Anger replaced resentment and, suddenly, Alice saw red. Who the heck did he think she was? Some kind of facilitator to ensure that even less effort was required by him when it came to finding a woman? Did he have any idea how condescending he sounded? How terminally dull he made her feel? Did he even care?
‘You...you...you have to be the laziest man I have ever met in my entire life!’
‘Come again?’
‘You heard me, Gabriel. You’re lazy!’ Hot, angry eyes raked over that sexy, prone body with the silk dressing gown allowing her far too wide-ranging a view of hard muscle and sinew. ‘You may work like the Devil, and you may have the Midas touch, but you can’t even be bothered to sort your own emotional life out! Why don’t you put some thought into booking the stuff you decide to do with your women? Why don’t you field your own calls and make your own excuses when you don’t want to see someone? You even got me to choose a parting gift for Georgia after she stormed out of your office! Something conciliatory, you said, money no object—and you never even bothered to find out what I’d chosen! How lazy is that?’
She had picked out a huge bouquet of flowers and a designer scarf in the colours of the coat the other woman had been wearing when she had had her hissy fit in his office. It had been eye-wateringly expensive but she doubted he would even raise an eyebrow when it showed up on his statement.
‘You’re going beyond your brief,’ Gabriel told her coolly. Lazy? Him? Hell, he worked all the hours God made! He had climbed the ladder no one thought he could and he had climbed it to the very top and built a castle there!
But she hadn’t been referring to his unparalleled success on the work front, had she? She had gone straight to the emotional side of his life. Typical of a woman, he told himself without the slightest inclination to analyse what she had said. As far as he was concerned, he had come from nothing and now had everything. He could have any woman he wanted. They flocked to him and he was astute enough to suspect that his sizeable bank balance had a lot to do with it. Would they still have flocked in their droves if he had never climbed that ladder? If the foster-care kid had become the welfare-dependent adult? Somehow, he didn’t think so.
No, the only thing he could rely upon was his ability to make money and to use his wealth to buy himself absolute freedom. Everything else fell by the wayside in comparison.
But the description still left a sour taste in his mouth.
‘I’m sorry,’ Alice told him without hesitation. ‘I didn’t mean to be critical.’
Gabriel could have taken her up on that insincere assertion. He didn’t. Instead, he turned to the reason she was there in the first place and the next three hours were spent poring over the files she had brought with her.
She had a good brain. She had creative and different ways of looking at potential problems. She could quickly do the maths when it came to sounding out the viability of certain tricky areas.
She had obviously forgotten her outburst but he still caught himself staring at her every so often, her down-bent head, her slender fingers tapping expertly on the keyboard as she amended documents.
And the damn woman had been right about the tablets. By midday, he was feeling better.
‘Right.’ He swung his legs over the side of the bed and Alice, ensconced on the sofa by the window, looked at him in alarm.
‘What are you doing?’ She had just about forgotten that she was working with him in his bedroom and that he was wearing nothing but a flimsy black robe which he was at no pains to pull tightly around him. She had told her wayward eyes to get a grip and thankfully, under the onslaught of work, they had. She had established their routine of sorts. And now he was standing up and tying the belt of the bathrobe only after she had glimpsed boxer shorts and brown thighs speckled with fine dark hair. He had amazing ankles. She kept her eyes firmly riveted on that fairly harmless section of his body as he strolled towards the bathroom and informed her that he was going to have a shower.
‘Why don’t you wait for me in the kitchen? We can grab something to eat before we carry on.’
‘You seem a lot better,’ Alice ventured. ‘Are you sure you wouldn’t rather wrap up what we’ve been doing and really...um...harness your energies? They say that the best way to get rid of a cold—sorry, flu—is to just take it easy and rest.’
‘That might work for some people but not for me. Taking it easy isn’t my style. Now, unless you want to follow me into the bathroom so that we can continue discussing the situation with the electronics subsidiary, I suggest you stretch your legs and head downstairs. In fact...’ He paused by the door and looked at her, his eyes showing just the merest flicker of amusement even though his tone of voice remained bland. ‘You could always make yourself useful and cook us something to eat. You’ll find the fridge and the cupboards well-stocked. In keeping with my laziness, I have someone who makes sure that they are...’