Page 6 of A Wedding Negotiation with Her Boss

‘Secluded’ didn’t come close. This was more than secluded. This was...romantic.

‘Here we are.’

‘This is the entrance?’

‘I’ll help you with your bag.’

‘It’s okay. It’s not terribly heavy. I can manage.’

‘No trouble.’

Her bag looked ridiculously out of place here, Helen thought as she stepped out into the balmy evening air.

There was just a hint of a cooling breeze, carrying with it the fragrant smells that had wafted into the car. But they were more intensified, sweet and aromatic, now that she was hovering outside the brightly lit reception area. To one side, a young couple walked past into the night, murmuring in low voices.

Blinking, she turned to retrieve her bag, which the driver had hoisted out of the car. He laughed and shook his head and then, when she spun back round, there he was—her charismatic boss. Framed in the doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, looking every inch the drop-dead gorgeous billionaire that he was.

But this drop-dead gorgeous billionaire wasn’t in his dark suit, white shirt and hand-made shoes. This drop-dead gorgeous billionaire wasn’t attached to his laptop, firing out instructions and attired for work. He was attired for fun and frolics. He was wearing a white short-sleeved polo shirt, cream chinos and a pair of tan loafers.

Breathing in deeply, Helen walked towards him while behind the driver followed with her minuscule pull-along into which she had crammed sufficient work clothes for three days.

‘You’re here.’

‘Where else would I be?’ She stopped to look up at him, taking in the rakish stubble on his chin, and thinking that none of this was what she’d had in mind when she’d booked her plane ticket. Not the rakish stubble, not the casual gear and not the romantic setting.

The polo shirt stretched taut across broad shoulders. When she tore her eyes away from the breadth of his chest, they collided with the length of his muscular legs encased in those cream chinos, the easy grace of a hard, sinewy body that was shockingly attractive because it wasn’t sheathed in work attire. She felt faint.

‘Who knows?’ Gabriel drawled with amusement. ‘After all the umming and ahhing, it did cross my mind that you might just find an excuse to wriggle out of coming.’

‘I wouldn’t have dreamt of it.’ Helen cleared her throat, eyes skittering away from his suffocating physicality. ‘As you pointed out, I’m here to work. It’s what I’m paid to do.’

Gabriel’s lips twitched.

‘Of course you are.’ He stood back, allowing her to brush past him into the foyer of what was, in essence, a one-storey, uber-luxurious cottage surrounded by all manner of plants, flowers and foliage. The only indication that it wasn’t someone’s house was the marble reception area and the two cheerful young girls manning it. ‘How could I forget that when you’re here in your work clothes, ready and eager to send emails and read reports, even though you’ve just spent over ten hours on a plane?’

To which there was no answer, Helen thought.

This banter... She had strayed beyond her comfort zone, and she grappled with sudden unease, but he was smiling and she returned the smile, because it was late, she was tired and tomorrow was another day. Things would be back into perspective tomorrow. Work would be on the agenda. This crazily sexy guy would conveniently be back in his box.

But somewhere deep inside her a little thread of nervous tension began to unfurl. She had to remind herself that the professional hat she wore, the one she had been at pains to keep firmly in place, was far too secure ever to be dislodged just because familiar signposts had temporarily been removed.

CHAPTER TWO

GABRIELFOLLOWEDHERthrough and took charge at the reception desk.

‘Nice passport picture,’ he murmured, holding it up for scrutiny before handing it over to the girl manning the sleek marble desk, and then grinned at her stony expression. ‘How was the trip here?’

‘Very comfortable, thank you.’

‘Good.’ He eyed her outfit, standing back while the young woman at the desk blushed and went through the usual check-in stuff, her eyes studiously averted from him. ‘Why are you dressed for work? Surely you didn’t expect me to greet you with a list of things to do? I believe in a hard day’s work but I’m not that much of a task master.’

Yet had he expected anything different? Gabriel had never seen his dutiful, hard-working, talented and exceptionally self-contained secretary in anything other than formal clothes: suits, white blouses and neat jackets, all in a range of colours that reminded him in no uncertain terms that life was serious business and the work arena was no place for frivolity. Strangely, they had always made him wonder what she and frivolity might look like if they were ever to come up close and personal.

She was a little over five-six, with brown hair that dropped in a shiny, straight curtain to her shoulders, although in fairness most of the time that shiny curtain of hair was pinned back. She was slender, with wide-set brown eyes, a neat little nose that tilted just the tiniest bit and a little sprinkling of freckles across the bridge of her nose that made him think that she burned in the sun.

He dated sexy, voluptuous women, women who enjoyed displaying their assets, and yet he had always thought that there was something curiously compelling about his quiet, serious little sparrow with her clear, smooth skin, her considered conversation and her unexpectedly husky voice.

‘I’m not dressed for work.’

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