‘And the love element won’t matter.’
‘Love doesn’t equate to happiness for everyone, Abby. Now, shall we wrap up this intense conversation and get back to the matter in hand? You want nothing from me. You’re insulted that I would dare ask you to name your price for doing something that will undoubtedly benefit an old woman whose health is compromised. So, Abby, will you do this for me simply because I’m asking you to—as nothing more than a favour?’
His voice was soft and low and made her feel giddy and girlish.
‘I won’t do it for you, Gabriel, but Iwillagree to this for your grandmother’s sake. I understand what you’re saying about her health. My mother hasn’t been great over the past six months. In fact, she’s had shingles, and on the back of that her health has taken a knocking and she’s ended up in hospital with pneumonia. It’s been desperately worrying and she’s been under medical advice to take things easy. My dad and I have likewise been warned about the damage that can be caused by stress.’
She paused and blinked furiously then took a deep breath and looked at him steadily. ‘My dad’s cashed in all his shares and used up his pension so that he can take Mum on a round-the-world cruise, so I understand that there are no limits when it comes to doing what it takes for someone you care about.’
Gabriel looked at her pensively. That level of devotion was just the thing that had made him cynical. He had been much younger, of course, and more impressionable, but he had seen what happened when one half of a partnership like that died: utter devastation. A parent in mourning with no time or energy left for the living, for a child who might need parental support all the more, only to find it missing in action.
On top of that, Abby had obviously gone through some sort of ordeal with a man.
And yet here she was, talking about love as though it was something to be lauded instead of avoided at all costs.
Could he trust her not to read more into a one-week charade than was actually there? he wondered.
Two weeks ago, he would have bet his penthouse apartment that his efficient, prim and remote PA was as cool in the emotional stakes as he was, yet he was getting to know more and more about her, and his views were changing fast.
She might be ice on the outside but the inside was a different matter altogether...
She knew him, of course, knew the sort of women he was attracted to, and even knew what he was looking for in a marriage. Did he have to spell anything out?
‘My grandmother will be down shortly,’ he said. ‘And, whilst I am deeply grateful for your offer to...help me out in this matter, now that I think about it, I would rather keep things on a business footing. It would probably be for the best.’ He smiled crookedly and said, with absolute sincerity, ‘A practical arrangement is something I would feel at home with and, bearing that in mind, I have a proposition I think you’d like...’
CHAPTER FOUR
KEEPITSTRICTLYBUSINESS, Gabriel thought. With signatures on the dotted line, there would be no room for unfortunate misunderstandings. Favours had a nasty habit of backfiring and, in this instance, any backfiring could get...complicated. He wanted no emotional entanglements. Noghostly, shadowypossibilityof any emotional entanglements.
That was something he would take away from the Lucy episode. He had foolishly thought that all cards had been put on the table. He’d never mentioned love, had never whispered sweet nothings. He had presented her with marriage as a union between two people who got along. How he had ever come to that conclusion baffled him in retrospect because Lucy, nice as she was, had been far too refreshingly naïve for his jaded soul.
But he’d been seduced by the allure of making his grandmother happy, accepting the fact that he really wasn’t interested in remaining single for ever, and had been abroad for so much of their extremely brief courtship that he had had no opportunity really to discover the cracks until they’d opened up into an unbreachable chasm.
If he’d been more businesslike from the beginning things would never have progressed to the point where Lucy had ended up hurt and bewildered, something for which he took full blame. She would have tossed him out on his ear without him coming to the end of his proposal!
Instead, he had made sweeping and egotistical assumptions that the bottomless vastness of his bank balance would be sufficient pull for any woman to adhere to what he wanted.
Next time round—and there would be a next time round—he would find a woman as career-driven as he was for whom marriage would be a mutually acceptable union between two people for whom work would always hold centre stage.
An independent woman, wealthy in her own right, who wasn’t hankering to be swept off her feet and fed nonsense about happy endings.
It would be a challenge finding such a woman but since when did he ever shy away from a challenge? And, once his grandmother accepted that he was sincere and serious about finding a life partner more suitable than the women he had dated in the past, she would be happy and would easily move past the small matter of his so-called broken engagement to Abby.
In the meantime, this charade was essential. He would never be able to live with himself if the single most important person in his life were to slide into irreversible depression because of him. And the charade would only be possible because of Abby.
Which didn’t mean that he was going to trust her to stick to the guidelines.
Not everyone was as strong-minded as he was. He knew himself and knew exactly what he was capable of. It was a strength that would ensure he would never be vulnerable, and he liked that.
‘Let me go and check on my grandmother,’ he said, standing up and stretching, flexing his muscles. ‘She’s probably got lost in reminiscing over old photos while hunting down my mother’s jewellery. I’ll make sure she’s okay and then we can finish this conversation outside.’
Abby watched, unwillingly fascinated at the latent strength of his lean, muscular body. She lowered her eyes and nodded. ‘Shall I meet you out...er...there?’
‘There is seating on the veranda overlooking the gardens at the back. If you use that door—’ he nodded to the kitchen door ‘—you just need to circle to the left, directly facing the swimming pool. I’ll see you there in ten. And, Abby...grab yourself another drink or anything else you want from the fridge.’
‘Think I might need sustenance for the conversation ahead of me?’ she quipped and Gabriel grinned, that slow, amused, unconsciously wildly sexy grin that made all her bones turn to water, something she had managed quite successfully to fend off for two years but which she was finding impossible to ignore now.
He’d always admired her understated intelligence but he was seeing that, unleashed, her dry sense of humour was strangely similar to his own, which doubtless was why he was enjoying it so much.
