‘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.
He had never been jealous in his life before. He didn’t do jealousy. Why would he? Women came and they went and, whatever the pasts were, whoever they had been out with or spoke to, well, he had never cared. Nor had he ever doubted that once they were in his bed they were utterly faithful.
He was jealous now and he didn’t like the sensation.
‘Of course I didn’t give Marc my telephone number,’ Alice muttered, half-resenting that she had been called to task like a kid, half-thrilled because, whatever he said or didn’t say, he was jealous. It made her feel better about fancying him. At least she knew that he wasn’t as casual about it as he had pretended.
Not that it mattered, one way or another.
‘And there are no hot dates lined up. He was just a nice man who didn’t mind talking to me in pigeon French.’
Gabriel thought that there was a lot more the guy wouldn’t have minded doing, given half a chance, but no numbers had been exchanged, no hot dates lined up. She seemed blissfully unaware that looking the way she did and laughing the way she had would be considered flirting in any language, pigeon or not.
‘You asked me if I was jealous,’ Gabriel murmured, keeping his distance but looking at her with dark intensity. ‘I was jealous.’
The atmosphere between them shifted and changed into something so charged that it was almost tangible. Alice drew her breath in sharply and then exhaled it in a shudder. Wild horses wouldn’t drag this out of her, but she had been keeping an eye on him throughout the evening, waiting to see if he looked at any of the glamorous women there or any of the pretty young waitresses. He had garnered enough attention, although if he had noticed any of it he hadn’t shown it.
‘Why?’ She strove to remember the boundary lines between them and to summon up the will power she had shown earlier when she had told him that that one kiss had been a mistake, never to be repeated.
‘Because I want you.’ His body language was a heady turn-on; he was leaning indolently against the car door while he continued to watch her with still, lazy eyes.
‘We can’t do anything,’ she said huskily. ‘It would be a terrible mistake. I’m just not that type of girl.’
‘The type who sleeps with a man if she wants to? And don’t try telling me that you don’t want to.’
‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘And your vocabulary shouldn’t be littered with so many shoulds and shouldn’ts...’
‘You’re accustomed to women dropping at your feet.’
‘And yet I haven’t noticed you dropping at mine.’
The limo pulled up outside the hotel. He hadn’t even noticed the journey. Every nerve and fibre in his body had honed in on the woman sitting as far as she could away from him.
He leaned forward to have a word with the driver and then they were walking up to the hotel entrance, several feet between them. He had his hands in his pockets and she was clutching her pink pearl throw and little handbag for dear life.
He was jealous...a first.
He was in pursuit...also a first.
And he would have her...but she would come to him.
CHAPTER SIX
ALICE COULD HEAR the beating of her own heart as they headed for their respective bedrooms. It was still relatively busy in the foyer, but once they left that behind the silence between them was deafening.
In fact, she wondered whether she had imagined the bizarre conversation they had just had. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but it didn’t matter, because in the quiet of the lift his image was reflected back at her whether she liked it or not.
She, standing by the door, arms wrapped round her body... He, leaning against the mirrored wall, hands in his pockets, dark, lean face sending shivers up and down her spine.
The doors pinged open and she leapt out. Her feet were aching from wearing high shoes and on the spur of the moment she stooped and took them off so that the long dress pooled on the ground.
‘Undressing already?’ Gabriel murmured in a sinfully seductive voice.
‘My feet are killing me. I’m not used to wearing heels.’
‘Well, give them a good night’s rest and I shall see you in the morning.’ He inclined his head politely, spun round on his heels and started walking towards his bedroom which was a little further up from hers.
And tomorrow, Alice thought feverishly, all this would be forgotten. That kiss in the back of the limo...the way he had looked at her...their conversation after the party: it would all be forgotten in the cold, clear light of day because that was just how things were.
She was the perfect secretary and if, by some weird twist of fate, he made her feel young and alive and filled with possibilities then that was something she would have to set to one side.
Maybe even to learn from it.
If a man whose value system left her cold managed to rouse her the way he did, then it was time for her to do something about getting her toes wet in the dating game instead of gathering cobwebs on the hard shoulder.
Shoes in hand, she watched as he fished into his jacket pocket for the key to his door. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was going to shut that door behind him and...
She would never know.
‘Wait!’
Gabriel turned slowly and smiled. Had he known that she would stop him? For once, he had been faced with an unpredictable outcome and he really wasn’t sure what he would have done if she had struck off to her own room, shoes in hand, to get a good night’s sleep and rest her feet.
He wasn’t
sure whether a few cold showers would dampen his raging libido.
‘Yes?’
Alice sprinted towards him. It was funny but she hadn’t realised how old she was in her behaviour, in her whole outlook on life, until he had come along and shaken her up so that everything had gone topsy-turvy and then resettled, but in different positions.
She was twenty-five years old—when was the last time she had had an adventure?
She stood in front of him and looked up. ‘Okay.’
‘Okay...?’
‘You know what I’m talking about. I...I’m attracted to you and I really don’t understand why. You’re not my type at all.’
‘Promising start. That way, you won’t start getting ideas.’
‘What sort of ideas? Oh, forget I asked. Georgia-type ideas about having you around for longer than five seconds and getting attached and projecting into a non-existent future.’ She laughed edgily. ‘I work for you, remember? I’m not that stupid.’
‘What’s brought about the change of mind? I thought after we kissed that I was under instructions to forget about it immediately and pretend it had never happened.’ He pushed open the bedroom door and stepped inside, switching on the light at the same time, then immediately dimming it to a mellow glow.
The bed had been turned back, not that there had been any need, and her pulses picked up their tempo as she looked at it—king-sized and beckoning her like a dangerous dare.
‘Well?’ he prompted, walking towards the sofa and flopping down on it, legs apart, arms resting loosely along the back.
‘I...I suppose this is a one-off for me, and I know it’s not a good idea, but...’
‘Life is always full of buts,’ Gabriel agreed. ‘That’s what makes it so challenging.’ Except, truthfully, it contained relatively few buts for him, especially where a woman was involved. He had never had to try, so he hadn’t. His emotional life had never contained any areas of hesitations and certainly no buts.
To Sin with the Tycoon Page 9