about the suggestion. Not in her fevered mind. She took a step backwards. She thought she might be overreacting. The amused, self-assured expression lurking on his face was giving her an indication of that, but there was no way that he would be laying a finger on her. She took a couple more steps backwards and of course that was when it happened. Sod’s law, she thought, as she grappled and failed to retrieve her footing, that the one place that damned low footstool was, the same footstool he had kicked aside to make way for her and the tray, would be right there behind her left ankle. Just the right spot to ensure that she fell in an undignified heap on to the ground, surrounded by her neatly compiled paperwork and with her flimsy summer skirt in hideous disarray. Rose scrambled to gather herself, her face burning with embarrassment, only belatedly registering that, for someone who was supposedly ill, Gabriel had leapt out from the couch with remarkable agility and was now, horror of horrors, bending over her with a concerned expression, bathrobe agape, allowing her a glimpse of boxer shorts.
Lord, but could things get any worse?
Rose pushed herself up and yanked her skirt down, just as Gabriel scooped her up, ignoring her yelps of dismay. There went the skirt. Riding up. Undoing the job she had just done. Exposing so much thigh that Rose was scared to let her attention linger. And his arms around her were like steel, forcing her head against his chest, bare skin because his robe was in as much disarray as she was.
The whole mortifying episode must have taken all of five seconds, but to Rose, it seemed like eternity. Everything seemed to be happening in slow motion until he had deposited her on the couch, at which point it was real time again except she found that she couldn’t jump to her feet, the one thing she wanted to do, because he was kneeling in front of her.
‘What are you doing?’
‘Rotate your foot. That was a pretty bad fall. We need to make sure that you haven’t twisted anything.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘If you hadn’t been scuttling off like a little scared rabbit, you would never have tripped.’
Rose wanted to smash him over the head with the nearest heavy object.
‘If you hadn’t been…’
‘Hadn’t been what?’
‘Do you mind giving me back my foot?’ He had removed her shoe and was massaging her foot, working his fingers along the soft underside, rotating it with exquisite pressure until she wanted to scream or groan or something. ‘Nothing’s wrong with it! Everything’s fine!’
‘Hadn’t been what?’ Gabriel straightened up, which was a more dangerous position because now he was on her eye level and way too close for comfort. She could so easily slide her hand under his silk robe. Four years’ worth of fantasies crashed through her like a tidal wave and Rose closed her eyes briefly.
‘Well?’
Rose opened her eyes to find that he was even closer to her. And amused. The smile was right there behind eyes that were pretending to be serious and interested. And here she was, desperately trying to fight down the effect he was having on her. It just wasn’t fair! Four years fighting off a lethal attraction to a man who had now decided that it might be a bit of fun to flirt with her once in a while, when he was between women and had nothing better to do.
Every fibre in her being regretted the decision she had made to stay put for a while longer.
‘If you hadn’t been flirting with me,’ Rose said coldly. ‘If you hadn’t forgotten that it’s totally inappropriate. I expected more of you.’
She had been hoping to shame him. She failed. He gave her a slow, devastating smile.
‘Flirting…’ He inclined his head to one side as if considering a new found concept. ‘You’re right. Maybe flirting was a bad idea. Maybe…’his voice was velvety soft and rich with husky sexuality ‘…I should have just done this…’
For three seconds time stood still. His mouth touched hers with gentle curiosity, then hungry urgency that had her clinging to him, matching his want with hers in equal measure. And it took ten seconds for sickening reality to intrude.
‘Don’t!’ Rose pushed him so forcefully that he stumbled backwards, giving her time to get to her feet and put some distance between them. ‘How dare you?’
Gabriel stood up, but he wasn’t angry. Not at all. And that was even scarier. The expression on his face was as though he had sorted something out in his head.
‘I’ll pretend that never happened,’ Rose gritted. ‘But if it happens again, then I’m gone! Do you hear me?’ She couldn’t bear to look at the discarded shoe, but she did, slipping her foot into it and bending to scoop up all the papers, not caring what order they were in. His silence was unsettling. She knew he was watching her and it made the hairs on the back of her neck rise. Would he see? The way her breasts were still throbbing, aching to be caressed? Or the way the dampness was spreading between her legs, honeyed dew begging for his touch? Rose wanted to die a thousand deaths. She would have remained scrambling around on the floor indefinitely but finally she had gathered up the strewn papers and was looking at him with her best ice cold glare.
‘Okay.’ Gabriel looked down at her. ‘It’s a deal. I’ll pretend it never happened and you can pretend that you didn’t want it to…’
CHAPTER FIVE
THE interviewing was not going according to plan. At least not the plan that Rose had germinated in her head, which basically involved finding someone quickly and installing them even more quickly so that in due time, preferably as soon as she had found her feet on her course, she could re-submit her letter of resignation and this time leave with a clear conscience.
Because Gabriel was driving her crazy. True to her request, he had not mentioned a word about that kiss but she had still spent the past week in a state of heightened awareness. Big mistake because she was doubly conscious of him. The minute he got within two feet of her, her entire nervous system went into overdrive and she could feel her body tense in dreaded expectation of some casual physical contact.
Of which there had been a fair few instances. More than usual, although she was pretty sure that she was imagining that. A feathery brush of his fingers on her arm when he leant to read something over her shoulder, the briefest of touches when she handed him a cup of coffee or when he sat next to her so that he could go through some detail with her in one of the reports they happened to be working on. Her antennae now seemed to be on red alert and it was driving her crazy.
Try as she might, her body was not letting her pretend that nothing had happened, even if all mention of it was conscientiously avoided. He came close and she felt faint. He casually touched her and her body roared into hot, suffocating awareness. His challenge a week ago, that he would pretend to forget what had happened if she could pretend that she hadn’t wanted it, was proving ominously prescient.
Hence her increasing desperation to find a suitable replacement.
And Gabriel was proving frustratingly uncooperative.
‘If this woman is to possibly be your eventual replacement,’ he’d told her seriously, ‘then I have to make sure that I get it right. We’re not talking about someone who’s going to be around for a few weeks, someone disposable. I need to find exactly the sort of woman I can happily work alongside…’
‘Or man,’ Rose had pointed out, but Gabriel had shot her one of those looks that informed her right there and then that working alongside the ideal man was not on the cards for him.
They had thus spent the past three days poring over applications and squeezing in candidates whenever Gabriel had a free moment.
Two women, both of whom seemed to fit the bill, had been rejected out of hand by Gabriel, on the spurious excuse that he just couldn’t see himself having a long and problem-free working relationship with either of them.
‘But it would only be for two days during the week,’ Rose had mumbled unconvincingly,