‘I beg your pardon?’
‘We’re sitting here, having a drink. We don’t have to spend our time discussing work.’ He topped up her glass, gently pushing aside her hand which she had raised to stop him. ‘Tell me about your family. Brothers? Sisters? Usual assortment of nieces and nephews, cousins and aunts and uncles wheeled out on high days and holidays?’
Alice felt the little pulse at the side of her neck beating steadily. Her mother was an only child and her father had a brother in Australia whom, he had always been very proud to say, he loathed. When she had been younger, she had longed for a brother or a sister. As time had gone by, she had ditched those dreams. What if a brother had turned out like her father? No, theirs had always been an unhappy little family unit, marooned on open water without the benefit of a neighbouring craft to help pick up the pieces should anything happen. As it had.
He was simply being polite, and she was hardly confessing to state secrets, but it still felt awkward to start talking to him about her private life. She needed those boundaries between them to be kept in place or else it would be so much more difficult to keep the attraction she felt towards him at bay.
Hadn’t she already fluttered like a girl on her first date? Hadn’t she wanted him to notice her, and not just as his efficient secretary? She was in dangerous territory and control came from not forgetting their respective roles.
But if she dodged his question she’d stir his curiosity and he was tenacious, a dog with a bone, when it came to finding out things he wanted to find out.
‘I’m—I’m an only child,’ she told him haltingly. ‘My father’s dead. A car accident.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Though the way she had said that... ‘And your mother?’
‘Lives in Devon.’ She took two small sips of wine and offered him a bright, brittle smile.
‘Has the polite conversation come to an end?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just had a look at the clock behind you and it’s time for us to go.’ She stood up and carefully avoided looking at him as she smoothed down her dress. When she raised her eyes, it was to find his on her and he didn’t look away. He just kept looking until colour crawled into her cheeks, her mouth went dry and her brains turned to cotton wool.
Confusion paralysed her. Was he looking at her that way? The way she tried hard not to look at him?
‘You look quite...stunning,’ he murmured, extending his arm and then tucking her arm into the crook of his.
‘Thank you,’ Alice croaked. She wasn’t sure what she was finding more disastrous on her nerves, the fact that she had her arm looped through his or the fact that he had just delivered the compliment she had been desperate to hear with a look in his eyes that had made her whole body tingle with forbidden awareness.
Maybe it was a look that he pulled out of the box whenever he saw any woman who didn’t look half bad.
‘Even though,’ she continued, weakly asserting her independence, ‘I still disapprove of you telling me what I can or can’t wear.’
‘Even though you’re surely going to be the belle of the ball?’
‘Oh, please!’ She tried to dismiss that husky compliment with a laugh.
‘You don’t believe me?’ They were at the limo, which had appeared as if by magic, and the chauffeur swooped round to open the door for her.
‘I...no...maybe. I don’t know.’ Her voice was low, breathless and husky. Nothing at all like how she usually sounded. It was a voice that matched her beautiful Cinderella dress. Her eyes were wide, her pupils dilated as she stared at him, riveted by the beautiful, hard planes of his face and by the way he was still looking at her.
She heard something come from her, something soft and low, and recognised with horror that it was a moan, barely audible, but as loud as clanging bells in her own ears.
Gabriel knew this moment for what it was. Her pliant, warm body was inches away from his. They were leaning into one another, driven by some unseen current. If he turned away right now he would break the spell and that would be the best thing to do.
She was his secretary! And a damned good one. Did he want to jeopardise that by starting something he would not be able to finish? Something that would end in her being hurt, in walking out on him? Wasn’t this the very reason there was such a thing as lines that should never get crossed?
He kissed her.
Long, slowly, lingeringly, his tongue probing into her mouth, tasting her sweetness and hardening as she moaned back into his mouth.
Hell, they were in the back seat of a car! He was not cool or controlled, but he couldn’t help himself as he cupped one small, rounded breast and rubbed his finger over the nipple which he could feel pressing against the fabric.