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Alice was dazed.
‘But why didn’t you say anything to me all this time?’ she finally asked, but she knew why.
‘Just a few weeks,’ Pamela said uncomfortably. ‘And I knew you’d try to warn me off him, my darling, and I would quite, quite have understood, but...’
But she, Alice, her loving daughter, would have disapproved, would have issued stern warnings, would have dished out helpful advice by the bucket load, and in the end would have stifled anything that had a chance of surviving. Her mother had wanted to take a chance and she would have been afraid that her daughter would have killed that chance dead.
Alice wasn’t hurt, she was mortified. Years of helping to prop her mother up had turned her into a hard-edged young woman who had allowed her own disillusionment to colour her behaviour.
Gabriel’s entrance half an hour later helped to lighten the glum introspection into which she had been plunged and, with an unerring ability to cut to the chase, the first thing he said to her as they were walking out of the house was, ‘You’re upset. You spoke to you mother...and...?’
It was not yet nine-thirty but already the sun was warm and the open fields were bathed in the clear, unencumbered light so typical of the countryside where buildings and pollution didn’t cloud the view and sully the air. He realised he didn’t mind it. He quite liked it, as a matter of fact. A change from urban life.
‘Do you really care?’ Alice turned to him. The breeze ruffled her hair, blowing it across her face. She was slender and coltish in a pair of faded jeans, an old baggy jumper and a pair of walking boots.
‘I’m interested; of course I am.’ Gabriel refused to give in to qualifying what he felt. Naturally he cared if she was upset. He wasn’t a monster. And, yet, when was the last time he’d actually cared whether some woman was upset or not? Had he been that bothered when Georgia had flounced into his office and thrown a hissy fit because she couldn’t take no for an answer?
He had been irritated but he certainly hadn’t been upset. Nor had he ever been curious about what happened or didn’t happen in a woman’s life. As long as they gave him what he wanted, he was absolutely fine and he always, but always, made sure that his conscience was clear by being upfront with them. Life was so much simpler when you made sure you didn’t get wrapped up in complicated emotional situations that would always end up leading to dead ends anyway.
He had nothing to give and wasn’t interested in trying to break that mould.
But he sensed that she had asked a leading question and he knew that he should repeat his honest, upfront, ‘don’t look to me for anything but sex and a good time’ talk—just in case she had forgotten. And he would...but later...
He was interested. He didn’t care but he was interested. Two completely different things, as far as Alice was concerned.
‘And she’s got a boyfriend.’
‘Good for her.’ Gabriel slung his arm over her shoulder and breathed in the fragrant, floral scent of her hair. God, what was it about this woman that drove him nuts? ‘I want you so much right now that it hurts.’
Alice pulled apart and stared at him then she rolled her eyes and laughed. ‘Is sex all you think about, Gabriel?’
‘It’s pretty deserted out here...’
‘I was talking about my mother!’
‘And I’m listening. I just want to touch you a little while you talk...’ He slipped his hand under her jumper and circled her narrow waist. ‘Tell me you don’t like that.’ Up ahead, the fields were broken with clumps of trees. It was an idyllic, picture-postcard scene. ‘You’re not wearing a bra. I like that...’
‘I usually go bra-less when I’m down here. I don’t have enough to warrant wearing one twenty-four-seven...’
‘You have just the right amount.’ He pushed up the jumper, ignored her half-hearted attempts to swat him away and gazed down at her small, pert breasts tipped with their rosy pink nipples.
Her breathing quickened as he rubbed the sensitive tips with his thumbs until they were stiff and aroused.
This was her wild adventure. She had fallen in love with the wrong man and had thrown caution to the winds because her heart was ruling her head. She knew that he was only in it for the sex, for the good time, but it was so hard to bury the part of her that wanted to find out where they were going, whether there was the slightest chance that he might want more than just sex.
He gently pulled down her jumper; his hand went to the button of her jeans, then the zip, and she gave a little shocked yelp as he began tugging down her trousers.
‘We can’t.’
