The Secret Spanish Love-Child - By Cathy Williams Page 0,57

poured them both a glass, while she set the plates on the table in silence, thinking about phase two of what she needed to say.

‘Okay,’ Alex cleared her throat and gazed down at the food, which looked unappetising, despite the no expense spared approach to food shopping Gabriel had clearly taken. She sipped some of the wine, which was delicious. ‘There are just a few ground rules I think we need to get straight before we go ahead with this…um…plan…’

Gabriel frowned. He didn’t care for the word plan, even though he would have been the first to admit that marriage as a sensible merger had always been his way forward. He had become engaged to Cristobel because it had made sense at the time, and he had proposed to Alex because of the situation in which he had found himself. He was programmed into the ways of tradition. It would have been unthinkable to have continued his relationship with Cristobel, given the circumstances. On every front, he would readily have admitted that marrying Alex was the most logical, indeed inevitable, course of action. But, somehow, he didn’t like to think that she was beginning to see it his way. It was a thought that confused him.

‘Ground rules? What ground rules? We’re not planning a military campaign.’

‘I used to think that marriage was all about romance but now I realise that it’s all about a sensible outcome. I realised that in Spain when I saw how happy Luke was, having both parents on tap. He’s only young now, but that will become more and more important the older he gets. I never thought I’d agree with you when you first asked me to marry you because it made sense. I couldn’t think of marriage to anyone in terms of a balance sheet but…’ she shrugged and looked away ‘…you were right and I was wrong.’

Gabriel wondered how it was that being right sounded so pointless. Hadn’t he got what he had wanted? Yes, he had! He focused on that and shook off his feelings of dissatisfaction.

This didn’t seem to be the right conclusion to good news. Shouldn’t they be making love right about now?

‘What,’ Alex asked with genuine curiosity, ‘turned you off the concept of marrying for love? I mean, your parents are so happy and so in love with one another…’

‘…That it should have washed off on me somehow?’ Gabriel flushed darkly. He had always felt the weight of expectation on his shoulders. That he would fall madly in love, get married and live in perfect bliss with a litter of kids until the day he died. ‘I left home at sixteen to board and then university here and, except for a few breaks in between…’ one of them being the very break that had landed him in this situation ‘…I was destined to carry the weight of my father’s legacy on my shoulders. At the time, it was going through some financial troubles. Appalling management in some of its branches. Trouble with unions in other parts. I buried myself deep in my work. There was a lot to do and I was surrounded by other people who were similarly committed to long hours and one hundred per cent dedicated service to the various companies. You’d be surprised how many marriages fall by the wayside when there’s no husband in evidence for little Johnny’s prizegiving. You can say that that was more of a learning curve for me than my parents’ blissful contentment.’

‘That’s terrible,’ Alex murmured, truly shocked. ‘What’s the point in working twenty-four hours a day when you haven’t got the time to enjoy the fruits of your labours?’

‘Spare me the philosophizing.’ Gabriel shifted uncomfortably and shot her a veiled, brooding look because he had heard that refrain a thousand times from his mother until she had eventually given up.

‘So what’s the point in getting married if you’re never going to be around for Luke anyway?’

‘Look, shall we go and discuss this somewhere a little more comfortable? These chairs aren’t meant for a guy as big as me.’

Which had the immediate effect of distracting Alex in midflow as her gaze travelled over him, taking in his drop dead good looks and the spread of his muscular thighs on the small chair.

When she raised her flustered eyes to him, he was grinning at her. ‘So,’ he drawled, ‘where does the good sex feature in this business deal you’ve agreed to?’

‘I…I know what you’re trying to do…’ Alex licked her lips