‘I could think about it...’
He tucked her neatly against him and stroked her cheek with his finger. Izzy felt a surge of pure bliss.
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Gabriel murmured huskily. ‘Why not?’
‘Well...this charade has a timeline, remember? Two weeks. We’re well into week one. Max and Mia won’t be getting married for another month.’
‘There are exceptions to everything,’ Gabriel returned silkily. ‘Timelines included. I’m enjoying this—I’m enjoyingyou—so why should I limit myself to a two-week curfew?’
Izzy snuggled against him, heart soaring. That small victory felt huge. Life had become a rollercoaster ride and right now she was at the height of the arc, swooping into the heavens and loving the euphoria.
Soon after, they tidied themselves up and headed back into the house. The catering staff would clear up behind them. The tiny desserts hadn’t been touched, but she’d been too distracted to remember them.
It had been the perfect evening.
She hadn’t been expecting it and the mere fact that he had done something so wildly impulsive had appealed to her romantic heart in ways she could scarcely vocalise, even to herself. It was all the more impressive because it was the sort of thing she would never have associated with him. He was so coolly logical, so fond of keeping his emotional distance... The gesture had felt strangely significant, even though she fought hard to bank down that impression.
And now...he’d agreed to attend Max and Mia’s wedding with her. For someone who was resolutely proud of his inability to love, surely a wedding should be the last event he would agree to attend?
But they would be together, still an item, no more time limit on their relationship. That elevated it from being abusiness arrangement, which had felt so strange, to something entirely different and she couldn’t help but want to savour the difference.
Was she being an idiot? Probably, she mused happily, but since when was it a crime to be an idiot?
They hit the house and both went up to check on Rosa, with Izzy hanging back by the door, half-watching him as he leant down to kiss his daughter and gently pull the covers back over her, half-thinking about how everything had changed for her in such a short space of time.
She waited for him, hovering, kissed him once he’d half-shut Rosa’s door and then turned away to head back to her own bedroom suite.
‘The night’s not over yet.’ He tugged her to him, hooked his arm behind her back and kissed her long and deeply, his tongue meshing with hers and instantly making her body forget that they had only just made love, that she should be sated and ready to sleep.
They made it to his bedroom, semi-entwined, and were already stripping off as the door shut behind them. He pressed her against the door, pinning her with his mouth and his hands, his knee nudging between her legs, opening them, pressing against her crotch until she was whimpering and as weak as a rag doll.
The wispy summer dress, only just back on, was stripped off in under a minute and she wrenched off her panties as he did the same with his clothes.
Neither had bothered to switch on the light but the bank of white floor-to-ceiling shutters were open and the breeze sifting through was cool.
They staggered naked, wrapped up in one another, barely making progress until he hefted her off her feet and strode towards the bed.
She was halfway to coming and so was he when he entered her in one deep, powerful thrust. She felt his release just as hers swept her away, wrenching a long, guttural cry from her lips and leaving her utterly and wonderfully shattered afterwards.
The fierceness of this love-making...the decadent night time picnic under a starry sky...his husky admission that he no more wanted this to end than she did...was all adding up to something that felt very much like love. For a few perilous seconds, she gave herself over to imagining what it would feel like for this relationship to veer off on a tangent he might not anticipate into a world for which he had no road map.
Lazily, she felt herself dozing off, but not for long, because he ran her a bath and it was another forty minutes before she yawned and sleepily kissed him on the mouth.
‘Don’t go.’ Standing by the door, he buried his face in her hair. Her arms were wrapped round him. He pulled back and looked down at her, and in the shadows his face was an arrangement of beautiful angles. ‘Stay the night...’
Later, Izzy was to think that habit was the enemy of caution. That first night together heralded the beginning of nights spent together.
A routine was established. Gabriel reluctantly returned to his work, having spent several days doing all manner of family-orientated activities. The three of them would breakfast together, usually outside, and then he would disappear, leaving Rosa and her to busy themselves, which they very happily did. They explored the vineyards, went on day trips and shopped in the small, pretty town.
They often went to visit Evelyn, who had a renewed bounce to her step now that the hangman’s noose had been removed from around her neck. Often, she and Rosa would lose themselves in planting something or other, with Evelyn meticulously explaining everything about whatever plant they happened to be handling. Izzy would sit in one of the deck chairs in Evelyn’s back garden, her thoughts at last turning to the job she had left behind.
She would have to go back but she wanted to know that the parameters of her role had changed. No longer would she be dealing with the business side of things, the very side she was so qualified to deal with, given her degree. Max had emailed her suggestions as to what her responsibilities might be, and she had tweaked a few areas, but was pleased to know that the creativity that had lain buried for so many years would be allowed free rein.
She would design the layout of the hotel and the cottages which would be nestled amongst the trees. She would be responsible for sourcing everything that went into making them unique, from wall hangings to artists who could produce the murals and furniture made from the various local woods she envisaged for some of the spaces. With the hotel no longer to be luxury five-star but luxury eco, she envisaged a completely different bias to her job, one she was very much looking forward to bringing to fruition.
And how would Gabriel slot in?
