Not that it mattered, one way or another.
‘And there are no hot dates lined up. He was just a nice man who didn’t mind talking to me in pigeon French.’
Gabriel thought that there was a lot more the guy wouldn’t have minded doing, given half a chance, but no numbers had been exchanged, no hot dates lined up. She seemed blissfully unaware that looking the way she did and laughing the way she had would be considered flirting in any language, pigeon or not.
‘You asked me if I was jealous,’ Gabriel murmured, keeping his distance but looking at her with dark intensity. ‘I was jealous.’
The atmosphere between them shifted and changed into something so charged that it was almost tangible. Alice drew her breath in sharply and then exhaled it in a shudder. Wild horses wouldn’t drag this out of her, but she had been keeping an eye on him throughout the evening, waiting to see if he looked at any of the glamorous women there or any of the pretty young waitresses. He had garnered enough attention, although if he had noticed any of it he hadn’t shown it.
‘Why?’ She strove to remember the boundary lines between them and to summon up the will power she had shown earlier when she had told him that that one kiss had been a mistake, never to be repeated.
‘Because I want you.’ His body language was a heady turn-on; he was leaning indolently against the car door while he continued to watch her with still, lazy eyes.
‘We can’t do anything,’ she said huskily. ‘It would be a terrible mistake. I’m just not that type of girl.’
‘The type who sleeps with a man if she wants to? And don’t try telling me that you don’t want to.’
‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘And your vocabulary shouldn’t be littered with so many shoulds and shouldn’ts...’
‘You’re accustomed to women dropping at your feet.’
‘And yet I haven’t noticed you dropping at mine.’
The limo pulled up outside the hotel. He hadn’t even noticed the journey. Every nerve and fibre in his body had honed in on the woman sitting as far as she could away from him.
He leaned forward to have a word with the driver and then they were walking up to the hotel entrance, several feet between them. He had his hands in his pockets and she was clutching her pink pearl throw and little handbag for dear life.
He was jealous...a first.
He was in pursuit...also a first.
And he would have her...but she would come to him.
CHAPTER SIX
ALICE COULD HEAR the beating of her own heart as they headed for their respective bedrooms. It was still relatively busy in the foyer, but once they left that behind the silence between them was deafening.
In fact, she wondered whether she had imagined the bizarre conversation they had just had. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but it didn’t matter, because in the quiet of the lift his image was reflected back at her whether she liked it or not.
She, standing by the door, arms wrapped round her body... He, leaning against the mirrored wall, hands in his pockets, dark, lean face sending shivers up and down her spine.
The doors pinged open and she leapt out. Her feet were aching from wearing high shoes and on the spur of the moment she stooped and took them off so that the long dress pooled on the ground.
‘Undressing already?’ Gabriel murmured in a sinfully seductive voice.
‘My feet are killing me. I’m not used to wearing heels.’
‘Well, give them a good night’s rest and I shall see you in the morning.’ He inclined his head politely, spun round on his heels and started walking towards his bedroom which was a little further up from hers.
And tomorrow, Alice thought feverishly, all this would be forgotten. That kiss in the back of the limo...the way he had looked at her...their conversation after the party: it would all be forgotten in the cold, clear light of day because that was just how things were.
She was the perfect secretary and if, by some weird twist of fate, he made her feel young and alive and filled with possibilities then that was something she would have to set to one side.
Maybe even to learn from it.
If a man whose value system left her cold managed to rouse her the way he did, then it was time for her to do something about getting her toes wet in the dating game instead of gathering cobwebs on the hard shoulder.
Shoes in hand, she watched as he fished into his jacket pocket for the key to his door. He wasn’t even looking at her. He was going to shut that door behind him and...
She would never know.
‘Wait!’
Gabriel turned slowly and smiled. Had he known that she would stop him? For once, he had been faced with an unpredictable outcome and he really wasn’t sure what he would have done if she had struck off to her own room, shoes in hand, to get a good night’s sleep and rest her feet.