‘Which isn’t nearly often enough.’ Ava reached to take Abby’s hand, tugging her into the hallway. ‘Even as a little boy,’ she confided, leading the way into the house as Abby cast a backward glance at the sleek car which should have been driving her to her hotel. The driver was standing in the sun, leaning against the car, scrolling through his phone.
‘He was always in a hurry.’
‘Who? Sorry, what?’ The front door had closed. Abby met Gabriel’s eyes over Ava’s head and recognised instantly that there would be little assistance coming from that direction because he was still frowning at his phone—which was downrightrude,all things considered.
‘Gabriel, dear. I expect you know my husband and I brought him up after his parents, God rest their souls, died prematurely. It was never a burden. He was a joy.’
‘He’s hardly a joy now,’ Abby was tempted to say with a rebellious streak of wickedness. ‘Picking up a phone call when hehasso muchhe wants to say to you.’
Gabriel grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘You sound like a wife,’ he drawled. ‘And a shrewish one at that.’
Ava clapped her hands and burst out laughing, delighted at this exchange because, Abby thought, huffing at the amused glint in Gabriel’s eyes, she was unaware of the undercurrent.
Gabriel picked up where he had left off, moving to lean into her, his mouth close to her ear, which made her shiver and go hot. ‘Maybe that’s what happens when two people spend so much time together. Think that’s it?’
‘I’m tired,’ Abby whispered back pointedly. ‘Isn’t it about time I get to the hotel? You can email me whatever work you want me to do tonight.’
‘No rush.’ Gabriel’s deep, dark eyes met hers and Abby thought with a little frisson of panic that the quicker she got to her hotel, the better. But Ava was leading the way into a sitting room and a maid had appeared from nowhere with a tray of little nibbles and an ornate silver pot of coffee.
‘I have a selection of teas as well.’ Ava patted a sofa and Abby somehow found herself sinking into it. ‘And cold drinks. Or would you be happy with coffee?’
Abby smiled at the small woman, thawing at her warmth. When Jason had betrayed her, she had developed a tough outer shell to cope with the pieces she had been left picking up. She’d had to deal with pitying neighbours and over-sympathetic friends and then, having moved to London to begin life without the security of an engagement ring on her finger, she had toughened up even more.
She had almost forgotten the young girl who had laughed easily, but something about his grandmother put her at her ease. She couldn’t have been more different from her grandson.
‘Coffee’s fine.’ Abby glanced around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Gabriel was having an urgent discussion with someone on his phone and she stifled a sigh of impatience. ‘You have a wonderful house—so lovely and airy—it must be a joy to live here.’
‘It’s far too big, dear...’ Ava sighed and looked at Gabriel.
‘He only ever thinks about work.’ Abby found herself excusing him.
On cue, Gabriel proved her point by breaking off his phone call to inform them that he had to take the call. ‘You know what my life’s like, Abby,’ he said, sucking her in to support him. ‘She keeps me in check, Grandma, but sometimes needs must.’
He left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him, and Abby prepared herself for the long haul because, from experience, Gabriel could spend an hour on the phone if it was urgent enough and he rarely seemed to mind who was left twiddling their thumbs and biding their time.
‘He’s very lucky to have found you,’ Ava said, sipping coffee and shooting Abby a speculative look that was very much like her grandson’s. ‘Every man, even that powerhouse grandson of mine, needs to be kept in check. I don’t suppose he’s told you about some of the things he got up to when he was a child?’ Ava didn’t wait for a response, which was just as well, because Abby would have been tempted to tell her that those sorts of personal conversations didn’t appear on their daily radar.
‘Well.’ Ava reached under the coffee table in front of them and pulled out a photo album, which touched Abby, because it was clear that the elderly woman was fond of looking back through old photos. ‘Let me show you some pictures of when Gabriel was a young boy,’ she said, flipping through the enormous album with familiarity. ‘I don’t suppose he has any of these lying around? No, I didn’t think so. Boys can be so unsentimental. I would have loved to have had a granddaughter but it wasn’t to be. Still, we mustn’t complain about cards we have been dealt, must we?’
Abby thought of her crap hand with Jason and laughed in agreement. Curiosity fully roused, she settled into looking at pictures of Gabriel, lovingly taken over the years.
He had been so breathtakingly good-looking from an early age that she found herself absently tracing some of the images with her finger as she sipped her coffee.
It was little wonder he was so confident when it came to the opposite sex, she thought. Pictures of him as a teenager showed a tall, strikingly beautiful young man, conscious of the lens directed at him but careless about posing for it.
She was hardly aware of Gabriel entering the room until he said, leaning over them both, ‘Enjoying yourself?’
Abby sat back and yanked her wandering fingers away from the pages of the album.
‘Phone call finished?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Because, if it is, then perhaps I could...’ She smiled at Ava and began rising to her feet. ‘Thank you so much for showing me that album.’ She slid a sly sideways glance at Gabriel. ‘I’ll remember those pictures for as long as I live. It’s always a revelation to see photos of people as children, especially when you can’t really picture those people as ever being young.’
Gabriel was smiling but there was something in his eyes that made Abby pause for a few seconds.
Ava turned to her grandson with a severe expression. ‘Why isn’t there an engagement ring?’
‘Sorry?’ Abby was smiling. Gabriel was frowning. And both of them were staring at the diminutive figure on the sofa with varying degrees of bewilderment.
‘You’re not wearing an engagement ring, dear.’ Ava clicked her tongue and gave Gabriel a roguish grin that made her seem years younger and made Abby think that, as a young woman, she would have been truly beautiful. ‘It’s probably something young people do nowadays. Goodness only knows, it’s none of my business—because the main thing is that you love one another and you’re going to be married—but it would have been unthinkable in my day for a young lady who was engaged not to have an engagement ring on her finger!’
