‘Of course not.’
‘What do you mean of course not?’
‘Are you dressed?’
His impatient voice, which she had become accustomed to, sliced through her concern and she glanced in the dressing-table mirror facing her to see her still sleepy face staring back at her.
Her straight hair was all over the place and the baggy tee-shirt, her bedtime attire of choice, was half-slipping off her shoulder, exposing the soft swell of a breast.
Self-consciously, she hoiked it up and then lay back against the pillow.
‘Gabriel, my alarm doesn’t go off for another forty-five minutes...’
‘In that case, switch it off and think about getting up and out of bed.’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Sore throat. Headache. High fever. I’ve got flu.’
‘You’ve phoned me at...at six-twenty in the morning to tell me that you’ve got a cold?’
‘I think you’ll find that what I have is considerably more serious than a cold. You need to get up, get into the office and bring the two files I left on my desk. Not all of the information is on my computer and I need to access it in its entirety.’
She had worked with him long enough to know that he dished out orders in the full expectation that they would not be countermanded, but she was still outraged that he had seen fit to yank her out of sleep so that he could...
What, exactly?
‘Bring your files?’
‘Correct. To my house. And bring your computer as well. You’ll have to work from here. It’s not ideal but it’s the best I can come up with. I can’t make it into the office today.’
‘Surely you can just take the day off if you’re not feeling well, Gabriel?’ Like any other normal human being, she was tempted to add. ‘If you tell me what you want me to work on, I can do it in the office and I can scan and email the files over to you, if you really think that you’re up to working.’
‘If I’d wanted you to do that, I would have said so. And I can’t keep talking indefinitely. My throat’s infected. If you head for the office now, you can be with me within an hour and a half. Less, if you get your skates on. Got a pen?
‘A pen?’ Alice parroted in dismay as this new unfolding of her day ahead began to take shape in her head.
‘A pen—instrument for writing. Have you got one to hand? You’ll need to write down my address and postcode. And for God’s sake, take a taxi, Alice. I know you’re fond of the London public transport system, but we might as well get this show on the road as quickly as possible. There’s a lot to get through and I won’t be up to much beyond six... It’s ridiculous. I haven’t been ill in years. I must have caught this from you.’
‘You haven’t caught anything from me! I’m fighting fit!’
‘Good. Because you have a lot to get through today. Now, let me give you my address.’
She got a pen and wrote down his address and then listened as he rattled off a few more orders and then...dial tone.
She had no time for breakfast. She could have grabbed something but for some unaccountable reason she found herself rushing to have a shower, rushing to get dressed, rushing to head for the tube and then, on the spur of the moment, hailing a black cab—because she could almost feel those dark eyes peering at her from wherever he was.
The man was utterly impossible. He really and truly didn’t care what discomfort he caused for other people. He took it as his God given right to disrupt other people’s plans and then excused himself his own arrogance by giving one of those elegant shrugs and waving aside all objections because, after all, comparatively he paid them the earth. He was brilliant, he did as he pleased, and why on earth would anyone not want to fall in line?
She made it to his house within the hour and only when the taxi had deposited her there did her nervous system kick back into gear.
This was unknown territory. Had anyone in the office ever been to his house? Company entertaining was all done in restaurants, or expensive venues in the City, and he certainly wasn’t the avuncular sort of boss who hosted little parties so that his employees could bond with one another.
She stared at the impressive Georgian facade and hesitated. What had she expected? She didn’t know. Something far less grand—a penthouse apartment, perhaps. There was, after all, only one of him, even if he had all the money in the world to play with. Why did he need a London mansion?
Black brass railings cordoned off the house and matched all the other black brass railings of the mansions alongside it. Standing here, gazing up with her little handbag, her company case full of files and her computer, she felt as though she might be arrested at any moment for the crime of just not quite blending in.