Page 31 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

He dragged his brain back to the present and, for the next couple of hours, managed to immerse himself in the barrage of work-related issues she insisted on dealing with, both on the way to the airport and then, after a brief respite, once they were settled in the first-class compartment of the plane.

‘Enough of work,’ he ordered when they were cruising and champagne had been brought for them.

He rested one finger on the lid of her laptop and eased it shut. ‘I get it that you want to remind me that our peculiar situation doesn’t negate the fact that you’re still my secretary—and not, as appearances would have it, my girlfriend—but we still have to fill in some blanks before we get to Italy. You never mentioned anything to me about your mother and brother being involved in a fatal car accident—and, first off, I want to say how sorry I am for your father and for everyone else who must have been affected by it.’

Helen’s heart sped up.

He hadn’t said a word about her outfit, but she’d seen the quick flick of his eyes over her, the way he had quickly lowered them to guard his reaction, and sexual tension had sizzled through her like a live electric charge.

She wanted it and she didn’t want it. The conflict inside was sweet torture.

This was all new to her. Life had always been so well organised. This...? She could write off a silly crush, and she could almost shut the lid on those stolen moments between them, when things had got out of hand, because thankfully they had come to their senses. She could very nearly blame it all on being in a bubble, back there in that ridiculously romantic hotel where barriers had been blurred just for a moment.

But now Helen was agonisingly aware that the sand was shifting ever more beneath her feet. She’d felt it before, and the feeling had lodged deep inside, impervious to being dislodged just because she would rather not address it the way it needed to be addressed.

She didn’t want some kind of voyage of discovery.

No... She was terrified that part of her wanted it way too much for her own good.

She knew the kind of guy her boss was and she knew that it would be fatal to let herself get sucked into his magnetic orbit. But here they were, and he had a point—they could hardly present themselves as a loved-up couple if a simple question thrown at them at some point in the next couple of days resulted in the whole farce being exposed for what it was.

Her fiancé would know at least one or two basic details about her past! And it wasn’t as though she would be divulging some deep, dark, state secrets, even if it might feel a little like that—a little like another chip was being made in the wall she had constructed around herself, the wall that had defined the relationship she had had with him.

‘Thank you.’ She blinked her way back to the present and to her sexy boss, who was looking at her from under his lush, dark lashes.

‘It must have been very hard for you. How old were you at the time?’

‘Gabriel...’ She turned to look at him, her hazel eyes colliding with his curious, dark gaze. ‘I know we have to know a few basic facts and figures about ourselves if we’re to be convincing, but honestly, there’s no need for detail, is there?’ She smiled to temper the cool curtness of her response and hoped he couldn’t sense the fear underlying it, fear that her self-control was fraying at the edges.

His eyebrows shot up and he tilted his head to one side. ‘I thought what I asked was a basicfacts and figuresquestion,’ he replied. ‘So why the secrecy?’

‘Because...’ She looked at him and sighed. ‘I’m your secretary.’ She lowered her voice and took a deep breath. ‘And not actually your girlfriend, so we don’t need to get too much into the details of one another.’

‘You know pretty much everything about me. Besides, now that you’ve invested in this pretend situation, I think it’ll work for you to take a little time off from being my employee. Is it really so hard for you to open up a little? You already have. The threshold has been crossed.’ His voice was husky. ‘I can be a very understanding boss, if you give me the chance.’

The threshold had certainly been crossed, that was for sure.

‘Eight.’ She looked away and sipped the champagne. ‘I was eight at the time. I was at home with my dad, and my mum was with Tommy, who was my kid brother by three years. She was taking him to a birthday party. It was all just—a terrible, tragic freak accident. A pile-up on the motorway. I...’ Her eyes glazed over and she drew in a sharp, painful breath.

‘You?’ Gabriel encouraged gently.

‘It was a very bad time,’ she confessed, ‘if you really want to know.’

‘I can only imagine.’

‘My dad went to pieces. It took him a while to get out of that black hole but, when he finally did, he’d changed. He wasn’t carefree any longer. He became very protective, and I only really noticed it when I got older—when I saw how much freedom other girls had.’

‘How did you deal with that?’

‘I never minded. I adored my dad and I still do. He was doing his best for me and I always knew that.’ She glanced across to him and then laughed self-consciously. ‘So, that’s my story.’

‘Things are falling into place,’ Gabriel murmured.

‘What is that supposed to mean?’

‘Your cautiousness: was George your cautious option?’

‘We weren’t talking about George.’

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