Page 21 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

It was a provocative statement...and yet Gabriel didn’t regret asking the question because he enjoyed the way her colour deepened, and the way she suddenly fiddled with the ring on her finger and then lowered her eyes to stare at the blank page of the notebook on her lap.

What was going through her head?

He knew what was going through her head.He knew women. And he knew her.

He was treading on thin ice, and he had no intention of continuing the trek to see what was on the other side.

‘Beaches?’ he prompted, voice oozing suggestiveness, dark eyes lazy, slumberous and amused. ‘Sun setting when the violet hour comes on waves crashing on sand on an empty coastline? The distant sound of coconut trees swaying on a night breeze?’

‘I had no idea you were so poetic,’ Helen said shortly.

‘I sometimes surprise myself,’ Gabriel murmured in response.

‘Well, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you on this. If you want to take your new girlfriend somewhere romantic, then you’ll have to come up with the destination by yourself, and of course I’ll make all the necessary arrangements.’

‘Oh?’ Gabriel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Is that what you think I’m doing—new girlfriend? How fast do you think I work? That’s very cynical of you, Helen, I must say.’

‘Why else would you want a romantic getaway in Mexico? Look, I don’t care what you do, but please don’t expect me to have input into the itinerary.’

‘Would it bother you?’

‘Yes, of course I would rather not do that!’

‘Why?’ he queried softly.

‘Because...’

Helen looked at him, their eyes collided and she suddenly felt the ground collapse from under her feet. Those eyes, the amused tilt of his head, the sexuality emanating from him in waves that made her feel giddy... She found it hard to think in a straight line.

‘Because?’

‘Because that’s not in my brief, Gabriel, and you know it isn’t. So don’t...don’t...’

‘I absolutely agree one hundred per cent, even though you’ve never complained before about it not being in your brief!’ he retorted, standing to fetch himself another drink and then returning to the table. But he perched against it, drink in his hand, sipping and looking at her with the sort of focused intensity that would make any woman’s head turn to mush.

‘You do?’

‘I wasn’t talking about you arranging a weekend for me and a woman!’ He dismissed the notion with a wave of his hand.

‘Then, I don’t understand.’

‘The guys who were working on the deal—I told them, as a reward for some admirable focused, precision work, I would treat them to a long weekend, partners included, at a place of their choice. They came up with Mexico.’

Helen stared at him for a few seconds in open-mouthed silence.

He’d been toying with her. He’d introduced that conversation about a weekend in Mexico to...what?...gauge her reaction? He was clever when it came to the opposite sex. She’d told him that that silly business of a couple of evenings ago was nothing, nothing at all, but had he believed her? She’d let him into a sliver of her past so that he could see that she was a woman well able to deal with emotions, but had he believed her?

She snapped shut the notebook, seething with anger, and flew to her feet. She was stuffing everything into her laptop when she felt his hand on her wrist, a gentle pressure that made her skin burn.

He knew that he had an effect on her, whatever the heck she’d said, she thought in panic. It defied all common sense but she found the man attractive and now, over here, the door between them had opened a crack and he had been given an opportunity to peer through, to see that weakness inside her.

She snatched her bag from the table and stormed towards the door of the cottage.

‘Helen...’

‘This isn’t funny.’ She whipped round to look at him and wished she hadn’t because, even fuming as she was, she was still overwhelmed by his beauty, by the force of his personality, by the dark, mesmeric depths of his eyes. By a pull that was rooted in much more than superficial physical attraction, whether she faced up to that or not.

‘No, it’s not.’

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