‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I mean by that?’ Gabriel continued into the lengthening silence, and Alice tried her best to dismiss the prickles of sensation racing through her body like tiny sparks of fire. ‘No, of course you won’t, but I’ll tell you anyway. You should never try and wriggle away from a direct question. It makes me all the more determined to prise a suitable answer from you. The rule of thumb is that there’s nothing more challenging to a man like me than a gauntlet that’s been thrown down—and your silences count as gauntlets.’ He didn’t normally like challenges when it came to women but, hell, he liked this one...
A man like him?
Alice steeled herself to look him squarely in the face. ‘I don’t think it’s very nice of you to throw your ex-lover out of the building because she happened to be upset with you.’ There was a lot more she could have said on the subject but she chose to keep that to herself.
‘It wasn’t,’ Gabriel grated, ‘very nice of my ex-lover to descend on me, in my office, so that she could throw a tantrum.’ He vaulted upright and prowled through the office which she had somehow managed to make her own in the handful of weeks she had been working for him. There were two plants on the bookshelf, another on her desk and a discreet Buddha figurine which she kept next to the telephone. Having circled the room, he returned to stare down at her, hands thrust into his pockets.
‘I don’t suppose that was her intention,’ Alice told him calmly. ‘I don’t think she came here planning to have a yelling fit at you. I think if she’d planned on screaming she could have done it down the telephone rather than come here and risk the humiliation of being ushered out of the building like a common criminal.’
‘But then, if she’d used the telephone, she would have had to get past my faithful and extremely proficient secretary, wouldn’t she?’
Alice blushed and wondered how two perfectly flattering adjectives could end up sounding so unappealing.
‘Maybe,’ he mused, leaning down, palms of his hands on her desk, ‘she was overcome with a pressing need to vent. Do you think that might be it?’
Alice shrugged and for a few seconds their eyes tangled. Her mouth went dry and her brain seemed to seize up completely so that she had to suck in air and force herself to breathe evenly.
‘Have you ever experienced that before, Alice?’
‘Experienced what?’ Alice asked in a hoarse whisper, and he laughed under his breath.
‘The grip of passion that makes you behave irrationally...’
‘I prefer to trust reasoning and logic,’ she managed to say.
‘So that’s a no...’
‘If you recall...’ She was close to snapping because not only was he making her feel uncomfortable but he was enjoying himself. ‘I did say to you when I took this job that I didn’t want to talk about my private life!’
‘Was that what we were doing? Talking about your private life?’ He stood up, flexed his muscles, debated whether to let this conversation go and just as quickly decided not to. Georgia’s untimely visit had dented his concentration and he was finding it strangely enjoyable to offload on his secretary. Offloading was not something he normally did. In his formidably controlled life, there was seldom any reason to, and he had to concede that, had Alice not been there, not been his secretary, he wouldn’t have felt tempted.
But, hell, why deny it? She roused his curiosity. She was so contained, so secretive whilst giving the impression of being straightforward, so unwilling to share even the smallest of confidences, such as what she did on those precious weekends of hers that couldn’t possibly be interrupted...
He would stake his fortune on ‘nothing’ and he wondered whether his curiosity was sparked by the mere fact that she never mentioned it. When you could have anything you wanted, including access to people’s thoughts and emotions, what price for the person who withheld everything?
‘You may think it’s okay to treat women exactly how you like, but everyone has their story to tell, and you have no idea what sort of collateral damage you could be inflicting!’ Her eyes skittered away from his narrowed gaze and she knew that she was beetroot-red and angry with him for encouraging an outburst that was inappropriate.
‘Collateral damage...?’ he asked thoughtfully.
‘I apologise. I shouldn’t have...said anything.’ She offered him a weak smile which he chose to ignore.
‘We work closely together,’ he murmured. ‘You should always feel free to speak your mind.’
‘You like women speaking their minds, do you?’ Alice asked tartly and was rewarded with one of those rare smiles that always knocked the breath out of her body.
‘Touché... It can occasionally be a little tedious, but then I never encourage the women I date to ever think that it might be a good idea to give their thoughts an airing.’
Why not? Alice was tempted to ask. She didn’t dare look at him because she had a sneaking suspicion that he might be able to read her mind.
Besides, didn’t she know why? Why go to the bother of working at something meaningful if you could have whatever you wanted without putting the effort in? People got where they were because of circumstances shaping them over the course of time and, whatever the circumstances that had shaped Gabriel Cabrera, they had left him in a place where he just couldn’t be bothered.
‘What do you encourage them to do?’ She asked her reluctant question, which was motivated by a burning curiosity she was desperate to kill whilst being unable to resist.
‘I don’t.’ Gabriel gave her a slashing smile of satisfaction. ‘And, now that we’ve plumbed the depths of my psyche, why don’t we get down to doing something productive?’
* * *
It was nearly six by the time she surfaced. He had spent a good part of the day involved with high-level meetings, giving her the chance to quell the sludgy, disturbing feelings that had come to the fore during their conversation, when he had strayed beyond their normal boundaries like an invader testing a solid wall for cracks through which unwelcome entrance might be possible.
As she began clearing her desk to leave, she succumbed to a little smile at what an overactive imagination could produce. He didn’t want to find out about her. He wasn’t interested in whether there were cracks in her armour or not. He enjoyed pushing against barriers because that was the way he was built and, if the barriers happened to be around her, then push against them he would if the inclination took him.
As a woman, she held no interest for him.
She thought of Georgia of the husky voice and imagined that that was the sort of woman that interested him. Men always went for the same type, didn’t they?
An image of Alan sprang uninvited into her head. Alan of the floppy blond hair and the brown eyes, who had ditched her for a version of womanhood not a million miles removed from her boss’s ex. Flora was small and curvy as well. Not as stunning, and probably not as breezily self-confident about the power she had over the opposite sex, but, yes, fashioned from the same mould.
‘You’re smiling.’
She hadn’t even been aware of Gabriel entering the office behind her as she shrugged on her jacket and she started and blushed.
‘It’s nearly the end of the week,’ she responded automatically, although, thinking about it, her week days were more relaxing than her weekends, which were consumed with long trips down to visit her mother.
‘Is working for me that much of a trial?’ She had been awarded the same clothes allowance as the other employees on her level yet she still wore the same dreary suits to work. Black and shades of black seemed to be the preferred, professional option with his staff,