‘Well, now that you mention it...’ She caught Gabriel’s eye and noted the wicked gleam of amusement.
‘That’s very kind...may I call you Pamela? Yes? Well, you’re very kind, but I won’t be staying long.’
‘Yes.’ Alice stood up with a wide, false smile. ‘Gabriel has to be on his way. Don’t you, Gabriel? He’s probably got all sorts of plans for the evening.’
‘None,’ Gabriel drawled. He settled down comfortably in the kitchen chair to which he had been ushered. ‘But I will have, if you ladies would allow me to take you both out for a meal...?’ His sharp eyes noted the quick look that was exchanged, and then Pamela Morgan was on her feet, clutching her cardigan tightly around her.
‘You two go out. There’s a lovely little restaurant in the village, just opened...’
‘There is?’ Alice gaped. ‘And, no! We won’t be going anywhere!’ She glared at Gabriel who returned the glare with a comfortable smile of satisfaction.
‘Yes, you will, Alice! I insist. We eat in every single weekend. It will do you good to get out and see the place for a change. Plus, there’s food here for me, and what’s left over I can pop in the freezer. And the weather is so nice at the moment. Such a lovely change from all that rain we’ve been having. Alice, darling, why don’t you go and change, and you two young things can go out and have some fun.’
‘Mum...’
‘If you’re sure, Pamela...’ Gabriel stood up, exuding innate charm. ‘Why don’t you run along, Alice? Change into your glad rags? And, in the meantime, Pamela and I can get to know one another...’
CHAPTER EIGHT
ALICE FUMED. WHY HAD he shown up on her doorstep? It was utterly out of character for him, but then being dumped was out of character for him as well. Was that why he had said that he couldn’t get her out of his head? Once you stripped that remark down to its bare bones, what you were left with was a man who wanted something of which he had been deprived, whatever the cost.
He was impossible!
She had practically nothing to wear. She didn’t come down to Devon intent on having nights out. Her wardrobe consisted of comfortable clothes to hang around the house in. With a groan of despair, she rummaged through the bottom shelves where clothes from another era had been shoved and forgotten.
Gabriel here, in her mother’s house, felt like an invasion of her privacy. He was seeing where she had lived for years; seeing the photos of her which were liberally scattered throughout the small house; the little drawings she had done which her mother had kept in a box during those long, miserable years when she’d been married, drawings which she’d had framed as soon as she had a house of her own.
He was a billionaire and she couldn’t help wondering what he thought of her mother’s house: too small, not smart enough, filled with mementoes and knickknacks that had cost practically nothing. Everything else, the more expensive stuff, had been sold off when her father had died and the family home sold. Her mother had not wanted to bring any bad memories with her to wherever she chose to put down roots.
Alice wasn’t at all ashamed of where she had lived but it was only human to see your own particular circumstances through the eyes of someone else. In this case, her arrogant, super-rich boss.
She looked around her own bedroom with critical eyes. Nothing had been done to it since she had moved out. It was in good condition, but dated. The wallpaper was old-style floral and the bed and the dressing table harked back to a different era—the era of cheap reproduction furniture that was functional but lacking in style. It had served its purpose and, for the first time, Alice was slightly ashamed that she had not encouraged her mother to do some basic renovations to the house.
Yes, some of what she earned went on paying her mother’s therapist, but there was always enough left over to spend a little on the house.
Her mother, whilst she probably would have been able to afford some of those renovations, would have swept aside the suggestion as being a waste of money. That, like so much else, was a legacy of her past, unhappy life, where money had never been thrown around and where the housekeeping had been frugal.
Eager to get downstairs and curtail whatever conversation Gabriel was having with her mother, Alice showered and changed as fast as she could. The black trousers, which had been folded on the bottom shelf, thankfully still fit; the red jumper might be baggy but its colour had not been diminished in the wash, and at least it looked jollier than the greys, blacks and dark blues that comprised most of the rest of the wardrobe of clothes.
As an afterthought, she applied a light covering of make-up—some mascara, a little blush, some lip gloss.