Gabriel had taken her number, vaguely intimated that he might give her a call and promptly forgotten her existence, of which he had been reminded several times in the intervening months.
He had finally, two days previously, decided to take her up on her repeated offers. This was his comfort zone—being chased by women. His comfort zone was not one in which he pursued and was knocked back.
He looked between the women and the differences could not have been more startling.
Alice was nearly six inches taller in flats, slim, with her hair neatly tied back and her pale face intelligent and attractive rather than flamboyantly beautiful. She had a composure and a stillness that the much shorter, sexier woman lacked and Gabriel stifled his irritation at finding himself losing interest in his hot date for the evening.
‘Have a really nice evening.’ Alice couldn’t bear to see them together, to see her replacement who was everything she was not. She hated the thought that she had been the temporary aberration, and she wondered whether Gabriel had been drawn to her because she was so unlike the women he went out with as a rule.
Bethany had lost interest in Alice altogether and was preening for Gabriel’s benefit, smoothing her hands over her figure-hugging dress and then twirling round, demanding to know what he thought of her outfit.
Alice turned away, not wanting to see the rampant male appreciation in his eyes, appreciation that she had once seen directed at her.
‘I’ll leave you to it, shall I?’ She interrupted the love birds and Gabriel turned to look at her.
‘If you don’t mind.’ His voice was ultra-polite, his eyes flat and unreadable. ‘And, Alice, have a good weekend...visiting your mother...’
Alice reddened. ‘I happen to have other things planned,’ she muttered, because he had made her sound sad and pathetic, and he had done it on purpose. Or maybe he hadn’t. Maybe he had just pushed her back into the ‘efficient secretary without a life’ box whose weekend occupation was visiting her mother. Not that he knew the full story behind those visits.
‘Oh? Anything exciting?’ Gabriel’s ears pricked up. Bethany’s arm possessively linking his felt like a dead weight and it was all he could do not to shrug it off impatiently off impatiently.
‘Oh, just seeing one or two people,’ Alice told him vaguely. ‘You know...’
Gabriel didn’t know and the not knowing preyed on his mind for the remainder of the evening. He was irritated with his date, and then further irritated with himself, because before Paris Bethany would have been just the thing to relieve him of whatever stress he might have been having.
She had no interest in what was happening on the stage and several times asked him what the plot was. She spent quite a bit of time peering round her to see if she could recognise anyone, and was visibly relieved when the ordeal was at an end and they could get something to eat. Although, she said with a little moue, she really, really, would have loved to have something to eat at his place.
Sex was not going to happen.
In fact, nothing was going to happen.
Gabriel fed her, listened to her while his mind drifted in other, less welcome directions and then settled her into his chauffeur-driven car, made his excuses and headed back alone to his house.
So much for his attempts at distracting himself! The only thing on his mind was Alice’s remark about having people to see at the weekend. The thought of her having a man down there had lodged in his head, utterly destroying the self-assurance he wore like a mantel on his shoulders.
There was no getting round it—if he had been used, if he had been some kind of sick substitute for a man who couldn’t commit to her, then he had a right to know.
He knew where her mother lived. She had touched upon that topic in passing, had mentioned the house with a wistful smile on her face. She had talked about the little village and the picturesque country road which she was fond of walking down, breathing in the fragrance of the summer blossoms, the sharpness of the wintry air, dawdling in autumn on her way from house to village to appreciate the russet reds of the falling leaves.
Oh yes, he had a memory like a computer, and he hadn’t forgotten a single thing she had told him in Paris when she had let her guard down and confided, told him snippets of her past which had seemed to slip out in between their conversations about art and culture, work and deals, the state of the world.
Alice, he thought with a frown as he retired for bed much later that night, would have appreciated the opera. She wouldn’t have asked a bunch of idiotic questions, she wouldn’t have stifled yawns and she wouldn’t have kept looking around her like a bored kid at an adult gathering.