Gabriel could have taken her up on that insincere assertion. He didn’t. Instead, he turned to the reason she was there in the first place and the next three hours were spent poring over the files she had brought with her.
She had a good brain. She had creative and different ways of looking at potential problems. She could quickly do the maths when it came to sounding out the viability of certain tricky areas.
She had obviously forgotten her outburst but he still caught himself staring at her every so often, her down-bent head, her slender fingers tapping expertly on the keyboard as she amended documents.
And the damn woman had been right about the tablets. By midday, he was feeling better.
‘Right.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and Alice, ensconced on the sofa by the window, looked at him in alarm.
‘What are you doing?’ She had just about forgotten that she was working with him in his bedroom and that he was wearing nothing but a flimsy black robe which he was at no pains to pull tightly around him. She had told her wayward eyes to get a grip and thankfully, under the onslaught of work, they had. She had established their routine of sorts. And now he was standing up and tying the belt of the bathrobe only after she had glimpsed boxer shorts and brown thighs speckled with fine dark hair. He had amazing ankles. She kept her eyes firmly riveted on that fairly harmless section of his body as he strolled towards the bathroom and informed her that he was going to have a shower.
‘Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen? We can grab something to eat before we carry on.’
‘You seem a lot better,’ Alice ventured. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wrap up what we’ve been doing and really...um...harness your energies? They say that the best way to get rid of a cold—sorry, flu—is to just take it easy and rest.’
‘That might work for some people but not for me. Taking it easy isn’t my style. Now, unless you want to follow me into the bathroom so that we can continue discussing the situation with the electronics subsidiary, I suggest you stretch your legs and head downstairs. In fact...’ He paused by the door and looked at her, his eyes showing just the merest flicker of amusement even though his tone of voice remained bland. ‘You could always make yourself useful and cook us something to eat. You’ll find the fridge and the cupboards well-stocked. In keeping with my laziness, I have someone who makes sure that they are...’
With which he disappeared into the bathroom, not bothering to lock the door, leaving her with the frustrated feeling that somehow the rug had been neatly pulled out from under her feet.
Since when did her secretarial duties encompass cooking for the boss? Did the man know how to do anything but take advantage? Since when had it been written into her contract that she would have to fly over to his house, faster than the speed of light, so that she could plough through endless files with him because he happened to have caught a passing bug?
And why on earth hadn’t she objected more than she had? Why on earth did she feel so alive even when she was around him?
Downstairs, she looked around a kitchen where everything, from granite counters to gadgets, was polished to a high shine. She guessed that the person responsible for making sure that the fridge and cupboards were stocked with food was also responsible for making sure that dust and dirt didn’t find a foothold.
There was bread, ham, eggs and all manner of delicacies in the fridge and, after several attempts, she located the whereabouts of the tea, various kinds, and also various kinds of coffee.
‘I could always order in...’ His voice drawled behind her and Alice spun round, skin burning as though she had been caught red-handed with her hand in the till.
Gabriel wandered towards her, freshly showered and thankfully out of his bathrobe and in clothes—although his clothes were no less disconcerting, because he was in a pair of black jeans and a baggy rugby shirt. She couldn’t expect him to get dressed in his usual suit to stay home, but she wished that he had, because it would have cemented the boss-secretary line between them, would have reinforced their respective roles.
He was the essence of the alpha male—tall, dominant, with the sleek, latent power of a predator. In fact, there were times when she felt distinctly like prey when she was around him. This was one of those times, although she didn’t know why. She just knew that watching him pad through the kitchen barefoot, in jeans that delineated every powerful line of his body, was horribly unsettling.
‘You should be wearing something on your feet,’ she said inanely as he joined her by the kitchen counter so that he could help with the tea making. ‘You might be feeling better thanks to the tablets, but you don’t want to get a relapse.’