Page 53 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘Sure will.’

Gabriel dragged his eyes away from Helen to focus on the small blonde next to her. He could see curiosity and amusement there, and he frowned.

‘I know a couple of good places,’ she said, glancing down but still smiling. ‘Great places for two girls out to have some fun. I’ve been after Helen to get out there with me and for us to enjoy ourselves.’ She dimpled and Gabriel’s frown deepened.

‘Is that what you want, Helen?’ he asked brusquely.

‘Course it is,’ Lucy said airily. ‘Isn’t it, Helen? Loud music, guys buying us drinks, dancing round our handbags...’

‘Yep.’ Helen stared straight into Gabriel’s cool, dark, disapproving eyes with defiance.

Was he going to give her another lecture on how to look after herself? Where wouldhebe going later, anyway? He wasn’t a ‘Friday night is stay-at-home-night’ kind of guy. He was more a ‘where’s my little black book and which gorgeous blonde shall I call? Because it’s Friday, after all...’ kind of guy.

Although, he looked tired. Haggard, even.

‘Helen...’ His voice was a little jagged. Why was he bothering to play the part of the guy who didn’t care? He cared. He more than cared. If he hadn’t bumped into her here, then he knew that he would have done what he intended to do now—he would have found her and begged for her time, flung himself at her mercy.

She’d said that she wanted the stuff that came along with the passion and the friendship, the stuff that made a relationship worth its salt—the stuff calledlove.

The very thing he’d removed from the table when he had asked her to marry him.

It was time to vacate his ivory tower.

‘Gabriel, we should be heading off now.’

‘Can we...talk?’

‘Haven’t we already?’

‘Please.’ He heard some soft laughter from the blonde with the smart mouth, but he couldn’t get annoyed, because every scrap of his attention was focused on the woman she was with.

Helen hesitated. Gabriel was a guy who never begged. She’d never thought he had the vocabulary for it, and certainly not the disposition. But there was a pleading in his voice that made her breathing hitch and, looking at him more closely, she could see that he really did look haggard.

There was wickedness in Lucy’s voice, next to her, as she murmured something about leaving them to it, that the pub wasn’t going to go anywhere any time soon.

‘Don’t be silly,’ Helen said a little weakly.

Were those new lines by his mouth? she wondered. Why did he look haggard? Was she being over-imaginative? Reading things into something that was straightforward? She thought of those times when she had seen him shorn of his usual self-assurance. He looked like that now: human; vulnerable; uncertain. And absolutely adorable.

When she next glanced away, it was to see her friend backing away and waving goodbye. And was that a wink...?

‘Whoisthat woman?’ He said this to buy a little time now that he was alone with Helen. He raked his fingers through his hair and was aware of a level of nervous tension he just wasn’t used to.

‘My closest friend. I should join her.’ Considering Lucy had disappeared, and Helen’s feet were glued to the ground, this felt like an empty statement.

‘Please don’t. Please stay, hear me out. Please,’ Gabriel said gruffly.

He was going to do it. He was going to do the one thing he never dreamed possible. He was going to spill his soul.

The love he felt for this woman was too heavy to carry around for ever without letting her know.

‘I’m crazy about you.’

There. Why beat about the bush? He flushed darkly but he didn’t look away.

Helen opened her mouth and stared at Gabriel. She wanted to shake those words out of her head because she didn’t want them to carry her away on some stupid, hopeful, falsely optimistic journey.

‘I know a wine bar just round the corner,’ he continued urgently into the silence.

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