Page 13 of A Diamond Deal with Her Boss
‘I knew nothing of my grandmother’s depression, and for that I blame myself. I took my eye off the ball and then thought I could make it right by doing what she’s wanted me to do for a long time—getting engaged. Finding someone willing to put up with me, dragging her kicking and screaming up the aisle and then proceeding to have a series of mini mes.’
‘This isn’t funny, Gabriel.’ But she knew that he was keeping it light because it was less alarming that being utterly and deadly serious.
‘When I told her that I was going to be married, when I made arrangements to visit her here with my fiancée, she immediately went to the consultant and handed over the rest of the anti-depressants. Said she didn’t need them any more because she had something to live for.’
‘Oh, Gabriel. What on earth are you going to do?’
‘She’s rushed into thinking that you’re my fiancée.’
‘Yes,’ Abby said simply. For one, brief, treacherous moment she wondered what it would be like to bethat woman,the woman with Gabriel’s ring on her finger. A leggy, well connected Lucy-like stunner who would go on to have loads of little Gabriels...
‘I can’t really believe it,’ she murmured with complete honesty.
‘Can’t believe what? She had no idea what Lucy looked like, didn’t even know her name. It happened very fast and, like I said, I’d hoped for the big surprise. When you think about it, it’s little wonder she’s jumped to the wrong conclusion. I may have mentioned in passing that I would be doing some work while I was over here. I can’t remember if I said anything about bringing my PA.’
He paused thoughtfully, sipped his wine, looked at Abby’s flushed face and admired the fact that, while she was obviously host to a certain amount of panic and bewilderment, she was still managing to keep her head and not give in to hysterics. He liked that. Always had.
‘My grandmother gets confused.’ He felt a tightness in his chest when he said that because he had vivid memories of what life had been like growing up under her loving tutelage. Where had the time gone? She’d once been as sprightly as a cricket. She and his grandfather had done everything for him. Had she started going downhill when his grandfather had died?
He had seen how much his father had suffered after his own mother had died, after which they had both gone to live with his grandparents. Gabriel had been very young, though. Had he been so absorbed learning his own life lessons at that point that he had switched off his emotions completely? Shut down his ability to empathise just in case he got caught up in a tangle of emotions that might drag him under, as they had his own father?
He’d been sworn off love but had he been sworn off everything else?
Had he quietly closed himself off so that he had become a spectator?
He loathed this self-pitying train of thought and he scowled and shifted in the chair.
‘I don’t meanthat,’ Abby said impatiently. ‘I mean it’s ludicrous that your grandmother would even think that someone like me could end up being engaged to someone like you!’ She laughed a little self-consciously but when she met his gaze it was to find that he didn’t share the joke.
‘What do you mean?’
‘C-come off it, Gabriel,’ Abby stammered, feeling her way forward and wishing she hadn’t opened her big mouth and said anything, but the words had just come out of her unfiltered.
‘Explain. I’m not following you.’
‘You said yourself that you got engaged to Lucy because she ticked all the right boxes: well connected, beautiful, the sort of person who would easily fit into your social circle...’
‘I seem to have been remarkably descriptive on the subject,’ Gabriel murmured, absorbed by the shifting patterns of discomfort and embarrassment on her face.
‘I’m nothing like Lucy.’ She laughed in a halting fashion. ‘So I’m just surprised that Ava would have jumped to the wrong conclusion so easily. She must know that you’re attracted to beautiful women.’
‘I never thought you were self-conscious about your looks.’
‘I’m not!’ But her face was beetroot-red, and burning as though she’d gone up in flames. She wanted to say something glib and humorous to change the subject. She would even have settled for something prissy and stern, both mood-killers, but her tongue was glued to the roof of her mouth and her vocal cords had completely dried up.
‘Good,’ Gabriel said softly, ‘Because you shouldn’t be.’ He touched the side of her face, but only for a few seconds, and just like that Abby’s breath hitched in her throat and she was painfully aware of her body in ways that were appalling and unimaginable.
Her nipples stiffened and her breasts were suddenly heavy and tender, weighing like ripe fruit against the lacy cotton of her bra. Those uninvited ripples of sensual awareness were unexpected and alarming.
He’d whipped his hand away, but where he had touched her stung, and she had to resist the urge to cool it with the palm of her hand. She didn’t want to do that because she had no idea what sort of message that would convey and she wasn’t going to take the chance.
‘I’m going to ask something very big of you, Abby, and there’s not going to be a whole lot of time to think about it.’
‘No.’
‘I haven’t asked yet.’
‘You don’t have to—and, no, I won’t pretend to be your fiancée because your grandmother’s made a simple mistake. You need to be honest with her and tell her the truth.’ She thought of the way the elderly woman’s eyes had lit up at the mention of her daughter’s jewellery and then chased that thought away in case it undermined her determination.
