Harlequin Presents January 2015 Box Set 3 of 4(113)

He had refused to give in.

Hell, the woman had burned him off not once, but twice!

It hadn’t helped that he had not managed to find a suitable replacement for her. He was on secretary number three and the omens were not good.

He had cursed himself on more than one occasion that he had been lenient enough to let her leave without duly working out her notice. On reflection, he should have made her do the two weeks required.

His nights had been no better than his days. Work had failed to do what it should have done, distracted him from thoughts he neither liked nor invited.

He missed her.

He missed everything about her. He missed the way she spoke her mind; the way she laughed; the way she looked at him. He even missed the way she smelled. And all that was why he was now where he was—sitting in her kitchen, having despatched her friend, who had allowed him entry only after a questioning the likes of which hadn’t been seen since The Spanish Inquisition.

‘I thought you’d never get back. Where the hell have you been anyway?’ Casual voice to mask his far from casual emotions. Controlled but barely breathing.

About to reach for a bottle of water from the fridge, something to quench her thirst after three glasses of wine, Alice nearly fainted in shock at the sound of that voice which had haunted her for the past month.

She spun round and stared at the figure in the chair, speechless.

Her legs turned to jelly; she collapsed into one of the kitchen chairs facing him and just stared, unable to believe the evidence of her eyes.

‘I’ve been waiting for over an hour.’ Had she been out with a guy? No. If she had, she surely wouldn’t have returned home so early. Maybe she’d been on a date which had been a disaster. He enjoyed the thought of that. He had been on enough disaster dates himself.

‘Gabriel...’ It was the only thing she could find to say. Her mouth was dry and her heart was pumping so hard that it felt as though it would burst.

‘Your house mate let me in.’

‘Lucy.’ This was a surreal conversation. She couldn’t peel her eyes away from him. He looked...haggard. He was still in his suit but he had disposed of his tie and the top two buttons of his white shirt were undone. For a man who always managed to look carelessly elegant, he was dishevelled.

‘Right.’

‘Why are you here?’ Alice knew that she should sound firmer, angrier, more resolute. Her voice was thin and reedy and she cleared her throat and continued to look at him in the half-light: beautiful. Even drawn as he was, he was still the beautiful guy who had lodged like a burr under her skin and refused to budge.

And suddenly the anger that should have been there rose to the surface—because, she thought, she must not forget that this was the same emotionally lazy man who had walked away from her without a backward glance because he had got it into his head that she might, just might, be interested in more than just a romp in the sack!

This was the same guy who had nothing to give.

‘No,’ she said coldly. ‘Let me guess why you’re here. You can’t get to grips with any of the secretaries you’ve had to replace me. Well, if you think that I’m going to come along and do a good deed by handing over, then you’re wrong. I’m not going to be doing that. You’ve wasted your time, so you can leave. You know where the front door is.’ She was trembling and she wrapped her arms around her to steady her nerves.

Gabriel had never lacked self-confidence. It was what had propelled him upwards, had given him the drive to leave his past behind and the confidence of knowing that he could do it. Right now his confidence had gone on holiday. He was shaken by the sensation of someone standing on the brink of a precipice with one foot hanging over the side and no safety net to catch him if he fell.

‘I didn’t come to try and get you to come back to work,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Although your replacements haven’t been any good, as it happens.’ That last offering failed to generate even a hint of a smile.

And why would she smile? She had given and he had taken and, in return, had stayed true to his lifelong motto of giving nothing back.

He had been a prize idiot.

‘In that case, why are you here, Gabriel?’

‘I’m here...because...because...’

He was stammering. Since when did the invincible Gabriel Cabrera stammer? But she wasn’t going to let any sprigs of hope infiltrate the barriers she had been trying so hard to rebuild around herself.

‘Forget it.’ She clenched her jaw and forced herself to look at him, to meet his black stare without flinching. ‘I’m not about to climb back into a relationship with you.’ She laughed shortly at how lacking in veracity that was, because it had hardly been a ‘relationship’ by anybody’s standards! ‘Relationship.’ She spoke aloud, her voice thick with self-mockery. ‘What a joke. As you’ve proudly told me, you don’t do relationships, do you, Gabriel?’