Page 2 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘Long story. No, scratch that—really short story. Suffice to say that things didn’t work out between us and she stormed out earlier this morning.’

‘Ah.’

‘Am I reading judgement behind that “ah”?’

‘Not at all. I’m sorry things didn’t go according to plan, Gabriel. But I still don’t understand what that has to do with anything.’

Judgement?

Helen would never have gone beyond her brief to tell her boss exactly what she thought of his attention span when it came to women, because it was none of her business; but, yes, there had certainly been judgement behind her softly uttered, monosyllabic comment on what he had said.

She had no idea why women were so helpless when it came to him, because take away the crazy good looks and the over-the-top generosity and, at the end of the day, what they were left with was a rich guy who couldn’t commit and didn’t have to.

A little voice whispered that that one-dimensional picture certainly didn’t do him justice, but Helen was adept when it came to swerving away from the disturbing notion that she knew all too well what women saw in her sinfully gorgeous and charismatic boss.

Easier to stick to the basics, and the basics remained that, in all the time she had worked for him, she couldn’t remember any relationship lasting longer than a handful of months. Between these relationships, there would be pauses but never for that long.

He had form. Surely those women knew him for what he was? He was like a toddler with an attention span of five minutes when it came to relationships. It wasn’t as if he didn’t make frequent appearances in the glossies at some event or other with a woman on his arm, smiling up at him with adoring eyes. There was ample pictorial evidence on record of a guy who didn’t have staying power, so why bother to go there?

He represented the very last sort of man on earth she would ever allow herself to get emotionally involved with, whatever his looks, charm and bank balance. Irritatingly, it just beggared belief that her body sometimes refused to play ball with what her head told her, so that the mere thought of him could set up a chain reaction inside her than had her nerves jangling.

Such as now. She surfaced to hear him saying something about an accident and she immediately asked him to repeat what he’d just said. Her pulses quickened and she straightened, all meandering thoughts put to one side.

‘Thought I’d hit the gym when she flounced out and seems one of the weights I decided to tackle was a little too adventurous. Picked it up and managed to twist my hand in the process.’

‘Youtwisted your hand?’

‘It’s shocking, I know, but I’m only human after all.’

‘That’s awful. Are you in pain?’

‘Thank you for the concern. It was nicely bandaged by an attractive redhead and nothing stronger than Paracetamol called for, you’ll be relieved to know.’

‘You don’t seem too distraught that Fifi has left, if you don’t mind my saying.’

‘I don’t mind, and I’m not, as it happens.’

She heard his momentary hesitation down the end of the line and wondered whether he was tempted to tell her what had happened.

He never had in the past. Relationships came and went and she usually found out when the flowers were being sent to a different name at a different address.

Cut to the chase—what he got up to was his business. They couldn’t have been more compatible when it came to work. It sometimes felt as though they could interact on the work front without saying anything at all. That said, forays into her private life were not encouraged, and that was something she had been firm in pointing out from the very moment she’d joined the company and started working for him.

Yes, he knew the basics. He knew where she’d been born, where she’d studied for her qualifications and knew the nuts and bolts of the academic journey that had led her to his towering offices in the City. Everything he knew about her he had gleaned from the impressive CV she had produced for her interview over three years ago.

But her private life? Of that, he knew nothing.

He knew absolutely nothing about the guy to whom she had once been engaged. He knew nothing about how perfect she had thought George Brooks was for her, the perfect guy for a girl who had been conditioned by her background to avoid the risky unpredictability of the fast lane, who had learned to prize safety and stability. She’d been to school with him and had dated him from the age of seventeen. All their friends, not to mention his parents and her dad, had seen their marriage as a foregone conclusion. In the little town in Cornwall, where everyone had known everyone else, theirs had been the fairy-tale romance—just without the fairy-tale ending.

It had been for the best—she’d told herself that a thousand times. If things hadn’t been right for him, then the marriage would have come unstuck sooner or later. And he had been right: right to break up before vows had been exchanged; right to follow his heart, which had taken him straight into the arms of another woman within months of their break-up; and he had been so gentle when he had let her down, careful with his words and concerned for her well-being.

And yet, to be ditched was to question one’s own worth, wasn’t it?

She had moved past that miserable time, had weathered the well-intentioned, cloying sympathy of friends, had removed herself for life in London and had taken valuable lessons with her.

She’d toughened up. When it came to guys, she had built a wall around herself because she never wanted to be hurt again. Her past, her wounded heart and her insecurities when it came to men, would never be open to public scrutiny, least of all by her boss who would never understand where she was coming from.

She thought now about Gabriel breaching that unspoken divide between them and letting her into his personal life. She decided, with a suddenly fast-beating heart, that that was something she didn’t want because there was no way she’d ever want to be tempted to return the favour.

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