Pleasing Mr Sloan [18+]

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 11 

"Gabrielle calm down, what happened?" Mr Sloan asked as found her pacing in the hall. She looked like she was going to explode again and grabbed hold of her arm. Leading her to his study, he ground his jaw at her protests. Releasing her as soon as they stepped inside, she yanked her arm away.

"How dare you?" she spouted angrily to which he ignored, closing the door firmly behind them.

Trying to keep calm proved difficult and he distanced himself from her to stare out the window instead. Whatever had happened would no doubt be frivolous in comparison to what his Candice had suffered today. But he needed to placate her, convince her that Candice would be staying. He wouldn't turn Candice away but life would be a hell of a lot easier if Gabrielle was not so volatile. Taking a deep breath, he asked again which only seemed to rile her more.

"The little brat deliberately made me look bad. He deliberately wanted to upset me!" Gabrielle's pitch heightened and he winced as it went supersonic.

He tried to ask again what happened but Gabrielle could barely focus, as usual it was all about her. How he ever found her attractive was so far lost he would never remember. Nor did he want to. Instead, he tried a different track.

"Where did you go this afternoon?" he asked, hands gripping the wood of his desk tightly to help stay calm.

"The club," she said in exasperation, throwing her hands up into the air. "He should have been grateful. I got one of the greatest tennis pro's in the country to give him a lesson and he couldn't even return one single shot! He was deliberately missing them!" she screeched.

"Ah," so that's what happened, finally, he thought. Rubbing his temples, he squeezed his eyes shut as she continued to rant about how he made her look bad. And how Theo had finally ran off and refused to come back.

"Gabrielle, he's never planned tennis before," he interrupted gently when he'd more than had enough.

For once, Gabrielle's mouth stalled in her rant as she looked at him confused. It shouldn't surprise him, but her lack of interest was outstanding. Theo wasn't particularly great with hand-eye coordination and tennis had been the last thing he had wanted to do.

"I'm sure he has," Gabrielle started but persisted when Mr Sloan just shook his head. "Even if he hadn't, he should have been better, he wasn't even trying. His behaviour was completely unacceptable. He has no respect for me," Gabrielle said glowering.

Sloan was too tired to argue about this today. She wouldn't change. No matter what he said all he would do was make her more irate. Theo wouldn't benefit from that. He wouldn't benefit from that. And Candice wouldn't benefit from that.

"I'll have a chat with him," Mr Sloan muttered.

Her mouth snapped shut, surprised that he didn't even argue with her. The steam slowly seemed to fizzle out of her and she crossed her arms across her body. "Fine," she muttered reluctantly.

She twisted on her heels, but paused as he called out to her. "Wait, one more thing."

She turned back to face him and he licked his lips, thinking of a way to make this beneficial to Gabirielle. He had to word this right. Enforced marriage counselling came in handy for something at least. "I acknowledge that you are finding Theo's behaviour difficult of late." He started and he held back a smile as she nodded in the affirmative. He seemed to be on the right track. "And that you wanted some help with cleaning and cooking." She nodded again and uncrossed her arms, seemingly excited that finally he seemed to be relenting. "I have a solution."