Page 4 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘And men?’

‘That’s none of your business,’ Helen returned coolly, because itwasn’t, and she heard him laugh softly under his breath. She couldn’t remember if he had ever asked her directly about her private life. Had he? Maybe he’d thrown out one or two general questions about what she’d done over the weekend, now and again, but never about men. He had a vibrant and energetic sex life. Had he ever stopped to wonder about hers? Or did he think that she had none, that she stayed in every evening while the world turned around her?

It gave her goose bumps to think of her sexy boss speculating on her private life; it made her wonder what it might feel like if their worlds collided and if those dark, lazy eyes turned in her direction and saw her as a woman instead of just his trusted employee. Would her need to be safe be blown to smithereens? If she were ever to trust a guy again, it certainly wouldn’t be a commitment-phobe like Gabriel. And yet there were times when she looked at him from under her lashes and felt the force of his compelling, powerful sex appeal trying to suffocate her resolve.

‘Of course it isn’t.’

‘You may not mind the world knowing what you get up to with women, but some of us are a little more circumspect when it comes to things like that.’

There was a telling pause down the end of the line and Helen could have kicked herself for falling into the trap of saying too much.

‘I... I’ll let you know what flight I’ve booked.’ She rushed into speech to cover up her discomfort and to paper over the awkward silence that had greeted her impulsive little outburst. ‘It may not be possible to find anything at such short notice.’

‘It won’t be a problem, Helen. There are always available seats in first. You know where I’m staying. Probably the most convenient thing would be to book yourself into the same hotel, and feel free to go for the most expensive suite on offer. I wouldn’t want you to be uncomfortable while you’re over here.’

Because she’d kicked up a fuss about going in the first place, much to his bewilderment? Because she was paid a small fortune and going abroad on business was all part of ‘the generous package’?

Had there been sarcasm in that remark he’d made?

Helen was a creature of routine, someone who liked being in her comfort zone. He wasn’t to know that, of course. He wasn’t to know that the circumstances of her life had made her the person she was now, and that stepping out of that box always seemed to take so much courage, even when she knew that those steps were tiny and insignificant.

Things would have been different for her, but she had lost her mother and brother long ago in a car crash. She’d barely been eight when it had happened, and it had been a big deal. She had read about it long afterwards, scouring the newspaper clippings about the tragedy on the M4 when a lorry had jack-knifed, causing multiple crashes and twelve fatalities.

In the aftermath, her father had become a changed man. She could vaguely remember someone more relaxed, someone laid back and carefree, but those were distant memories, overtaken by the reality of a dad who, having lost his wife and son, had become so terrified of losing his daughter that he’d wrapped her up in cotton wool and taught her the value of never taking chances.

‘Stay safe and take no risks’: that applied to everything, from the emotional to the physical, and Helen, who absolutely adored her father, would never have dreamt of going against the grain.

She’d studied hard, skipped school trips abroad—because who knew what could happen on those ski slopes?—and had never been out too late when it came to teenage parties, because she couldn’t be sure that drink and drugs might be going to feature.

When she and George had become an item, her father couldn’t have been happier. George had been a known quantity, destined to become an accountant, to work in the nearest town and to look after Helen in the way her father had felt she should be looked after.

Looking back, she could see that she had been seduced by the notion of a safe future over and above everything else. She’d been too young to appreciate that there was a lot more to a for-ever relationship than feeling safe within it. She’d been in love with the idea of being in love, and only in hindsight did she see that there had been a lot missing from their relationship; that, although ‘safe’ was a good thing, there really was such a thing as ‘too safe’.

Leaving to work in London—her one big adventure—had been her only deviation from everything she had absorbed over the years and she still smiled when she thought back to her dad’s reaction to her decision. Even now, he remained fond of warning her about anything and everything that could be found lurking down mysterious dark alleys and behind corners. But, disillusioned and desperate to see a different world out there, staying in Cornwall and finding work at the one of the local offices had been inconceivable. She had dug her heels in, and in fairness, although her dad had raised the usual worried concerns, he had caved in without too much of a fight. He’d understood that she had to do that for herself, for her recovery.

Her relationship with Gabriel obeyed all the laws she had laid down. She kept her distance. She worked hard, was extremely clever when it came to IT and could arrange his life with absolute ease, but never had the line between them been crossed.

She felt comfortable within that boundary. This was the first time a trip abroad for business had happened. Largely, when he went abroad, he handled things himself. The business with his hand, combined with the acceleration of this vineyard deal with Arturio, had skewered that, and she could hardly blame him for expecting her to go out to pick up the slack.

Yet the prospect of interacting with him beyond the office confines in London was oddly intimidating.

Nuts.Why should it be? They would still be working, even if the scenery would be different.

‘Of course.’

‘We have everything online but make sure you bring the physical files as well. Arturio has only recently stepped foot into the dawning of a new century. He delegates, but over here he’ll be flying solo, and he might want to flick through the paperwork.’

‘It’s nice that he’s old-fashioned like that.’ Helen half-smiled and thought of her dad, who was the same, even though he was much younger. He used to work as a scaffolder but, now that he was retired, he had taken up his lifelong passion for fishing, and dabbled in some lucrative fishing for Cornish crab, which he sold to some of the restaurants in the area. What use had he ever had for IT skills? Perhaps his curiosity had died when his family had been lost to him and he had never bothered to breathe it back into life.

‘Nice but time-consuming,’ Gabriel remarked with wry, affectionate indulgence. ‘Having to go through everything with pieces of paper and written reports. That said, I’m fond enough of him to indulge him in however many paper files he wants us to provide him with. I had no idea you were fond of the basics, considering you’re the smartest person I know when it comes to everything to do with tech.’

Helen blushed and was relieved he couldn’t see the hectic colour in her cheeks.

‘His love for tradition goes beyond the superficial stuff of wanting everything in hard copy,’ Gabriel continued into the silence.

‘What do you mean?’

‘He’s a family man. You’ve met him a couple of times—you can see that straightaway. He carries an album of pictures of his kids and his grandchildren on him, in his briefcase—showed them to me the last time we met—and I must say there’s something a little unfamiliar about seeing the faces of people whose blood I share. I know more names of sons and daughters and their many and varied offspring than I would ever have imagined possible when I first thought about scouting around for a vineyard I could buy close to the place my parents were born.

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