Page 60 of Embracing Love

Chapter 25

He was cold, and stand off-ish and she was doing her best to reach out to him. But after the third attempt of trying to catch his attention, Tanya stopped, decided she’d had enough and left the group.

His obvious disinterest in her bordered on the edge of downright rudeness. She got the message loud and clear: he wasn’t interested.

Nadine had done her best to include them both in conversation but Gabriel didn’t seem to want to know. And Tanya wasn’t going to stick around in the face of such disdain.

For the rest of the evening she worked her way through the other groups and mingled with people, many of whom she hadn’t spoken to properly for a while.

She bumped into Luc several times in her travels, but he knew the score now and she was thankful she’d managed to get her point across. Yet the damage had been done. Gabriel wasn’t about to give her a chance to explain herself.

The Saturday night event this year was different to those of the past. She quite liked this new style; a barbeque instead of a sit-down dinner. It was a great idea; perfect for the weather and the beautiful grounds of the hotel. Ordinarily she would have loved it for it was a wonderful way to enjoy the outdoors on the terrace on a sunny summer evening. People were beginning to unwind and were having a great time, and there was good food and drink in abundance.

The Zimmerman Group certainly knew how to put on an event and this particular one had always been the company’s best one, even though it excluded most of the departments, being solely for the benefit of the marketing managers and employees. Though senior managers from other departments were also invited.

She moved from one person to another, and in so doing she and Gabriel had successfully managed to dance around each other and avoid all contact.

Gabriel chose to remain with Russell, Michael and Dorothy for most of the evening, which was hardly surprising since he was an outsider to the company and barely knew many people.

On a few occasions, Tanya caught Nadine staring her way with a look of concern on her face. Tanya smiled back, indicating she was fine. Just dandy. She knew Nadine had observed the all too obvious avoidance strategy employed by Gabriel; she also knew Nadine could hardly be by her side all evening, since she too was busy working the room as well.

The dusky rose pink evening slowly deepened into a deep dark purple and the lit lanterns adorning the terrace twinkled into life. Classy and chic, they dressed the veranda with their white light, turning the whole place into a picture perfect heaven.

With eating, and talking and wandering around, and trying to forget Gabriel, Tanya saw that it was nearing eleven o’clock. She sought out Nadine and bade her goodnight.

“So soon?” exclaimed Nadine. “We haven’t had a chance to catch up properly.”

“We’ve got all day tomorrow.”

“We’ll catch up then.”

Tanya nodded and made her way back to her room and sunk onto the bed, still dressed, flicking through the TV channels in the hopes of being distracted from the noise she could hear outside on the veranda. Her room backed onto the gardens.

She’d made a real effort to get dressed for this evening and had picked out one of her favorite outfits: a lemony-lime colored dress. It was perfect for summer, not too clingy, yet it gave her body some definition, and gave the appearance of slim-ness which she didn’t really possess. But she had a good body for a woman of her age. The high heeled gold sandals she’d slipped on made her stand taller, giving her legs more shape and lending her an overall air of sophistication.

All for nothing.

But after an hour in the small, cosily lit room, she was still no nearer to feeling tired. The anger still stewed, and would not let her mind rest. She got up and looked at her reflection in the mirror; concluded that she didn’t look bad at all.

She looked sexy without trying to look as though she’d dressed like a twenty year old. Understated chic, that’s what she wore, and rather well too, she surmised.

Why the hell wouldn’t he give her a chance?

He’s not getting away with it, she decided, and then remembered that she still had his jacket. It gave her the perfect excuse to go to his room and return it to him.

Because she had no intention of lugging it all the way back to Paris for him. She wasn’t sure when he was flying out but with only the managers’ meeting in the morning and no more presentations tomorrow most people would be leaving after breakfast.

It made perfect sense for her to return Gabriel’s jacket right now, even if it was past midnight. Unless he was having the time of his life, he’d probably be back in his room now.

She grabbed the jacket, grabbed her key card and left her room. She was sure she’d heard him say he was in room 302 and with that destination in mind she made her way down the elevator and raced with a beating heart down the hallway to his room.

Her heart banged against her rib-cage, even as courage leaked out of her body. She told herself that she’d come here only to return what was his.

It wasn’t a desperate attempt to seek him out.

It wasn’t.

With her heart almost in her mouth, she knocked on his door.

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