The essence of the man remained hidden. That was the way he liked it, and that was something that was never going to change. How much more foolish could she have been? Against all the odds, against every scrap of common sense she possessed, she had handed over the most precious of emotions into the care of a man who would have run a mile had he but known. A wave of dizziness washed over her and she had to fight her way back to some semblance of normality.
They made it back to the hotel in record time. Dinner was going to be at one of Gabriel’s favourite restaurants in Montmartre, somewhere chilled with an eclectic crowd.
It left them a couple of hours and she knew how those hours would be spent.
In his bedroom, in his bed...
She always made sure to return to her own bedroom, even in the early hours of the morning, but they always made love in his bedroom.
‘I can’t seem to keep my hands off you.’ He pushed her back against the closed door. ‘Touch me,’ he groaned. He unbuttoned his jeans and pulled down the zip to relieve the throbbing in his groin.
The touch of her cool hand as it wormed its way into his boxers was bliss, enough almost to send him over the edge.
‘Let’s make use of the bath...’ He broke away to lead her into the bathroom, which was the last word in indulgence. A ridiculously large bath took centre stage with a walk-in shower to one side and twin sinks on the other side rested on black granite with a huge mirror behind.
He ran the bath, flinging in bath salts, and Alice watched him. He was poetry in motion and she couldn’t get enough of him. He had stripped off her protective layer and the only one blessing was that he didn’t realise that he had done so.
She had made sure to reveal as little about herself as he had revealed about himself, although he knew her thoughts on so many things. They had discussed literature, art, the paintings and sculptures they had seen, the food they had eaten and the wine they had drunk. They had talked about the people they watched, sitting outside and sipping coffee. They had compared notes on music. They had even talked about work and about the accountancy course she was due to embark upon.
‘I can feel you watching me,’ Gabriel said with a grin in his voice.
‘That’s because you’re so egotistic. You think that every woman on the planet’s watching you.’
‘Ah...’ He turned around, still smiling, and slowly got undressed. ‘But you’re the only one I care about.’
If only.
She had shed all her inhibitions in front of him. She had no idea how she was going to return to her role of perfect secretary—not when she was crazy about him, when he had seen her naked, when he had touched her in her most intimate places. But men were brilliant at detaching and she would be as well.
The water was beautifully warm and blissful. The bath was easily big enough for two and she slid between his legs, her back against his stomach, her head tucked against his neck.
He squirted some liquid soap into one hand and took his time massaging her breasts. She could feel him pressed against her, a shaft of steel, proof positive of how much she turned him on.
She sighed and slipped down lower into the water and, eyes closed, she lost herself in pure sensation as his hand moved from her breasts down over her stomach and between her thighs.
‘Don’t...’ she protested as he found the sensitive bud and began rubbing it, eliciting broken, gasping groans.
‘Don’t what?’
‘Stop or I’ll...’ Too late. Her body shuddered as she climaxed. Her breathing quickened and she cried out and turned in the water, thankfully not sending too much over the side of the bath, and she sat on him, but she knew as well as he did that without protection it was too risky.
So, instead, she did what he had done to her. Watching him climax was such a turn-on that she couldn’t wait for them to get out of the bath and find the bed.
Was it her imagination or was there an urgency to their love-making that had not been there before? They would be leaving the following evening.
Gabriel could have just kept touching her, making love with her, and skipped dinner altogether but with just an hour to get ready and leave the hotel he turned to her and smiled.
‘So...’ he drawled, nestling her against him. They had barely bothered to dry themselves. They had been too hungry for one another. ‘We leave tomorrow.’
‘We do.’ Alice lowered her eyes and placed her hand flat against his hair-roughened chest.
‘What do you think of Paris?’
‘I think one day I’ll be back. It’s beautiful. I love the architecture, the art galleries, the museums... There’s nothing about it I don’t love.’
‘And London? I don’t think this thing we have has run its course...’ He was as hot for her now as he had been on day one—as he had been even before then, if he was entirely truthful.
‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning, my dear secretary, that I’m not ready for our spate of truancy to come to an end.’
Alice raised clear eyes to his. He wasn’t ready for this to end. She knew exactly what he meant—he meant that he hadn’t yet grown bored with her. But he would, and when that happened she would be utterly destroyed.
More than that, having her around would begin to exasperate him. She would be just another woman to be discarded, except he would find that she was still there, still working for him, still visible. Would she end up buying a bouquet of goodbye flowers for herself?
‘That’s not how I see this panning out,’ she told him and he drew apart and looked at her with a frown.
‘What do you mean?’ He smiled. ‘We’re still hot for one another. No point denying it, Alice. So you work for me and I’ve always had a policy of not mixing business with pleasure—but what’s the saying about stable doors and a bolting horse...?’
‘When we leave, Gabriel, it’s over. That’s what I said at the beginning and I haven’t changed my mind.’ Would she have responded differently if she hadn’t done the unthinkable and fallen in love with him? Would she have been able to keep it as something fun and casual and then, when it was over, cheerfully return to life as she knew it?
Temptation to take that road dug into her and she fought it with the gritted determination of someone swimming upstream against a strong current.
‘You don’t mean that.’
She swung her legs over the side of the bed and began flinging clothes on, eyes firmly averted from his face. ‘I mean every word of it, Gabriel,’ she said. ‘It’s been amazing, but...’
Gabriel couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He had never suffered rejection from any woman. He had always been the one to do the rejecting.
‘But we can’t keep our hands off one another!’ he exploded, leaping out of the bed and snatching his boxers. He glared at her, challenging her to refute that, which she didn’t. ‘I don’t see what the problem is!’
Fully dressed now, she at last felt strong enough to meet his glittering, bemused, demanding gaze but she still had to keep her distance.
‘The problem is that we don’t think alike, Gabriel. You take because you can and then, when you’re bored, you move on to someone else. That’s not me. I don’t want to waste my time having an affair with someone unless I think it’s going somewhere. Which is not the case here,’ she added quickly, just in case he got it into his head that she was asking him to define what he felt for her.
‘I’m just saying that we need to keep things black and white. This was a bubble. It’s too late to say that it wasn’t a good idea, but what’s done is done, and now we can move forward and continue our working relationship and put this behind us as something enjoyable that won’t be repeated.’
‘I can’t believe I’m hearing this,’ he rasped, still incredulous. ‘I’ve had my fair share of difficult women in my time, but you’re not on
e of them! Or are you...?’
That cut to the quick. She was anything but, if only he knew. And thank goodness he didn’t.
‘I’m not,’ she said shortly. ‘But I’m realistic. Just like you. Except we have different realities. I want a man for life and I’m prepared to do my utmost to find him. You want a woman for two minutes and you’ll never look further for anything longer.’
CHAPTER SEVEN
THEY HAD LEFT London with spring promising to be a fine one. They had returned to dank drizzle and the grey, cold weather had continued for the two weeks since they had been back.
Paris seemed like a dream. A wonderful dream to be locked away and only taken out at night, when she remembered everything—where they had gone, what they had talked about and, most of all, the heady excitement when they had made love.
She had been right to do what she had done. He had railed against her decision for five minutes, had tried to convince her that carrying on their affair was a good idea, but she hadn’t failed to notice that in the end, when she had refused, he had ultimately let it go, already moving on.
And now...
She sighed and frowned at her computer, trying to focus. There wasn’t a minute of the day when she wasn’t aware of him. When he stood next to her to explain something, she could feel her weak, treacherous body begin to go into meltdown. Her head might try and box him up neatly but her body remembered the way it had felt under those roving hands and that exploring mouth.
He, on the other hand, seemed to have no problem with the way their working relationship had continued.
In her darker moments, she thought that he might be quietly relieved that she had made the decision that she had. It had certainly spared him the effort of having to engineer a break-up while maintaining the status quo.
The connecting door between their offices was pushed open and she tensed and looked up with a brittle, polite smile.
‘I need you to book two tickets to the opera. Source me one that isn’t too challenging. Best seats.’
Alice nodded. The rictus smile never left her face but something inside twisted painfully.
This was bound to happen. She had braced herself for it, for the moment when he found himself a replacement. A fortnight! What they had shared had barely been given a decent burial.
‘When would you like me to book these tickets for?’
‘Tonight.’
‘That might be impossible, if it’s one of the more popular operas.’
‘Mention my name. I give generously to the Opera House. They’ll find seats.’ He strolled towards her and dropped a stack of files on her desk. ‘And you’ll have to get through these before you leave tonight.’
‘But it’s already five-thirty!’
‘Tough.’ He flicked back the cuff of his white shirt and strolled back into his office, shutting the door behind him.
Gabriel had never put himself out for any woman and he wasn’t about to start now, but her cool detachment got on his nerves. It was as if Paris had never happened. She had even returned to her dreary grey garb, having tried to return the designer clothes he had ordered her to buy in Paris.
Naturally he had refused but he suspected that the whole lot had probably been given to charity. No reminders.
The worst of it was that he still wanted her. He couldn’t look at her without the memory of that slender, willowy body writhing underneath him. Another woman was what he needed, he had decided. He had had his change and it was time to return to what he knew.
He settled down to work and didn’t look up until there was a knock on his door and he saw, with surprise, that it was nearly seven.
‘Finished already?’ he asked, swinging back in the chair and looking at her with brooding, unreadable eyes. ‘Scanned and sent off everything?’
‘Your date is here, Gabriel.’ It was a challenge just getting the words out. So, he had reverted to type. Bethany Dawkins was small, curvaceous and dressed to impress in a figure-hugging black dress with a neckline that plunged almost to the waist, displaying bountiful breasts restrained behind a sliver of black netting. Alice had looked at the other woman and immediately felt dowdy, drab and unappealing, and she had known from the way the other woman’s eyes had skimmed over her that she wasn’t alone in that opinion.
She had already buzzed through to him that the tickets had been booked. She doubted sexy little Bethany with the flowing dark hair would be in the slightest bit interested in opera.
‘Wonderful.’ He stood up and began slinging on his jacket.
‘Have a lovely evening,’ she said through gritted teeth.
Gabriel paused, as though suddenly struck by an errant thought. ‘With Bethany for company, I undoubtedly will. Opera interest you, Alice?’
‘You know it does.’ It was the first time she had alluded to one of the many conversations they had had over a bottle of wine before they’d had to return to the hotel, like adolescents unable to go long without touching one another.
‘Of course. I’d forgotten. Care to join us? I’m sure it would be possible to have them arrange for a third seat to be made available.’
And witness first hand how easily he had moved on? Watch them holding hands and staring at each other in that ‘can’t wait to climb into bed after this’ way? That was how he had looked at her in Paris. Over meals, in the back seat of the limo, he had looked at her with dark hunger, as though the time couldn’t go by fast enough until he was in bed with her again.
‘I’ll give that a miss. Thank you. And, to answer your question about the files, yes, everything’s been done so, if it’s all the same with you, I’ll leave now. I shall be going to visit my mother in Devon tomorrow and I thought I might stay over until Tuesday. I could look in on that customer we’ve been having problems with in Exeter. It’s no trouble and it’ll save you having to make the trip yourself.’
‘How far does your mother live from Exeter?’
‘Close enough.’ Something else that he’d forgotten. She had told him the name of the little village where her mother lived, although she had kept all other surplus information to herself. Had he forgotten everything she had said to him? He had appeared so attentive, but had it been in one ear and out the other?
Well, he certainly had form when it came to that, she thought bitterly, but it hurt, because she had been one-hundred percent committed when she had talked to him.
‘I think your hot date might be getting a bit impatient outside,’ she reminded him coolly.
‘And that’s a problem because...?’ He wondered why the sudden disappearing act for a long weekend. Since she had effectively walked out on him, he had been thinking about her non-stop, which alternately baffled and angered him—hence his decision to seek some replacement therapy. But not even the delectable woman waiting for him outside could kill the curiosity he felt when it came to Alice.
He knew that she visited her mother every weekend and, for the life of him, that seemed peculiar. It took filial devotion to whole new lengths.
And this weekend, she wanted to stay longer. He knew that the village was only forty-five minutes’ drive from his client, so why the pressing urgency to stay the day?
Did she visit more than just her mother when she vanished on those mysterious trips to the back of beyond? The more he considered that option, the more likely it seemed, and of course there could be only one pressing reason for her to trek all the way down there every weekend without fail. A man.
She had slept with him and she had fancied the hell out of him, or so he had thought. Frankly, wasn’t it a little suspect that she could move from fancying him to treating him like a complete stranger within a matter of hours? Women didn’t operate like that. Detachment did not come as second nature to them. Why would Alice be the exception to the rule? It was as though the woman she had been in Paris
had stayed there.
He had never been given to flights of imagination. He had always considered that the luxury of people who had too much spare time on their hands, but he was discovering that his imagination was playing all sorts of games now as he stood there, looking at her.
So, she had slept with him. Was it because the guy she really wanted was not available? Was the man married? Was that what those weekend visits were all about? Was it a so-called duty visit to dear mama, but really to hook up with some sleazy guy with a wife and kids who gave her sex now and again while promising to leave his albatross family one day?
Red mist settled over his eyes. ‘I’ll expect you back here first thing on Monday. Harrisons can wait. There’s too much work here for you to take a day off.’
‘I’ve already booked the day off,’ Alice told him abruptly. ‘I was being helpful when I suggested I visit Harrisons—it would actually have cut into my day. But they’re only a hop and a skip away and I shall probably be in the area to do some...shopping anyway. I don’t mind popping in and picking up the hard copy information we need.’ How dared he think that he could be heavy handed with her just because he had moved on and was involved with someone else?
Just then Bethany appeared at the door, her face a picture of petulance. He had met Bethany several months ago at a company do. Her father—an Argentinian man in his late fifties whose company had surfaced on Gabriel’s radar for acquisition—had brought her along in the absence of his wife, who’d been on a cruise with a gaggle of her friends, he had told Gabriel. Bethany had visibly blossomed the second she had set eyes on Gabriel and had followed him around for the evening, much to her father’s delight. She was thirty, sexy as hell and, she’d confessed with a sultry little smile, bored out of her mind with all the dreary people talking about work.
Gabriel had taken her number, vaguely intimated that he might give her a call and promptly forgotten her existence, of which he had been reminded several times in the intervening months.
To Sin with the Tycoon Page 11