She was in no doubt that he would certainly be looking for some sticking plaster in the form of his usual glamorous sex bombs just as soon as they returned to London.
‘You must have spoken a great deal about Lucy,’ Abby said conversationally, because they were landing and the silence was begging to be filled. Gabriel shot her a sideways glance.
‘Virtually nothing,’ he confessed. ‘My grandmother disapproves of the women I tend to date.’
‘She’s met them?’
‘One or two. The rest she’s seen in various gossip columns. Her opinion seems to have stuck in a time warp roughly three years ago when I broke up with a glamour model who proceeded to do a kiss-and-tell story to one of the tabloids. I’m afraid she tarred and feathered the women who came after with the same brush as airheads willing to cash in on my name.’
Abby didn’t say anything but she was on his grandmother’s side, even though there had been no kiss-and-tell stories while she’d been working for him.
He stood up and Abby preceded him out of the plane, to be hit by a warm blast of air that momentarily took her breath away. ‘So I thought that the less said, the better.’
He flushed darkly because the truth of the matter was he saw less of his grandmother than he should do, and spoke less to her than he ought to. It honestly hadn’t occurred to him to launch into a lengthy touchy-feely conversation about Lucy, which wasn’t his style anyway. And it was hardly as though the engagement had been a long-standing one. Four and a half weeks ago he had sat back in his chair in one of the top restaurants in central London and watched as she’d opened the box containing the diamond ring and gasped suitably.
She had slipped the six figures’ worth of ring onto her finger, her eyes had grown teary and she had said, as it turned out with complete and utter honesty, that she’d had no idea...
Abby gave him a jaundiced look from under her lashes, and it hit him that she had to be the only woman in the world so openly sceptical of his motivations and so open about expressing it. She might give him long lectures about guidelines being kept and barriers not being breached, but she was kidding herself if she thought that those barriers weren’t breached on a daily basis by that very way she had of looking at him, as she had just then.
‘Did you send her pictures?’ she asked, stepping into the long car waiting for them at the airfield. ‘She surely must have been curious about the woman who was going to be your wife?’
‘I’ve only been engaged for a month or so, Abby. Maybe I should have tasked you with the job of filling my grandmother in on all the details, bearing in mind I’ve been out of the country more than I care to think over the past few weeks.’
‘I would never have done that!’
‘No.’ He shrugged. ‘As it turns out, it’s just as well that there were no photos sent. My grandmother knows about the engagement but that’s about it. No details and, in fairness, her health has been poor, so she’s not been as much on the ball as she usually would be.’
Abby looked at him narrowly and felt her pulses quicken as that illicit, forbidden thrill she’d felt earlier swooped through her in a rush. ‘Are you saying that she has no idea who Lucy is at all?’
‘Like I said,’ Gabriel intoned silkily, ‘I was hoping for a pleasant surprise. I was going to do the introduction with a flourish.’ He looked through the window, frowning. ‘Just as well, in a way, that she never met Lucy, didn’t even know her name and certainly didn’t ask for photos so that she could start picturing what the great-grandchildren would look like.’
He sighed and Abby looked at him, seeing the crack in his self-assurance. He’d said practically nothing to the woman who meant so much to him, She wondered whether, subconsciously, he had been as hesitant about Lucy as Lucy had been about him, in the end. Had he ticked all the right boxes, yet known that no amount of ticking could take the place of love and what it brought to a union?
‘I’m sure she’ll take it on the chin.’ Abby resorted to cheerful optimism and Gabriel turned to her with a grin.
‘We’ll find out soon enough. I, personally, have always found that it’s easy to accept what you can’t change.’
Their eyes tangled and she couldn’t tear her gaze away. She felt suddenly lost, drowning in the deep, dark depths, and when she did manage to look away her nerves were all over the place and she had to inhale deeply, sucking the air in like a drowning man gasping for oxygen.
They were soon in the town and she was relieved when he began talking to her about the city. Her nerves calmed. They had left behind the cool, grey skies of London and the dense, crowded pavements. Here, the sky was milky blue and the sun was bright but with the pleasant coolness of a fine spring day. There were people everywhere as the sleek, black car navigated the picturesque roads of the town but no sense of claustrophobia. The buildings were beautiful, faded sepia and yellow, the architecture graceful. It was a town that was conducive to meandering.
‘Will your driver wait to take me to the hotel?’ she asked when he informed her that they would be at his grandmother’s house in under fifteen minutes.
‘He’ll do what I tell him to,’ Gabriel responded with the sort of casual arrogance that she found annoying and weirdly endearing in equal measure. A short while later, he announced, ‘And here we are.’
The city had been left behind, replaced by tall trees and a cool, forested area speckled with houses, each standing in its own grounds.
‘The residents here enjoy their privacy,’ Gabriel said with satisfaction. ‘And they’ve been prepared to pay for it. It’s designed with interesting short cuts between the properties so that the neighbours can visit one another, and there’s a golf course surrounding the entire compound like a bracelet. All in all, this has been a great investment.’
‘It belongs to you?’
‘Are you impressed?’
‘I thought you concentrated on buying and selling companies and in technology and communication,’ she said frankly.
‘I’m a man of varied interests,’ he said smoothly, in response. ‘There’s nothing I won’t try my hand at.’ With rare introspection he wondered if that was why he had guiltily plunged into an ill-fated engagement to please his grandmother and was now facing the prospect of letting her down without warning.
Because he would try his hand at anything in business, the riskier the venture the better, but that was where his thirst for adventure stopped. Maybe now it was time to admit to his grandmother that he was never going to give her the fairy story she’d always wanted for him.
CHAPTER THREE
ABBY DIDN’T KNOW what to expect when the car finally pulled up in front of a low, sprawling villa with a plantation-style feel. Shallow steps led up to a wide veranda, on which was an arrangement of chairs and tables. On either side of the house, manicured lawns gave way to thick, colourful foliage and sweeping trees that cast shadows over the courtyard.
Gabriel’s hand was poised to ring the doorbell when the door was pulled open, and he looked down at his grandmother who was in her Sunday best and had obviously been glued to the window, waiting for his arrival.
Behind him, he knew that Abby was hovering.
Gabriel knew that he should have tackled the business of his broken engagement earlier, flown over as soon as he’d known that there was not going to be a wedding, sat down and explained it to her. She was thinner than he remembered, and she was smiling broadly, tugging him inside, but there was a frailty about her that was a little alarming.
How was she going to take what he had to say?
He’d been in weekly contact with her doctor, although she was unaware of that, and he knew that stress was something she had to avoid.
‘And depression,’ her consultant had said to him. Gabriel had never known his grandmother to be depressed but now he wasn’t so sure.
‘Here at last!’ Ava was doing her best to peer round her grandson. ‘I’ve been counting down, nipote caro.’
‘I have been busy.’ Ga
briel immediately launched into a guilty apology. ‘My feet have barely touched the ground in the past couple of months...’
‘Well, I’m sure that young lady of yours is going to do something about that,’ Ava chided, finally circling Gabriel and inquisitively looking at Abby, who had not followed her boss in but was sticking close to the courtyard because she didn’t foresee a protracted visit. ‘Won’t you, mio caro?’
Abby’s mouth opened. Ava was tiny, her dark eyes bright and curious, her grey hair cut into a short, sharp bob which should have made her seem severe, but didn’t, because she had a face that was creased with laughter lines. She had greeted Gabriel in Italian but now switched to English, which was heavily accented but excellent.
‘Are you going to do the introductions?’ Ava half-turned to Gabriel, who towered over her. ‘I’ve never known you to be rude, Gabriel!’
‘Abby.’ Gabriel obliged, half-occupied with something on his phone so that he glanced up but briefly. ‘This is Ava, my indomitable grandmother, who runs rings round me every time I come here to visit.’
‘Which isn’t nearly often enough.’ Ava reached to take Abby’s hand, tugging her into the hallway. ‘Even as a little boy,’ she confided, leading the way into the house as Abby cast a backward glance at the sleek car which should have been driving her to her hotel. The driver was standing in the sun, leaning against the car, scrolling through his phone.
‘He was always in a hurry.’
‘Who? Sorry, what?’ The front door had closed. Abby met Gabriel’s eyes over Ava’s head and recognised instantly that there would be little assistance coming from that direction because he was still frowning at his phone—which was downright rude, all things considered.
‘Gabriel, dear. I expect you know my husband and I brought him up after his parents, God rest their souls, died prematurely. It was never a burden. He was a joy.’
‘He’s hardly a joy now,’ Abby was tempted to say with a rebellious streak of wickedness. ‘Picking up a phone call when he has so much he wants to say to you.’
Gabriel grinned and raised his eyebrows. ‘You sound like a wife,’ he drawled. ‘And a shrewish one at that.’
Ava clapped her hands and burst out laughing, delighted at this exchange because, Abby thought, huffing at the amused glint in Gabriel’s eyes, she was unaware of the undercurrent.
Gabriel picked up where he had left off, moving to lean into her, his mouth close to her ear, which made her shiver and go hot. ‘Maybe that’s what happens when two people spend so much time together. Think that’s it?’
‘I’m tired,’ Abby whispered back pointedly. ‘Isn’t it about time I get to the hotel? You can email me whatever work you want me to do tonight.’
‘No rush.’ Gabriel’s deep, dark eyes met hers and Abby thought with a little frisson of panic that the quicker she got to her hotel, the better. But Ava was leading the way into a sitting room and a maid had appeared from nowhere with a tray of little nibbles and an ornate silver pot of coffee.
‘I have a selection of teas as well.’ Ava patted a sofa and Abby somehow found herself sinking into it. ‘And cold drinks. Or would you be happy with coffee?’
Abby smiled at the small woman, thawing at her warmth. When Jason had betrayed her, she had developed a tough outer shell to cope with the pieces she had been left picking up. She’d had to deal with pitying neighbours and over-sympathetic friends and then, having moved to London to begin life without the security of an engagement ring on her finger, she had toughened up even more.
She had almost forgotten the young girl who had laughed easily, but something about his grandmother put her at her ease. She couldn’t have been more different from her grandson.
‘Coffee’s fine.’ Abby glanced around her. Out of the corner of her eye, she noted that Gabriel was having an urgent discussion with someone on his phone and she stifled a sigh of impatience. ‘You have a wonderful house—so lovely and airy—it must be a joy to live here.’
‘It’s far too big, dear...’ Ava sighed and looked at Gabriel.
‘He only ever thinks about work.’ Abby found herself excusing him.
On cue, Gabriel proved her point by breaking off his phone call to inform them that he had to take the call. ‘You know what my life’s like, Abby,’ he said, sucking her in to support him. ‘She keeps me in check, Grandma, but sometimes needs must.’
He left the room, quietly shutting the door behind him, and Abby prepared herself for the long haul because, from experience, Gabriel could spend an hour on the phone if it was urgent enough and he rarely seemed to mind who was left twiddling their thumbs and biding their time.
‘He’s very lucky to have found you,’ Ava said, sipping coffee and shooting Abby a speculative look that was very much like her grandson’s. ‘Every man, even that powerhouse grandson of mine, needs to be kept in check. I don’t suppose he’s told you about some of the things he got up to when he was a child?’ Ava didn’t wait for a response, which was just as well, because Abby would have been tempted to tell her that those sorts of personal conversations didn’t appear on their daily radar.
‘Well.’ Ava reached under the coffee table in front of them and pulled out a photo album, which touched Abby, because it was clear that the elderly woman was fond of looking back through old photos. ‘Let me show you some pictures of when Gabriel was a young boy,’ she said, flipping through the enormous album with familiarity. ‘I don’t suppose he has any of these lying around? No, I didn’t think so. Boys can be so unsentimental. I would have loved to have had a granddaughter but it wasn’t to be. Still, we mustn’t complain about cards we have been dealt, must we?’
Abby thought of her crap hand with Jason and laughed in agreement. Curiosity fully roused, she settled into looking at pictures of Gabriel, lovingly taken over the years.
He had been so breathtakingly good-looking from an early age that she found herself absently tracing some of the images with her finger as she sipped her coffee.
It was little wonder he was so confident when it came to the opposite sex, she thought. Pictures of him as a teenager showed a tall, strikingly beautiful young man, conscious of the lens directed at him but careless about posing for it.
She was hardly aware of Gabriel entering the room until he said, leaning over them both, ‘Enjoying yourself?’
Abby sat back and yanked her wandering fingers away from the pages of the album.
‘Phone call finished?’ she asked sweetly. ‘Because, if it is, then perhaps I could...’ She smiled at Ava and began rising to her feet. ‘Thank you so much for showing me that album.’ She slid a sly sideways glance at Gabriel. ‘I’ll remember those pictures for as long as I live. It’s always a revelation to see photos of people as children, especially when you can’t really picture those people as ever being young.’
Gabriel was smiling but there was something in his eyes that made Abby pause for a few seconds.
Ava turned to her grandson with a severe expression. ‘Why isn’t there an engagement ring?’
‘Sorry?’ Abby was smiling. Gabriel was frowning. And both of them were staring at the diminutive figure on the sofa with varying degrees of bewilderment.
‘You’re not wearing an engagement ring, dear.’ Ava clicked her tongue and gave Gabriel a roguish grin that made her seem years younger and made Abby think that, as a young woman, she would have been truly beautiful. ‘It’s probably something young people do nowadays. Goodness only knows, it’s none of my business—because the main thing is that you love one another and you’re going to be married—but it would have been unthinkable in my day for a young lady who was engaged not to have an engagement ring on her finger!’
Ava chuckled into the stunned silence that greeted this remark. ‘Unless you’ve been thinking of your mother’s engagement ring, Gabriel?’ Ava sighed. ‘You probably haven’t been. You’re not given to gestures like that, but I know Alicia would have been so happy. But please forget I said anything!’ She waved one han
d sheepishly while the silence pooled, gathered and collected until Gabriel broke it to murmur warmly.
‘You’ve never shown me my mother’s personal belongings.’
Ava’s eyes lit up and a she fairly leapt to her feet. ‘I never thought you were interested and I didn’t like to push anything.’ She began walking slowly to the door but not until she had patted Abby on the hand. ‘I’m so happy,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve made an old lady so happy.’
The door shut and for a few seconds Abby’s mind was a complete blank. Her mouth was open, and she dimly thought that she probably resembled a fish, gasping for water because somehow it had managed to find itself stranded on dry land. Maybe a motorway. Somewhere very far from water. Then she shot to her feet and stood right in front of Gabriel, hands on her hips.
‘What the heck is going on?’
‘Drink?’ He led the way out of the living room, pausing only to tell Ava, who was still shuffling off towards the side of the house, that she could take her time because there were one or two things he needed to chat to Abby about.
‘I’ll be for ever.’ Ava chuckled, while Abby wildly tried to shuffle her brain into doing something useful. ‘There’s a lot of stuff to rifle through. I’m a hoarder, my dear. For my sins. You two make yourself at home! I’ll come down to the kitchen just as soon as I have found the ring and other bits of jewellery. Such beautiful things. It’ll be wonderful seeing them worn again. It has been such a long time coming.’
‘Drink?’ Gabriel repeated, closing the kitchen door behind him. ‘Wine? Prosecco? Something with more of a kick?’
Abby looked at him without really focussing. She registered in some part of her brain that they were in the most enormous kitchen she had ever been in. It was dominated by an island, on which was a vase of wildly beautiful flowers that filled the room with a sweet fragrance that made her head hurt.
She wobbled her way over to the eight-seat rectangular table, which looked as old and weathered as the beautifully mismatched chairs around it, and plonked herself down while Gabriel poured them both a glass of wine.
A Diamond Deal With Her Boss Page 4
