‘I won’t feel guilty about this, Gabriel.’
‘I knew it was a mistake for us to...’ He shook his head. When he looked down at his hand, he frowned because it was unsteady.
Understandable. Where the hell was he going to find someone as good as she was? This was exactly what came of allowing your head to take a vacation and let your baser instincts an opportunity to come out and play.
‘Is that what you think?’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Is that what you think—that what we did was a mistake?’
‘Not the game we played for the sake of my grandmother.’ Gabriel loathed this sort of emotional conversatio. He was a man of action, someone solution-oriented. Frankly what was the point of talking about something when there was no solution to put on the table? There was no solution here, but the way she was gazing at him, her eyes calm and steady...
‘She...needed what we did,’ he continued roughly.
‘And have you got round to telling her that we’re no longer going out—involved? Engaged?’
Gabriel flushed darkly. ‘It’s not been a fortnight,’ he muttered. ‘If I return to London only to phone her up and break the bad news, then she’s going to start imagining that it might have been something she said, or did.’
‘So how long do you give it?’
‘Does it matter, Abby?’ he asked with mounting irritation. ‘It’s hardly as though you’re going to be around to deal with any fallout.’
‘No,’ Abby breathed in deeply. ‘You’re right. It doesn’t matter because I won’t be around to deal with the fallout.’ But that didn’t mean that she didn’t feel awful about it, because she did. ‘But I wasn’t asking that. I wasn’t asking whether you regretted the little pretend game we played for Ava’s sake. I was asking whether you regretted what happened next.’
Gabriel could sense when he was being led into a trap and this felt like that. What did she want him to say? ‘There’s very little in life I regret,’ he drawled, in absolute command of the conversation and refusing to be manoeuvred into any dodgy side alleys. ‘Things happen.’ He shrugged and looked at her until she was the first to break eye contact. ‘We made love. We’re adults. Retrospectively, had I known that you would find yourself unable to deal with the consequences...’ He let the remainder of that observation hang in the air between them.
‘That’s regret by any other name,’ Abby said, drawing in a deep breath. ‘Well, if I’d had a crystal ball at the time, then who knows? Maybe I would have steered clear of any involvement. But maybe, Gabriel, I would have done the same thing. Because, believe it or not, I don’t regret what we did, not for a minute.’
Their eyes tangled and Gabriel felt a tug of admiration for her honesty. Many others would have taken the easy route out of this situation. Good job...fat pay cheque...go with the flow. Some, he thought cynically, might have gone down a different road. He’d slept with an employee. Some might have thought a little blackmail to be in order...or a lucrative kiss-and-tell story to a seedy tabloid... Wouldn’t have worked, of course, but money could be a powerful motivator when it came to underhand behaviour.
Abby wasn’t going to go with the flow and he wasn’t very surprised because everything about her, as he had discovered, spoke of someone who didn’t shy away from facing consequences. She’d had her heart broken but she hadn’t hidden under a rock to lick her wounds. She had picked herself up and left everything she had ever known to make her way in a city she had probably visited once or twice in her life. She hadn’t become a pathetic wreck and she hadn’t thought of forgetting her ex by flinging herself straight into the arms of anyone who might help take her mind off her hurt. No, she had developed a steely front to protect herself and gone from there.
And now...
‘I don’t blame you,’ she said quietly. ‘You were upfront. You told me like it was and I ended up barging past all the“don’t trespass”signs because I was falling in love with you.’ She could feel the heat scorching her cheeks but, when she walked out that door, she wanted to walk out with no misunderstandings between them. She wanted the air to be completely clear.
‘Falling in love...feelings you had for me... You said...’ Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair.
‘Yes, and I could see on your face that when I let that slip it was most certainly not what you wanted to hear, but there you go. I’m in love with you and that’s why I can’t carry on working for you. I made that booking for the restaurant and that was the end of the road for me.’
‘You always maintained that I wasn’t your type.’
‘You’re not,’ Abby said shortly. ‘Which just goes to show that there’s no such thing as common sense when it comes to matters of the heart. You can do your check list and still end up getting ambushed by someone who just doesn’t tick all the boxes.’
‘That’s not a mistake I will ever make.’ Gabriel wondered whether that remark had been deliberately pointed but he didn’t think so, not judging from the way she was looking at him, clear-eyed and direct. No clinging, no neediness, no pleading for chances that weren’t on the cards.
‘I’ll stay the day, Gabriel. Tidy things, make a list that my replacement might find handy. And I can talk to Rita in Human Resources. I’ll tell her the sort of person who might fit the bill. She’s brilliant.’
Gabriel raked his fingers through his hair. ‘And what if I tell you that I’m going to demand you work your notice?’
‘Are you?’
‘Of course I’m not.’ He shook his head and stood up. ‘And you needn’t worry that I might be tempted to give you anything but a glowing reference.’
‘I know,’ Abby said. ‘You’re nothing if not fair.’ She got to her feet as well to stand behind her chair, gripping the back and looking at him,drinking him in for one last time.
‘I would ask you to reconsider,’ Gabriel told her, ‘But, given everything you’ve said, it’s probably for the best that you go.’
