Page 18 of A Diamond Deal with Her Boss
Looking back, she realised that she’d done a lot over the past two years that was beyond her remit, even though she was paid handsomely.
Everyone in the company was paid handsomely but she was one of the few who worked long into the night because Gabriel was a tough taskmaster with almost no comprehension when it came to putting private life ahead of work.
Without complaint, she’d arranged his love life, booking venues, buying trinkets and sorting out flowers when relationship after relationship had crashed and burned. In other words, doing stuff she fundamentally disagreed with. And she’d done it all without complaint because she’d been vulnerable and still hurting when she’d come to London and she’d embraced the wonderful job she’d landed with the enthusiasm of someone embracing a miracle cure.
And, of course, the pay had been enough to keep her there, working like a bee without digging her heels in.
But now...
‘I accept,’ she said simply, linking her fingers on her stomach and maintaining eye contact, enough to see a flicker of surprise cross his lean features. ‘You expected me to argue, didn’t you?’
‘It crossed my mind.’
‘Would we get this all legally documented?’
‘Since when have I ever been known to go back on my word?’ Gabriel was outraged that she could suspect any such thing. She might be a romantic at heart but, when it came to him, she was all business, wasn’t she?
‘I suppose the fewer people who know the better,’ Abby voiced aloud. ‘I don’t have all the details of my father’s finances...’
‘Spare me the boring details,’ Gabriel drawled with a sweep of his hand. ‘A general overview will do just fine. I’ll take it and double whatever it is. In exchange, you become the perfect fiancée, convincing enough to persuade my grandmother that her grandson has found himself the ideal woman.’
‘That’s a very generous offer,’ Abby told him politely. ‘And, now that that’s sorted, I’d like to lay down a few ground rules in connection with this...er...situation.’
Gabriel raised his eyebrows and she looked at him steadily, trying hard not to focus on the way the overhead veranda light—an ornamental hanging lantern that shed precious little light and made the sitting area feel ridiculously romantic—emphasised the strong, perfect lines of his face.
‘I’m all ears,’ he said wryly. She had to be the first woman not to go quietly with the flow. It seemed that he had misjudged the stubborn strength of her personality simply because she’d been the perfect PA, never questioning his orders but just getting on with it. Or maybe, he mused, he’d sensed that quiet strength all along but was only now seeing it first-hand because of the situation in which they found themselves.
He liked it. He was accustomed to women who tripped over him and were always eager to please. He wondered, not for the first time, he realised, what the guy-she-wouldn’t-talk-about had been like and suddenly, out of the blue, it struck him that he might rather like this fake engagement. He was curious about her and he was even more curious now that he had glimpsed previously unseen depths to her. It always paid to know your employees, he reasoned. In this situation, thrown together and pretending to an intimacy they didn’t actually share, he might get to explore those tantalising hidden depths: as a newly engaged couple, they could hardly politely talk about the weather and the state of the economy when they were with his grandmother. She would expect familiarity and, bearing that in mind, who knew what gems might be revealed about his perfectly behaved PA?
‘We’re going to have to get back to normal life in a week, and I’d like there to be no awkwardness between us. I mean...’ She hesitated. ‘Things changed a bit with all that Lucy business. I never meant to get involved in your private life but I found myself in it.’
‘You’re making a big deal of it. No need.’
‘There’s every need!’ Abby told him fiercely. ‘One minute everything is fine between us...’
‘Who says things aren’t fine now? Because I know a bit more about you, apart from the fact that your favourite colour appears to be grey?’
Abby reddened but stood her ground. ‘Whatever pretending we do is just for your grandmother’s sake. I mean, I’m not going to play at being girlish or giggly, and I won’t be staring up at you with eyes like saucers, hanging onto your every word.’
‘I’m disappointed. How did you know that that’s exactly what I look for in the women I date?’
‘You may not look for it, Gabriel, but I’ve seen enough of those women to know that it’s how they treat you. As though you’re the next best thing to sliced bread.’
Gabriel had to concede that she had a point. ‘So, no saucer eyes. On the other hand, like I said, we’re going to have to put on a convincing show, so positioning yourself as far away from me as possible and looking as though you’re only there under sufferance isn’t going to do. Let’s not forget that we have an arrangement—one that will benefit your family considerably.’
Abby nodded jerkily. ‘I’m aware of that. Of course I’m not going to spend my time scowling and making snide comments. There’s one more thing—I’m not going to be sharing a room with you.’
Gabriel burst out laughing and looked at her with open amusement. ‘What do you think we might get up to when the lights go down?’ The casualness of his voice was belied by a tightening in his groin, the same shocking surge of his libido that had afflicted him when he had imagined her sprawled naked across his bed.
Abby tilted her chin defiantly.
‘I don’t think there’s any danger of that happening, Abby,’ he said.
‘No, of course not! I didn’t say that there would be. I’m your PA, and I suspect we both know very well that we could share the same bed and nothing would happen! It would be ludicrous to think otherwise! But I wouldn’t feel comfortable with that sort of situation, even though—and I can’tstress thisenough—nothing would happen in a month of Sundays!’
Her skin burned and she was tingling all over. The silence that greeted this fiery outburst built and built until it was a solid, throbbing weight between them.
She’d seen this ploy a thousand times, the silence that stretched like a piece of elastic pulled to breaking point until whoever was with Gabriel was prompted into saying stuff he or she might not have planned to say.
