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‘I would have stuck to you like glue if you had made it clear that that was what you wanted, but I gathered...’ she stifled another yawn, which didn’t go unnoticed ‘...that this was a social event. Besides, I didn’t notice you in any tête-à-têtes with Monsieur Armand or I would have come over. I know I’m being paid a lot for my overtime here. You don’t have to remind me.’
Gabriel couldn’t care less about the money and she wasn’t saying anything he wanted to hear. Who was that guy? Had she answered that question? No. Had telephone numbers been exchanged? Had some kind of date been set up?
‘So who was he?’ he asked through gritted teeth.
‘Are you...jealous?’ Her lips parted and she was suddenly as sober as a judge.
‘Did you exchange numbers? Set up a hot date for later in the week? If so, you can forget it. You’re going nowhere on company time.’ He raked his fingers though his hair and stared at her with frowning intensity.
He had never been jealous in his life before. He didn’t do jealousy. Why would he? Women came and they went and, whatever the pasts were, whoever they had been out with or spoke to, well, he had never cared. Nor had he ever doubted that once they were in his bed they were utterly faithful.
He was jealous now and he didn’t like the sensation.
‘Of course I didn’t give Marc my telephone number,’ Alice muttered, half-resenting that she had been called to task like a kid, half-thrilled because, whatever he said or didn’t say, he was jealous. It made her feel better about fancying him. At least she knew that he wasn’t as casual about it as he had pretended.
Not that it mattered, one way or another.
‘And there are no hot dates lined up. He was just a nice man who didn’t mind talking to me in pigeon French.’
Gabriel thought that there was a lot more the guy wouldn’t have minded doing, given half a chance, but no numbers had been exchanged, no hot dates lined up. She seemed blissfully unaware that looking the way she did and laughing the way she had would be considered flirting in any language, pigeon or not.
‘You asked me if I was jealous,’ Gabriel murmured, keeping his distance but looking at her with dark intensity. ‘I was jealous.’
The atmosphere between them shifted and changed into something so charged that it was almost tangible. Alice drew her breath in sharply and then exhaled it in a shudder. Wild horses wouldn’t drag this out of her, but she had been keeping an eye on him throughout the evening, waiting to see if he looked at any of the glamorous women there or any of the pretty young waitresses. He had garnered enough attention, although if he had noticed any of it he hadn’t shown it.
‘Why?’ She strove to remember the boundary lines between them and to summon up the will power she had shown earlier when she had told him that that one kiss had been a mistake, never to be repeated.
‘Because I want you.’ His body language was a heady turn-on; he was leaning indolently against the car door while he continued to watch her with still, lazy eyes.
‘We can’t do anything,’ she said huskily. ‘It would be a terrible mistake. I’m just not that type of girl.’
‘The type who sleeps with a man if she wants to? And don’t try telling me that you don’t want to.’
‘We shouldn’t be having this conversation.’
‘And your vocabulary shouldn’t be littered with so many shoulds and shouldn’ts...’
‘You’re accustomed to women dropping at your feet.’
‘And yet I haven’t noticed you dropping at mine.’
The limo pulled up outside the hotel. He hadn’t even noticed the journey. Every nerve and fibre in his body had honed in on the woman sitting as far as she could away from him.
He leaned forward to have a word with the driver and then they were walking up to the hotel entrance, several feet between them. He had his hands in his pockets and she was clutching her pink pearl throw and little handbag for dear life.
He was jealous...a first.
He was in pursuit...also a first.
And he would have her...but she would come to him.
CHAPTER SIX
ALICE COULD HEAR the beating of her own heart as they headed for their respective bedrooms. It was still relatively busy in the foyer, but once they left that behind the silence between them was deafening.
In fact, she wondered whether she had imagined the bizarre conversation they had just had. She couldn’t bring herself to look at him, but it didn’t matter, because in the quiet of the lift his image was reflected back at her whether she liked it or not.
She, standing by the door, arms wrapped round her body... He, leaning against the mirrored wall, hands in his pockets, dark, lean face sending shivers up and down her spine.
