Page 50 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

His dark eyes skewered her with focused concentration.

Helen breathed in deeply and met that unwavering stare with equal coolness.

She remembered his mouth on hers, his hands touching her, his head buried between her legs, and a shiver of powerful awareness raced through her.

‘Are you trying to tell me that...’

‘I’m trying to tell you that life would be easier for me if I didn’t have to work with you on a daily basis. I thought I could. I can’t. Too much water under the bridge. It would be uncomfortable and awkward, and I wouldn’t be able to get around that, and there’s no reason why I should try. There’s a thriving job market out there and I think I would be able to find a job without too much difficulty. Provided, that is, I get a good reference from you.’

‘Provided you get a good reference from me?Who do you think I am, Helen? I really thought we knew each other better than that—better than for you to think that I could ever be the sort of person vengeful and spiteful enough to somehow make you pay for walking out on me.’

Helen flushed. ‘I’m notwalking out on you, Gabriel.’

‘That’sexactlywhat you’re doing!’ He shrugged elaborately. ‘But, if that’s the road you want to go down, then so be it. You will leave my employ with an impeccable reference, which is no less than you deserve.’

‘Thank you.’ She hesitated. ‘You don’t understand...’

‘Really?’

‘It’s more than just the fact that things would be awkward between us.’ She was thinking on her feet. ‘For me, at any rate.’ To leave with her dignity intact felt very important. ‘Maybe that proposal of yours made me think—just as it probably madeyouthink.’

‘I’m not following you.’ But a dark flush highlighted his cheekbones as he met her gaze with narrow-eyed, scowling intensity.

‘Maybe,’ Helen said slowly, ‘it made me think that it really is time for me to get back into the dating scene.’

‘Thedating scene?’

‘Yes, Gabriel.’

‘The Internet is full of losers and men on the lookout for vulnerable women.’

‘I think I’m grown up enough to handle myself. Besides...’

‘Besides what?’

‘Besides...’ She was protecting herself, forcing him to see her not just as another of his women who would leave with a broken heart, despite her protestations to the contrary, but as her own woman capable of looking out for herself. ‘There are other places to meet people. My friend Lucy is great fun and we’re already planning evenings out. It’s been a while coming.’ It was not a lie; vague plans had been made. Saying it out loud though, felt committal. Like it or not, a future of moving on was taking shape at the speed of light.

‘Evenings out? Where?’

Helen wondered what was so shocking about what she’d just said—nothing. Yet, judging from his tone of voice, anyone would think that she’d just told him that she’d signed up for a career in pole dancing.

Did he think that she was incapable of braving the big, bad world out there? Perhaps he figured that he knew her well enough to suspect thatevenings outin search of a suitable partner would be way beyond her remit?

If she was honest, he had a point, but she had embarked on this line of self-defence, so she would just have to see it through.

‘Bars. Pubs. Clubs.’ It was nerve-racking just thinking about it.

‘Bars? Pubs? Clubs?’

‘It’s not beyond the pale, Gabriel. I’m young. It’s what girls of my age do.’

‘You’re not a bar, pub or club person, damn it!’

‘You don’t know what sort of person I am!’

‘We both know that’s a lie.’

‘Why would it matter to you one way or another if Lucy and I decide to go bar-hopping?’ From vague plans to imminent bar-hopping. She had never bar-hopped in her life before. She had never pub-crawled. Her one time at a club had involved a broken heel of her brand-new high-heeled shoes.

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