Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Autumn
I tried to decide between the racing car and the dog.
It was a tough decision. Gabriel had already picked out the top hat, which was just perfect for the surly British gentleman he was.
I liked the dog and all, but it would have definitely been Hollie’s first choice.
I needed something new. “Okay, I’m going for the car,” I said.
“Fine,” Gabriel said from where he was sitting opposite from me. He was studiously tidying his piles of money, which he’d lined up in front of him on the sturdy oak dining table in the kitchen. “At least you didn’t take long to make that decision,” he grumbled.
I laughed. I wasn’t used to sarcasm from Gabriel. “Oh look, the Strand,” I said, spotting the familiar name on the board. “That’s where you work, right?”
“Near there, yes.”
“I have to try to buy it. Then you can work for me and I’ll reduce your working hours.” I grinned at him and he just shook his head like I was the most irritating person he knew. I was going to win him over and relax him if it killed me, and then I was going to talk to him about Bethany.
“Is there a Smithfield?” People referred to the area where Gabriel lived as lots of different areas. Smithfield. Farringdon. Clerkenwell. But Gabriel always used Smithfield, so now I did too.
“No. We’re not cool enough over this side of town.”
“It’s super cool around here,” I replied. “Especially when we’re actually allowed out,” I said, dropping a hint as subtle as a knee in the balls.
“Do we have to do this?” he asked, ignoring my hint the size of Montana. “I hate Monopoly.”
“Yes, we absolutely have to do this.” It wasn’t my favorite game, but I needed common ground and a way of stopping Gabriel from just stalking off into his private, locked lair, which he had been doing more than usual in the last few days.
Anyway, I was used to the New Jersey version of the game.
It would be kinda fun to play with the London street names.
“Think of it as you giving me a tour around your city.”
“There are plenty of tour buses that have stops a hundred meters away. You could see the real thing.”
I sighed. “It’s warmer to do it like this.”
Gabriel hadn’t been himself since Bethany’s accident.
He’d insisted on working from home and she and I hadn’t been allowed to leave the house so Gabriel could check on her regularly.
It had been five days. Work seemed to be stressing him out and I knew he’d cancelled drinks with Dexter and his other friends tonight.
Enough was enough. I was going to talk to him about getting things back to normal.
But I had to get him in the room long enough to be able to bring it up.
If Bethany wasn’t around, as soon as I walked into a room, he walked out.
Mainly through that locked door to who-the-hell-knew.
Tonight I’d insisted on taking him on in a game of Monopoly, and somewhere during the game I was going to tell him he needed to back off.
Go back to business as usual or Bethany was going to become a timid little mouse.
I also wanted to ask him why he was avoiding me, but that might take a bottle of wine and a win at Monopoly for me to get the courage up.
Did he blame me for what had happened? I wouldn’t hold it against him if he did.
I was so angry at myself for continuing to take her to lessons despite not being one hundred percent happy with the safety of the classes. I should have said something.
“Ladies first,” he said, nodding toward the dice.
“I vote for equality. Highest throw of the dice goes first.”
“Highest number on any one die or highest number when the results of the two dice are added together?” he asked.
“Wow,” I said, narrowing my eyes and looking at him like he was a fossil in a museum. “Do you ever stop being a lawyer?”
I swear the side of his mouth curved up a fraction. “Details are important.”
I grabbed the dice and tossed them onto the board. They both came up as sixes. I shrugged. “Sometimes they are. And sometimes they’re not.”
He chuckled and threw the dice after me. He got a three and a five.
“And in this instance, they weren’t,” I said, feeling rather smug.
When he didn’t say anything, I looked up to find him gazing at me in that intense way he had for what felt like the first time since the accident. “You know you’re asking for trouble,” he said, his voice so low the timbre reverberated in my knees. “I’m going to have to beat you now.”
It felt like a challenge. A frisson of excitement shot up my spine. “You don’t stand a chance.”
He shook his head and I threw the dice again.
I started counting his smiles—in my tally a little flicker at the corner of those lips counted—and I swore when we got to six, I was going to pluck up the courage to say something. It was my lucky number of the night, after all.
“Kings Cross station,” I said. “I’ll buy it because it’s right by my favorite station, St. Pancreas.”
He smiled. “What are you going to pay for it with? A kidney?”
He seemed pretty happy with himself, but I didn’t get the joke. “What did I say?”
“I’m being cruel by laughing. It’s kind of cute.”
Gabriel was handsome-grumpy after three nights without sleep.
I could testify to that because he’d worked overnight for three nights in a row the week before Bethany’s accident.
But when he smiled? He was like a goddamned movie star.
How was this man a lawyer? He should be plastered on a billion teenage girls’ bedroom walls.
Hell, I wasn’t past sneaking a snap on my camera phone and pinning it up over my bed.
“As much as I kinda like that you find me cute, can you clue me in on the joke?”
He held my gaze like he was deciding whether or not to say something. Was he going to deny he called me cute? Tell me he didn’t mean it like that. Or maybe he was deciding whether he should kiss me. I’d vote for C.
“You added an e,” he said finally.
“I did what now?”
“Pancras. Two syllables. Not pancreas, like the organ.”
I started to laugh. “Oh my God, I had no idea.” I shrugged. “And I always so liked that it was named after a body part. But it was worth making a fool of myself to see you smile.”
He stared at me for one second, then two. “You couldn’t be a fool if you tried.” His tone had turned from teasing to low and serious. “You saved my daughter’s life.” He glanced down at the board and mumbled to himself.
I reached over and grabbed his wrist. “She’s fine, you know.”
“If you hadn’t been there,” he said, squeezing his eyes shut for a second before he reopened them. “If you hadn’t been watching like you were.”
“But I was, Gabriel. You can’t torture yourself with what ifs.”
“She’s never going swimming again,” he said with a resolute shake of his head.
“You know that’s not the right decision to make. Give it some time, but she needs to go back in the water.”
“I don’t want anything happening to her again. And the easiest way to ensure that happens is not to let her swim.”
“You’re a clever man, Gabriel, and we both know that’s bullshit. She’ll be safer as a strong and confident swimmer.”
He kinda growled at me. At least he didn’t bite.
“You can’t wrap her in cotton wool all the time,” I continued. “You have to let her be a four-year-old. You don’t want to keep her home like there’s something wrong with her when quite the opposite is true.”
“I should have been there,” he said.
“And that’s another thing. You need to go back to work.”
“What are you talking about? I have been working.”
“But you need to go back to the office. One day she’ll leave home and go off to college and if she’s not developed her independence by then, what will you do?”
“Easy,” he said, as if I’d been peppering him with trivia questions and just picked his specialty. “Never let her go to university.”
I laughed. “You’re completely ridiculous.”
He sat back against the chair and regarded me as if he were examining a rare object. “I can’t remember ever being called ridiculous before.”
My heartbeat thundered and a siren of panic filled my ears. I’d taken it too far. I’d offended him. “Oh God,” I said, covering my mouth with my hand. “I’m sorry, I just meant—”
He smiled, almost as if he had been embarrassed to admit it. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “I don’t want to get myself fired here but I’m telling you, I didn’t mean it as a compliment.”
He shrugged. “Maybe I took it as one. Well, not that I’m ridiculous—that’s just patently not true. But the fact that you’d call me so. I appreciate it.”
“You like people calling you names?”
“Not people. You. And not names—just the truth.”
I didn’t know what to say. The way he said it suggested that I was . . . special somehow. “You like me telling you the truth?”
He nodded, looking pained by the confession.
“I’m sorry she got into the accident, Gabriel. I should have told you sooner that I didn’t like the setup there.”
“It’s not your fault. You weren’t in charge. And if you hadn’t been there—if you hadn’t gone in after her . . .” He closed his eyes and inhaled sharply as if he were trying to bear the pain of even the thought that something worse would have happened.
“They should have had a lifeguard on duty—someone who wasn’t involved with the class who was just watching over everything.”
“I guess you fulfilled that role.”
“I’m just pleased I got to her. And she’s fine.” I smoothed my hand over his, trying to reassure him. “Will you let me take her swimming? Just the two of us. I can teach her. She’ll have my complete attention.”
He glanced at my hand over his. I was making him feel uncomfortable. When I pulled my hand away, he said, “No.” Then slid his fingers between mine. A wave of release pushed through my body and I exhaled.
This.
This was what I’d needed from him.
I’d needed him to touch me.
“I know I’m being overprotective,” he said, his thumb stroking the palm of my hand, setting off tiny firecrackers in my underwear. “I just worry.”
“I know,” I said, half surprised anything came out when I’d tried to speak. I’d expected his touch to take my words away.
We sat in silence for long moments, me getting pulled closer to him with every rhythmic stroke of his thumb. “I shouldn’t be touching you.”
“I know,” I replied.
“We shouldn’t be holding hands,” he said.
I nodded. “I don’t want you to stop.”
“I know,” he said with such confidence that if I’d been on my feet, my knees would have disintegrated and I would have fallen. “I’ve tried to stay away.”
My heartbeat rammed on my ribcage like a freight train. He’d wanted me?
With this confession, he slid his hand from mine and shoved his fingers through his hair. “It’s not right. For a million different reasons.”
Nothing he was saying wasn’t true. He was one of Dexter’s oldest friends and my employer. He was a father and a serious lawyer, as Hollie loved to remind me. I was . . . just starting out.
But I wanted him.
And now he’d touched me, I knew I couldn’t even pretend I didn’t.
He pushed his chair out from under the table and stood. Was he leaving? Was he about to disappear behind that locked door?
I stood up too, trying to find the words to ask him to stay. To tell him all the reasons why he shouldn’t kiss me would be there tomorrow, but for tonight we could just put them to one side. We could forget about everything for one kiss.
“I should go,” he said.
Of course, he was going to pull down the shutters and retreat into his bat cave.
What could I say to make him stay? Before I thought of the words, he stalked around the table, took my head in his hands, and pressed his lips to mine.
My entire body buzzed as if his kiss conveyed life-giving energy, hot and urgent.
I slid my hands up his arms and finally got to feel the hardness of his muscles that I’d seen moving under his dress shirts and semi-exposed by his tees.
His skin was as hot as lava and the low moans he was making as he kissed me made every part of me vibrate.
I wasn’t sure I wouldn’t climax right there from just a kiss.
I pushed a little on his chest, concerned I was about to be overwhelmed.
“You want me to stop?” he asked.
“You need to give me a minute,” I said, trying to float back down to earth, but it was difficult when I was so close to him and my lips still hummed with the feel of him.
“I never know what I’m going to get with you.
One minute you’re telling me how it’s a terrible idea to be near me and then you’re kissing me. ”
“I’m capricious.” It was a statement rather than a question.
“You are. But you can’t kiss me like that and change your mind. I’m resilient but not unbreakable. Don’t shut me out again.”
He nodded and cupped my face in his hands. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.” His gaze was determined and focused and fixed on me, and I believed him.