Page 33 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

He curled his fingers round her arms and looked at her with deadly seriousness.

‘Where does that come from?’

‘Nowhere. It was just a passing remark.’

‘“Someone like me”? Someone like you?’

‘Gabriel, please,’ Helen said with an attempt at laughter. ‘You’reyou. You’re an eligible bachelor with a roving eye who could have his pick of women. Someone here would surely have spotted you in some tabloid or other with aFifiwrapped round your arm—I’m just saying it might not be quite the easy sell you seem to think it’s going to be. No matter; we’re where we are and, before you say it, I know that I’m the one who managed to prolong this mess.’

‘Run with me on this,’ Gabriel murmured, hands still holding her still while people bustled around them on the way to collect bags from carousels. ‘Yes, I’m a billionaire, and yes, I suppose there are women who find me attractive...’

‘That’s something of an understatement. Don’t forget, I’ve worked with you for over three years.’

‘My point exactly.’

‘Sorry?’

‘After a long line of Fifis, after a thousand nights out eating in expensive restaurants and sitting in over-priced front-row seats at theatres—after too many nights to count when boredom started setting in before the bedroom lights were dimmed—I finally discovered that what I wanted was right in front of me.’

‘And what was that?’ Helen whispered.

‘The woman who has been at my side for years, who knows me better than anyone, who’s smart and funny and unimpressed by all the things the Fifis of this world are impressed by.’

Silence settled between them.

Helen blinked, caught up in the narrative. For just a second, he was so persuasive that evenshecould believe every word he’d uttered. Of course, it was all a convincing falsehood, and the only reason he had just said what he had was to provide her with a plausible back story for an implausible situation.

She pulled away a bit and he abruptly dropped his hands, although his dark eyes were still riveted to her face.

‘Nice one,’ she said shakily. ‘You’re good.’

For a few seconds, Gabriel continued to stare at her in complete silence, then he raked his fingers through his hair and turned away.

‘Right—bags, and then onward bound on our little unforeseen adventure.’

Helen wasn’t sure whether the smooth ride in the limo was quick or whether she was so submerged in her thoughts that the time flew by.

There was no more conversation with Gabriel, because he spent the time on his phone, having extended conference calls because of his unexpected absence from his office for a couple of days. She zoned out because she was fed up gabbling about work-related issues as a cover to hide her growing apprehension.

Her thoughts made her feel queasy but the scenery rolling past them lulled her.

A thousand shades of green unravelled beneath gentle hills, and there were distant views of white villages clinging to the sides of the hills. The sky was milky-blue. It was like being immersed in a beautiful painting and even the passing of cars on the road couldn’t quite detract from that sensation.

She blinked as the limo swerved off the main drag to make its way through lush terrain, and then the rise of white stone carved like a monument against a backdrop of clambering houses, variously painted in pastel shades but all red-roofed and symmetrical, like perfectly shaped boxes.

‘My Italian roots stem from these parts.’

It was the first thing Gabriel had said for a while and now Helen looked at him with interest. He was leaning against the door, sprawled in his seat as he gazed at her.

‘Does it feel peculiar?’ she asked softly. ‘Have you never been tempted to visit?’

‘No point,’ he replied. ‘As you know, my parents emigrated to California to make their base there. They were sent abroad to study when they were young and that seemed to have killed any desire to return to Italy. I imagine they weren’t close to Arturio and his clan. Polite contact might have been there at the start, when they first left Italy, but it was frittered away. There was certainly no mention ever made of anyone back here.’

‘And you’ve never been curious?’

‘Never. Life’s too short to become immersed in a past you never knew. Besides, by the time my parents died,’ he went on, ‘they had exhausted a substantial amount of their joint inheritance. Because my father took little interest in the day-to-day workings of the various companies, he’d failed to see that many of the old stalwarts had retired and their younger replacement weren’t quite as dedicated.’

‘What do you mean?’

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