“Mr. Bishop, Charlotte, have a nice night.”
“Thank you, Steven,” Gabriel Bishop responded. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Then the two of them were walking to the sliding doors that led out onto the city’s main street. It was relatively quiet outside, the tourists and shoppers having gone home and the retail stores closed or closing up, while the clubbers and partiers hadn’t yet hit the streets. Before them would come the wave of people heading out to dinner at the restaurants in and around this area, as well as down on the waterfront.
Across the road, she glimpsed a group of men and women dressed in striped rugby jerseys, team scarves around their necks. It reminded her there’d been a special doubleheader at Eden Park today—it looked like fans who’d attended the first match had already started to trickle into the city for a post-match drink.
And all this mental procrastination wasn’t doing anything to lessen her awareness of the large, powerful man at her side. Twisting her hands under her coat, she told herself to make small talk, lessen the chance of being fired, but every time she went to open her mouth, nothing came out.
Finally, frustrated with herself to the point that she could feel tears building behind her eyes, she blurted out, “I’m sorry. I thought you were an intruder.”
“I survived.” No anger in his voice, though the eyes he turned on her were assessing. “The stapler was too heavy for you to throw with any accuracy. Next time, try a hole punch.”
Was that a joke?
Since she had no desire to rock the boat if he truly wasn’t furious, she didn’t say anything else and they were soon at the bistro where he was greeted by name and shown to a plum table by the window, though he couldn’t have made the reservation any more than a few minutes earlier.
“Your coat?”
Coloring at being caught holding on to it like a security blanket, she handed the coat over to the male server who had the training not to turn up his nose at the distinctly non-designer cut. “Thank you,” she said and pulled out her own chair before Gabriel Bishop could do it, not sure she could handle him at her back. He was too big, too overwhelming—and she hated strangers at her back regardless.
He watched her fight to pull the heavy chair back in under her but didn’t comment.
Face hot, she tried to focus on the words handwritten on the thick, textured paper of the menu, but it might as well have been in Swahili.
“Have you made your choice?”
Because he was looking at her as if waiting for a decision, she pointed randomly at a line on the menu and hoped she wasn’t ordering brains in a lovely mint sauce or something else equally unappetizing. The menu was whisked away a second later, water brought to the table.
“Now, Ms. Baird.”
She looked up, hearing something in his voice that told her he expected attention. Those steely eyes were focused on her to the exclusion of all else. “Y…yes,” she said, the word barely audible.
“Tell me about the current situation with the Hamilton land negotiation. It’s obvious the potential buyers want the site of the old factory. It’s equally obvious Saxon & Archer needs the capital. What’s the holdup?”
The file opened in Charlotte’s mind, her visual memory acute. She could hear her mental voice laying out the facts in a clean, crisp manner, but nothing came through her vocal chords; instead, her fingernails dug into her palms. Panic fluttered in her chest, a trapped bird with a sharp beak that pecked and pecked at her.
2
THERE IS GROWLING
“LET’S TABLE THAT QUESTION for now,” Gabriel said when it appeared Ms. Baird was about to hyperventilate. “It’s Saturday night, and you’ve already pulled a full day.”
She gave a jerky nod and gulped down some water, her eyes anywhere but on him.
Gabriel was used to inciting a reaction in women. The tall, confident, sexy ones flirted with him. The not-so-confident ones smiled shyly at him, and even women put off by his physique generally changed their minds after speaking to him for a few minutes and realizing he wasn’t all brawn and no brain.
He knew many of the women who hit on him weren’t actually interested in him as a person. A few just wanted “a bit of rough” in bed, while others were after a trophy sports-star husband—enough to overlook the fact he was no longer on the playing field. Then there were the ones looking for a wealthy CEO who could keep them in diamonds.
The fact he was young and in good shape was a bonus to the fortune hunters; it was his money that was the draw. As long as they had access to a healthy bank account, those women would coo sweet nothings into the ear of a toothless old man of ninety-eight. So while Gabriel knew he was attractive enough and had never had trouble finding a woman with whom to heat up the sheets, it wasn’t as if he thought of himself as God’s gift to women. However, neither was he an ogre.