“I like the way they did the incubators and the shades … and it’s quite vast too, we can hatch a lot of batches in one go,” she commented on the preservation site at dinner.
“Good … I’m glad you liked it … I’ll take a look at it in the morning. Peter had been updating me with the hotel’s revenue since we arrived, I haven’t got around the beach yet.”
He was eating his dinner and they were speaking casually, he seemed relaxed and not in any way intimidating. She was so distracted by his light brown eyes as the dim light of the hotel reflected elegantly upon his beautiful face.
“This is a very nice hotel, I noticed the details in the interior are similar to your office and your home,” she kept them talking to hide her nervousness around him.
“I use the same contractor and designers as much as I can, they know my taste … how do you like your room?”
“It’s fabulous … I love it, I can see myself staying here for a year,” she chuckled, it was pretty extravagant even for her taste.
Gabriel smiled, “I’m glad … you know you’ll be on your own here, I’m just here to see if everything is in place, check on my properties, held a few meetings then I’ll be going back to Lancaster.”
“Of course,” she knew it was going to be the case, but something wilted inside her knowing that he wasn’t going to be there very long. “Thank you, this is very nice of you, I will keep you informed of the progress, keep everything documented.”
“You’re welcome, do inform me when you will release our first batch … I want to be here for that.”
She looked at him admiring his sincerity, he really did care about the turtles, “Sure,” she smiled.
They finished their dinner swiftly, Gabriel paid compliments to the Chef. He was always courteous and appreciative of his employees, come to think of it, he was always like that with her too. He can be commanding but never condescending, firm but never rude, and sometimes rude without being rude. She was getting to know who he was.
“Shall we continue our evening at my apartment?” he asked.
She was stunned by the question.
“I don’t like staying out of my apartment, the night’s still young, I would really like for you to join me for a nightcap.”
It sounded a lot like an invitation for sharing a bed, she hesitated and he saw it on her face. “Don’t worry, Jamie, I don’t have any more papers for you to sign,” he assured her, even though it wasn’t what she was concerned about.
He bent his arm and leaned for her to grab it. She looped her arm around it and followed his lead. She could feel eyes staring at her, everyone in the room was looking at her and probably wondered why their boss was hooking arms with this woman.
“Do you usually take your employees up to your apartment?” she wondered.
He didn’t answer right away, “No … just you, Jamie … but I don’t consider you as my employee.”
She looked at him surprised, “Really? What do you consider me as?”
He looked at her, “A friend.”
His suite was in fact an apartment, there was a fireplace by a large bookcase in the living room. The bedroom was through a door and it was closed. Once they were there, she wasn’t concerned about a probable sexual invitation anymore. He really did want to have a decent conversation with her in the living room. She refused his offer of alcoholic beverages and settled with a chamomile tea instead.
“So … what’s your plan tomorrow?” he asked.
She settled on the sofa with her tea, “Collecting eggs would be a start, I’ll need a team of people to raid the beaches for turtle nests, leave our contact details to business owners around the area to inform us if they spotted turtle eggs nests, … that’s of course if they don’t beat us to collect the eggs themselves because the locals here eats them as daily meals.”
“Sounds like a good plan … have you ever managed something like this before? I mean, actually go down and dirty with the details other than collecting donations for your campaigns?”
“Nothing as thorough as this project, usually I volunteer in sanctuaries and learn how they operate, that’s how I created my campaigns in the first place, I was in Costa Rica once and then Indonesia … They have plenty of turtle conservations there because they are homes for 6 out of 7 species of sea turtles in the world and they are highly endangered.”
“It’s good to know there are people like you who care about these things that most people ignore … I would love for you to expand your effort here or anywhere else in the world if you can pull this through,” he said as a compliment.
“Thank you … I will do my best here, I’m confident we can hatch close to a thousand eggs within the first few months, if there are plenty of nests out there maybe we can expand to another location on the island … we’ll see.”
Gabriel seemed distant after that, he was reminded by his past. “Indonesia huh? That’s where we were going when our plane crashed … My parents bought an island there … it’s a beautiful country with 17 thousand islands or thereabout … but I didn’t get the chance to go there, not after what happened,” he reminisced.
“You still remember what happened?”
He looked down, “I try not to … but sometimes it comes in bits and pieces like flashes of images and if I’m not careful I could get sucked into it and relive it all over again.”
“Wow … that was a long time ago, can you still remember it in detail?”
He rubbed his eyes, and tried to erase the images that were creeping into his mind.
“I’m sorry … let’s talk about something else, I didn’t mean to bring up bad memories … is it true that you have a photographic memory?”
He chuckled and leaned back on the sofa, “Nobody has a photographic memory, that’s a work of fiction … but I do have a very good memory, it’s not so much the images though, it’s the feelings that come with it that’s hard to control.”
“Well … try to remember the good times then, whenever you get distracted with the bad ones, you have to train your mind to recall the good ones,” she told him.
He turned to look at her, “Okay … let’s try it now … let’s see … since you’re here, I’ll try to remember things about you.”
She smiled, something about what he said gave her the shivers, “Okay … let’s see how good your memory is … what do you remember about me?”
He reached out to her and took her hand, it was sweating and she could see he hid a smile. He looked at her hand and touched the mole on the back of her left hand.
“I remember your moles … that’s how good my memory is … I remember this one and the one on the back of your left ear,” he touched them with his finger.
She didn’t even know she had one on the back of her left ear.
“And there’s one on the side of your right breast,” he paused and pressed his lips together.
She knew the mole on her right breast, he really did have an astonishing memory.
He tilted his head to catch her eyes, “And you have one deep inside your inner thigh that made you excited when I tasted you.”
It wasn’t just what he said, but the way he said it. His voice, his breath.
Her heart pounded faster. She did not expect him to say all those things to her. Her cheeks felt warm, she was sure she was blushing.
“And I remember how much I like the way you tasted.”
Their eyes locked, she was lost for words, her heart felt like it was going to jump out of her ribcage.
“Are you trying to seduce me, Gabriel?” she took the courage to ask.
His expression was unchanged, “I’m just trying your method … to bury my bad memories with a more favorable one.” He was still holding her hand.
“I think it’s time for me to go back to my room,” she held her composure with every cell in her body.
He let go of her hand, “Yes … I think so too, … I’ll walk you to your room.”
“I thought I could just go down from the elevator here?” she pointed to the private elevator door in the apartment.
“Oh … that’ll only work if you unlock the elevator in yours.”
“Oh … okay …” she stood up, she was feeling clumsy.
“I should go,” she excused herself and he insisted on walking her back to her room through the outside elevator.
He didn’t say anything else afterward, he stood too close to her in the elevator, she could feel his breath on her neck. The silence was wracking her brain.
What was he trying to do? Did he know he was arousing her senses with what he just said? And him being so close to her gave her the goosebumps. His deep soothing voice and his calmness made her all jittery inside. Her womb felt warm, he had ignited her pregnancy hormones by just explaining where her moles are. Damn it!
He was walking two steps behind her, probably studying her every gesture in silence. She was breathing faster, her palms were cold. Did he expect her to invite him into her room? No, of course not. She had to keep it together, she wasn’t sure what this man wanted from her. She reminded herself how powerful he was and that she was pregnant, and that she has no intention of telling him about it, yet.
“You didn’t really have to walk me to my room,” she broke the silence.
He had his hands in his pocket, he was so relaxed, a total opposite of her insides. “It wouldn’t be right to let you walk back to your room alone after I invited you for a drink.”
“Well, I’m here now … thank you … for everything,” she said, standing in front of her door.
He leaned on the wall, watched her use her key card to open the door. It clicked open. He looked at her not saying anything. Why does this man make her so nervous?
He took a deep breath, “You should know … the computer monitor in your room has a camera … you should cover it.”
“It records even when it’s not turned on?” she was surprised.
“Yes … the camera is always ‘on’ … you have the right to your privacy, I thought you should know,” he stood away from the wall and looked ready to leave.
She started the night feeling scared that he was going to lure her to bed and ended up wanting to invite him into her room for exactly the same reason. “Thank you for telling me that … goodnight, Gabriel,” she had to control her urges.
He curved a smile, “Goodnight, Jamie.”
He waited for her to enter and walked back to the elevator, and that’s how they ended their first night in Bhorma.