‘You did both. You knew that I was trapped there with that woman and instead of offering to escort her out you ducked for cover and watched from the sidelines!’
‘That woman...?’
Gabriel flushed darkly and raked long fingers through his hair. ‘I’m not in the mood for your sermonising,’ he growled, glaring at her.
‘I didn’t realise that I sermonised,’ Alice said truthfully. She had her thoughts, but those she kept very much to herself.
‘You don’t have to! I know exactly what goes on in that head of yours whether you voice your opinions or not!’
Alice didn’t say anything. His proximity was having a weird effect on her. If she looked directly at him, the glittering intensity of his dark eyes was unnerving. But if she looked a little lower, then she was confronted by his thigh, the taut pull of fine fabric over muscular legs, and that was even more unnerving. She could almost hear the steady drum roll of her heart and the rush of blood in her ears. He rarely invaded her space like this and she didn’t have the resources to withstand the impact he had on her nervous system.
‘Explain that remark.’
Alice had subtly pressed herself into the back of her chair. She wished he would let this conversation go because she could feel it teetering on the brink of getting too personal, and getting personal was something he had studiously avoided over the past three weeks. He never even asked her how she had spent her weekends.
‘What remark?’ she asked warily and he gave her another of those piercing looks that seemed to imply that he was perfectly aware that she was trying to dodge the conversation.
‘You should try to avoid doing that as much as you can, you know,’ he murmured softly.
It was like having her skin lightly brushed with a feather; the lazy speculation in his voice was even more disconcerting than the full-body impact of his towering presence so close to her.
‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean by that?’ Gabriel continued into the lengthening silence, and Alice tried her best to dismiss the prickles of sensation racing through her body like tiny sparks of fire. ‘No, of course you won’t, but I’ll tell you anyway. You should never try and wriggle away from a direct question. It makes me all the more determined to prise a suitable answer from you. The rule of thumb is that there’s nothing more challenging to a man like me than a gauntlet that’s been thrown down—and your silences count as gauntlets.’ He didn’t normally like challenges when it came to women but, hell, he liked this one...
A man like him?
Alice steeled herself to look him squarely in the face. ‘I don’t think it’s very nice of you to throw your ex-lover out of the building because she happened to be upset with you.’ There was a lot more she could have said on the subject but she chose to keep that to herself.
‘It wasn’t,’ Gabriel grated, ‘very nice of my ex-lover to descend on me, in my office, so that she could throw a tantrum.’ He vaulted upright and prowled through the office which she had somehow managed to make her own in the handful of weeks she had been working for him. There were two plants on the bookshelf, another on her desk and a discreet Buddha figurine which she kept next to the telephone. Having circled the room, he returned to stare down at her, hands thrust into his pockets.
‘I don’t suppose that was her intention,’ Alice told him calmly. ‘I don’t think she came here planning to have a yelling fit at you. I think if she’d planned on screaming she could have done it down the telephone rather than come here and risk the humiliation of being ushered out of the building like a common criminal.’
‘But then, if she’d used the telephone, she would have had to get past my faithful and extremely proficient secretary, wouldn’t she?’
Alice blushed and wondered how two perfectly flattering adjectives could end up sounding so unappealing.
‘Maybe,’ he mused, leaning down, palms of his hands on her desk, ‘she was overcome with a pressing need to vent. Do you think that might be it?’
Alice shrugged and for a few seconds their eyes tangled. Her mouth went dry and her brain seemed to seize up completely so that she had to suck in air and force herself to breathe evenly.
‘Have you ever experienced that before, Alice?’
‘Experienced what?’ Alice asked in a hoarse whisper, and he laughed under his breath.
‘The grip of passion that makes you behave irrationally...’
‘I prefer to trust reasoning and logic,’ she managed to say.
‘So that’s a no...’
‘If you recall...’ She was close to snapping because not only was he making her feel uncomfortable but he was enjoying himself. ‘I did say to you when I took this job that I didn’t want to talk about my private life!’
‘Was that what we were doing? Talking about your private life?’ He stood up, flexed his muscles, debated whether to let this conversation go and just as quickly decided not to. Georgia’s untimely visit had dented his concentration and he was finding it strangely enjoyable to offload on his secretary. Offloading was not something he normally did. In his formidably controlled life, there was seldom any reason to, and he had to concede that, had Alice not been there, not been his secretary, he wouldn’t have felt tempted.
But, hell, why deny it? She roused his curiosity. She was so contained, so secretive whilst giving the impression of being straightforward, so unwilling to share even the smallest of confidences, such as what she did on those precious weekends of hers that couldn’t possibly be interrupted...
He would stake his fortune on ‘nothing’ and he wondered whether his curiosity was sparked by the mere fact that she never mentioned it. When you could have anything you wanted, including access to people’s thoughts and emotions, what price for the person who withheld everything?
‘You may think it’s okay to treat women exactly how you like, but everyone has their story to tell, and you have no idea what sort of collateral damage you could be inflicting!’ Her eyes skittered away from his narrowed gaze and she knew that she was beetroot-red and angry with him for encouraging an outburst that was inappropriate.
‘Collateral damage...?’ he asked thoughtfully.
‘I apologise. I shouldn’t have...said anything.’ She offered him a weak smile which he chose to ignore.
‘We work closely together,’ he murmured. ‘You should always feel free to speak your mind.’
‘You like women speaking their minds, do you?’ Alice asked tartly and was rewarded with one of those rare smiles that always knocked the breath out of her body.
‘Touché... It can occasionally be a little tedious, but then I never encourage the women I date to ever think that it might be a good idea to give their thoughts an airing.’
Why not? Alice was tempted to ask. She didn’t dare look at him because she had a sneaking suspicion that he might be able to read her mind.
Besides, didn’t she know why? Why go to the bother of working at something meaningful if you could have whatever you wanted without putting the effort in? People got where they were because of circumstances shaping them over the course of time and, whatever the circumstances that had shaped Gabriel Cabrera, they had left him in a place where he just couldn’t be bothered.
‘What do you encourage them to do?’ She asked her reluctant question, which was motivated by a burning curiosity she was desperate to kill whilst being unable to resist.
‘I don’t.’ Gabriel gave her a slashing smile of satisfaction. ‘And, now that we’ve plumbed the depths of my psyche, why don’t we get down to doing something productive?’
* * *
It was nearly six by the time she surfaced. He had spent a good part of the day involved with high-level meetings, giving her the chance to quell the sludgy, disturbing feelings that had come to the fore during their conversation, when he had strayed beyond their normal boun
daries like an invader testing a solid wall for cracks through which unwelcome entrance might be possible.
As she began clearing her desk to leave, she succumbed to a little smile at what an overactive imagination could produce. He didn’t want to find out about her. He wasn’t interested in whether there were cracks in her armour or not. He enjoyed pushing against barriers because that was the way he was built and, if the barriers happened to be around her, then push against them he would if the inclination took him.
As a woman, she held no interest for him.
She thought of Georgia of the husky voice and imagined that that was the sort of woman that interested him. Men always went for the same type, didn’t they?
An image of Alan sprang uninvited into her head. Alan of the floppy blond hair and the brown eyes, who had ditched her for a version of womanhood not a million miles removed from her boss’s ex. Flora was small and curvy as well. Not as stunning, and probably not as breezily self-confident about the power she had over the opposite sex, but, yes, fashioned from the same mould.
‘You’re smiling.’
She hadn’t even been aware of Gabriel entering the office behind her as she shrugged on her jacket and she started and blushed.
‘It’s nearly the end of the week,’ she responded automatically, although, thinking about it, her week days were more relaxing than her weekends, which were consumed with long trips down to visit her mother.
‘Is working for me that much of a trial?’ She had been awarded the same clothes allowance as the other employees on her level yet she still wore the same dreary suits to work. Black and shades of black seemed to be the preferred, professional option with his staff, yet her suits, although the requisite colour, didn’t seem to fit with the same snug panache.
The errant thought occupied his mind for a few seconds and he frowned and pushed it away.
‘Of course not. I...I love it, as a matter of fact.’ He was lounging against the doorframe, as dramatically good-looking at the close of day as he was first thing in the morning. Where most people occasionally looked harried, he always seemed to be brimming over with vitality, however frantic his day might have been.
‘That’s good to hear because I haven’t got around to having any kind of appraisal with you.’
Alice doubted he had ever done an appraisal in his life. If his employee didn’t fit the bill, then he simply dispensed with them.
‘Not,’ he said, reading her mind with unnerving accuracy, ‘that I make a habit of conducting appraisals of my secretaries.’
‘Is that because they usually only last two minutes?’
A tingle of pure pleasure raced through her when he burst out laughing, which subsided eventually for him to cast appreciative eyes over her.
‘Something like that,’ he murmured. ‘Seems a little pointless to give them an appraisal when they’ve already got one foot through the back door and their desk has been cleared.’
‘Well...’ He was blocking her way out and she dithered uncomfortably. Standing by him, it was brought home sharply just how tall he was. She was tall but he positively towered over her.
‘Well, of course, you’re on your way out. Is that what had you smiling?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Your plans for the evening. Is that what put that smile on your face?’
If only you knew... If only you guessed that I was smiling at the notion that you would never look twice at me; smiling for being an idiot even to think about something like that.
His plans had been for the theatre, followed by dinner at one of the most exclusive restaurants in London.
The theatre, followed by dinner out—at a haunt for the paparazzi because the clientele was usually very high-profile—followed by...
Heat flooded her as she contemplated after-dinner sex with the man standing in front of her, still blocking her path. His hands on her body, his mouth exploring her, that dark, sexy voice whispering in her ear...
Her body jack-knifed into instant, crazy reaction. Liquid pooled between her legs and the unfamiliar tug of desire hit her like a ton of bricks, shocking in its intensity and as destabilising as the sudden onslaught of some ferocious disease. She couldn’t move. Her legs were blocks of cement, nailing her to the floor as her imagination took flight in forbidden directions.
And, all the while, she could feel those dark, dark eyes pinned to her face.
‘I have to go,’ she said tightly. She went to push him aside and more heat flared inside her, making a mockery of her attempts to harness her prized composure.
He was a man she might respect but didn’t like! A man whose brilliance she could admire whilst being left cold by his detachment!
Once out of the office, she fled...
CHAPTER THREE
ALICE WOKE WITH a start. In her dream, she had been running down an endlessly long corridor, chasing Gabriel who would occasionally glance over his shoulder, only to turn away and continue running. In the dream, she had no idea what lay at the end of that corridor, or even if there was an end to it, but she was filled with a sense of terrifying foreboding, wanting to stop and yet propelled forward by some power greater than her own.
She was slick with perspiration and completely disoriented and it took her a few seconds to realise that her mobile was ringing. Not the sharp, insistent buzz of her alarm but actually ringing.
‘Good. You’re awake.’
Hard on the heels of her disturbing dream, Gabriel’s voice cut through the fog of her sleepiness as effectively as a bucket of ice-cold water, and she sat up in bed, glancing at the clock on her bedside table which showed that it wasn’t yet six-thirty.
‘Is that you, Gabriel?’
‘How many calls do you get from men at this hour of the morning? No, don’t answer that.’
‘What’s wrong with your voice?’ This was the first time he had ever called her at home on her mobile and she looked around her furtively, as though suspecting that at any second he might materialise from the shadows.
Thankfully, her bedroom was as it always was—small with magnolia walls, some nondescript curtains and two colourful pictures on either side of the dressing table, scenes of Cornwall painted by a local artist whom Alice knew vaguely through her mother. An averagely passable room in a small, uninteresting house whose only selling point was its proximity to the tube.
In the bedroom next to hers, her flat mate, Lucy, would still be sleeping.
‘It seems I’m ill.’
‘You’re ill?’ The thought of Gabriel being ill was almost inconceivable and she felt a sudden grip of panic.
Whatever was wrong with him, it would be serious. He was not the sort of man to succumb to a passing virus. He was just too...strong. She couldn’t imagine that there could be any virus on the planet daring enough to attack him.
‘Ill with what?’ She brought the decibel level of her worried voice down to normal. ‘Have you called the doctor?’
‘Of course not.’
‘What do you mean of course not?’
‘Are you dressed?’
His impatient voice, which she had become accustomed to, sliced through her concern and she glanced in the dressing-table mirror facing her to see her still sleepy face staring back at her.
Her straight hair was all over the place and the baggy tee-shirt, her bedtime attire of choice, was half-slipping off her shoulder, exposing the soft swell of a breast.
Self-consciously, she hoiked it up and then lay back against the pillow.
‘Gabriel, my alarm doesn’t go off for another forty-five minutes...’
‘In that case, switch it off and think about getting up and out of bed.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Sore throat. Headache. High fever. I’ve got flu.’
‘You’ve phoned me at...at six-twenty in the morning to tell me that you’ve got a cold?’
‘I think you’ll find that what I have is considerably more serious than a cold. You need to get up, get into the office and bring the two files I left on my desk. Not all of the information is on my computer and I need to access it in its entirety.’
She had worked with him long enough to know that he dished out orders in the full expectation that they would not be countermanded, but she was still outraged that he had seen fit to yank her out of sleep so that he could...
What, exactly?
‘Bring your files?’
‘Correct. To my house. And bring your computer as well. You’ll have to work from here. It’s not ideal but it’s the best I can come up with. I can’t make it into the office today.’
‘Surely you can just take the day off if you’re not feeling well, Gabriel?’ Like any other normal human being, she was tempted to add. ‘If you tell me what you want me to work on, I can do it in the office and I can scan and email the files over to you, if you really think that you’re up to working.’
‘If I’d wanted you to do that, I would have said so. And I can’t keep talking indefinitely. My throat’s infected. If you head for the office now, you can be with me within an hour and a half. Less, if you get your skates on. Got a pen?
‘A pen?’ Alice parroted in dismay as this new unfolding of her day ahead began to take shape in her head.
‘A pen—instrument for writing. Have you got one to hand? You’ll need to write down my address and postcode. And for God’s sake, take a taxi, Alice. I know you’re fond of the London public transport system, but we might as well get this show on the road as quickly as possible. There’s a lot to get through and I won’t be up to much beyond six... It’s ridiculous. I haven’t been ill in years. I must have caught this from you.’
‘You haven’t caught anything from me! I’m fighting fit!’
‘Good. Because you have a lot to get through today. Now, let me give you my address.’
She got a pen and wrote down his address and then listened as he rattled off a few more orders and then...dial tone.
To Sin with the Tycoon Page 4