pinned a smile to her face for so long that her jaw had had a permanent ache from the strain of it. And her poor parents, so sympathetic, making sure to avoid talking about that man even though they still saw that man’s parents all the time in the village. She and Jason had been childhood sweethearts before he’d been seduced first by London, then Paris and then a sexy little blonde who’d been thrilled to nab a hot shot banker.
She should have been turned off the whole business of love and marriage for good. Maybe the reason Jason had reared his ugly head out of the blue was because, faced with that very question, Abby had had to concede that there was still a part of her that longed for the fairy tale.
The normal stuff that happened to normal people, even if sometimes it ended up going wrong.
‘Fine.’ Her voice was clipped and she smiled blandly at Gabriel in a manner that suggested that, now that the message had been delivered, it was time for normality to return.
She’d had her heart broken but that had made her so much stronger.
‘My perfect, efficient PA,’ Gabriel murmured appreciatively. ‘Time for work—and there’s a lot to get through. Good to know that we’re on the same wavelength—which is why I say that work goes on as normal when we go to Seville in a few days’ time.’
‘SO...’ SETTLED IN his seat, Gabriel finally turned his attention to his companion. ‘I feel as though I haven’t spoken to you for days’
‘We had a long conversation yesterday about the two companies we’re going to see outside Seville,’ Abby pointed out. But he had a point. No sooner had he received the shocking news that his fiancée was no longer interested in the role than Gabriel had taken himself abroad for four days.
‘Inconvenient,’ he had told her in passing when she had showed up for work the day after her revelations about Lucy and Rupert. ‘But that’s what happens when you leave a boy to do a man’s job. Reynolds has screwed up with the lawyers in New York and that deal looks as though it’s going to be set back by two months if I don’t get over there and iron things out.’
He’d emailed her the evening before, warning her of his forthcoming absence, but the office had still felt curiously empty once the door had slammed shut behind him. Needless to say, the list of things he wanted her to do was as long as her arm, but exhausted as she was at the end of each evening, she still managed to find time to speculate on his hurried departure from the office.
On the outside, Gabriel was the essence of charm. Physically beautiful, he knew just how to charm whatever he wanted from whoever happened to be withholding it from him—and, if that ploy failed, Abby had seen first-hand how fast that easy charm could give way to steely-eyed menace that left no one in any doubt that when it came to a fight he was prepared to go for it.
But underneath that charm, and underneath all that bluster about being fine with the break-up of his engagement, could Gabriel be hiding a vulnerable side?
Abby found herself wasting far too much time speculating about that. It was as if boundaries had suddenly been breached and now he’d somehow managed to stick his foot in the door and wedge open a part of her she had been keen to keep firmly closed.
Gabriel wasn’t just like any other boss. There was just too much of him for comfort.
‘What’s our schedule going to be?’ She pulled the conversation back into her safe comfort zone and slid calm, grey eyes over to him.
They were on his private jet. She’d been on this jet twice and she knew that there was no relief from the intimacy of the surroundings. No hubbub of other passengers calling flight attendants for drinks, no announcements over the PA system reminding them of which countries they happened to be flying over, no distant wails of discontented toddlers. On the previous two occasions, there had at least been the distraction of several other employees who were being ferried over to work on the same deal but, even if there hadn’t been, she wouldn’t have approached the trip feeling as though she had to be careful.
And with good reason, judging from the amused look on Gabriel’s face.
She hurriedly averted her eyes, only to be swamped by his suffocating masculine appeal as he sprawled in the leather seat, fingers loosely linked on his lap, his dark, spiky hair combed back so that there was nothing to distract from the angular, chiselled perfection of his lean features.
Gabriel could recognise a change of subject when he heard one and he was hearing one now. ‘Well, I have to admit that things have changed slightly, thanks to Lucy’s defection.’
He’d spoken to Lucy, and Abby had been accurate in her retelling of his ex-fiancée’s reasons for returning the engagement ring to him.
‘You’re never around, Gabe,’ she had said, looking at him with such apprehension that he’d had to force himself not to click his tongue with annoyance. Since when had he turned into an intimidating monster who ate innocent young girls for breakfast?
‘I have a business to run,’ he had explained. ‘You’ve seen how that works. Your father is abroad a lot of the time.’
‘And that’s how I know that I don’t want that for myself,’ she had confided, her big, blue eyes wide. ‘Dad was always away when I was growing up and I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to have a Daddy who’s there and not always on the other side of the world. Plus, what’s the point of being married if you never get to see your husband? Gabe, we’ve been going out for seven months and I feel as though I have to book an appointment to see you.’
Since Gabriel couldn’t argue with that, he’d maintained a tactful silence whilst she had gathered momentum and told him all the reasons why she had got cold feet, ending with a suitable apology and some hand wringing.
Lucy had wanted more than he had it in him to give. She had made him feel a hundred years old, jaded and cynical, but that was who he was, and he was never going to change. He’d hurried into something for all the right reasons, as far as he was concerned, but he’d failed to do his homework and now he could only wish her luck, when they parted company, with Rupert the chinless wonder who had, incredibly, become a male model.
‘Your grandmother must have been disappointed,’ Abby said sympathetically and Gabriel tilted his head to one side and shot her a rueful smile.
‘I haven’t broken the news to her just yet,’ he admitted and Abby’s mouth fell open.
‘You haven’t told her?’
‘I thought it made more sense to do something like that face to face. Her health isn’t great. The less time she has to brood over the great-grandchildren that won’t be happening, the better.’
‘So she still thinks that you’re going over there on business and in a week’s time Lucy will be joining you, the happy, radiant bride-to-be?’
‘I never thought you could be so judgemental,’ Gabriel said, unperturbed. He grinned. ‘I’ll be honest.’ He leaned a little towards her and Abby automatically drew back. ‘Ava refuses to go near a computer. I think the top-of-the-range one I bought her a year ago is currently rusting from lack of use, despite the fact that I spent half a day teaching her how to use it and left written instructions on sticky notes at the side. She
