Chapter Six #3
A politely questioning look.
‘Yes?’
You’re not the same… What’s wrong…? Was it such an unpleasant shock seeing me in my pyjamas…?
‘Nothing. I’ll see you later.’
Gabriel had a quick check of the cottage before he headed over to join his mother, Jennifer and their hosts.
He emerged from the office, knowing that she’d left half an hour previously, to find that she had indeed strategically left some shoes on the floor of his bedroom and a couple of T-shirts neatly folded on the chest of drawers.
If his mother did pop in, she wouldn’t be shocked to find that they had spread their belongings out in the cottage. Why not? Why cram belongings into one wardrobe when two were available?
He doubted she would be that thorough, though.
He paused for a few seconds when he was in the bedroom Jennifer had chosen and noted that the bed looked as fresh as when they’d arrived. Unslept in. His eyes lingered, and his mind played with tantalising images of her in the undisturbed-looking bed. In those pyjamas.
He impatiently killed that thought stone dead and headed towards the main house.
It was a little after seven. The shadows were beginning to creep in.
The vast expanse of vineyards was bathed in mellow, golden hues.
The last of the sun lit up the squat cobbled stone walls that crisscrossed through the vineyards and disappeared behind the tall, imposing silhouettes of the cypress trees.
Outside the house, there were lanterns strung above the wide patio that circled the building. They swayed in the evening breeze.
The problem of his disobedient libido was still on Gabriel’s mind as he hesitated for a few seconds outside the front door, hand poised to knock.
How to deal with that?
Fighting it certainly wasn’t the way forward. The more he fought what his body was doing, the more the temptation of the forbidden beckoned. Bring things back down to Planet Normal and discomforting reactions would disappear.
He was forgetting the banal reality of their situation. She was there, pretending to be his lover for the sake of his mother’s mental and physical well-being.
It was a job. A business transaction. For which he was paying her! Even if that had been at his own insistence.
He would go in there, wholeheartedly commit to the pretence of having a relationship, and re-establish common sense. This restless, edgy, unexplained attraction would be put back in its box, never to make another appearance.
Spirits duly lifted, Gabriel knocked, was let in by one of the people he had contracted for the time they were there to help out, and was shown to the sitting room.
Jennifer heard Gabriel’s approach before he was at the door, the hairs on her arm feathering as if some sixth sense she’d never known she possessed was suddenly in play.
She instantly tensed. She was sitting with her back to the door and a glass of chianti in her hand as she chatted away with Roberto about wine production.
On the sofa opposite, Francesca and Luisa were huddled, talking like old friends. Looking at them, Jennifer could understand why she and Gabriel were doing what they were doing.
She had spent the best part of an hour with Francesca before they had joined Luisa and Roberto, and Francesca was happy.
Her cheeks were pink. Her eyes were glowing.
She wasn’t at all tired from their day out sightseeing.
It was more than just the fact that Gabriel was supposedly on the cusp of settling down with someone she loved, although that played a great part in it.
It was also being here, away from reminders of her mortality, away from a social life she had more or less abandoned, and away from all her doubts and daily anxieties.
Jennifer was sure Francesca would return to England a changed woman, so perhaps Gabriel had been right all along. Once his mum’s head was back in the right place, she would be able to deal with the disappointment of her son’s supposed happy-ever-after story hitting the buffers.
She was aware of Gabriel’s presence behind her seconds before she felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder. It rested on her in a gentle caress. Then he leaned down, and his breath was on her cheek as he dropped a light kiss on the side of her neck.
Her eyes widened. In passing, she noticed the way Francesca and Luisa were tickled pink by the caress, the way Roberto nodded approvingly. Mostly, though, she was too busy going bright red and trying to harness her scattered thoughts to do much but continue to redden.
‘Had a good day, my darling?’ he crooned.
Eventually Jennifer glanced at him, half twisting in the chair just as he straightened and pulled a chair right next to hers.
Then he shifted it a little bit more so that their knees were touching.
Glancing down, her mouth went dry at the sight of muscular thighs stretched against the fine linen of his trousers.
She hurriedly lifted her gaze to the amused curve of his mouth and then to the dark eyes, shielded by impossibly long sooty lashes.