Page 32 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘Mistakes get made when you’re young,’ Gabriel murmured.

‘I never said he was a mistake.’

‘Despite the painful break-up?’

‘Okay, so maybe I played it a little too safe with my ex-fiancé. Maybe we do all make a few youthful mistakes! You must have made some of your own, now that we’re sharing our life histories.’

‘There are a couple of times I was a bit too impatient in selling shares...’

‘I mean it, Gabriel,’ she persisted. ‘I’ve opened up, now that we’re supposed to be involved and need to know a bit about one another to be convincing. So why should it be a one-way street?’

‘If you want to know,’ he replied with a thoughtful shrug, ‘my parents set a good example when it came to teaching me what sort of mistakes never to make. They were so involved with one another that it was almost like a sickness. The sickness of losing oneself in someone else. So I never made any youthful mistakes. No broken engagements.’

‘No broken heart.’

‘That won’t be my fate.’ He frowned and fidgeted.

‘You can’t be sure about that. No one knows what fate has in store for any of us. Look at the way you and Arturio ended up meeting.’

Gabriel had to concede that she had a point.

‘I mean,’ she pressed, ‘do you really never plan on settling down?’

‘No plans at the moment.’

She really wanted to worry this, like a dog with a bone, but did she want to find out more about what made her boss tick? Wasn’t that just a road that was going to lead to a life all the more complicated when they were back in London? When they both had to forget this interlude and pick up their normal working life where they had left off? They could step out of their boxes for a while but they would have to keep it light.

‘Very wise.’ She laughed. ‘I don’t think all those eligible women out there would ever be able to cope if you weren’t on the scene as a prospective boyfriend. What on earth would they aim for?’

Gabriel didn’t say anything for a few seconds and, when he did, it was non-committal, amused.

He knew what she was doing, just as he knew that she had felt vulnerable and uncomfortable sharing that snippet of her past with him. But then, despite his invitation to her to ask him whatever she wanted, wouldn’t he have walked away from any real personal disclosures? ‘Facts and figures’, as she’d called it, were very different from the painful business of full disclosure.

He’d told her the truth when it came to his parents. He would never hand his heart over to any woman because he would never risk ending up in a place where uncontrolled passion became the sort of all-consuming fire that ended up burning everything to the ground, from common sense to responsibility.

He was more than happy for sporadic work to be done for the remainder of the flight. When that fizzled out, she read and he snoozed, chair angled back, because it was the only way he could be remotely comfortable, given his size.

They arrived at their destination as evening was falling, bathing the landscape in mellow light.

A chauffeur was waiting for them with a placard with their names on it.

‘I don’t even know where we’re going,’ Helen said, turning to Gabriel as a source of strength as she was bombarded by fast Italian accents and people everywhere.

‘“Wait and see”, was what Arturio said. Expect many relatives. It’s a sprawling family.’

‘Maybe that’s better than just something small.’

‘Less chance for anyone to eke out skeletons in the cupboards, you mean?’

Helen slid a look across at him and felt the tug of familiarity mingled with the excitement of the unknown.

‘Something like that. Should we get our stories synchronised?’

Gabriel looked straight at her and grinned.

‘It’s not going to be an interrogation under a bright light with security at the doors in case we try to flee,’ he said drily. ‘Vague murmurings should be okay. We just needed to know one or two details about one another, and I think we’ve covered that.’

‘I know Arturio and Isabella like me well enough, but I hope the younger family members—you know—don’t find it a little odd that someone like you decides to go for someone like me.’ Helen heard her own insecurities bounce around in the silence that followed and Gabriel stopped dead in his tracks and spun to face her.

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