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reason could you have for refusing a job here if it was offered to you?’
    ‘Let me see...’ She lifted a finger to her chin in exaggerated thought. ‘First, I don’t want to work in a gallery. Second, I don’t want to work in a gallery. And third, I don’t want to work in a gallery!’ Her eyes glittered determinedly.
    ‘This gallery in particular, or just any gallery?’ Gabriel questioned evenly.
    ‘Any gallery,’ Bryn answered firmly. ‘Besides, couldn’t it be considered as a little...incestuous, if I were to start working at Archangel now?’ she forestalled Gabriel D’Angelo’s next comment lightly.
    ‘Because of your inclusion in the exhibition?’
    ‘Exactly,’ she confirmed with satisfaction.
    His mouth tightened. ‘And that’s your final answer?’
    ‘It is.’
    He scowled darkly. ‘You’re very...intractable in your attitude, Miss Jones.’
    ‘I prefer to think of it as maintaining my independence, Mr D’Angelo,’ Bryn came back sharply.
    ‘Perhaps,’ he drawled as he stood up in one fluid movement, the dryness of his tone implying he thought the opposite. ‘I think we’ve said all that needs to be said for today. I have another appointment in—’ he glanced at the expensive-looking gold watch on his wrist ‘—ten minutes or so.’ He looked at her expectantly as she remained seated.
    ‘Oh. Right.’ Bryn stood up so hastily she accidentally kicked her bag across the floor, instantly scattering the contents far and wide. ‘Hells bells and blast it!’ She immediately dropped to her knees on the carpeted floor, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she began collecting up her scattered belongings, some of which were personal in the extreme, and cramming them back into her handbag.
    ‘I’ve always wondered what women kept in their handbags,’ Gabriel D’Angelo drawled in amusement.
    ‘Well, now you know!’ Bryn had paused to glare up at him, and instantly became aware of how his well over six feet of lean muscle towered over her so ominously. ‘And I would get this done a whole lot quicker if you were to help rather than just stand there grinning!’ Like an idiot, she could have added, but didn’t, because it wouldn’t have been the truth.
    The last thing Gabriel was, or looked like when he grinned in that way, was an idiot; devilishly rakish, devastatingly attractive—lazily, sensuously so—and maybe even boyishly mischievous, as that grin knocked years off his age, but he certainly didn’t look like an idiot.
    Besides which he had stopped grinning now, those chocolate-brown eyes narrowed on her in totally male assessment.
    A frown creased Gabriel’s brow as he looked down at Bryn on her hands and knees in front of him. It was a...provocative pose, to say the least. As the ever-increasing bulge in his trousers testified.
    Bryn’s cheeks were flushed, her lips slightly moist and parted and it should be illegal what those black trousers did for her heart-shaped bottom—and Gabriel’s arousal—bent over like that...!
    ‘Right,’ he rasped harshly as he crouched down beside her, his gaze averted as he gathered up the notebook and pen she had been using to make notes in earlier, as well as a small bottle of hand cream and a lip salve. ‘Hell’s bells and blast it...?’ he prompted gruffly, aware of her perfume now; nothing so anaemic as something floral for Bryn Jones, she was a mixture of spices, with an underlying hint of sensual woman.
    He saw her shrug out of the corner of his eye. ‘My mother has never approved of a woman swearing, so I learnt to improvise at an early age.’
    Gabriel only half listened to her answer as he moved down onto his knees. The smell of those spices—cinnamon, something fruity, maybe a hint of honey and that more elusive smell of sensual woman—all served to increase his awareness of the woman beside him. ‘A pot of white pepper, Bryn?’ he questioned as he held it up for inspection.
    ‘It’s cheaper than pepper spray!’