A Diamond Deal With Her Boss. Cathy Williams

your driver wait to take me to the hotel?’ she asked when he informed her that they would be at his grandmother’s house in under fifteen minutes.

      ‘He’ll do what I tell him to,’ Gabriel responded with the sort of casual arrogance that she found annoying and weirdly endearing in equal measure. A short while later, he announced, ‘And here we are.’

      The city had been left behind, replaced by tall trees and a cool, forested area speckled with houses, each standing in its own grounds.

      ‘The residents here enjoy their privacy,’ Gabriel said with satisfaction. ‘And they’ve been prepared to pay for it. It’s designed with interesting short cuts between the properties so that the neighbours can visit one another, and there’s a golf course surrounding the entire compound like a bracelet. All in all, this has been a great investment.’

      ‘It belongs to you?’

      ‘Are you impressed?’

      ‘I thought you concentrated on buying and selling companies and in technology and communication,’ she said frankly.

      ‘I’m a man of varied interests,’ he said smoothly, in response. ‘There’s nothing I won’t try my hand at.’ With rare introspection he wondered if that was why he had guiltily plunged into an ill-fated engagement to please his grandmother and was now facing the prospect of letting her down without warning.

      Because he would try his hand at anything in business, the riskier the venture the better, but that was where his thirst for adventure stopped. Maybe now it was time to admit to his grandmother that he was never going to give her the fairy story she’d always wanted for him.