A Diamond Deal With Her Boss

‘We had a long conversation yesterday about the two companies we’re going to see outside Seville,’ Abby pointed out. But he had a point. No sooner had he received the shocking news that his fiancée was no longer interested in the role than Gabriel had taken himself abroad for four days.

‘Inconvenient,’ he had told her in passing when she had showed up for work the day after her revelations about Lucy and Rupert. ‘But that’s what happens when you leave a boy to do a man’s job. Reynolds has screwed up with the lawyers in New York and that deal looks as though it’s going to be set back by two months if I don’t get over there and iron things out.’

He’d emailed her the evening before, warning her of his forthcoming absence, but the office had still felt curiously empty once the door had slammed shut behind him. Needless to say, the list of things he wanted her to do was as long as her arm, but exhausted as she was at the end of each evening, she still managed to find time to speculate on his hurried departure from the office.

On the outside, Gabriel was the essence of charm. Physically beautiful, he knew just how to charm whatever he wanted from whoever happened to be withholding it from him—and, if that ploy failed, Abby had seen first-hand how fast that easy charm could give way to steely-eyed menace that left no one in any doubt that when it came to a fight he was prepared to go for it.

But underneath that charm, and underneath all that bluster about being fine with the break-up of his engagement, could Gabriel be hiding a vulnerable side?

Abby found herself wasting far too much time speculating about that. It was as if boundaries had suddenly been breached and now he’d somehow managed to stick his foot in the door and wedge open a part of her she had been keen to keep firmly closed.

Gabriel wasn’t just like any other boss. There was just too much of him for comfort.

‘What’s our schedule going to be?’ She pulled the conversation back into her safe comfort zone and slid calm, grey eyes over to him.

They were on his private jet. She’d been on this jet twice and she knew that there was no relief from the intimacy of the surroundings. No hubbub of other passengers calling flight attendants for drinks, no announcements over the PA system reminding them of which countries they happened to be flying over, no distant wails of discontented toddlers. On the previous two occasions, there had at least been the distraction of several other employees who were being ferried over to work on the same deal but, even if there hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have approached the trip feeling as though she had to be careful.

And with good reason, judging from the amused look on Gabriel’s face.

She hurriedly averted her eyes, only to be swamped by his suffocating masculine appeal as he sprawled in the leather seat, fingers loosely linked on his lap, his dark, spiky hair combed back so that there was nothing to distract from the angular, chiselled perfection of his lean features.

Gabriel could recognise a change of subject when he heard one and he was hearing one now. ‘Well, I have to admit that things have changed slightly, thanks to Lucy’s defection.’

He’d spoken to Lucy, and Abby had been accurate in her retelling of his ex-fiancée’s reasons for returning the engagement ring to him.

‘You’re never around, Gabe,’ she had said, looking at him with such apprehension that he’d had to force himself not to click his tongue with annoyance. Since when had he turned into an intimidating monster who ate innocent young girls for breakfast?

‘I have a business to run,’ he had explained. ‘You’ve seen how that works. Your father is abroad a lot of the time.’

‘And that’s how I know that I don’t want that for myself,’ she had confided, her big, blue eyes wide. ‘Dad was always away when I was growing up and I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to have a Daddy who’s there and not always on the other side of the world. Plus, what’s the point of being married if you never get to see your husband? Gabe, we’ve been going out for seven months and I feel as though I have to book an appointment to see you.’

Since Gabriel couldn’t argue with that, he’d maintained a tactful silence whilst she had gathered momentum and told him all the reasons why she had got cold feet, ending with a suitable apology and some hand wringing.

Lucy had wanted more than he had it in him to give. She had made him feel a hundred years old, jaded and cynical, but that was who he was, and he was never going to change. He’d hurried into something for all the right reasons, as far as he was concerned, but he’d failed to do his homework and now he could only wish her luck, when they parted company, with Rupert the chinless wonder who had, incredibly, become a male model.

‘Your grandmother must have been disappointed,’ Abby said sympathetically and Gabriel tilted his head to one side and shot her a rueful smile.

‘I haven’t broken the news to her just yet,’ he admitted and Abby’s mouth fell open.

‘You haven’t told her?’

‘I thought it made more sense to do something like that face to face. Her health isn’t great. The less time she has to brood over the great-grandchildren that won’t be happening, the better.’

‘So she still thinks that you’re going over there on business and in a week’s time Lucy will be joining you, the happy, radiant bride-to-be?’

‘I never thought you could be so judgemental,’ Gabriel said, unperturbed. He grinned. ‘I’ll be honest.’ He leaned a little towards her and Abby automatically drew back. ‘Ava refuses to go near a computer. I think the top-of-the-range one I bought her a year ago is currently rusting from lack of use, despite the fact that I spent half a day teaching her how to use it and left written instructions on sticky notes at the side. She also can’t get her head around mobile phones and has yet to master text messaging. So, for practical reasons, face to face was always going to be the best method of delivery when it comes to the bad news.’

‘She’ll be shocked,’ Abby murmured, thinking about how shocked her own parents had been when she’d told them the news about her broken engagement. ‘Parents get their hopes up and then, when they’re disappointed, it’s almost worse for them than for...the child on the receiving end of the broken engagement.’ Her eyes misted over and she blinked the memory away.

Addled, she stared down at her tablet and frantically tapped so that she could access the reports she had worked on, anything to focus Gabriel’s attention on work, because she could feel those dark eyes of his boring into her.

‘You’re probably right,’ Gabriel murmured. ‘Parents do get their hopes up. And grandparents as well, of course.’

His shrewd eyes noted the way she was fiddling with the tablet. In a second she was going to shove something in front of him, a timely reminder to keep his distance. But something had changed between them and maybe, because he was a little unsettled by the business with Lucy, he couldn’t help liking the frisson he felt in Abby’s company. Maybe it was the element of distraction but she was occupying his mind in ways she hadn’t done previously.

He was curious about her. He had to admit that it wasn’t for the first time. When she’d first started working for him, he’d been curious about her, curious about that wall of permanent reserve she had around her, as though she’d erected a fortress complete with invisible ‘no trespass’ signs. Innocuous questions were met with bland replies and non-answers but, of course, she’d settled in and he’d quickly realised that he’d found himself the most efficient PA he could ever have hoped for. Given his chequered history when it came to PAs, he’d shelved all curiosity, because a good PA was worth her weight in gold and he wasn’t about to jeopardise his good fortune by being nosy.

But now...

He looked at the sensible dark-grey trouser suit which screamed ‘no nonsense’.

‘Was that what you found?’ he asked and Abby looked at him sharply.

‘Sorry, but I’m not following you.’

Gabriel murmured piously, ‘It’s just that you seemed to be speaking from experience just then. When,’ he elaborated to forestall any puzzled frowns, ‘You said that parents and grandparents were often more upset by this sort of thing than the person actually going through it. So...were you speaking from experience?’

‘Of course not,’ Abby blustered, for once not her usual unflappable self. ‘I just meant,’ she added with a sudden urge to give him a taste of his own medicine, ‘That your grandmother is going be so upset, when you say that she was looking forward to you settling down, and she’ll be even more upset because you really don’t seem that bothered at all.’

Gabriel grinned with open enjoyment which, Abby thought with some frustration, completely defeated the object of the exercise.

‘Yet I’m sure she’ll agree that it’s better to have been ditched at the aisle than ditched post-vows.’

‘I’m sure Lucy would have been a devoted wife if she’d married you.’

The smile faded from Gabriel’s lips at the sincerity in her voice. ‘Doubtless,’ he drawled, half-closing his eyes and affording Abby a bird’s eye view of his lush, dark lashes which would have been the envy of any woman. ‘But, bearing in mind the disappointment she would have found at the end of the rainbow, I very much doubt her devotion would have been long lasting.’

‘Why?’ Abby heard herself ask. She was inviting just the sort of out-of-bounds conversation she had sworn to avoid but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

Gabriel opened his eyes and looked at her lazily, his head tilted to one side as though he was debating the pros and cons of providing her with an answer to her question.

‘Forget I asked,’ Abby said stiffly. ‘I’m not paid to ask personal questions.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Abby...’

‘Well, I’m not!’ Her mild grey eyes glinted.

‘Do you avoid asking me questions because you don’t want me to ask you any?’

‘I avoid asking you questions, Gabriel, because, like I said, it’s not part of my job remit.’

‘Yet you probably know more about me than any other woman,’ he mused. ‘Maybe you know so much that you haven’t got any questions to ask. After all, you have to admit that I’m an open book.’

‘You’re impossible.’ She paused. ‘And you’re not an open book.’

‘You’ve known every single woman I’ve ever dated since you started working for me,’ Gabriel pointed out, enjoying the titillating undercurrent to their conversation, which he suspected she wished she’d never prolonged.

‘I’ve hardly known them,’ Abby said drily. ‘Yes, I’ve made arrangements for the theatre, and restaurants and the opera, and, yes, a couple of them have come into the office at some point or other.’