by Lynne Graham
The fact was that he’d been financially tied to her. There was still a mortgage on the house, too many bills to pay, and if they divorced and she got her fair share he would have ended up living in something ugly and nasty, no longer able to live it up with his various women.
So he had stayed put but he had made sure to make life as unpleasant for his fragile wife as he could.
Whenever Alice felt a little insecure about the way she looked, she would sternly tell herself that good looks brought heartache. Look at her mother.
And look at those girls Gabriel dated, the Georgia lookalikes. Who said that a woman with beauty had it all?
Rex Morgan was dead now, in a car accident that had released his wife from her captivity, but he had left a telling legacy behind him. Pamela Morgan was housebound and had been for a while. The thought of leaving the four walls around her and venturing outside terrified her. Over time, and in small but significant stages, she had gradually become agoraphobic and was fortunate now to live in a small village where people looked in on her during the week to make sure that she was okay. In a city, where their house had been, she would have been completely lost.
At weekends, Alice would gently try to ease her out into the garden and, a couple of times recently, actually down to the nearest shop, although that had been a lengthy exercise.
She paid for professional help, which cost an arm and a leg, but recovery was tortoise-slow and uncertain.
Weekends, Alice suspected, were her mother’s favourite times, so Alice made sure to reserve those weekends for her, whatever the personal cost.
And, after a year and a half of treatment and regular weekend visits, Alice felt like she was beginning to see a slightly different woman in her mother. She seemed less tentative, more open to a short walk. Of course, the treatment would continue. In conjunction with the occasional pep talk, Alice felt confident that at some point in time she would be able to have more than just the odd weekend away from her mother’s side.
To do what, she had no idea. Her love life post-Alan was non-existent and, whenever her mother gently asked her about that, she was always quick to point out that she didn’t need a guy.
The unspoken message was: why would I? Just look at Dad...look at Alan... Men are trouble...
She had told her mother bits and pieces about Gabriel as well, which cemented that unspoken message.
But things seemed to be progressing and so, when Alice had sat her down and told her that she wouldn’t be able to make it the following weekend because of work, she was pleasantly surprised by her mother’s reaction.
‘That’s absolutely fine,’ Pamela had said with a smile. ‘I need to know how to be a little more independent.’
Which, Alice thought, meant that the very costly professional whose services she was paying for was actually beginning to make a difference.
So, yes, she was looking forward to Paris.
They had spent the past week working flat out on every single aspect of the deal that could go wrong. In between, there had been the usual high-volume work load. She had been rushed off her feet and had enjoyed every minute of it.
And Gabriel’s so-called flu had disappeared as quickly as it had come, although he hadn’t failed to remind her that she was probably the one who had given it to him, which had made her lips twitch with amusement.
They had arranged to meet at the airport and now, waiting for her taxi to arrive, Alice once again ticked off the mental checklist in her head.
All necessary work documents, including her work laptop, would be in hand luggage. She had her mobile phone and all the necessary work clothes packed.
They would be going for four days and she had managed to fit everything into one average-sized suitcase with room to spare.
Outside, the weather was cool but sunny, and she gave in to a heady feeling of complete freedom. The feeling was so unusual that for a second or two she felt a painful pang that this was something she should have more of; that this was something most girls her age would take absolutely for granted and yet here she was, savouring it like a tasty morsel that would vanish all too soon.
Tasty morsel! She would be in the company of Gabriel most of the time!
Like a runaway train, her mind zoomed off at speed to the memory of him in his bathrobe—the sight of that bare chest, those strong, muscled legs, the way he had been prone on his king-sized bed, macho, dominant and oozing raw sex appeal.
She uneasily shoved aside the unacceptable thought that part of her excitement might have to do with just being with him for four uninterrupted days in Paris, of all places.
Her phoned beeped with the taxi announcing itself outside and, ready for the short trip to Heathrow, Alice focused on practical issues.
Her mother was fine. She hadn’t forgotten anything. Another big deal was brewing on the sidelines and she had thought to read up on the company in question and download relevant facts that Gabriel might find useful.
She made it to the airport to find Gabriel already there and waiting at the designated spot by the first-class check-in counter.
He eyed her case sceptically.
‘Is that all the luggage you’ve brought with you?’ Annoyingly, she had been on his mind more than usual. He didn’t know what he expected when she joined him at the airport but, unsurprisingly, she was in her usual work uniform of nondescript grey suit, a lighter one to accommodate the milder weather, and her neat black patent leather pumps.
‘We’ll only be gone for four days.’ Alice’s eyes skirted around him. He was elegantly casual in some cream trousers and a cream jumper under which he was wearing a striped shirt. He looked expensive, sophisticated and drop-dead gorgeous, the sort of man who wouldn’t be travelling anything other than first class.
‘I’ve dated women who have packed more than you have for an overnight stay in a hotel,’ Gabriel remarked drily. He was discovering that he enjoyed the way she blushed, enjoyed the way her eyes never quite met his whenever she felt that something he said might have been a little too provocative.
He checked her in, holding up her passport so that he could examine the unflattering picture of her, and then they headed to the first-class lounge.
Excitement rippled through her.
‘I’ve never been to Paris,’ she confided, impressed with the first-class lounge with its comfortable seating, waiter service and upmarket lounge-bar feel.
Gabriel tilted his head to one side, pleasantly surprised, because she so rarely said anything to him of a personal nature.
In any other woman, that would have been a definite plus point. In her, he found it weirdly irritating. It was as if the more she failed to tell him, the more he wanted to find out.
‘Never?’
‘Never.’
‘I thought school trips over here always involved at least one compulsory trip to France...or have you been to other bits of France?’
Alice thought of her school days. The state school she had attended hadn’t been great and she had had next to no supervision at home. Her father had been absent most of the time, either physically or mentally, and her mother had increasingly removed herself from the normal day to day things that most mothers did, burrowing down in her own misery.
‘I went to Spain once.’ She detoured around his direct question. ‘One of my school friends asked me over with her for two weeks over summer when I was fourteen. It was the nicest holiday I can remember having.’
‘What about family holidays?’
‘There weren’t many of those,’ Alice said abruptly.
‘I know the feeling.’
She looked at him, startled. She knew next to nothing about his past. He came to her as the man already formed, the billionaire with no emotional ties and no desire to form any. He was the brilliant, talented, driven guy who worked hard and
played hard; who snapped his fingers and expected the world to jump, but who rarely seemed to put himself out for anyone.
She teetered on the brink of asking him for details. Curiosity clamped its teeth into her but for some reason the thought of stepping over that brink terrified her and she changed the subject, asking him about the places he had been and the countries he had visited.
Besides, would he even share personal details with her? He was intensely private and guarded in what he revealed.
Gabriel noted the way she had backed away from following up on his remark. He wasn’t too sure why he had said that in the first place. He had never felt inclined to let any woman into his past. Would he have told her about his foster-home background? Doubtful, although in fairness he couldn’t imagine her exclaiming with false sympathy or using it as leverage to try to prise him open like a shell.
His interest spiked and he looked at her with cool, guarded eyes.
The four-day trip to Paris suddenly seemed ripe with all sorts of possibilities. He wondered whether she had ever let her hair down, gone wild, got drunk, danced on tables. He couldn’t see it. He wondered what she was thinking, what was going through her head.
What she did on those weekends.
He caught himself wondering whether there was a man in her life, despite protests to the contrary...
The questions settled into vague background thoughts as their flight was announced and soon they had left the country.
Predictably, she talked about work on the trip over. She had shown a great deal of commendable initiative with one of his deals, presenting him with a list of facts and figures on a company he was in the middle of acquiring.
But she was awed by the whole first-class travelling experience. Gabriel was picking that up with antennae finely tuned to women and their responses. She wanted to play it cool, to keep that work hat firmly pinned in place, but she also wanted to stare around her at the plush surroundings, the muted subservience of the airline staff, the luxury...
They would be staying at one of the most expensive and high-profile hotels in Paris, a hotel that took luxury seriously. It was the only hotel in which he stayed when he was in the city and they knew how to look after him.
He felt a kick of pleasurable anticipation at seeing her face when they walked in.
He was a teenager again, trying hard to impress a girl...
Except, his teenage years had been a little too busy for such distractions. Escape had taken priority over making out with girls, not that that had been a problem for him. Besides, he wasn’t in the business of impressing anybody. He didn’t have to.
The limo that would be driving them wherever they wanted to go while they were in Paris was waiting for them at the airport when they arrived and Alice glanced over to him with a dry smile.
‘Don’t you ever do things the way most normal people do?’ The question was directed more at herself than it had been to him, although he picked up the half-murmured remark and chose to answer as soon as they were in the back seat of the car.
‘Why would I do that?’ he asked with a careless shrug, angling his big body so that he was facing her. She had tucked her hair behind her ears and was wearing ear rings, little pearl studs that were a far cry from the wildly extravagant costume jewellery most girls her age would probably have worn.
Infused with silly holiday excitement, and guiltily feeling a bit like a princess after her first-class experience, now in this chauffeur-driven limo, Alice laughed.
‘You don’t do that enough,’ Gabriel said gruffly, surprising himself with that observation, but meaning every syllable of it.
‘Do what?’ Alice rested back against the seat and looked at him through half-closed eyes.
‘Laugh.’
‘I didn’t realise that being at work was a laugh-a-second experience,’ she said, but there was no sarcasm in her voice which was lazy and relaxed. ‘Do you do anything for yourself at all, Gabriel?’ she mused aloud and he gave her a toe curlingly slow smile.
‘I make money. A lot of it. Beyond that, I pay people to take care of everything else.’
‘But surely that can’t be satisfying all of the time?’
‘Are you going to give me a mini-lecture on all the great things money can’t buy?’ He thought back to his fractured, troubled past. Money would have bought a hell of a lot for him back then, which was probably why he had become so intensely focused on making lots of it. ‘Because, if you are, there’s no way you can sell it to me.’
‘Money can’t buy love.’
This time Gabriel laughed out loud but there was an edge to his laughter that Alice picked up and her brown eyes were curious as they rested on his handsome face.
‘Oh, but I’ve found just the opposite.’
‘That’s not love...’ How had they ended up having this very personal conversation? She sat up and leaned against the car door.
‘No, but it works for me,’ Gabriel told her drily. He hadn’t taken her for a romantic, but was she one at heart? Perhaps all women were. Or at least, they were in love with the idea of being in love: the excited trip to the jewellers; the wedding planning; the meringue of a white dress on the big day; the happy-ever-after, as if such a thing existed. The fact was, the relationships didn’t last. They all collapsed in varying degrees. He was a prime example of that, although in his case the degree of collapse had been severe, if the two people who had stupidly had sex and produced him had ever had a relationship at all. It was doubtful, although that was something he would never know. He had been dumped as a baby, taken into care and his life had been kick-started from that point.
‘What about marriage? Settling down?’ She couldn’t resist giving in to her curiosity and he raised his eyebrows questioningly.
‘What about it?’
‘Aren’t you tempted at all...?’
‘Not that I’ve ever noticed. I long ago came to the conclusion, my dear little secretary, that the one thing I can rely on is money. I know how to make it and I’m fully aware of the uses I can put it to. There are no unpredictable variants when it comes to money. It might be hard and cold but it doesn’t make demands, it doesn’t nag and it doesn’t want what’s not on the cards. It also...as you have experienced...buys me exactly what I want, when I want it.’
Alice had no illusions about love either, but neither was she steeped in cynicism, and she shivered involuntarily at the ice-cold centre she glimpsed inside him.
Not only did he not believe in love, he would never bother trying to find it. As far as he was concerned, it didn’t exist. He made money, he paid people to take care of life’s little inconveniences and he slept with women for physical release.
He was not one of life’s good guys and how fair was it that, despite that, his raw sexuality made him a magnet that few could resist?
She turned away and stared out of the car window. It was a beautiful day with skies as clear and as blue here as they had been in London.
‘Perhaps you could tell me what the plans are for today,’ she suggested, pulling back from the conversation, although it lingered in her head like a song being played on a loop.
‘Hotel. A few hours’ respite. Then we will be taking the client out tonight.’
‘I haven’t booked anywhere.’
‘Francois and Marie are entertaining us,’ Gabriel informed her. ‘At their home. Hence arriving today rather than Monday. The entire family will be there. I thought it might be an opportune moment to hear their various opinions on the company sale so that we can squash any last-minute nerves.’
‘At their house?’
‘Rumour has it that the place is palatial. I’ve been told by Francois that various important dignitaries will be there. They are celebrating their fortieth wedding anniversary; we’re honoured to have been invited.’
Al
ice looked at him, alarmed. When it came to the client entertainment side of their stay in Paris, she had been thinking more along the lines of one or two stuffy restaurants where she could easily fade into the background—the ever-professional secretary tagging along to make notes.
She hadn’t banked on anything too elaborate. Frantically trying to think what she could wear to somewhere palatial with circulating dignitaries, all thoughts left her head as the limo pulled up outside their hotel.
Lacking in money and poorly travelled as she was, Alice had still heard of this hotel. She paused and stared at the impressive building facing her and was even more impressed when she followed Gabriel inside.
Marble, chandeliers and stunning paintings and tapestries announced its enviable status as the very best anyone could get for their money.
‘We’re staying here?’ she breathed, and Gabriel turned to her with a slight smile.
‘If you can afford the very best, why not have it? You know by now that that’s my mantra.’
Alice glanced at him. He was the very epitome of a man at ease in his surroundings. He accepted the sudden flurry of activity around him as his due. No one could bow too low or scrape too hard and she felt a thrilling little flutter at being the woman at his side.
Even if she was only here in her role as his valuable secretary.
‘There’s something I need to ask you,’ she whispered as they were shown up to their adjoining suites.
‘No need to whisper,’ Gabriel whispered back. ‘I very much doubt the bellboy is interested in anything we have to say. A poker face is essential in places like this. The truly wealthy seldom like to be gawped at.’
Alice’s eyes flashed and he laughed. ‘Should I apologise for my arrogance?’ He briefly turned away and spoke fluently to the bellboy in French, who faded away with a slight bow and an ingratiating smile at the huge tip placed in his hand.