Boardrooms of Power. Heidi Betts

verge of an embarrassing arousal.

      To start with he had been amused at his intense reaction to her. And baffled. After all, it wasn’t as though he hadn’t spent the past four years in her company!

      Very soon, though, irritation with himself had set in, at which point his logical brain reached its logical conclusion. He was suffering from sex deprivation. He had been without a woman for a while, at least three months. The last woman he had dated, a model called Caitlin, had been a willing and able playmate but had evidently wanted more than a man who could be relied upon for expensive gifts, expensive meals out, creative sex and not much else. His frequent cancellations had eventually brought about the inevitable showdown and he had been quietly relieved when she had finished with him.

      Having diagnosed the problem, Gabriel had set about sorting out a solution with the speed and efficiency with which he addressed all problems. He had simply rifled through his little black book and extracted a name. The woman in question he had met several months previously and had since bumped into her at various social occasions. At each, she had reminded him that she would love a call and, with his unlikely attraction to his secretary causing him pause for uncomfortable thought, Gabriel had cheerfully set the groundwork for an enjoyable and distracting seduction.

      Unfortunately, it had failed to work. Their first meeting had taken place at an intimate but lively club, a favourite haunt of Gabriel’s, who liked the live jazz band and the relaxed atmosphere. The flatness of the evening he could only blame on the music, which must have killed the conversation. Meeting two had been at a restaurant, no music and hence no excuse for the fact that he had struggled through the fine food and wine, glancing down at his watch often enough to make him realise that Arianna was perhaps not quite his cup of tea.

      Which, he thought now, still left him with the unexpected problem of a secretary he was beginning to fancy. A secretary, he had to admit to himself, who had maintained an enviable detachment ever since that one evening during which she had opened up. She had reverted to being the cool ice queen, but with a sexy little body and a way of flicking a glance at him from under her lashes that made him want to slam shut that damned interconnecting door, grab her and have his wicked way with her on his grand mahogany desk.

      Sam Stewart, his company lawyer, interrupted the pleasant daydream that involved some very satisfactory ripping of blouses and yanking down of lacy white bras with a question about the pension trust fund of a company with which they were negotiating and Gabriel surfaced to realise that he had missed most of a very important conversation. He dragged his attention back to the matter in hand, deliberately turning away from Rose, who was now standing up anyway, looking at her watch, straightening her skirt. Getting ready to head back to the office where she would keep her head dutifully down until five-thirty, at which point she would clear her desk and politely bid him good evening.

      Later, much later, after an evening spent poring over reports with only some chilled wine and Mozart for company, Gabriel realised that he would have to do something about his worrying situation. Losing sleep over a woman was bad enough, but suffering lapses in his concentration during the day was beyond the pale.

      The only solution to satisfying his curiosity, he reasoned to himself, would be to put it to bed. Literally. And the thought of that alone was enough to make his body harden in immediate response.

      He made the call at nine-fifteen the following morning. And Rose took it, as he knew she would.

      ‘Shouldn’t you be here, Gabriel? I’ve double-checked the diaries and you’re definitely not due for your first meeting until eleven. With the people from Shipley Crew…’ Rose had checked the diaries more than just twice. She had checked it and re-checked it roughly a hundred times since she had entered her office, only to find Gabriel conspicuous by his absence.

      ‘Cancel all my meetings for today, Rose. Frank can handle Shipley on his own or he can take Jenkins with him just in case they need any expert advice.’

      ‘Where are you?’ It was so unlike Gabriel to be unpredictable during working hours that Rose actually felt a physical tingle of apprehension race down her spine.

      ‘At my place.’

      ‘Doing what?’ She took a few deep breaths and repeated the question in a less crazed voice.

      ‘Being under the weather.’

      ‘You’re under the weather? As in ill? You’re never ill, Gabriel!’

      ‘Try telling that to the strep bacteria in my throat.’ Which he cleared convincingly.

      Rose was torn between thinking that, with typical male lack of stamina, Gabriel had caved in to the simple cold bug with which he was unfamiliar, or else he was really ill. Ill as in should go to hospital ill.

      ‘You seemed fine yesterday,’ Rose informed him briskly. ‘Are you sure you…’ she opted for the least worrying option ‘…haven’t got a hangover?’

      ‘I think I’m old enough and experienced enough to recognise a hangover,’ Gabriel said.

      ‘Then it’s probably just a bug you picked up. There are a few of those flying around. I’ll make sure your meetings are cancelled and you can let me know later in the day if I need to rearrange any of the ones you have booked for tomorrow.’

      ‘You’ll have to come here, Rose.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘I’ll need you to type some urgent stuff up for me.’

      ‘You can’t work if you’re ill!’

      ‘You know where I live, don’t you?’

      ‘I can’t come over to your place, Gabriel!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because…because I have an awful lot to do here…’

      ‘And I have an awful lot to do here. Get a piece of paper and write down my address. And, for God’s sake, don’t make the journey by bus. Get a cab. I want you here some time before the end of the week.’

      ‘But…’

      ‘I’m keeping strictly to your work to rule, Rose. I’m not asking you to work to an unusually late hour. I’m asking you to have a change of environment for a couple of hours. Now, have you got that pencil?’ Without giving her time to lodge another pointless protest, Gabriel rattled off his address and then repeated it slowly to make sure that she’d taken it down correctly. ‘Got it?’

      ‘Yes, but…’

      ‘Should take you half an hour to get here, even with a bit of traffic. So I’ll see you by ten. I’ll make sure the front door’s open so you can just let yourself in.’ He could have sworn he heard another but rising to the surface when he hung up.

      Rose stared at the disconnected phone for a few minutes as she tried to get her thoughts in order. She could hardly believe that Gabriel was ill. Ill enough to have taken a day off work. He was always so ferociously energetic that it was hard to imagine him ever being felled by something as small as a bug. She stared at the piece of paper with his address on it. When she thought about actually going into his house or apartment or flat or whatever he had, somewhere posh in Kensington at any rate, she felt physically faint. But what if he really was ill? She couldn’t imagine that he would take himself off to the doctor’s. Heaven only knew if he had one!

      Sick foreboding made her gather her things together quickly. Whatever disks she might need, her own laptop which the company provided for her free of charge, bits of post that needed to be checked and letters that required Gabriel’s signature. Then she rearranged meetings and liaised with a couple of people in Finance who would have to cover for Gabriel at least for the day. She caught a taxi just as it was stopping to let someone off outside the office block.

      Nerves kicked in as soon as she had slammed shut the door behind her and leaned forward to give the cab driver Gabriel’s address. She could feel her short-sleeved blouse clinging to her as she tried to push down the window so that some breeze could reach her