how is the Merry Widow?’ he said with a mocking glint in his eyes as they ran over her lazily. ‘Long time no see. What is it now…? One year or is it two? You look like grief suits you, Gabriella. I have never seen you looking more beautiful.’
Gabby felt her spine go rigid at his sardonic taunt. Tristan Glendenning had been dead for just over two years, and yet Vinn never failed to refer to him in that unmistakably scathing manner whenever their paths crossed. She felt each and every reference to her late husband like a hard slap across the face—not that she would ever admit that to Vinn.
She pulled her temper back into line with an effort. ‘May I sit down?’
He waved a hand in a careless manner. ‘Put your cute little bottom down on that chair. But only for ten minutes,’ he said. ‘I have back-to-back commitments today.’
Gabby sat down on the edge of the chair, hating that his words had summoned such a hot flush to her cheeks. He had the most annoying habit of unnerving her with personal comments that made her aware of her body in a way no one else could.
‘So,’ he said, leaning back in his chair with a squeak of very expensive leather, ‘what can I do for you, Gabriella?’
She silently ground her teeth. No one else called her by her full name. Only him. She knew he did it deliberately. He had done it since she was fourteen, when his mother had been hired as the resident cleaner, bringing her brooding eighteen-year-old son with her. Although Gabby had to grudgingly admit that the way he said her name was quite unlike anyone else. He had been born in Australia but, because he had been fluent in Italian from a very young age, he made her name sound faintly foreign and exotic. The four distinct syllables coming out of his sensually sculptured mouth always made the hairs on the back of her neck stand to attention like tiny soldiers.
‘I am here to discuss a little problem that’s come up,’ she said, hoping he couldn’t see how she was tying her hands into knots in her lap. ‘With my father out of action at present, I would appreciate your advice on how to handle it.’
He sat watching her in that musing way of his, clicking and releasing his gold ballpoint pen with meticulously timed precision: on, off, on, off, as if he was timing his own slow and steady heartbeat.
‘How is your father this morning?’ he asked. ‘I saw him last night in Intensive Care. He was looking a little worse for wear, but that’s to be expected, I suppose.’
Gabby was well aware of Vinn’s regular visits to her father’s bedside, and had deliberately avoided being there at the same time. ‘He’s doing OK,’ she said. ‘His surgery is scheduled for some time next week. I think they’ve been waiting for him to stabilise first.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he said putting the pen to one side. ‘But the doctors are hopeful of a full recovery, are they not?’
Gabby tried not to look at his hands, but for some reason her eyes drifted back to where they were now lying palm down on the smoothly polished desk. He had broad, square-shaped hands, with long fingers, and the dusting of masculine hair was enough to remind her of his virility as a full-blooded male of thirty-two.
He was no longer the youth of the past. His skin was clear and cleanly shaven, and at six foot four he carried not a gram of excess flesh; every toned and taut muscle spoke of his punishing physical regime. It made Gabby’s ad hoc attempts at regular exercise with a set of free weights and a home DVD look rather pathetic in comparison.
‘Gabriella?’
Gabby gave herself a mental shake and dragged her eyes back to his. He had such amazing eyes. And his ink-black hair and deeply olive skin made the smoky grey colour of them all the more striking.
She had never been told the details of his father, and she had never really bothered to ask Vinn directly— although she assumed his father wasn’t Italian, like his mother. Gabby had heard one or two whispers as she was growing up, which had seemed to suggest Vinn’s mother found the subject painful and refused ever to speak of it.
‘Um…I’m not really sure,’ she said, in answer to his question regarding her father’s recovery. ‘I haven’t really spoken with his doctors.’
As soon as she said the words she realised how disengaged and uncaring they made her sound—as if her father’s health was not a top priority for her, when nothing could be further from the truth. She wouldn’t be here now if it wasn’t for her love and concern for both of her parents. She would never have dreamed of asking for Vinn’s help if desperation hadn’t shoved her head-first through his door.
‘I take it this unprecedented visit to my lair is about the takeover bid for the St Clair Island Resort?’ he said into the ringing silence.
Gabby had trouble disguising her reaction. She had only just become aware of it herself. How on earth had he found out about it?
‘Um…yes, it is actually,’ she said, shifting restlessly in her seat. ‘As you probably know, my father took out a substantial loan for the refurbishment of the resort about a year and a half ago. But late yesterday I was informed there’s been a call. If we don’t pay the loan back the takeover bid will go through uncontested. I can’t allow that to happen.’
‘Have you spoken to your accountants about it?’ he asked.
Gabby felt another layer of her professional armour dissolve without trace. ‘They said there is no way that amount of money can be raised in twenty-four hours,’ she said, lowering her gaze a fraction.
He began his on-off click with his pen once more, a little faster now, as if in time with his sharp intelligence as he mulled over what strategy to adopt.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve mentioned it to your father,’ he said, phrasing it as neither a question nor a statement.
‘No…’ she said, still not quite able to hold his gaze. ‘I didn’t want to stress him. I’m frightened the news could trigger another heart attack.’
‘What about the on-site resort managers?’ he asked. ‘Do they know anything about this?’
Gabby rolled her lips together as she brought her gaze back to his. ‘I spoke to Judy and Garry Foster last night. They are concerned for their jobs, of course, but I tried to reassure them I would sort things out this end.’
‘Have you brought all the relevant documentation with you?’ he asked after a short pause.
‘Um…no… I thought I would run it by you first.’ Gabby knew it was the wrong answer. She could see it in his incisive grey-blue eyes as they quietly assessed her.
She felt so incompetent—like a child playing with oversized clothes in a dress-up box. The shoes she had put on were too big. She had always known it, but hadn’t had the courage to say it out loud to her parents, who had held such high hopes for her after her older brother Blair’s tragic death. The giant hole he had left in their lives had made her all the more determined to fill in where she could. But she still felt as if the shoes were too big, too ungainly for her—even though she had trudged in them with gritted teeth for the last seven and a half years.
Vinn leaned back in his seat, his eyes still centred on hers. ‘So you have less than twenty-four hours to come up with the funds otherwise the takeover bid goes through unchallenged?’ he summated.
Gabby ran the tip of her
