flopped back down and fixed amazing, sleepy blue eyes on her. It was steaming hot outside. Her clothes were clinging to her even though it was cool in here. Years ago he had had an overhead fan installed and it had been a brilliant idea, even though it only came into its own very irregularly. On a day like this, though, it was so much better than air-conditioning.
‘You look hot.’
‘I am hot.’ Rose raised one hand to bundle her hair into a ponytail so that she could fan her neck. Gabriel wondered if she had any idea how provocative she looked, how the movement of her full breasts was very noticeable in what she happened to be wearing.
‘You could always strip off…’ he allowed a fractional pause ‘…and change into something a bit cooler. My sisters have random clothes upstairs in the rooms they use and they’re roughly your size. You could borrow something.’
‘No!’ Rose was horrified. She might have altered her look but underneath she was still the same and was frankly horrified at the thought of stepping into someone else’s clothes. Especially when it would involve getting out of her own…in Gabriel’s house…while he was in it…
‘It was just a thought. As far as I know, all the clothes are clean.’
‘I know that. And…thank you for the offer but I’m fine. Now, if you just tell me what you want to eat, I’ll see what I can do. A sandwich? Or some fruit?’
‘An omelette, I think. And toast. Also some coffee, no…tea. Better in ill health, I believe. With sugar.’
‘Oh, hang on. I’ll just get my pad so that I can write it all down.’
Gabriel grinned. He had always enjoyed her dry sense of humour even though it had been conspicuously absent over the past few weeks when she had been in her Head Down No Nonsense Rose role.
‘Think of it as doing an ill man a good deed.’
‘Only if you think of it as taking advantage of a good-natured secretary.’ Rose exited the room to the sound of his rich chuckle behind her and followed her nose to the kitchen. Like most houses in London, it wasn’t a mansion and she located the kitchen without too much difficulty. It was a wealthy bachelor’s paradise. Black granite counter tops, chrome double-fronted fridge-freezer with integral ice-maker, coffee-maker that looked as though you would need a degree in electronics to operate it. Nothing looked as though it had ever been used, which either meant that he was rarely to be found doing anything like cooking in his own kitchen or else he had an extremely efficient cleaner.
The frying pan, finally located, was gleaming. It was almost a crime to use it for something as mundane as preparing food.
It was half an hour before she eventually walked back into the study to find him still reclining on the couch. The black silk robe was revealing even more sinfully muscled chest and Rose cleared her throat meaningfully, giving him time to cover himself up, which he didn’t. He just sat up, propping himself against the arm of the sofa, which was a band of wood, giving the item of furniture something of a sleigh bed look, a fact she had only now noticed.
‘Smells delicious. Where did you find the tray?’
Rose raised her eyebrows questioningly, although it didn’t exactly amaze her that he was fairly clueless as to the contents of his kitchen.
‘Tucked away in a groove between two of the cupboards. No one would ever guess that it had been used. Along with everything else in the kitchen.’ She placed the tray on his lap and averted her eyes as best she could from the enticing glimpse of hard brown skin.
‘I don’t do a great deal of cooking,’ Gabriel agreed, tucking into the food with evident relish. ‘In fact—’he paused to look at her ‘—the last time I ate home-cooked food was…three months ago when I went back to Italy for a week.’
‘You can’t eat out all the time, Gabriel!’ Rose was suitably shocked by the thought of that. ‘It’s impractical, never mind the expense.’
‘Why is it impractical?’
‘Because…it just is. It’s not nutritious.’
‘Do you make an effort to cook for yourself?’
‘Yes. Yes, I do. I enjoy cooking. I find it very relaxing.’
‘Maybe you could come and cook for me now and again.’ He saw the expression on her face and bit back his sudden impatience. ‘Just a joke, Rose. There’s no need to snatch the nearest bottle of smelling salts in case you pass out from the horror of such a thought.’
‘I don’t cook very fancy food,’ she said, trying to pour a bit of oil on troubled waters. A cooped up Gabriel was a dangerous Gabriel, especially now the boundary lines between them had become frighteningly blurred at the edges. ‘Not the kind of food you would enjoy eating.’
‘I’m enjoying this.’
‘Stop being difficult, Gabriel. You know what I mean.’
‘Do you know you are the only woman I have ever allowed to talk to me like that? Aside from my mother. And, of course, my sisters, who see it as their duty to keep me in my place.’
Rose grinned at the thought of anyone trying to keep Gabriel in his place. She missed the thoughtful glint in his eyes as he contemplated her, back in her position of safety behind the desk, which dwarfed her.
‘What makes you think that you know the sort of food I enjoy?’
Was it her imagination or was he dragging it out with that breakfast? Normally Gabriel worked on full throttle, barely pausing to draw breath. It was unlike him to call her over urgently, only to engage her in chit-chat.
‘I don’t know.’ Rose shrugged and looked down at her fingers, at the pale pink polish which she had applied the day before. She never used to wear nail polish but she did now and she liked the way it looked and the feminine way it made her feel.
‘How are you doing with finding a suitable course? Is that all sorted out now?’ Gabriel changed tack as dragging the conversation on to a personal level obviously wasn’t going to work.
And why exactly he was engaged in this ridiculous charade was beyond him anyway. He felt as fit as a fiddle but despite that had been unable to fight off the driving desire to have her in his territory, have her see him in it. Why? Because curiosity was eating away at him? He would have considered himself above sexual curiosity, but clearly not, considering he had concocted a lame excuse for her to come to his house for no better reason that to play games. On a weekday. When he should have been in meetings. Hell, it wasn’t as if he didn’t work all the hours God made, he decided, squashing his guilty conscience. He deserved a break now and again. And when was the last time a woman had captured his imagination?
‘Oh, yes, I think so.’ She went pink and stared harder at her neatly painted nails. In fact, if only he knew that her search for a suitable course had led her into some very interesting waters.
‘You think so? Shouldn’t you have signed up by now?’
‘Yes. Yes, I have, as a matter of fact.’
Gabriel’s eyes narrowed on her embarrassed face. He could smell concealment a mile off and wondered what it was she was hiding from him. Surely discussing something
