability of certain tricky areas.
She had obviously forgotten her outburst but he still caught himself staring at her every so often, her down-bent head, her slender fingers tapping expertly on the keyboard as she amended documents.
And the damn woman had been right about the tablets. By midday, he was feeling better.
‘Right.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and Alice, ensconced on the sofa by the window, looked at him in alarm.
‘What are you doing?’ She had just about forgotten that she was working with him in his bedroom and that he was wearing nothing but a flimsy black robe which he was at no pains to pull tightly around him. She had told her wayward eyes to get a grip and thankfully, under the onslaught of work, they had. She had established their routine of sorts. And now he was standing up and tying the belt of the bathrobe only after she had glimpsed boxer shorts and brown thighs speckled with fine dark hair. He had amazing ankles. She kept her eyes firmly riveted on that fairly harmless section of his body as he strolled towards the bathroom and informed her that he was going to have a shower.
‘Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen? We can grab something to eat before we carry on.’
‘You seem a lot better,’ Alice ventured. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wrap up what we’ve been doing and really...um...harness your energies? They say that the best way to get rid of a cold—sorry, flu—is to just take it easy and rest.’
‘That might work for some people but not for me. Taking it easy isn’t my style. Now, unless you want to follow me into the bathroom so that we can continue discussing the situation with the electronics subsidiary, I suggest you stretch your legs and head downstairs. In fact...’ He paused by the door and looked at her, his eyes showing just the merest flicker of amusement even though his tone of voice remained bland. ‘You could always make yourself useful and cook us something to eat. You’ll find the fridge and the cupboards well-stocked. In keeping with my laziness, I have someone who makes sure that they are...’
With which he disappeared into the bathroom, not bothering to lock the door, leaving her with the frustrated feeling that somehow the rug had been neatly pulled out from under her feet.
Since when did her secretarial duties encompass cooking for the boss? Did the man know how to do anything but take advantage? Since when had it been written into her contract that she would have to fly over to his house, faster than the speed of light, so that she could plough through endless files with him because he happened to have caught a passing bug?
And why on earth hadn’t she objected more than she had? Why on earth did she feel so alive even when she was around him?
Downstairs, she looked around a kitchen where everything, from granite counters to gadgets, was polished to a high shine. She guessed that the person responsible for making sure that the fridge and cupboards were stocked with food was also responsible for making sure that dust and dirt didn’t find a foothold.
There was bread, ham, eggs and all manner of delicacies in the fridge and, after several attempts, she located the whereabouts of the tea, various kinds, and also various kinds of coffee.
‘I could always order in...’ His voice drawled behind her and Alice spun round, skin burning as though she had been caught red-handed with her hand in the till.
Gabriel wandered towards her, freshly showered and thankfully out of his bathrobe and in clothes—although his clothes were no less disconcerting, because he was in a pair of black jeans and a baggy rugby shirt. She couldn’t expect him to get dressed in his usual suit to stay home, but she wished that he had, because it would have cemented the boss-secretary line between them, would have reinforced their respective roles.
He was the essence of the alpha male—tall, dominant, with the sleek, latent power of a predator. In fact, there were times when she felt distinctly like prey when she was around him. This was one of those times, although she d
idn’t know why. She just knew that watching him pad through the kitchen barefoot, in jeans that delineated every powerful line of his body, was horribly unsettling.
‘You should be wearing something on your feet,’ she said inanely as he joined her by the kitchen counter so that he could help with the tea making. ‘You might be feeling better thanks to the tablets, but you don’t want to get a relapse.’
‘Underfloor heating in the kitchen. If you’d take those black pumps off, you’d find that the floor is very warm.’ She hadn’t so much as undone the top button of her very neat white shirt, he thought. She was out of the office, and there had been no need to wear office garb, but predictably she had not deviated from her strict dress code. She hadn’t even kicked off her sensible patent shoes for the entire time she had been sitting on the sofa in his bedroom taking notes and amending reports on her computer.
She was the stiffest, least relaxed woman he had ever met. Yet, when she had exploded, he had glimpsed a side to her that was as volatile and as fiery as a volcano. It made sense. She was smart, she had a good brain. That in itself would indicate that there was more to her than the dutiful secretary who spoke her mind, but politely, and always managed to leave the impression that there was a lot more to her than met the eye.
He wondered what.
Having grown accustomed to a diet of very willing and very beautiful women, he let his mind wander over the very prickly, very proper and very average Miss Alice Morgan. And, once there, his mind showed every inclination of staying put.
Her dress code was so damned bland that it positively encouraged the eye to look away with boredom, but there was a pale delicacy to her face and a fullness to her mouth that hinted at a sensuality he suspected she was not aware of.
And just like that he felt himself harden.
‘I would rather finish what we’re doing and then head home.’ Alice was uncomfortable with this domestic game they seemed to be playing. She hadn’t signed up for this and she didn’t know how to deal with being yanked out of her comfort zone.
Gabriel scowled. Without warning, he imagined her taking it between those cool hands of hers, lowering her mouth to it and licking it with her very delicate pink tongue. The graphic clarity of the image shocked him.
‘Too bad,’ he snapped. ‘You’re not being paid to skive off early just because I’m not fighting fit.’
What had brought that on? Alice wondered. Maybe he was getting to the end of his tether being cooped up in his house with a woman who wasn’t his temporary bed partner. He was probably used to sharing his kitchen with a Georgia lookalike, except one in even less clothing. A Georgia lookalike wearing nothing but an apron and waving a spatula about with a come-hither grin.
‘That’s not fair,’ she told him quietly. ‘I’m just not very hungry; please don’t think that you have to break off because of me.’
‘I’m not,’ Gabriel said shortly. He was still aching, his erection still hard and throbbing, and his imagination was still galloping merrily on a free rein. Without a trace of vanity, he knew that most women would kill to be in her position—in his kitchen with him, cooking. He had yet to allow any woman to cook for him. Why give them the wrong ideas? No, he entertained them in the relative safety of expensive restaurants. That way they couldn’t start harbouring unrealistic ideas of domesticating him.
Yet here she was, standing with her back pressed against his kitchen counter, trying to find excuses to leave.
It was ludicrous to let that get under his skin but, coming hard on the heels of the erotic thoughts that had taken root in his head, it did.
He fished his mobile phone out of his pocket, called his friend and head chef at one of the top restaurants in the city and ordered a meal for two, menu unspecified. As he spoke, he kept his eyes pinned to Alice’s face and she angrily wondered whether this was an attempt to generate some sort of guilt complex in her because she hadn’t jumped at the chance of cooking a meal for him.
The more she thought about Gabriel, the more she realised just how lazy he was in his personal life. But, if he thought that he could make inroads into her, somehow turn her into one of his followers who did every single thing he wanted with a smile on their face, then he was in for a shock.
‘You do realise that there’s still a hell of a lot of work to do on Trans-Telecom,’ he grated, sitting on one of the chrome and leather chairs by the kitchen table. He could feel the temperature he had managed to keep at bay with the tablets begin to rise as the pain killers wore off. ‘You don’t have to stand over there!’ he snapped. ‘If you’re going to catch anything from me, then chances are you will have caught it already!’
‘I thought you had covered most of the technical details on that.’ Alice walked towards him and perched facing him. The thought that he might be infectious hadn’t even crossed her mind. She had been far too busy just fretting about being in his house with him! He obviously hadn’t shaved this morning and the darkening of stubble on his face was sinfully, extravagantly attractive.
‘There’s a deadline on this deal. The lawyers have pored over it with a fine-tooth comb but I still need to make sure that all bases are covered. I can’t afford to have a comma in the wrong place or else there’s the chance the whole thing will be called off. It’s taken long enough for me to get the family on board with the concept of selling. I don’t want any delay to have them getting cold feet at the last minute.’
Alice nodded. She was mesmerised by the intensity of his eyes, the perfect command he had when he was in work mode; the sheer, unadulterated sexiness of him in casual clothes. When it came to business, he was a machine. He could focus for hours on end without losing concentration. He could tackle a problem at eight in the morning and not let up until he had solved it, whether it took him two minutes, two hours or two days. She watched his hands as he gestured, her brow creased in a small frown which she hoped would convey a suitable level of concentration.
‘And I’m afraid you have no choice in the matter...’
Alice started as she caught the tail end of his sentence.
‘Have you been listening to a word I’ve been saying, Alice?’ Just at that point, the doorbell rang and he returned a minute or two later with two bags filled with beautifully packed gourmet food.
‘I’m sorry. Of course. You were talking about Trans-Telecom...’
‘And informing you that you might get away with avoiding work duty this weekend but I’m giving you advance warning from now that, whatever plans you have for next weekend, you’re going to have to cancel because you’re coming to Paris with me to sign off on this deal. I’ll need you there to transcribe everything that’s said and agreed, word for word.’
‘Next weekend...’
‘Next weekend. So you can spend next week getting your head round it.’
Of course her mother would be fine for one weekend. Alice knew that but she still felt a stab of guilt. She knew that she could have just told him what her weekend plans were, confided the situation about her mother with him, but somehow that would have felt like another line being crossed and she didn’t want to cross any more of those lines.
Besides, Gabriel Cabrera was many things, but a warm and fluffy person who encouraged girlish confidences was not one of those things.
Nor was she the fluffy, girlish type to dispense them.
‘Of course,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ll make sure that I...rearrange my weekend plans...’
Which were what, exactly? Gabriel wondered.
‘Good. In that case, twenty minutes to eat, and then let’s carry on...’
CHAPTER FOUR
ALICE HAD NOT been out of the country on a holiday for a while. She knew that this wasn’t going to be a holiday—the opposite. But she would still be leaving the country and how hard would it be to take a little time out and explore some of the city on h
er own? Even if it meant grabbing an hour or two when they weren’t entertaining clients or working.
And her mother had taken it well—better than Alice had expected, in fact.
She had been down in Devon, as usual, at the weekend and had decided, before she had even stepped foot in her mother’s little two-bedroom cottage in the village, that she would break the news when she was about to leave.
Pamela Morgan lived on her nerves. A highly strung woman even in the very best of times, she had become progressively more neurotic and mentally fragile during the long course of her broken marriage.
Still only in her mid-fifties, she remained a beautiful woman, beautiful in a way Alice knew she never could be. Her mother was small, blonde, with a faraway look in her big blue eyes. She was the ultimate helpless damsel that men seemed to adore.
But that ridiculous beauty had been as much of a burden in the long run as it had been a blessing. Growing up, Alice had watched helplessly from the sidelines as her mother had floundered under the crushing weight of her husband’s arrogant, far more flamboyant personality. She hadn’t seemed to possess the strength to break free. She was the classic example of a woman who had always relied on her looks and, when the going had got tough, had had nothing else upon which to fall back.
When Rex Morgan had begun to lose interest in his pretty wife, she had not been able to cope. She had desperately tried to make herself prettier—had done her hair in a thousand different styles, dyed it in a hundred different shades of vanilla blonde, had dieted until her figure made men stop in their tracks—but none of it had ever been enough. In the end she had given up, choosing instead to remain passive as her husband’s philandering had beome more and more outrageous.
She had cowered when he had bellowed and waited without complaining when he had disappeared for days on end, reappearing without a word of explanation but reeking of perfume.
She had sat quietly and in fear as he had sapped every ounce of her confidence so that she could no longer see a way out, far less find the courage to look for it. And she had not complained when he had told her that, if it weren’t for the money, he would have walked out on the marriage a long time ago.