Page 27 of A Diamond Deal with Her Boss
‘Howdareyou?’
‘How dare I what? Ask you a simple question about your past?’
‘It’s none of your business what happened between Jason and myself!’
‘Did you love him?’ Gabriel asked gently.
It was the tone of his voice that did it. He’d moved from cool to tender in a heartbeat and it caught her on the hop.
Abby hadn’t spoken to anyone about the break-up. Not really. She had put a brave face on it, smiled and pulled through and everyone had marvelled that she’d got her act together so well. One less thing for her parents to worry about, she had reasoned. Besides, she had always been private by nature. It hadn’t been difficult to bury the hurt under silence and a stiff upper lip.
‘It was a long time ago,’ she said tightly.
‘Tell me what happened.’
Abby opened her mouth to tell him that,actually,it was none of his business, but instead she gave a strangled little sound and looked away, biting down on her lip to keep the tumult of her emotions under control.
Gabriel had little time for female histrionics and uncontrolled sobbing jags. They always left him feeling uncomfortable. He was strangely moved to see that she was trying hardnotto cry.
Instead of swiftly closing off the conversation, he said, ‘Things that happen long ago can still cast long shadows. What happened?’
‘We were childhood sweethearts, you could say.’ Abby took a deep breath, blinked back the onset of tears and felt a certain release at opening up about something that, yes, had cast something of a shadow whether she cared to admit that or not. ‘We grew up in the same small village in Somerset, Jason and I...’ She slid a sideways glance at the big, overwhelming man sitting next to her, his body angled so that he was facing her. ‘I bet you don’t even know where that is, Gabriel.’ She smiled and he returned the smile with a crooked one of his own.
‘It rings a bell.’
‘Well,’ she laughed, ‘It would be your nightmare destination. Everyone knows everyone else. We went out, and got more serious when we were seventeen. It never occurred to either of us that university might test the relationship, and it didn’t. I went to do my IT course close by, and Jason went to Exeter University, but really he was back often and things seemed closer than ever between us. He said he thought that the girls at university were immature. Am I boring you?’
‘Do I look bored?’
‘I don’t know why I’m telling you this.’ She sighed and leaned back, her eyes half-closed.
‘Because I’m your fiancé,’ he teased and she smiled but didn’t look at him or open her eyes. ‘Carry on.’
‘We got engaged. Everyone was excited—parents, friends, cousins, great-aunts...over the moon.’ She looked at the finger where once she’d worn another engagement ring. It felt like a century ago that her heart had been broken, which made her realise that she was over it and had been for a lot longer than she’d thought. This was what happened when you verbalised, she thought wryly.
‘I’d already got a job in the village, but we were planning on moving to Exeter, or maybe Southampton. But then Jason got a job in London working for one of the investment banks and everything just went pear-shaped after that.’
‘Investment banks can do that to a person.’
‘To you?’
‘I don’t succumb to lack of self-control,’ Gabriel told her with scorching honesty. ‘When I get involved with someone, it’s because I choose to, and not because my head’s been somehow turned in the heat of the moment. Is that what happened?’
‘He was suddenly in demand by lots of women, and they weren’t the immature variety he’d met at university. Bit by bit our relationship was chipped away until there was nothing left of it. I barely saw him. When I did, he no longer had time for me. I’d become the old, comfortable shoe he was no longer interested in wearing.’
Self-pity swamped her and she didn’t stop the tear from trickling down her cheek. When Gabriel pushed a handkerchief into her hand, she took it, still without looking at him, and dashed the stupid tear off her cheek.
‘So that’s my tale of woe.’ She turned to look at him. God, he was beautiful. Especially now, when the harsh lines of his face were relaxed. Her grey eyes drifted to his sensual mouth and lingered.
Gabriel wondered whether she was aware of what she was doing, of the directness of her gaze, of what she was capable of rousing in a guy with that look.
‘Okay.’ Abby roused herself from the trance-like torpor that had suddenly settled over her. ‘I see your point about the wardrobe but I’m not going to be letting you buy me the sort of clothes the women you go out with wear.’
Gabriel grinned and pushed open his car door, then he stepped out into the balmy sunshine and circled to open the passenger door.
‘You’re the woman I plan on marrying,’ he said in a low, husky voice. ‘I wouldn’t dream of allowing you out of the house in anything but modest dresses with high necks and low hems.’
You’re the woman I plan on marrying...
