Chapter Five
Gabriel had planned on staying three nights this trip. After that moment in his kitchen, he had his concerns about such a long stay.
Perhaps he should cut it short, just as he’d cut short helping her with kitchen cleanup. He’d leave in the morning with an excuse he’d gotten called away on business.
Cowardly. He was currently lying in a bed an entire length of the house away from where she would be lying in her own bed, arguing with himself over which was worse—a cowardly escape or an impossible temptation.
Would she be thinking of him as he thought of her?
She looked beautiful in candlelight. She looked beautiful in all lights. Her interest or curiosity or, he supposed, both wasn’t lost on him. And in every under-the-lashes or sideway glance was a potential land mine.
He was not immune—could not seem to find the reserves to be immune. Not to Evelyne.
The straight-on look over dishes this evening was more than any land mine. He had seen stark invitation in her eyes, and he wanted to accept. The claws of need had insisted upon it.
Only a strength born of learning of his own potential to destroy gave him the strength to rip those claws out.
He had learned that anything deeper than superficial interest could lead him to the depths of violence and loss of control.
Something he could never afford again, especially around someone who had already suffered violence.
He could not touch Evelyne. The obsession would become untenable. It was already too much. He thought of her constantly when he was away. He found every new layer he discovered about her fascinating. Every time he planned his clandestine returns, he was filled with brand-new energy. Anticipation.
He wanted to see her smile, to hear her laugh, to inhale the subtle floral scent that followed her around every room. He wanted. Period. A want that had gotten too large in his mind.
He took some solace in the fact that his obsession with Evelyne hadn’t affected his work, but it had affected his social life.
He had not enjoyed going out since he’d brought her here.
Had not been with a woman since he’d gone to Alexandre’s wedding.
All the surfaces he’d skated across no longer held any distraction for him.
Pathetic. He needed to fix that before he made a larger mistake. Here. With her.
He had known she had spine and strength—to come out of a childhood raised by King Enzo and retain any sparkle took an immense capacity for both. And yes, she had Alex to cushion some of her blows, but not all.
But for some years he had kept his distance because he knew that the combination of her was a temptation not just in terms of sex—but in terms of this, the dangerous claws of obsessive want.
She was beautiful and alluring, but beyond that she was complex, intriguing, intelligent, with some added extra dash of something he could only describe as fun.
He got out of bed, frustrated that over ten years of learning how to be a different man seemed to crumble in the face of one woman.
There were threats against her, and he would save her from all of them. Protect her from anything that might touch her.
And he knew that in the depths of this obsession, it could lead him to kill. That was inside him. No better than King Enzo, really, except he knew he had to control it.
The room had French doors that led out to a balcony that looked out over the sea, so he opened them and stepped out.
The cold, whipping air and the salty tang of sea hit him like a blow—a welcome one tonight. The little tempest that raged out there felt like solace against his bare skin.
He understood her loneliness. There was something exhilarating and wonderful about the thrashing sea below, but it served as a reminder to him how different her new life was.
How he’d plopped her here, yes, to save her, but alone with no one to talk to and with nothing to do but learn how to haunt a house.
She was too skinny. Too…fragile seeming yet. She wouldn’t crumble, she had too much spine for that, but she wasn’t thriving. He told himself that wanting her to thrive was for Alex and Alex alone, but he knew better.
The thought of her being punished for eating too much—in a palace—boiled his blood. Knowing some of the details of the way King Enzo had abused her—and he had no doubt that only scratched the surface—enraged him.
He had once been enraged on behalf of a woman. And his obsession had led him to a violent outburst that would have resulted in another man’s death. Would have, if not for Alexandre.
All these years later, that fire still burned within him—twined with the relief he had been saved from the dangerous poison that had held him in its grip.
He had never allowed himself to dance near that flame again. He skated along, not letting himself get hooked into all that could devolve into the desire to destroy.
But he didn’t have a choice now. He’d been named Evelyne’s savior, her protector. Just like he’d once named himself a young woman’s protector.
He could not sink into those old depths of disaster, but he had yet to figure out a way to extricate himself from this, the flame of all Evelyne was.
You don’t want to.
He’d seen desire in her eyes, the heat of chemistry. He’d felt it echo through him, a bit like a bomb detonating. Just as he’d known might happen. Would happen.
He had learned how to handle his…appetites, desires.
It was easy now, to keep the personal out of any sexual encounter.
Enjoy it for what it was. Enjoy had become the cornerstone of his life.
A surface level amusement with everything.
Nothing mattered enough to obsess over. Nothing mattered enough to fan the fire of vengeance that lived in him—a seed of disaster always searching for a little bit of water and sun.
Nothing could be surface with Evelyne. Everything about her was personal. Deeper. A constant, dangerous pitfall. Because he remembered all the times she’d attempted to flirt with him in the past.
All the times he’d been tempted to fall for her alluring smiles and sparkling wit. He’d known then, even as a young man, to keep his distance from Alex’s enticing sister.
She would be a vine that grew and choked out all reason and restraint.
He knew this, deep in his bones.
He breathed in the cold air, hoping it would somehow cool him. But he stood, shirtless and vibrating, heated all the way through.
He heard a noise somewhere underneath the roar of surf and wind. A kind of squeak. He looked toward where he thought it might have come from.
And then there she was, illuminated in a warm cast of light. As though his traitorous thoughts had conjured her, there on the terrace down the way. It was not her room she stepped out of. He did not know what room housed those terrace doors, but not her bedroom, even though she was dressed for bed.
Because she was far closer than a full house-length away.
She wore a robe, but it was open, revealing a brief, silky nightgown. The breeze fluttered over the fabrics.
He knew it was silk because he’d had to handle procuring her wardrobe himself. He’d handled every inch of her life these past few months himself. Because no one but him could know she was here.
And he liked it. He had been avoiding accepting that realization, but he could not push it away in this moment.
He liked being her only point of contact. He liked being her savior, and he damn well liked the way she looked at him.
Even when he shouldn’t. What did that make him? No better than the controlling, abusive men in her life thus far. She deserved better than that, but he did not know how to give it to her.
He saw her mouth move but could not hear what she said over the sound of ocean and wind and storm. When he shook his head in signal he could not hear her, she held up a finger, then disappeared.
The storm outside echoed in him. It was not a good-night gesture. It was a hold on gesture.
And he had nothing to hold on to when he heard the door behind him open. He turned slowly to watch her enter his bedroom. She moved through the room, her robe still open, the nightgown brief and flirting with her golden thighs. Her feet were bare, her hair down and wild around her shoulders.
She looked more nymph or siren or something from some old painting. Dangerous, seductive, a cautionary tale. He knew all the cautions, wanted to heed them, and yet…
“What are you doing up?” she asked conversationally as she went to stand next to him on the balcony.
Her robe was still undone, and the nightgown she wore dipped low, offering a tantalizing glimpse at the perfection of the tops of her breasts. She would be soft, fragrant and responsive, because while he didn’t think she was here for seduction alone, she knew what she was doing.
What she was after.
He forced himself to look away from the sweet, golden temptation of her skin and stared out at the ocean, focusing on her words, not her intent. What was he doing up? Wondering how he’d gotten himself into this mess where she became the sole center of all his thoughts, wants, desires.
Like he was eighteen years old. Obsessed, and righteous with it. A woman’s sole protector from those who would hurt her. It should be noble, until a man used it as an excuse to hurt. To be violent himself. To follow that violence to its natural conclusion.
As Gabriel once had, to almost disastrous results.
But he could not verbalize this to Evelyne.
She sighed, an awed, satisfied kind of sound.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” she murmured, leaning against the railing.
“I never knew how much I would love living next to the ocean, especially since it’s hardly some tropical paradise, but it’s better somehow than sun and blue.
It’s moody. Brooding. I think I even enjoy the cold.
” She smiled up at him, a goddess among mortals. “You made an excellent choice.”