How could he sit there and look at her as though she had made a mistake with her typing, misfiled something or put through the wrong call? How could he be so...cool?
‘That should never have happened,’ Alice told him tautly. ‘And it wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t had two glasses of wine.’
‘One and a half, and if you kiss men after a glass and a half of wine what do you do after a bottle? There’s nothing worse than a woman who blames alcohol for doing something she actually wanted to do but then had second thoughts about doing.’
Alice reddened. ‘Well, it won’t happen again. I made a mistake and I won’t be repeating it. And I don’t want it mentioned ever again.’
‘Or else...?’
‘Or else my position with you will become untenable and I don’t want that to happen. I like my job. I don’t want one small, tiny error of judgement to end up spoiling that.’
Gabriel allowed the silence to lengthen between them until she was compelled to look at him, if only to find out whether he had heard what she had just said.
One small, tiny error of judgement, he thought, amused at her naivety in assuming that she could shut the door on what had happened and pretend it hadn’t happened. She had wanted him. Her warm body had curved into his and he had felt her desire throbbing through her, hot, wet and feverish. If he had slipped his hand under that long dress, if he had found the bareness of her thighs, he would have found her ready for him.
‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever had any woman say that to you before.’ Alice broke the silence which was driving her crazy. ‘And I don’t want to offend you, but that’s how it has to be.’
‘In response to that statement, you’re right. I’ve never had a woman say that to me before. I’m not offended.’ He raised both his hands in a gesture that was rueful but accepting. ‘And of course, if you decide that denial is the right course of action, then that’s not a problem. We’ll pretend it never happened.’
‘Good.’ She felt a hollowness settle in the pit of her stomach.
‘There’s our destination straight ahead.’ Gabriel pointed to the bank of lights leading up a tree-lined avenue towards a manor house that resembled the Place des Vosges. Expensive cars were dotted around the courtyard and along the avenue, half on, half off the grass verge. He began giving her a potted history of the place, which had been in the family for generations.
But he was alive to her presence next to him. She had opened a door and he had walked through; did she now expect him politely to turn around and walk back out because she’d had a change of heart?
Frankly, if he believed for a second that her response had been wine induced, he would not have hesitated to put their five-minute interaction down to experience.
But she had wanted him and she still did. He could feel it in the way she wasn’t quite managing to look at him, in her breathing which she was trying to control, in the way she was ever so casually pressed against the car door. It was almost as though if she got too close to him she would burst into flame. All over again.
Any thoughts about walking away from this challenge vanished in a puff of smoke. The predator in him prowled to the fore, leaving no room for questions about the foolhardiness of what he wanted to do.
For once, there was something in him that wasn’t in control and he liked it. It made a change and a change was as good as a rest.
The party was in full swing when they walked in. Beautiful people were circulating, chatting in groups, drinking champagne and picking off the canapés that were being paraded from group to group by a selection of very attractive waitresses. They were all dressed in just the sort of sexy uniform associated with the French waitress: short skirt, tight black top, high black shoes and sheer black stockings.
Gabriel barely noticed them. Alice was the sole recipient of his brooding attention.
She did him proud, it had to be said. Men looked, as did the women. She shone. And, if her grasp of French was classroom, she charmingly made the most of what was at her disposal as she was adopted by groups of people and encouraged to join their conversations.
And the deal was cemented. The family, Francois told him, taking him to one side towards the end of the evening, was behind him all the way. There were some regrets about losing the business but he intended to join his sons in a new start-up, completely different, in the leisure industry.
Gabriel had expected nothing but a positive outcome and he was ready to make his exit when he scanned the room to see Alice laughing, deep in conversation with a man. A tall, blond man who was watching her over the rim of his flute as he drank his champagne in a way that Gabriel recognised all too well. She was laughing.