The Secret Spanish Love-Child. Cathy Williams

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СКАЧАТЬ the small corridor, Gabriel’s eyes quickly and efficiently scanned the room, for the office was really just one big room, amateurishly divided into cubicles by flimsy partitions. The weather had turned chilly and it was cold. So cold, in fact, that, as his eyes rested on her downbent head, he became aware that she was typing quickly, wearing fingerless gloves and with a woolly hat pulled down low so that only the ends of her short dark hair were visible. The smart get-up in which he had last seen her dressed as she had sat across from him in his office had been abandoned in favour of a pair of jeans and a grey jumper. He guessed that she would be wearing trainers. She had once told him that she had not possessed a pair of high heeled shoes until she turned seventeen and had to attend her grandfather’s funeral.

      Gabriel wasn’t entirely sure why he had attempted this trip halfway across London but she had lodged in his brain like an irritant and he hadn’t been able to clear his head of her image.

      He had finally persuaded himself that he should see her to make sure that she was all right. She had quit without notice and he had, after all, once been her lover. He felt duty-bound to satisfy himself that she hadn’t done anything crazy. She could be impetuous. And she had seemed pretty overwrought the last time he had seen her.

      Having successfully attained the moral high ground, he had done the unthinkable and cancelled his meetings for that afternoon, choosing to drive instead to her office, having had someone verify that she was back working there.

      It was some minutes before anyone noticed him and then his presence was announced via a network of urgent whispers and giggles until someone who must have been the section supervisor headed towards him.

      Alex, he noted with dry amusement, was lost in a world of her own, immune to the flurry of attention his appearance had aroused.

      It took no more than a curt nod in her direction to halt the supervisor in her tracks and he felt a moment of gleaming satisfaction as Alex looked up, met his gaze and instantly blanched.

      She pulled off the woolly hat and her hair responded by sticking up in little dark spikes before she made an attempt to smooth it back into obedience, standing up and pulling off her gloves at the same time, the focus now of all attention as he continued to lounge indolently in the doorway.

      She was red-faced when, after a whispered conversation with her supervisor, she eventually made her way nervously towards him.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ was the first thing she said, barely containing her anger.

      ‘Do you know, I had forgotten how tall you were.’

      ‘You haven’t answered me!’

      ‘I don’t like having prolonged conversations in doorways.’

      ‘And I don’t like being hunted down!’

      ‘Why don’t we go and discuss this somewhere a little less in the glare of your colleagues? Anyone would think they had never seen a man before.’

      They hadn’t, Alex thought resentfully. At least not a man like him. She was maintaining a healthy distance and trying to work herself up into an appropriate lather of anger and condemnation but, even so, she was still acutely aware of the power of his presence and the latent strength that vibrated under the veneer of his expensive tailored suit. That she had once known that body as well as she knew her own was just something else that threatened to undermine her defences.

      ‘What do you want?’ She glanced at her watch as they walked out into the fading light.

      ‘I want to know why you quit your job.’

      ‘Why do you think?’ Alex raised mutinous eyes to his, remembering her old self and how much she had moved on from that place. How much she had been forced by circumstances to move on.

      ‘I have no idea. Do I still get to you that much?’

      ‘Don’t flatter yourself, Lucio! Or whatever you choose to call yourself!’ She turned on her heel and his hand shot out, catching her by her wrist.

      ‘The name is Gabriel. Use it!’

      ‘You’re hurting me!’

      Gabriel dropped her hand and she rubbed her wrist with her fingers, making a production out of nothing. He hadn’t hurt her. Far from it. That feel of his flesh against hers was like having a branding iron planted on her skin. Her whole body was on fire and trembling and tingling. Under her jumper and her fleece, she could feel her nipples tighten and begin to throb as they rasped against her lacy bra. It was an appalling reaction.

      ‘So tell me why you quit. Did you have a nostalgic yearning to return to an office where the central heating’s obviously broken and the dodgy fluorescent lighting is enough to induce seizures?’

      ‘What does it matter?’ But there was resigned weariness in her voice now and she had stopped walking.

      As if sensing the shift in atmosphere, Gabriel remained silent and stared down at her upturned face. It was nearly five and the pavements were busy with the usual trawl of workers leaving their offices and kids heading back from after-school activities. He pulled her out of the weaving crowd.

      ‘You were pretty upset the last time we met.’

      ‘Can you blame me?’

      ‘It’s been a long time.’

      And I can still get under your skin. Alex read that wryly accurate postscript to his baldly spoken statement and blushed, although she didn’t say anything, just started walking again, heading towards the bus stop.

      ‘Where are you going? I’ll drive you.’

      More silence and Gabriel clicked his tongue impatiently. Always alert to the nuances of other people’s reactions, he was picking something up now, something unspoken and unsettling. He quickly dismissed that airy-fairy notion as his imagination and instead chose to focus on the surprising fact that this woman from his past, whose image must have been floating really close to the surface of his memory banks because three seconds in her company and he could recall every detail about her, was still affected by him. Why else would she have quit her job? He had done a bit of checking, found out how much more money she had been offered for the post in his company. Walking out on it would not have been the response of someone who had relegated him to the past.

      He was only human to have felt a kick of satisfaction at that idea.

      ‘Could you give me a minute, please?’ She made a hurried phone call and then turned back to face him.

      ‘Who the hell do you keep calling?’ Gabriel demanded irritably.

      ‘Why do you ask? Is it forbidden for someone to make a phone call when they’re with you?’

      ‘I don’t remember you being so stroppy.’

      ‘There’s a café just around the corner. If you can’t talk in an office, then I can’t talk in the middle of the street.’ And talking was something they had to do except there was no way that she was going to do, that in his car. It didn’t take the intelligence of a genius to figure out which one was his. The office was located in a fairly busy side street but it was by no means a classy area. The parked cars were uniformly serviceable, except for the gleaming black top-of-the-range BMW tucked away between a scooter СКАЧАТЬ