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‘I don’t know whether to be disappointed or flattered.’
That remark was accompanied by a small, crooked smile that made a flicker of heat fan out low in her pelvis.
Their eyes locked. ‘I should stick with disappointed,’ she said, her arm curved across her stomach to press against the ache that still lingered there from when Gabriel had kissed her five days ago. ‘That way you won’t have to go out of your comfort zone.’
There was a beat of silence. His face was unreadable, but his blue gaze seemed to tear into her.
‘I wasn’t the one who was disappointed,’ he replied.
She stared at him, struggling to breathe, as if his cryptic words had displaced all the air in the room. That was the second, or maybe the third time he had insinuated thatshewas the guilty party in their relationship.
‘You know, if you have something to say—’
‘Here we are.’
Chris was back again. This time, he was holding a compress and a bowl of presumably cool water.
‘Sorry I took so long. I got confused on the way back and went left instead of right.’ Frowning, he glanced up at his boss. ‘Sorry, did I interrupt something?’
Gabriel shook his head, his gaze beating down on her like a wave breaking. ‘Not at all. Ms Cavendish and I are finished.’
It was lunchtime. Pushing his fork into the carefully arranged Cobb salad on his plate, Gabriel speared another piece of chicken. It was perfectly cooked, but he wasn’t hungry.
Understandably, he thought, tilting back his head to gaze up at a melting yellow sun. But, much as he longed to do so, he knew he couldn’t blame the heat of the day for his lack of appetite. Or for the tension that was making his body feel as if it might fly apart at any moment.
At the other end of the table he heard Dove laugh and his head turned without permission, drawn irresistibly to the sound, and to the pale curve of her throat.
Not that he needed to look to know where she was. For the last five days he had been devastatingly aware of her exact position in any room, and his neck and shoulders ached with the effort of not looking at her.
He gritted his teeth.
And his body ached with the effort of not crossing the room and finishing what she had started on the deck five days ago. Fortunately the constant presence of one or other member of his team had acted as an unwitting chaperone, so that his feverish imaginings had stayed in his imagination.
But even though he had kept his distance he couldn’t avoid Dove completely, and whichever way he turned it felt as if she was always there, poised and polished, with her pale blonde hair smoothly knotted at the nape of her neck.
Turn left and she was leaning forward to look at some paperwork, her bottom pushing against the fabric of one of those snug-fitting pencil skirts that seemed designed to make him unravel.
Turn right and she was biting into the soft pink cushion of her lower lip as she talked on the phone.
Occasionally, when required to do so, she would meet his gaze, with a cool, defensive light in her grey eyes.
Glancing down the table, he felt his stomach twist. And now she was laughing with someone other than him, her eyes dancing with light and delight.
It made him want to punch something.
His jaw was so tight it felt as if it had been wired together. He had made himself wait so long to get to this moment of reckoning, but things weren’t going quite how he’d imagined they would.
Forcing Dove to work for him, taking her out of her comfort zone, was supposed to punish her—but instead he felt as if he was the one being punished. And, rather than confirming that she was a heartless bitch who had used and then discarded him, he kept seeing her pale, stunned face as she’d tried to cover her body.
Putting down his fork, he gave up pretending to eat and picked up his water glass instead. Although frankly he would rather it was wine. Or better still whisky. Then at least he could numb his senses and dull the ache of need.
But why was he putting himself through this? He had made his point in bringing her here. There was no need to extend this torture any more. He could dismiss her as she had dismissed him. Although, unlike Dove and Fenella, he would do it in person.
Thinking about Fenella made his stomach knot. When he’d found out that she was looking to sell the family firm, it seemed like fate. Finally a chance to do something concrete that would make it impossible for her to ignore him. With the added bonus of his being able to pay her off.
It was a convoluted way to prove a point, and it certainly wasn’t good business—Alistair Cox had been right about that. There were many other, better property companies. But that was part of it. He wanted to show her that she had been wrong to give him away. That unlike the son she had kept, he was a business leader who had so much money he could afford to waste it in acquiring her precious family firm. The family thathehad no part of.
But first he would deal with Dove.
