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So this was what it felt like, he thought, to involve yourself in someone else’s life story. His lifetime had been spent as a solitary figure, forging his own destiny, never needing input from anyone else because experience had taught him that other people’s input was always largely self-serving. He had grown up fighting his own battles single-handed and then, when the battles had been fought, reaping the reward without bothering to search any deeper. It was a formula that had always worked for him.
And still did, he reminded himself a little too vigorously, before he allowed pointless sentimentality to cloud the issue.
‘When my father died, my mother was free to build a life of her own, but she had been damaged by years of having to put up with his selfishness. She became more and more anxious and now...’ Alice shrugged her shoulders expressively. ‘Over time she became fearful of leaving the house. It’s been quite bad. In fact, I’ve had to hire a therapist to try and work some magic...and it’s working. She’s been out more in the last few months than ever before. Small steps. But I guess I’ve been guilty of laying it on thick about not getting involved with another man. I never said so out loud...’ But she had given that impression. ‘Who is this guy, anyway?’
‘I don’t know the details, Alice. Like I said, it was a fleeting conversation.’
‘Whilst you were busy charming her, you mean.’ Her retort was half-hearted. ‘I wondered how she knew about this restaurant. I guess they must have come here, which is terrific, because it means she’s getting out of the house, beginning to build a normal life for herself.’
And in the meantime, Alice wondered, how normal was her life? She had been so busy making sure they both learned valuable lessons about the nature of men that she had forgotten how young she still was. And her mother had tried to remind her of that, but she had unhelpfully brushed aside those conversations.
‘So there you have it,’ she said crisply. ‘It would have been better if you hadn’t known, but...’
‘Why?’
‘Why?’ Alice laughed and there was an edge to her laughter. ‘Because you’re not interested in other people’s lives, Gabriel. You’re probably embarrassed that you’ve ended up here with me pouring all this out, but it’s your fault for showing up unannounced.’
‘Ah, we’re back to the Alice Morgan who wants to pick a fight with me... It’s not going to work.’
She was sorely tempted to ask him about his personal life but something held her back. Maybe she didn’t want to hear that mantra about never committing to any woman. Maybe she wanted to believe that...that what? That she could somehow change him because she was in love with him?
Hell would freeze over before that happened!
But, as they ordered food, she was keenly aware that she had let all her guard down with him, that the chance of returning to the fragile relationship she had worked hard to put back in place after Paris was changed for good.
And, for her part, she had seen yet another slice of this complex man—a genuinely thoughtful side that he kept well hidden under an armour of a ruthless, single-minded drive to succeed.
She ruefully thought that, while she had been busy never taking chances, while she had made a big deal of her non-relationship with Alan as yet further proof of how important it was to protect yourself from being hurt, her mother, for all her problems and her devastating marriage, had been courageous enough to take chances of her own.
The only chances Alice had taken were those snatched days and nights in Paris when she had thrown caution to the winds and had allowed her body to rule her head.
And she had made damn sure to scuttle back to the safety of what she knew the second they had returned to London.
From under lowered lashes, she watched as he worked his way through his food, the way he engaged her in conversation whether she wanted him to or not, the tactful way he desisted from prying further into her past. She took in those long, brown fingers curled around the stem of his wine glass as he sipped his wine and the brooding intensity of his dark eyes as they rested on her flushed face...
Sensitive to every nuance of her body language, Gabriel sensed the shift in atmosphere.
He had stopped being the enemy she had mistakenly slept with, the enemy whose hot kisses she wanted to resist but couldn’t...
He had her and satisfaction roared through him. He had stopped thinking that he just needed to sleep with her to get her out of his system. He now thought that he just needed to sleep with her. He needed to have her body under him, on him and alongside him. He needed to feel the silky smoothness of her slender thighs between his legs. He needed to touch her breasts and feel her melt under his hands.
