by Lynne Graham
He, of course, looked as stunning as he always did. He was dressed semi-formally in a charcoal-grey suit that looked hand-tailored and lovingly accentuated his physique.
‘Your hair...’ he murmured. ‘Very effective.’
Alice blushed, no longer feeling like his secretary but feeling, weirdly, like his date, even though she recognised the foolishness of letting herself get swept away by such a silly notion.
‘I had it dyed,’ she confessed self-consciously. ‘I hope it’s not too much.’
‘It’s...’ Gabriel was momentarily lost for words. ‘It’s... It suits you.’ He fought the temptation to reach out and run his fingers through its silky length.
‘Should we perhaps run through what sort of questions we might get asked about this buy-out?’
Gabriel found that he couldn’t care less about the buy-out. For once, business could not have been further from his mind. Those little snippets of wayward thoughts that had flitted through his mind now and again—little snapshots of her released from her armour of the perfect little secretary—coalesced into one powerful image of her without that dress on, naked and sprawled on his bed...
And where was he going with that thought, exactly? He had always made it his business never to mix work with pleasure—that was a sure-fire recipe for problems. The sexy little thing in the accounts department might display her wares but those were offers he had always avoided like the plague.
But this woman...
‘Yes,’ he murmured. ‘We should do that—discuss potential problems; try and cut them off at the pass...’ He drained his glass and poured himself another. Potential problems? Who cared? He had it covered. His mind wanted to think about other intriguing possibilities...
He half-listened as she launched into a summary of the company and the technicalities of buying something that was rooted in a family.
‘Especially when there are...how many children did you say...? Three? All involved in the decision-making process...?’
‘Three children, yes,’ Gabriel murmured, sitting back and sipping his wine. It took extreme will power not to let his eyes rove over her pert breasts. She was so unlike the women he’d dated who had all been universally proud of the fact that they spilled out of bras. Since when, he mused, was that such a great selling point anyway? ‘Two boys and a girl,’ he added, because she seemed to expect him to expand on that succinct statement. ‘And I gather the daughter doesn’t really care one way or another. She travels, it would seem, spreading peace and love and playing at being a trust-fund hippy. What about you? Any siblings?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We’re sitting here, having a drink. We don’t have to spend our time discussing work.’ He topped up her glass, gently pushing aside her hand which she had raised to stop him. ‘Tell me about your family. Brothers? Sisters? Usual assortment of nieces and nephews, cousins and aunts and uncles wheeled out on high days and holidays?’
Alice felt the little pulse at the side of her neck beating steadily. Her mother was an only child and her father had a brother in Australia whom, he had always been very proud to say, he loathed. When she had been younger, she had longed for a brother or a sister. As time had gone by, she had ditched those dreams. What if a brother had turned out like her father? No, theirs had always been an unhappy little family unit, marooned on open water without the benefit of a neighbouring craft to help pick up the pieces should anything happen. As it had.
He was simply being polite, and she was hardly confessing to state secrets, but it still felt awkward to start talking to him about her private life. She needed those boundaries between them to be kept in place or else it would be so much more difficult to keep the attraction she felt towards him at bay.
Hadn’t she already fluttered like a girl on her first date? Hadn’t she wanted him to notice her, and not just as his efficient secretary? She was in dangerous territory and control came from not forgetting their respective roles.
But if she dodged his question she’d stir his curiosity and he was tenacious, a dog with a bone, when it came to finding out things he wanted to find out.
‘I’m—I’m an only child,’ she told him haltingly. ‘My father’s dead. A car accident.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Though the way she had said that... ‘And your mother?’
‘Lives in Devon.’ She took two small sips of wine and offered him a bright, brittle smile.
‘Has the polite conversation come to an end?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just had a look at the clock behind you and it’s time for us to go.’ She stood up and carefully avoided looking at him as she smoothed down her dress. When she raised her eyes, it was to find his on her and he didn’t look away. He just kept looking until colour crawled into her cheeks, her mouth went dry and her brains turned to cotton wool.
Confusion paralysed her. Was he looking at her that way? The way she tried hard not to look at him?
‘You look quite...stunning,’ he murmured, extending his arm and then tucking her arm into the crook of his.
‘Thank you,’ Alice croaked. She wasn’t sure what she was finding more disastrous on her nerves, the fact that she had her arm looped through his or the fact that he had just delivered the compliment she had been desperate to hear with a look in his eyes that had made her whole body tingle with forbidden awareness.
Maybe it was a look that he pulled out of the box whenever he saw any woman who didn’t look half bad.
‘Even though,’ she continued, weakly asserting her independence, ‘I still disapprove of you telling me what I can or can’t wear.’
‘Even though you’re surely going to be the belle of the ball?’
‘Oh, please!’ She tried to dismiss that husky compliment with a laugh.
‘You don’t believe me?’ They were at the limo, which had appeared as if by magic, and the chauffeur swooped round to open the door for her.
‘I...no...maybe. I don’t know.’ Her voice was low, breathless and husky. Nothing at all like how she usually sounded. It was a voice that matched her beautiful Cinderella dress. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated as she stared at him, riveted by the beautiful, hard planes of his face and by the way he was still looking at her.
She heard something come from her, something soft and low, and recognised with horror that it was a moan, barely audible, but as loud as clanging bells in her own ears.
Gabriel knew this moment for what it was. Her pliant, warm body was inches away from his. They were leaning into one another, driven by some unseen current. If he turned away right now he would break the spell and that would be the best thing to do.
She was his secretary! And a damned good one. Did he want to jeopardise that by starting something he would not be able to finish? Something that would end in her being hurt, in walking out on him? Wasn’t this the very reason there was such a thing as lines that should never get crossed?
He kissed her.
Long, slowly, lingeringly, his tongue probing into her mouth, tasting her sweetness and hardening as she moaned back into his mouth.
Hell, they were in the back seat of a car! He was not cool or controlled, but he couldn’t help himself as he cupped one small, rounded breast and rubbed his finger over the nipple which he could feel pressing against the fabric.
‘You’re not wearing a bra...’ He was turned on beyond belief. Her nipple was hard and he was gripped with an insane urge to tell the driver to turn around so that he could take her back to his hotel room and...have her. Rip the dress off her, get her down to her underwear and take her as fast and as hard as he could.
‘The back of the dress is too low...’ She didn’t want him to talk. She wanted him to carry on kissing her. Her whole body was on fire, as though she had been plugged into a live socket. Her nerve-endings were charged, her thoughts sluggish, the blood hot
in her veins.
She felt the heaviness of his hand resting on her thigh, gently pressing, edging between her legs, and sanity shot through her. She pulled back and made a show of straightening her dress, giving herself time to come to her senses.
Her breasts were tingling and her nipples pinching from where he had touched her.
What the heck had she done?
‘What’s the matter?’ Gabriel was so turned on that he could hardly string that simple sentence together. He wasn’t sure whether it was the taste of the forbidden, or the fact that she was a novelty after a steady diet of Georgia clones, but he had never been so turned on in his life before.
‘What’s the matter? What do you think the matter is, Gabriel?’ She glanced furtively at the chauffeur but he was seemingly indifferent to what had taken place in the back seat of the limo. Gabriel was right—underlings knew the wisdom of playing dead when it came to the shenanigans of their wealthy employers.
‘I have no idea,’ Gabriel drawled, settling back against the car door to look at her calmly. ‘One minute you were kissing me and the next minute you’d decided to play the outraged virgin. What blew the fire out?’
How could he sit there and look at her as though she had made a mistake with her typing, misfiled something or put through the wrong call? How could he be so...cool?
‘That should never have happened,’ Alice told him tautly. ‘And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t had two glasses of wine.’
‘One and a half, and if you kiss men after a glass and a half of wine what do you do after a bottle? There’s nothing worse than a woman who blames alcohol for doing something she actually wanted to do but then had second thoughts about doing.’
Alice reddened. ‘Well, it won’t happen again. I made a mistake and I won’t be repeating it. And I don’t want it mentioned ever again.’
‘Or else...?’
‘Or else my position with you will become untenable and I don’t want that to happen. I like my job. I don’t want one small, tiny error of judgement to end up spoiling that.’
Gabriel allowed the silence to lengthen between them until she was compelled to look at him, if only to find out whether he had heard what she had just said.
One small, tiny error of judgement, he thought, amused at her naivety in assuming that she could shut the door on what had happened and pretend it hadn’t happened. She had wanted him. Her warm body had curved into his and he had felt her desire throbbing through her, hot, wet and feverish. If he had slipped his hand under that long dress, if he had found the bareness of her thighs, he would have found her ready for him.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever had any woman say that to you before.’ Alice broke the silence which was driving her crazy. ‘And I don’t want to offend you, but that’s how it has to be.’
‘In response to that statement, you’re right. I’ve never had a woman say that to me before. I’m not offended.’ He raised both his hands in a gesture that was rueful but accepting. ‘And of course, if you decide that denial is the right course of action, then that’s not a problem. We’ll pretend it never happened.’
‘Good.’ She felt a hollowness settle in the pit of her stomach.
‘There’s our destination straight ahead.’ Gabriel pointed to the bank of lights leading up a tree-lined avenue towards a manor house that resembled the Place des Vosges. Expensive cars were dotted around the courtyard and along the avenue, half on, half off the grass verge. He began giving her a potted history of the place, which had been in the family for generations.
But he was alive to her presence next to him. She had opened a door and he had walked through; did she now expect him politely to turn around and walk back out because she’d had a change of heart?
Frankly, if he believed for a second that her response had been wine induced, he would not have hesitated to put their five-minute interaction down to experience.
But she had wanted him and she still did. He could feel it in the way she wasn’t quite managing to look at him, in her breathing which she was trying to control, in the way she was ever so casually pressed against the car door. It was almost as though if she got too close to him she would burst into flame. All over again.
Any thoughts about walking away from this challenge vanished in a puff of smoke. The predator in him prowled to the fore, leaving no room for questions about the foolhardiness of what he wanted to do.
For once, there was something in him that wasn’t in control and he liked it. It made a change and a change was as good as a rest.
The party was in full swing when they walked in. Beautiful people were circulating, chatting in groups, drinking champagne and picking off the canapés that were being paraded from group to group by a selection of very attractive waitresses. They were all dressed in just the sort of sexy uniform associated with the French waitress: short skirt, tight black top, high black shoes and sheer black stockings.
Gabriel barely noticed them. Alice was the sole recipient of his brooding attention.
She did him proud, it had to be said. Men looked, as did the women. She shone. And, if her grasp of French was classroom, she charmingly made the most of what was at her disposal as she was adopted by groups of people and encouraged to join their conversations.
And the deal was cemented. The family, Francois told him, taking him to one side towards the end of the evening, was behind him all the way. There were some regrets about losing the business but he intended to join his sons in a new start-up, completely different, in the leisure industry.
Gabriel had expected nothing but a positive outcome and he was ready to make his exit when he scanned the room to see Alice laughing, deep in conversation with a man. A tall, blond man who was watching her over the rim of his flute as he drank his champagne in a way that Gabriel recognised all too well. She was laughing.
Rage tore through him.
He made his way through the thinning crowds. The noise level was high. People had had a lot to drink. Hell, she had had a lot to drink!
He descended on them like an avenging angel and cupped her elbow in the palm of his big hand.
‘Time to go, Alice.’
‘Already?’ There was still that laughter in her eyes as she turned to look at him. Her face was flushed, her full mouth parted, inviting...
‘Already,’ Gabriel gritted. He spoke to the blond guy in rapid French and then waited in silence as the other man replied and then, when nothing further was forthcoming, made his apologies, taking her hand and kissing it in a way that smacked of unwelcome intimacy.
‘We’re going to bid our farewells to our charming hosts.’ He still had his hand on her elbow and was channelling her towards Francois and Marie who were standing in the centre of the room, surrounded by their friends and family. ‘And then we’re going to head back to our hotel.’
‘Hasn’t it been a fantastic affair?’
‘Who the hell was that loser you were talking to?’ He plastered a polite smile on his face as they approached their hosts, and kept smiling as he thanked them for a wonderful time, to be repaid in full when they were next in London. Arrangements were made for meetings on Monday. He didn’t take his hand away from her.
‘That,’ he said, dropping her elbow as they walked out into the cool late night air, ‘was not what I brought you here to do.’ In his mind’s eye, he saw her laughing face as she looked up at Prince Charming of the floppy blond hair.
Alice laughed. The champagne had gone to her head, as had the fact that she had only had a handful of the delicious canapés being passed around. The memory of that searing kiss in the back seat of the limo, her confusion at what had promoted it and sheer nerves at being somewhere so utterly out of her comfort zone had combined and she had drank far more than she usually did.
‘You wanted me to dress the part and mingle...’
/> ‘I wanted you to stay by my side and listen so that you could make mental notes of what was said about the deal!’ He waited until she was in the passenger seat, indicating to the chauffeur to remain where he was, and slammed the door behind her.
‘I did not expect you to drink like a fish and start cosying up to random men!’
Alice swivelled to look at his hard, unyielding profile. ‘I wasn’t drinking like a fish or cosying up to random men,’ she protested. She sensed the tension in his bunched shoulders and sat on her treacherous hands, because more than anything else she wanted to touch him and that wasn’t going to do.
‘Who was that guy? Did he have anything to contribute on my acquisition of Francois’ company?’
‘Well, no...’ She stifled a yawn and was treated to a thunderous glare.
‘Am I keeping you awake? Maybe you’ve forgotten that you’re being paid a hefty amount of money for the inconvenience of losing your weekend.’ He knew he sounded like a tyrant but he wasn’t about to back down. She looked sleepy-eyed and just so damned sexy...
‘I would have stuck to you like glue if you had made it clear that that was what you wanted, but I gathered...’ she stifled another yawn, which didn’t go unnoticed ‘...that this was a social event. Besides, I didn’t notice you in any tête-à-têtes with Monsieur Armand or I would have come over. I know I’m being paid a lot for my overtime here. You don’t have to remind me.’
Gabriel couldn’t care less about the money and she wasn’t saying anything he wanted to hear. Who was that guy? Had she answered that question? No. Had telephone numbers been exchanged? Had some kind of date been set up?
‘So who was he?’ he asked through gritted teeth.
‘Are you...jealous?’ Her lips parted and she was suddenly as sober as a judge.
‘Did you exchange numbers? Set up a hot date for later in the week? If so, you can forget it. You’re going nowhere on company time.’ He raked his fingers though his hair and stared at her with frowning intensity.