The Notorious Gabriel Diaz

It was almost challenging to think that what he had missed first time round could now be his.

Dark, speculative eyes drifted down to the shape of Lucy’s small, high breasts, and Gabriel’s arousal was as fierce as it was sudden.

Lucy was disconcerted by that lazy appraisal in Gabriel’s roving dark eyes. It made her feel uncomfortable. She suppressed the crazy notion that buried beneath that discomfort a slow swirl of excitement was eddying in her veins, making her breasts tingle and sending a shooting, melting warmth between her legs.

‘And what do you have in mind?’

‘You. I have you in mind.’

CATHY WILLIAMS is originally from Trinidad, but has lived in England for a number of years. She currently has a house in Warwickshire, which she shares with her husband Richard, her three daughters, Charlotte, Olivia and Emma, and their pet cat, Salem. She adores writing romantic fiction, and would love one of her girls to become a writer—although at the moment she is happy enough if they do their homework and agree not to bicker with one another!

Recent titles by the same author:

A TEMPESTUOUS TEMPTATION

THE GIRL HE’D OVERLOOKED THE TRUTH BEHIND HIS TOUCH THE SECRET SINCLAIR

Did you know these are also available as eBooks?

Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

‘WHAT DO YOU mean? Explain again. I’m not getting it.’ Lucy Robins looked between her parents, buying time while her brain tried to catch up with what she had just been told. Running round and round at her feet, Freddy, the pug she had adopted three years ago, now made a stab at grabbing her attention by flipping over on his back and playing dead.

‘Not now, Freddy!’ she said, patting her lap. With that small show of encouragement, the brown and black dog scrambled onto her lap and proceeded to gaze adoringly up at her.

The second Lucy had got her mother’s phone call she had known something was wrong. Celia Robins never called her daughter at work, even though Lucy had repeatedly told her that it really didn’t matter—that it wasn’t as though she worked in an office where there was a big, bad boss keeping a watchful eye over employees and punishing anyone caught using their mobile.

The huge garden centre, set within the grounds of botanical gardens, which drew visitors from the across the country, was the most relaxed of environments. There, Lucy was part-gardener, helping with the landscaping team, and part-artist, using her newly gained degree in graphic art to draw exquisite detailed illustrations of flowers for a comprehensive book of the flora and fauna at the centre.

Her mother’s call had come just as she had been about to start replanting a batch of delicate orchids that had been meticulously cared for since their arrival at the centre six months previously. She had heard the words, ‘Honey, could you possibly come home? There’s something of an emergency…’ and had flown to her car, pausing only to tell Victor where she was going and to scoop up Freddy, who was allowed free rein in the outdoor space.

Now she stared in dismay at her father’s drooping figure. ‘What do you mean you’re in trouble with the company finances?’

Nicholas Robins, as small and round as his wife was tall and slender, raised apologetic eyes to his daughter. ‘I borrowed some money a few years ago, Luce. Not much. When your mother had her stroke…things just got a little crazy… I thought we were going to lose her… I wanted to give her her dream of a cruise… I wasn’t thinking rationally…’

On her lap, Freddy had nodded off and was snoring. Lucy stroked his fat tummy. Her skin was clammy. When her father had announced that he and her mother were going on a cruise—a lifetime dream, a wonderful opportunity that might be their last—he had told her he had received an unexpected bonus at work. The company had just been taken over by an electronics giant and Lucy had believed him—had been over the moon at his unexpected good luck.

‘When she recovered—’ her father’s voice was laboured, heavy ‘—I wanted to take her somewhere special. I thought if I borrowed a little bit more I could repay it before it was missed. I can’t believe I was that stupid.’

Lucy glanced worriedly towards her mother. Celia Robins was a frail woman who would be unable to cope with the distressing catastrophe unfolding in front of her. The stroke she had suffered had sapped her of her energy, and both Lucy and her father lived in constant fear that she would suffer another.

‘I didn’t think that anything would change after GGD took us over,’ her father continued in a shaking voice. ‘Before the takeover, I was the only bookkeeper there. They brought in a team of financial whiz kids. I managed to keep things under wraps for as long as I could, and I’d started repaying the money, but this morning I was called in and told they had found some discrepancies and that it might be an idea if I took a little leave until it gets sorted out….’

Appalled, Lucy didn’t know what to say. Her father was by no means a crook, and yet she knew with a sinking heart that no lawyer in the land would see it that way. He had helped himself to company funds and that was where the story would end. There would be no room for sob stories or excuses. That wasn’t how big organisations operated. Especially that would not be how GGD would operate.