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Rhiannon nodded jerkily. ‘Not too small.’
His look was mildly questioning, and she said, ‘I like a bit of room to move, don’t you?’ He was a big man; surely he’d want to be able to stretch those long legs.
‘I know what you mean,’ he conceded easily. ‘Those cubbyholes where two pairs of knees won’t fit under the table and you have to take care not to accidentally bump your neighbour with your elbow aren’t very comfortable.’
They walked side by side, Gabriel with one hand in his pocket, pushing back the edge of his jacket, the other swinging loosely at his side. Tonight his suit was dark, and he had no tie. The opened collar of his shirt showed a glimpse of lightly tanned skin.
A young couple heading in the opposite direction, arms about each other and oblivious to other pedestrians, almost ran into Rhiannon. Gabriel’s firm touch on her waist steered her out of the way, then he dropped his hand.
After turning at the next corner, he paused at a lighted doorway. ‘How does this look?’
Through the glass doors Rhiannon saw a spacious room with people at cloth-covered tables under glittering but muted chandeliers.
‘Expensive,’ she said.
He laughed and pushed open one of the doors. ‘I can stand it. Will it do?’
‘Yes,’ Rhiannon agreed hastily and stepped inside.
They were ushered to a table and Gabriel asked, ‘Would you like a real drink?’
She shook her head. ‘Just coffee, thanks. I’ll be driving later.’ Besides, she wasn’t sure she could cope with drinking and this man as well.
‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yes.’ She’d had a take-away salad earlier in the evening, bolting it down between customers.
‘What about a dessert? I could do with one myself.’ He asked the waitress for dessert menus, and looked over the top of his at Rhiannon. ‘I can recommend the chocolate-cherry gateau, but the crème brûlée is good too if you want something lighter.’
She hadn’t been sure she wanted anything at all but, glancing the menu, she found her mouth watering.
‘Do you come here regularly?’ That was a safe topic.
‘Now and then. It’s handy to my office and the service is usually quick.’
Which implied that he didn’t often have time to spare—or didn’t like wasting it. Well, she didn’t suppose he’d got where he was by sitting around eating desserts and drinking coffee. ‘I’ll try the crème brûlée,’ she decided.
Gabriel opted for the gateau, and ordered their coffee. Then he laid his arms on the table and said, ‘Tell me about yourself.’
Rhiannon looked down and untwined the hands tightly wrapped about each other in her lap. ‘The gallery is my bread and butter, and I do mosaics when I have the time.’
‘Do you take commissions?’
‘Sometimes. Mostly I do my artwork at home and sell from the gallery.’
‘Where would that be…your home?’
She shot a wary glance at him. ‘Mount Albert.’
Gabriel leaned back in his chair. ‘So, are you an Aucklander born and bred?’
It sounded like an idle question, mere chitchat. Rhiannon shook her head. ‘I was born and bred in Pukekohe.’
‘A country girl?’ he quizzed.
‘Not really. We weren’t into market gardening.’ That was what the rich red volcanic soil in the area was known for. Making an effort to relax, she added, ‘My father had an electrical service business.’
‘Had?’
She waited a moment. ‘He’s in a nursing home now. He was involved in a motorway accident, along with my mother.’
‘And your mother?’ Gabriel asked quietly, his eyes darkening in sympathy.
‘She died. My father has some brain damage. He needs twenty-four hour care.’ A familiar sadness touched her, for the man her father had once been.
‘That must be difficult for you, as well as for him.’ Gabriel paused, searching her face. ‘When did it happen?’
‘Nearly six years ago.’ She looked down at the tablecloth, and it blurred before her eyes. ‘I’ve had time to get over it.’ If a person ever did get over these things.
He laid one arm on the table, forefinger idly tracing a circle on the cloth before he looked up again. ‘Did you have family to help?’
‘My grandmother.’ Without her, Rhiannon didn’t know how she would have survived that horrible year. ‘She was wonderful.’
‘I’m glad. You were very young to be bereaved like that. Do you have brothers or sisters?’
Rhiannon shook her head. ‘Do you…?’
‘A younger brother who works for me, heading the Australian office, and a sister in the States. My parents are divorced but they both live in New Zealand with new partners.’
It was common enough and he didn’t sound particularly traumatised. ‘How old were you?’ she asked.
‘Ten.’
At ten he would have been vulnerable. She wondered how long it had taken him to get over his parents’ split.
‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’m thirty-two.’
Carefully she offered, ‘I’m twenty-three.’
He made a rueful face. ‘I was hoping you were older.’
She should laugh, but instead she looked away again, fiddling with a spoon on the table. ‘I feel older.’
‘Why is that?’
Studying the distorted reflection of the room, she answered, ‘I’ve been running a business since I was in my teens.’
‘Early ambition?’
‘Not really.’ Seeing he was waiting for more, she explained. ‘After the accident and…and my mother’s death, my grandmother decided to retire from her business and put me in charge.’ It had meant giving up her university studies, and sometimes she regretted that, but the offer had been a lifeline. She’d been too traumatised to concentrate on study and exams, and since her father couldn’t work and she’d used the money from the sale of his business to care for his needs, she’d had to earn a living.
‘Your grandmother ran a gallery?’ Gabriel guessed.
‘A suburban handcraft shop in Onehunga. Needlework, ceramics, a few paintings and carvings. I sold my first mosaics there after I took it over. The gallery evolved over time, and people began coming to it from all over the city.’ Rhiannon halted to steady her voice, replacing the spoon on the tablecloth. ‘I inherited the business when my grandmother died.’
Gabriel cast her a quick glance. ‘When?’
‘Almost three years ago.’ The cancer that killed her had been mercifully quick, but her death had left a huge hole in Rhiannon’s life.
‘Tough,’ he commented. Perhaps guessing she didn’t want to talk about that, he said, ‘Opening in High Street’s a bold move.’
‘It’s a risk, but I did my homework. I’m ready to move on.’
He gave her a thoughtful look. ‘You’re not given to taking risks lightly, are you?’ he said slowly.
How could he know, on such a brief acquaintance? Her neck stiffened warningly. ‘I like to know where I’m going.’
‘Sometimes it’s fun to take a step in the dark. You never know what it might lead to.’
His eyes had turned silver again, in the light from a chandelier overhead. They held hers for a long moment.
The waitress brought their desserts, and the moment broke. Rhiannon picked up her spoon, turning her attention to the dish before her.
After her first mouthful Gabriel asked, ‘How is it?’
She forced herself to look at him, finding nothing but polite inquiry in his eyes. ‘Very nice. Wonderful.’
He watched her take the next spoonful, then dug his own spoon into his gateau, asking, ‘You don’t have any trouble with the arm?’
‘It was only a bruise.’
Deceptively casual, he said, ‘Do you want to tell me why you were so frightened?’
Her hand tightened on the spoon. An unseen tremor passed through her. Without looking at him, after taking a breath to school her voice to an even tone, she said, ‘You startled me, that’s all.’
Steadily she went on eating.
After a few mouthfuls, steering him away from her life story, she asked, ‘How did you start in the air-freight business?’
He cast her a keen look but said, ‘I fell into it more or less by accident. I was working at the airport in the customs department, and when a freight firm was threatened with receivership it seemed a good chance to buy in and see if I could make a go of it.’
‘You had the money for it?’
‘The bank was good to me.’ He grinned. ‘Though I had to convince them I could turn the business around and make it a paying proposition.’
‘You must have been very persuasive.’
He had his coffee cup in his hand, looking at her over the rim. ‘I can be very persuasive when I want to be.’
The disconcerting glint that sometimes lurked in his eyes was there again. She had to make an effort not to look away.
‘And,’ he said, ‘my grandfather, bless him, offered to guarantee me for a loan.’
So he’d had a fond grandparent, too. Maybe that had helped when his parents split up.
Forking up a piece of gateau, Gabriel considered it. ‘The old guy’s gone now. He had a big globe on a brass stand in his living room, and I remember him explaining to me the concept of travelling around the world from one place to another until you arrived back where you started.’
‘How old were you then?’
Gabriel swallowed the morsel of gateau. ‘About five, I think. Ever since, a globe has reminded me of him. Maybe that’s why the idea of buying the air-freight company appealed.’
He lifted his cup to his lips. Her gaze slipped to his throat, caught by the movement under his skin. She watched with fascination until he lowered the cup and she hastily turned her attention to her plate. ‘It can’t have been easy when you started,’ she commented.
‘It was a challenge.’ He launched into a brief description of his career—the rocky beginning, the setbacks on the way, the eventual success—and she found herself caught up in his obvious enthusiasm.
Then he paused. ‘I guess that’s more than you ever wanted to know.’
‘No. It’s exciting.’
‘Is that what excites you? Talking business?’ His brows rose and his lips curved.
Rhiannon floundered. The innuendo was subtle and his eyes held laughter, but a flush rose from her throat and stung her cheeks.
Taking pity, he said, ‘I’d call downhill skiing exciting, parachuting, hang-gliding…and a few other things.’ For a moment a wicked gleam lit his eyes. ‘But biz talk?’ He shook his head. ‘You haven’t lived, baby.’
Rhiannon seized on the final word. ‘I’m not a baby!’
‘I’m nine years older than you,’ he reminded her.
‘Yes, Grandad.’
The gleam this time was retributive. ‘And I’m not your grandad.’
Rhiannon gulped down a mouthful of hot coffee. He didn’t look like anyone’s grandad. ‘Have you done those things? I mean…downhill skiing, hang-gliding…?’
‘And the rest?’ A crease appeared in his cheek. He was trying not to laugh. Held by that shimmering gaze with its veiled, provocative challenge, Rhiannon was suddenly breathless.
But not frightened.
Gabriel didn’t press her, to her great relief. This was too new a sensation to be taken at speed. He said nothing more until he’d demolished his gateau, then he sat back as she finished off her dish. ‘What did you do with those tiles?’
She told him about the church commission, answering his questions regarding tools and techniques. When she mentioned using tiles from demolition sites, he said, ‘The building next door to mine is being pulled down.’
‘Oh?’ She hadn’t been near there recently.
‘Maybe you should have a look.’ Pushing away his empty cup, he asked, ‘Do you want another?’
Rhiannon declined, not wanting any more coffee but curiously reluctant to move. She was, she realised dazedly, enjoying herself.
