Page 45 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

Helen laughed and swivelled round on the chair so that she was facing him.

‘Much as I enjoy watching you brush your hair, I’d quite like it if you did it in the buff.’

‘You can’t always get what you want.’

‘I’ve always been interested in challenging that particular theory. Tell me what was going through your head. You looked very thoughtful.’

‘I was thinking that we leave tomorrow.’

‘Has this part of the world lived up to expectations?’

His voice was still light but Helen felt that she could hear a very slight shift in it, so slight that it was barely noticeable, but she knew him well—well enough to know that he was waiting for her response, waiting to see what came after that remark.

He would always be the guy on guard for the clingy woman, the woman trying to pin him down and to make more of something than he was prepared to tolerate.

Even with her, even with someone he read as being as detached as he was from any emotional involvement, hestilldidn’t quite trust her to obey the rules he laid down.

For a second she wondered what he would do if she confessed everything to him. How would he react? He would be appalled, and would see it as a betrayal of their understanding. When she thought of how his face would change, how he would begin to back-pedal, how that lasting memory of her would be one of shock and dismay, she felt sick.

She would never allow that to happen. She would always make sure that she exited without falling flat on her face in front of him.

‘It has.’ Helen’s voice was normal when she answered and she gracefully rose from the chair to make her way to the wardrobe, from which she extracted what she would be wearing for their final meal in Italy. It was a soft, silk dress with a scooped neck in shades of rich blues and greys. It was very elegant and had cost the earth.

She could feel his dark eyes on her as she eased it over her head, over the bra and panties she had been wearing as she’d brushed her hair.

‘It’s a beautiful part of the world, Gabriel. There must be a part of you that wishes you could have spent more time here, growing up.’

‘If wishes were horses...’ But he grinned. ‘And you still haven’t told me what you were thinking when you said that this was our last evening here.’

‘I was thinking that we’ve somehow managed to get very little work done, so there’s going to be a lot of catching up when we get back to London.’

‘And are you looking forward to that?’

‘Catching up on tons of work?’ Helen grimaced, scooped her sandals up with one hand and returned to the chair to slip them on; the straps were thin and fiddly. ‘Does anyone look forward to catching up on tons of work?’

‘You’ve never had a problem with tons of work.’

‘That’s true.’ What a fool she’d been, slowly falling for this guy, never questioning the tons of work she’d always enjoyed doing, even when it had meant sacrificing a weekend. ‘Actually,’ she said slowly, ‘I’m thinking that when I get back I might just take a week out to go visit my dad. Of course, I’ll make sure whatever urgent work matters need doing get done before I go...’

She glanced up from fiddling with the straps to find him looking at her with a shuttered, thoughtful expression.

He’d asked her what she’d been thinking. What was going through his head now? Was he going to make a speech about the routine they would get back to once normal life recommenced? Was he going to tactfully remind her that this was temporary, so she shouldn’t expect it to carry on once they were back in London?

‘This has been pretty intense,’ she said seriously. ‘There’s no question it has to end once we’re back in London but, realistically, we might both need a little time out before we face one another in your office. Don’t you agree?’

Gabriel didn’t say anything for a while.

His dark eyes drifted over her. She was saying all the right things, and he couldn’t help but think about where all that common sense went the minute they were in the sack. When he thought of the way he could consign that practical side of her to a bonfire just by touching her, he felt himself getting turned on.

She did the same to him.

He was as cool and detached as she was—more so, if anything, because there was a sentimental side to her that he lacked—and yet she could rouse him with a look.

‘What I’m going to say, Helen, is going to come as something of a shock...’

In a way, a shock to him as well. But things had changed. Fifi had showed up, and everything that went with her, from the demands for more than he could give to the tantrum and the flouncing out. It had made him think long and hard about the future of his choices. Then along had come Helen, as soothing as Fifi had been hysterical, competent and controlled...and, as the days unravelled, unbearably sexy.

Throw Arturio into the mix, along with a vision of family life he had never given passing thought to—and, to that mix, add this visit to Genoa, where he had felt the punch of what he had missed out on from the day he’d been born; the wrenching regret of a palace he had never occupied and the sound of family voices he had never had...

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