Chapter 19
Nineteen
CALLIE
By the time I’d gotten home after the class, my phone was practically on fire with missed calls and texts from Lewis. Obviously, Eilidh had given him my number. I immediately blocked him. Then Eilidh tried calling. When I didn’t answer, she’d texted:
What’s going on? Lewis says you’re mad at him for some reason.
I’d texted back I didn’t want to talk about it, and not because I was being huffy or melodramatic. But because I was done, and I had no more energy or headspace to deal with my ex. I wished he’d stayed the hell in London.
As the bakery was closed the next day, I got up to have breakfast with my parents and Harry before Dad left for work and Harry for school.
“Are you okay?” Dad asked. I could feel his penetrating stare as I sat down at the table with a cup of coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs he’d cooked for us all.
“Fine.” I shrugged. “Actually, I’m going to call Arro about the cottage. I was hoping I could move in there as quickly as possible.”
“You’re leaving?” Harry’s spoon fell into his bowl of cereal.
Surprised by the dismayed expression on his face, I nodded. “It’s about time I had my own place, don’t you think?”
My wee brother swallowed, glancing nervously from Mum to Dad and then back to me. “You’re not going because I was a dick to you?”
“Harry,” Mum scolded. “Language, please.”
He grimaced but repeated with some modification, “You’re not going because I was mean to you?”
“No, of course not,” I semi-lied.
Harry seemed to sense the lie because he stared guiltily at his bowl. “I am sorry.”
“Harry, I know that.”
Still not looking at us, he continued, “I, uh, I googled it. There are a lot of newspaper articles about what Mum’s stepmum tried to do and about your real dad and stuff.”
Shifting uncomfortably, I tried to unclench my fist from around my fork.
Never, not once, had I been inclined to google it.
Mum’s stepmum hiring Nathan Andros to kill Mum for her inheritance wasn’t ordinary news.
Especially because my maternal grandfather had been a wealthy attorney to Hollywood stars.
The trauma we’d experienced was played out as entertainment in the news, and I remembered the paparazzi arriving in Ardnoch to hound us.
Thankfully, the furor around the family drama had died down. It flared up again a year or so later when Mum’s stepmum’s and Nathan’s trials started. They were both sentenced to life in prison, the former for conspiracy to commit murder, the latter for kidnap, assault, and attempted murder.
Once all that circus died down, I’d never wanted to deal with it again. I hadn’t googled it ever. In fact, I liked to imagine that our story didn’t exist for strangers to read.
Harry reminded me that it was out there. Anyone who was anyone could read my story. One saving grace was that most of the articles had our names as Sloane and Callie Harrow. Anyone who’d entered our lives in the last fourteen years wouldn’t think to google that name.
Harry finally looked up, and tears gleamed in his eyes. “The articles on the trial talked about what he did to you and Mum.”
“What happened to the parental controls?” Mum asked Dad.
He grimaced. “They’re not set for stuff like that.”
“It’s fine. I can handle it.” Harry jutted his chin defiantly. “And now I know how bad I messed up. Okay? I shouldn’t have said what I said. I shouldn’t have taken what Greg and Axel were doing to me out on you. I’m sorry.”
I knew how much it must have taken for him to say that. Reaching across the table, I smoothed a hand down his arm. “Harry, I really appreciate that. And I forgive you.”
“So you’ll stay?”
I gave him an affectionate smile. “I’m twenty-five, kiddo. I really do need a place of my own. But I’ll still be around all the time. So much, you’ll be sick of me.”
Before Harry could respond to that, our doorbell rang.
Dad excused himself, saying he’d get it.
“It was nice of Arro to offer,” Mum said.
I nodded. “Can you imagine me back at the cottage? Full circle, eh?”
Mum smiled, a lingering sadness in it. “Without me, though.”
“Mum.”
“I’m sorry. I know it’s time for you to get your own place. You were in Paris for three years alone, for goodness’ sake. It’s just … strange that you’ll be here but not here.”
“Does that mean I can have your room?” Harry suddenly inquired, head cocked in thought. “It is bigger than mine.”
Laughing, I replied, “You got over me moving out quickly enough.”
“Wee yin …”
Turning in my chair toward Dad, I froze in shock at the person who stood beside him in our living room.
“Gabriel?”
It was so weird seeing Gabriel in my childhood bedroom.
Gabriel may have been shorter than some men who shall remain nameless, but he had a magnetism that made him seem larger than life.
He was very masculine in my girlish room.
It was still decorated in the pink wallpaper I’d chosen as a teen.
Gabriel rested his arms behind him on my bed, seeming at ease as he took in his surroundings.
Handsome as hell, with light brown hair, sea-green eyes, a cut jawline, and a brooding mouth, it stunned me that at that moment, he didn’t do anything for me.
We’d had great sex and I’d found him attractive (obviously), but I realized that I was completely shut down when it came to the opposite sex. I didn’t want to contemplate why.
It would make me angry and hurt all over again.
Gabriel’s attention returned to where I sat in my armchair in the corner of the room. “You look beautiful,” he said in his gorgeous accent, his smile tender.
“You too,” I replied.
“Merci. I think.”
I smiled, but I was certain it didn’t reach my eyes.
He frowned. “Something is wrong. Is it me? Are you angry I showed up?”
“No. I mean, you said you might in your postcard, but I hadn’t really expected you to. Why come all this way?” Considering how relieved he’d seemed when I ended things, I never thought I’d see him again.
Gabriel nodded and sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Like I said on the card, I took a break. I needed it. I’m traveling for a few months so I can decide if I want to remain in la police.”
My suspicions about his job might have been correct then. “Too stressful?”
“Something like that.”
“Where are you traveling?”
“Here.” He grinned. “And London, of course. Perhaps America. I am seeing how it goes. Unplanned.”
“Exciting.”
“Oui. It would be very exciting if you came with me, but I know you will not.”
I was surprised he’d even want me along for the ride. As tempting as running away was, despite how shitty I’d felt in Ardnoch these past few weeks, I wouldn’t be chased from my family. “I’m where I’m supposed to be.”
“Je sais.” He pushed up off the bed and crossed the room.
I watched him a little warily as he lowered to his knees in front of me and took my hands.
“Callie, I … I came here to apologize for how I treated you. I was not a good boyfriend to you in those last few months. And I am sorry if I made you feel like I did not care for you.”
Shocked by the apology, I reassured him, “Gabriel, I never … we were never very serious. I didn’t take it to heart. There’s no need to apologize.”
“There is.” He was grim-faced. “Because I have feelings for you, and we could have had more if I had been better.” His eyes darkened. “If I had been a better man.”
There was something about the look in his eyes, his tone, that set my teeth on edge. Something ominous. And it reminded me of those moments I’d felt the same shivery spark of warning back in Paris when he was brooding or extra evasive.
“You really don’t have to apologize,” I insisted, feeling my emotional walls climb higher.
It was maybe selfish and unkind, but I didn’t want a heart-to-heart with Gabriel. For me he was a French fling, and for the most part, we’d had a good time together. He’d made living in Paris less lonely. As brutal as it might sound, I didn’t want him to exist outside of those memories for me.
Gabriel seemed to sense what I didn’t say. He gave me a melancholy smile and released my hands. “You are so beautiful. I forgot how beautiful you are.”
“Thank you.” I didn’t know what else to say.
“I do not … I do not think we shall see each other again.”
I didn’t think so either.
“May I … May I give you something? Something to remember me?”
“Gabriel, I’m not likely to forget you,” I promised him.
He grinned that cocky, self-assured smile that had lured me into his bed in the first place.
“Perhaps not, but I brought it with me specifically to give to you.” He lifted off one knee to pull a jewelry box out of his back pocket.
Thankfully, it was too long to be a ring box.
He snapped it open. Inside was a pendant on a chain.
It was an unusual long, rectangle-shaped pendant molded out of silver and liberally engraved with flowers and vines in the Gothic style.
“It belonged to my grand-mère,” he explained. “She was Scottish.”
My eyes widened. “Really?” He’d never spoken about his family while we were dating.
“Oui. She had passion and was strong. As you would say, she was fierce.” He smiled fondly. “I cannot explain it, but even though we will likely not see each other again, I feel this belongs to you.”
A family heirloom? “No, Gabriel, I couldn’t.”
“Please,” he insisted. “It feels right to give it to you, my way of thanking you for our beautiful time together. And hopefully, a way for you to always remember what we shared.”
The pleading look in his gorgeous eyes undid me. I found I couldn’t say no. I reached out for the necklace. It wasn’t my style and looked a bit heavy, but it was a lovely thought and keepsake. “Thank you. I’ll take good care of it.”
“And perhaps pass along to your daughter so you can tell her about the handsome French man you knew before you knew her father.”
I laughed at his mischievous grin as he closed the box and placed it in my waiting hand. Then he pressed a soft kiss to my knuckles. “Do you have time this morning to show me around your village before I leave? My bus arrives at two.”
“I can drive you wherever you need to go.”
“No.” He shook his head adamantly and stood. “Just take me for a coffee so whenever I want, I can picture you here in your little village, safe and happy.”