So they hadn’t talked about London, at least not since they had become lovers. But then, when this had started, they hadn’t travelled down roads that had become intimate surprisingly fast, and not just physically intimate, but emotionally intimate.
‘Gabriel,’ she began huskily, curving her body against his and looking up at him with clear eyes. ‘I never thought I could ever feel this way.’ She stopped, flushed and thanked the Lord that she hadn’t added what had been on the tip of her tongue:feel this way about you.She’d stopped in time but she could sense him stilling, reading the unspoken words. ‘I mean,’ she said helplessly. ‘I know what this is about, of course I do, but when I’m here, lying next to you...’ Like someone who’d stepped into quicksand, Abby knew that she was floundering, sinking and saying stuff she knew she shouldn’t, but somehow she couldn’t resist. ‘What I’m trying to say... I... I...’
‘Don’t.’
The single syllable, spoken gently but firmly, was like a boulder dropped into a glassy, flat lake, a boulder that sent ripples cascading in never-ending circles, a cause and effect that brought hot colour flooding her cheeks.
He knew.He’d seen the desperation in her eyes and he was giving her the opportunity to step back from the edge of the cliff.
Abby had never felt so mortified in her life before. She laughed shakily. ‘What I was just going to say...’ She frantically tried to find a lifeline that wouldn’t sound pathetic and contrived. ‘Is that, although I find I have feelings for you that I never guessed I could ever have, I’ve actually...um...missed being at work. It’ll be great to get back to reality.’
‘Feelings for me?’ His voice had cooled. ‘No, let’s not explore that angle. Let’s settle for getting back to the reality waiting for us back in London.’ He shifted off the bed and then lazily headed towards the bathroom. ‘I’m going to get showered.’ He turned to her as he was at the door. ‘Then I might have to head to my office downstairs and start ironing out the details for tomorrow’s meeting. It’s the Jefferson deal. It seems that the family is on board with a takeover but they need to talk it through with me face to face.’
‘Yes, the Jefferson deal, right.’
‘No rush, but I’ll need you to sift through their accounts and forward me the profit margins for the past two years, and which subsidiaries are losing money and how much.’
‘Yes, of course.’ She clutched the sheet to her and wriggled into a sitting position. Her bland, efficient face was back in place but in fact he wasn’t even looking at her. He’d disappeared into the bathroom and she heard the decisive click of the door being locked.
Their time was at an end. He’d caught a whiff of something he hadn’t wanted, a whiff of herwanting what they had to continue, to see where it might lead,and he had scarpered faster than a speeding bullet. To his credit, he had stopped her from making an absolute fool of herself from which there would have been no going back.
On tenterhooks, Abby got dressed and eventually headed downstairs, to find him in the kitchen, chatting to his grandmother. He’d broken the news of their premature departure but had obviously buttered her up with promises to return.
His dark eyes on her were remote and polite. When he dutifully put his arms around her, in a show of intimacy Ava had come to expect, Abby could feel his distance as powerfully as a punch in the stomach.
And, just in case she hadn’t got the message, he didn’t accompany her upstairs when it was time for bed.
‘My report is going to take a while,’ he said as they stared at one another, she about to head upstairs and he about to move off into the opposite direction.
‘Is it?’ Abby asked quietly.
‘Yes, Abby. It is. You would do well not to wait up for me.’ He’d come that close to inviting her into his life for a bit longer. He would have done it. He would have risked his professional relationship with her because he still wanted her. Gabriel couldn’t believe that he had allowed himself to drop his guard the way he had purely because the sex had been so good. Was it because the circumstances were so extraordinary? Was that why he had behaved out of character? There could be no other explanation for it.
Now she was looking at him with calm, grey eyes, and he knew that if he looked hard enough he would see the hurt there. He raked his fingers through his hair and glanced away.
Abby felt caught between wanting to bring this all out into the open, lance the boil so to speak, and needing to close the lid on it before things were said and emotions declared that could never be taken back.
Close the lid, she thought, and at least she could continue with her job. Where else would she find another like it? It would be hard seeing him every day, and picking things up where they’d been left off when so much had changed between them, but she could do it. In a way, it might even be beneficial to see him return to his bad old ways, wining and dining his voluptuous dates before growing tired of them and dispatching them to Never-Never Land.
She would be able to put everything into perspective and move on, having endured the most important learning curve of her life.
And if he found someone he wanted to make a permanent fixture in his life?
Abby felt her stomach lurch, as though she’d hit the top of the rollercoaster ride and was now swooping down with the ground flying towards her.
‘Sure,’ she said stiffly, hovering. He looked so damnawkward.She could practically feel the pity wafting off him in waves, and she tightened her mouth and straightened her back. ‘I forgot to mention,’ she said politely, ‘That I spoke to my dad about the money. I had some doubts that he would take it, but I managed to convince him that it was a windfall win on a lottery ticket and that I would be upset if he didn’t use it to make life comfortable for them once they get back from their round-the-world cruise.’
‘Lottery ticket?’ Gabriel was amused in spite of himself. ‘He fell for that?’
‘People believe what they want to believe,’ she said wryly, quoting him back at himself, and he shook his head because for just a moment there was a perfect understanding between them that made him want to walk towards her and kiss away every single thing that had been said since he’d left the bed and declared that work was beckoning.
‘Right.’ He pushed off and began heading towards the other wing of the villa.
‘Right,’ Abby parroted, turning away. ‘I’ll make sure I’m packed and ready to leave first thing.’
The bedroom had never felt so lonely, not even on that first night when she had stared with horror at a bed she was consigned to share with him. She had curled up on her side, trying to create as much distance between them, and had contemplated the time ahead with dread.
Now, bath done, hair washed and bags packed, she crept between the sheets and felt the emptiness next to her with something approaching despair.
