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She made it to his house within the hour and only when the taxi had deposited her there did her nervous system kick back into gear.
This was unknown territory. Had anyone in the office ever been to his house? Company entertaining was all done in restaurants, or expensive venues in the City, and he certainly wasn’t the avuncular sort of boss who hosted little parties so that his employees could bond with one another.
She stared at the impressive Georgian facade and hesitated. What had she expected? She didn’t know. Something far less grand—a penthouse apartment, perhaps. There was, after all, only one of him, even if he had all the money in the world to play with. Why did he need a London mansion?
Black brass railings cordoned off the house and matched all the other black brass railings of the mansions alongside it. Standing here, gazing up with her little handbag, her company case full of files and her computer, she felt as though she might be arrested at any moment for the crime of just not quite blending in.
Inhaling deeply, she rang the buzzer and his disconnected voice came on the line.
‘I’ll buzz you in. You’ll find me upstairs.’
‘Where...?’ But the door had popped open; as to his whereabouts...she assumed she would have to locate him through sheer guesswork.
Her heart was beating madly as she stared around her. The hall was absolutely enormous, almost as big as the entire ground floor of her shared house. Victorian tiles were broken by a pale Persian rug and ahead of her a staircase wound its elegant way upwards.
What was he doing upstairs? Was his office there?
She smoothed down her skirt with perspiring hands. She could have worn something more casual— could have worn her jeans and a tee-shirt, considering she wouldn’t actually be in the office—but she hadn’t. She had dressed as she always did, in a neat black skirt, her white short-sleeved blouse and her little black jacket. She was very glad she had gone for the formal option.
It was harder to locate him than she would have thought possible because the house was huge, split into three storeys with myriad rooms to the left and right of the staircase. She peered into two sitting rooms and several bedrooms before she eventually hit the right one at the very end of the wide corridor.
Through the half-open door, she glimpsed rumpled covers on a bed and she hesitantly knocked.
‘About time! How long does it take one person to make her way through a house?’
Gabriel was propped up in bed. The rumpled duvet had been shoved to one side and he was in a black dressing gown, legs bare, sliver of chest exposed, black hair tousled. Next to him was his computer, on which he had clearly been working.
Alice averted her eyes and felt a tightening in her chest, almost as if she was in the grip of an incipient panic attack.
‘Are we going to be...er...working here?’
‘Stop hovering by the door and come inside. And where else do you suggest we hold proceedings?’
‘I passed an office...’
‘I can’t get out of bed. I’m ill.’ This was the first time in living memory that he had been in his bed and the woman standing in his bedroom looked as though the last thing she wanted was to be there. ‘And, as you can see, this isn’t a bedroom. It’s a suite.’ He nodded to the sofa which was by the tall windows and the long coffee table in front of it. ‘Does it make you uncomfortable, Alice?’
‘Of course not.’ But there was a wicked gleam in his eyes which did make her uncomfortable. Gabriel would not be happy with being bed-ridden for whatever reason. He was not the sort of man whose restless energy could be contained without it emerging somewhere else. The Devil worked on idle hands and for him his hands would be idle...
‘I just think that it might be more suitable if we were in an office environment.’
‘Why? Everything I need is right here. Where are the files? And for God’s sake, sit down! How are you going to work if you keep standing by the door?’
He shifted impatiently and Alice gulped as yet more of that hard, bronzed torso was revealed.
He should be in his suit. He should be properly attired. There was an intimacy here that had her nerves all over the place and she was so keen to make sure that he didn’t see that, her movements were stiff and awkward, her mouth more tightly pursed, her hands white as they gripped the case she had brought with her.
She felt horrendously uncomfortable in her knee-length black skirt, and her sheer black tights were itchy against her legs.
‘Have you...taken anything for your cold?’ she asked as she sat gingerly on the sofa and tried not to look at him without actually looking away; tried to mentally blank him out, which was next to impossible. ‘Sorry, I meant flu?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Why ever not?’
‘What good would that do? The thing just has to run its course.’
‘I’ll get you some paracetamol.’
‘You will sit and start going through the Dickson file with me.’
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