Page 7 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

Gabriel pushed away from the marble desk, told Pammy, the woman at Reception, that he would deliver his guest to her quarters and retrieved the pull-along from the ground, tut-tutting when Helen tried to take it off him and point out the fact that his hand was bandaged.

‘My other hand is in fine working order,’ he told her. ‘So there’s no need for you to worry on my behalf. If that’s what you were doing.’ He grinned and changed the subject. ‘There’s a nice pool here. You should try it. Relax a little, and don’t tell me that you’re not paid to relax.’

‘Okay, then, I won’t. This isn’t quite what I was expecting.’

‘No?’

Walking alongside her, Gabriel felt some of his edginess dissipate. The time-out holiday with his now departed ex couldn’t have gone less according to plan. Instead of fun and frolics, he had found himself in the eye of a hurricane almost before the last item of clothing had been unpacked from her Louis Vuitton suitcase—one of three he had bought for her because she’d wanted to travel in style.

She had stepped out of the very same limo that had just delivered his secretary and looked around her with an expression of satisfaction. Something in her purposeful stride had warned him that all was not going to be smooth sailing.

That said, he had not been prepared for the sudden upping of the ante in their relationship, which she had brought to the table without any warning before romance had had much of a chance to blossom.

She had wound her arms around him, breathed huskily into his ear, drawn his attention to the extraordinary romance of their setting—which had made him think that she had chosen the venue for that very reason—and whispered that it was time to take their relationship to the next level. At which point, things had gone downhill at speed.

Gabriel shoved that to the back of his mind and slowed his pace as he ushered Helen out through the landscaped grounds to where she would be staying.

‘I expected something more conventional,’ she admitted.

‘When you say “conventional”...?’

‘A big hotel,’ Helen confessed. ‘Somewhere a little more in the thick of things. I didn’t see the need to look up the place before I arrived.’ And that was what came of jumping to all sorts of false conclusions...

‘I was a little surprised myself by what I found when I got here.’

‘Didn’t you discuss the choice with...er...Fifi?’

‘She said it was going to be a surprise and I was more than happy to leave it at that.’ He shrugged and swung a sharp right under a little avenue of trees with branches charmingly entwined to form a canopy. They emerged into a delightful clearing in which a handful of beautiful little cottages was spread against a picture-perfect landscape of climbing plants, mature trees and scattered benches. Each cottage had a porch and was fronted by three broad steps.

‘Here we are.’ He nodded to another of the cottages. ‘Mine’s that one. Slightly bigger but no more luxurious.’

‘I’m in a cottage...’

‘And behind this little cluster of cottages is the swimming pool, although you’d never guess that it was man-made. They’ve done a great job of blending it into the backdrop.’

He swiped a card and nudged open the door with his shoulder, stepping back to let her pass.

The space was far from impersonal. Helen stepped through into a front room that was adorned with a range of artefacts and artwork that spanned the continents, from a bold abstract painting on the wall above the stone fireplace, to a series of exquisite African sculptures ranged along the window ledge.

She turned full circle and stared. The wooden floor was warmed with faded Persian rugs and through an open doorway she could make out a grand four-poster bed with requisite canopy and soft net drapes that fell to the floor in a swirl.

‘Wow.’

‘All the cottages have their own small private plunge-pool—added seclusion. Step outside and you can enjoy breakfast brought to you sitting on the veranda at the back which overlooks hillside gardens.’ He laughed. ‘I’m beginning to sound like a tour guide. Frankly, I thought about switching to something in the city centre, but in the end I didn’t think it was worth the effort.’

He watched as she strolled off to inspect the rest of the cottage. She dumped her handbag on the sofa, along with the jacket she had been wearing, and tucked her hair neatly behind her ears.

Eyes on her as he leaned against the wall, Gabriel absently reflected that she was the only woman who was happy to ignore him, and in that extremely polite way of hers was never afraid to tell him exactly what she thought. It was curiously appealing. The less she said, the more he wanted to know.

She might not offer opinions on his love life, but did she really imagine that he didn’t know exactly what she thought of it? She had just the right turn of phrase when it came to revealing her thoughts without actually having to be blunt. She kept herself to herself, and made sure never to encourage curiosity, yet he recognised that curiosity was never far away when he thought about her.

She was still young, yet he had never got even the passing impression that away from the office she was doing all the stuff most girls her age did. Had she had her heart broken? Was she still clinging to lost love, stuck in a moment in time and unable to move on? Never in the slightest curious about the women he dated, he could never resist letting his imagination wander when it came to his secretary.

‘Is it going to be convenient doing business...er...here?’

‘Come again?’

‘You know what I mean.’ Helen raised her eyebrows and stood in the middle of the room, hands on her waist. She nodded at her surroundings. ‘Is there a conference room on the grounds, for instance? If lawyers and accountants have to gather, where are they going to do that?’

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