Page 9 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘I’ve collated all the relevant information on the deal in one file,’ she said, turning away from the flustered young girl at Reception and staring out to where the limo was waiting for them. ‘I thought it would be easier than trying to retrieve strands from various places. All the documents to do with the legal side of things are in one place and I’ve emailed it all to you.’

‘Excellent. Very efficient.’

‘Have you checked?’

‘Not yet, no. I’m assuming this will all go smoothly because so much fact-checking has already been done. These are mere formalities, even if there promises to be quite a bit of them. And naturally, unless they’re all in order, there’s still an outside chance that things might hit a roadblock. Unlikely with me at the helm,’ he murmured in a low drawl. ‘Bandaged hand or no bandaged hand. How did you sleep?’

‘Very well. Thank you.’ Helen slipped into the back seat through the door the driver had swept round to open for her. It was another glorious day and the rich, heady scent of flowers filled her nostrils. For a fleeting moment, she almost lost herself in the illusion that she wasn’t here on business. The illusion didn’t last long. In fact, it was comprehensively dispelled when Gabriel joined her in the back, angling his big body against the door so that he could look at her.

‘This is a beautiful part of the world,’ he said, snapping shut the partition and then devoting all his focused concentration on her.

Suddenly the intimate, confined space felt stifling and Helen breathed in deeply. Gabriel was very good when it came to making a person feel as though no one else in the world existed. She had seen him in action with a couple of women in the past: had seen the way he had perched on his desk when one of them had happened to drop by unannounced; had seen the way his dark eyes had lasered them to the spot until they were blushing and coyly responsive. When he’d politely but firmly ushered them out after five minutes, they hadn’t seemed to feel rejected. Even in meetings, he would focus on someone and that someone would hesitate and then do exactly as he wanted.

But with her? They worked together in absolute harmony but that focused concentration was something he had only ever applied when discussing something of a work nature. Now, for some odd reason, Helen felt a tingle of sexual awareness stir inside her and she was confused and horrified in equal measure.

She drew in a hitched breath and reminded herself that the occasional surreptitious glance at a guy who was undeniably sexy was nothing to be particularly concerned about. Yet she found herself adjusting her position to quell the tingling between her thighs.

‘Yes.’ She rushed into speech, but her nerves were all over the place, and her usual calm had decided to desert her. ‘Your...your driver told me a lot about the place, the cafés and the restaurants, and of course the scenery is beautiful. Breath-taking—the trees and the flowers. Yes, really beautiful...’ Her voice fizzled out but his eyes remained on her, pensive and, she thought, a little amused.

This wasn’t her at all. She didn’t do girly—never had. She had always been serious and controlled, her life running on carefully regulated tracks, but right now she feltgirly, and it was disconcerting.

‘I imagine we’ll work for a couple of hours, and probably break for lunch to be brought, but what remains of the afternoon will be free.’

‘Yes, well, if I have to work on the minutes then I shall be more than happy to return to the hotel if you want to stay on and enjoy whatever there is to enjoy in the city.’

‘That’s extremely diligent, Helen.’ His dark eyes were serious and his voice was mild and thoughtful. ‘Of course, I would expect nothing less. However, this came as something of a surprise for you and, that being the case, I insist that you see something of the place while you’re here. There’s no need to bury yourself in front of your computer. Meetings will kick off tomorrow at the same time and you can do whatever needs to be done in the morning.’

‘Of course, but...’

‘No buts. I’ll show you around.’

Gabriel looked at her with lazy concentration, his lush lashes masking what was going through his head.

He could feel her discomfort in waves. She was dressed for the office and any deviation from the script had not been predicted. Yet how hard would it be for her to take some time out with him? What was the big deal? He didn’t intimidate her. He knew that for a fact, sensed it in the way she was never afraid of telling him what she thought, even if the criticisms were always wrapped up in polite packaging he could never fault. So why the hesitation?

She was a girl in her twenties, yet she behaved like someone twice that age, and here, under a syrupy sun and an alien landscape, Gabriel was suddenly intensely curious to find out what made her tick.

Broodingly, his dark eyes roved over her, appreciating her slender, pale-skinned delicacy, the Cupid’s bow of her mouth, the intelligent slant of her calm brown eyes and, dropping down, the jut of small breasts pushing against her top.

Far less than a handful, he mused.

He frowned, shifted and dragged his wayward thoughts back to what they had been talking about.

‘Let’s go through what we need to cover,’ he said more brusquely than he intended, because somewhere in his head his thoughts were still drifting in unfamiliar waters, playing around with images that were off-limits. ‘We both know how much lawyers can waffle. The less of that, the better.’

He wrapped it up fast. He felt his eyes straying to her slight form positioned just to the right of him. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see her frown and the concentration on her face as she annotated details of what was happening, pulling up relevant pieces of information at the speed of light, and printing it all off on a printer which, at his request, had been installed within touching distance.

She moved quickly, confidently and gracefully. Once or twice he asked her something, and she knew exactly where he was going with his questions and responded accordingly.

Lunch was brought and eaten while work continued, and at a little after four everything was done and dusted and there was the usual round of barely concealed self-congratulatory noises on a job well done.

Gabriel switched off. He’d sat through many a conclusion to thorny, detailed work and all he wanted to do now was relax.

‘Brilliant work, Helen.’

Those were his first words to her as they left the hotel, moving from air-conditioned comfort out into the sultry summer heat.

‘Thank you. It all seemed very straightforward. I’m very happy to explore on my own if you have better things to do.’

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