Page 16 of A Diamond Deal with Her Boss
‘A stiff drink is always a handy prop in stormy seas...’
‘Why are the seas going to be stormy, Gabriel?’
‘Hopefully they won’t be. I think you’ll find my proposition very interesting, just so long as you don’t allow your pride to stand in the way of accepting it. Now, let me go and find my grandmother. I don’t want to...open negotiations with my eye on the clock in case she returns. I’ll make sure she’s settled, and she can join us in due course. And, while I’m gone, you can think about the pride standing in the way of the situation.’
Abby opened her mouth to dispute that but remained silent because, yes, she was proud. She was just surprised that it was a trait he had managed to pick up on but then, as he had pointed out earlier, when you worked alongside someone as closely as they had worked together it was impossible not to pick up all sorts of things along the way.
That thought suddenly and inexplicably made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end and she licked her dry lips.
‘I’ll...er...help myself to a glass of water, if that’s all right.’ She followed suit and stood up to discover that, instead of politely stepping away, Gabriel remained just where he was so that they were suddenly very close to one another, her breasts almost touching his chest.
Instinctively she stumbled back, bumping into the chair behind her so that he reached out to steady her.
‘Are you already swept off your feet at the prospect of being my wife?’ He loosed a low, amused laugh which irritated Abby, because she knew that underneath the silky, light banter there was a thread of sarcasm there that bordered on being insulting.
She was conscious of her formal clothing, appropriate for work and certainly not for a romantic tryst in a foreign city with a fiancé. How on earth had his grandmother not picked up on that? If she had met any of Gabriel’s past girlfriends, then surely she would have thought it odd that the woman he was suddenly engaged to hadn’t shown up wearing next to nothing so that she could display endless legs and cleavage?
‘Sadly for your ego, Gabriel, no, I’m not. You have nothing to fear in that area.’ She brushed his arm away and straightened herself, smoothing her skirt and her hair and then folding her arms. ‘I have my head firmly screwed on.’ She reverted to type as a reminder to him that she was far from the sort of ditzy girl who would let a one-week game of pretence go to her head.
‘Splendid! And as my highly efficient secretary whose head is always firmly screwed on, consider job number one of this assignment to be cancelling your hotel room. I can’t think of any reason why we should hang onto it, do you? It would be highly irregular for my fiancée to set up camp on the other side of the city...’
He grinned and moved to the kitchen door. ‘Even my grandmother, old-fashioned as she is, would find that a bit peculiar. Cancel the room, and if they give you any trouble you can smooth the waters by reserving their conference room for our meetings. I had planned on paying on-site visits to the prospective clients but, given the change in circumstances, I think the less time we’re on the road the better. I’ll get the clients to do the running.’
‘Of course.’ She smiled and half-turned, and was relieved when she heard the quiet click of the kitchen door behind him as he went in search of his grandmother.
It gave her time to think about what had happened in the space of a handful of hours.
Like a puppet whose strings have been abruptly cut, she hobbled back to the table and sat, as weak as a kitten.
How had the lines between them become blurred so fast? Yes, of course she knew—he could workthatout logically enough—but it was more than a simple case of lines being blurred.
Something had shifted dramatically and it terrified her. She didn’t want Gabriel changing the goal posts. He had the sort of personality that was big enough to suffocate her and she was only realising now how many defence mechanisms she had put into place to combat the threat.
Conscious of her past experience with Jason, all too aware that her own soft nature and desire to be loved and to trust had been her undoing, she had assumed the tough outer shell she had erected around herself to be weatherproof.
Her brilliant, powerful and unpredictable boss, she’d told herself from their very first moment of meeting, was just the sort she could never be attracted to and that had become a valuable mantra over time.
After Jason, she was no longer in the market for anyone charming or good-looking. If he had the slightest whiff of unreliability about him, then he could be safely consigned to the incinerator.
Gabriel, she had seen first-hand, had managed to turn unreliability into an art form. When it came to women, he had the attention span of a toddler in a candy shop. She’d told herself that she almost didn’t have to be careful around him because he was just so inappropriate for her!
Frankly, she felt sorry for the women he went out with. Hadn’t they suspected from the get-go that he was as unreliable as they got?
But here she was now: blurred lines. Thoughts all over the place. Rollercoaster emotions doing all sorts of weird somersaults and back flips.
All hot and bothered, she went outside, easily locating the seating area he had told her about.
Glassy-eyed, she sat and stared out at a picture-perfect landscaped setting.
If Gabriel’s intention had been to locate his grandmother in the most peaceful setting possible that was still close to the amenities of a city, then he couldn’t have been more successful. It was hard to believe that somewhere as vital and bustling as Seville was only a matter of a drive away, because it was as quiet here as the deepest countryside, with an uninterrupted vista of green.
She stilled at the sound of footsteps but only looked at Gabriel when he had pulled up a chair to sit next to her, a refilled glass of wine in hand.
He wasn’t looking at her as he delved into his pocket and withdrew a box, which he slid over to her.
Abby opened it and swallowed. ‘I can’t.’ She snapped the box shut.
‘Not to your taste?’ Gabriel drawled.
