Chapter 34
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Gabriel
I closed the door behind me and sniffed the air, taking in the smell of cooking spices. Friday nights had fallen into a routine where Autumn cooked us a curry and I brought home some great wine to have with it. She’d been busy helping Hollie with the wedding recently, and I’d missed her.
“I’m home,” I called, dropping my coat onto the rack and parking my documents case by the hall chair.
Autumn came down the stairs, her smile a little less enthusiastic than usual. “Good day?” I asked, smiling at her. She looked so beautiful when she had her hair up like that. Or down. Or with a hat. Or without.
She nodded and I pulled her into my arms as she got to the bottom of the stairs. She didn’t mold against me as she usually did, instead pressing her hands on my chest. “I need to get our chicken out of the oven.”
“Can I help?” I asked as I toed off my shoes and padded after her.
“It’s all done,” she said.
Was it me or was she avoiding my gaze? “What did you do today?”
She sighed as she slid the hot dish onto a trivet. “Usual thing. Nursery, then we went for a walk around Lincoln’s Inn Fields.”
Something was definitely up. On any normal day, Autumn would be bubbling over about Lincoln’s Inn.
About the “quaint” buildings and hidden walkways.
It was the kind of place she loved. But today there was no enthusiasm in the way she spoke.
Perhaps she was worried about the new nanny starting, although I’d offered the job to the woman Autumn had recommended and raved about.
Maybe she’d had some bad news about the interviews she’d been going on.
“You hear anything about the analyst job at the investment bank?” I asked.
She shook her head as she pulled out another dish from the oven and set it on the side. “Nope. They won’t be making a decision for weeks yet. Said they’ll let me know.”
“And Bethany’s okay, because you would have told me if she wasn’t.”
“Yes, she’s happy as usual, although Bear Bear is in need of a few stitches under his arm. I have to do it before I go.”
Hearing her talking about leaving was like a dull punch to my gut. I hated the idea that she was going to be away for an entire month.
“I’m going to miss you,” I said, circling my hands around her waist as she stood at the kitchen side. “How will I cope?” This time she leaned against me, letting her body relax against mine. “I shouldn’t be so selfish. You’ll be back in just a few weeks. And you’ll have a job by then and—”
She spun in my arms. “I don’t know if I’ll have a job. I don’t know if I’m going to be in London. And I’ve been thinking . . .” She trailed her fingers down the buttons of my shirt.
“Sounds ominous.” I was desperate to lift the heaviness that had settled in the air tonight.
“We haven’t talked about it and I don’t exactly know what you were thinking would happen with us after I left .
. . but I think it might be better if we .
. . went our separate ways.” She spoke to the collar of my shirt, refusing to meet my eyes.
The veins in my neck pulsed like the ticking of a clock.
“What are you talking about?” My face went numb. I dropped my arms and stepped back.
“I think you need to spend some time with Penelope.” She exhaled as if she’d just unloaded a lead cloak from her shoulders.
“Has she been here again? What has she said this time? That you’re responsible for terrorist activity in Iran and her shitty school grades?
” I’d told my solicitor that Penelope had been trying to intimidate Bethany’s nanny into leaving.
She reassured me that it would count against her in any trial. But of course, no one wanted a trial.
“No, she hasn’t been back,” Autumn said, stepping toward me and cupping my face in her hands. “But I’ve been thinking about a few things.”
Bloody hell. Penelope had got inside her head.
Anger revved in my chest like the engine of a racecar before its first lap.
“You need to ignore what she said. She’s manipulative and refuses to take responsibility for anything.
She needs to remind herself that she walked out on us three years ago. I didn’t even know you then.”
“I know,” Autumn said. “This isn’t about me. Well, not entirely about me.”
“So why are you talking about going our separate ways? Granted, you need to figure out a new job, but I’m here to support you in that.
I know you’re young and I’m really trying to hold back because I don’t want to push you too hard too soon, but bloody hell, Autumn.
I’d accepted you might not want to live with us, but walking away? Where’s this coming from?”
She dropped her hands and closed her eyes as if she were trying to blink away reality. “I think it’s for the best.”
The blood in my veins sped up and gained force. “This isn’t what’s best for me. So, what you mean is, this is what you want.” I fought against my instinct to leave her there and disappear into my workshop. I needed to stay and convince her she was wrong.
“I want what’s best. For you.”
“That’s you. I want you.” Perhaps I should have been clearer earlier, but I’d thought it was understood between us that what we had wasn’t just a passing affair or some kind of transitory romance. It was more than that. It was . . . like she’d been made for me.
“You’ve said how you thought you and Penelope and Bethany were a perfect family—just what you’d always wanted after the childhood you had. And then Penelope blindsided you. You were devastated.”
My family had been less than perfect. I’d accepted that there was no such thing. “Things happen, Autumn. I thought our marriage was something it clearly wasn’t. I’m trying to move on.”
“Penelope isn’t a bad person,” she said as if she hadn’t heard me. “And she’s desperate to try to make things right again.”
“She doesn’t have a time machine. So there’s no making things right.” It was almost as if people didn’t understand what had happened. My lawyer was the same: Penelope was sorry. Penelope wanted to be in Bethany’s life. Penelope wanted. She’d given up her right to want anything the day she left.
“Everyone deserves a second chance, Gabriel.”
“Says who?” It was such a ridiculous saying. “If you murder someone, you don’t get a talking-to and told not to do it again or there’ll be trouble. You go to prison—partly so you can’t do it again.”
Autumn looked up at me. “Penelope didn’t murder anyone.
And I’m not saying you should give her a second chance just because she deserves it.
I’m asking you to do it for you. She’s Bethany’s mother and your wife.
You need to give yourself a second chance at having the family you’ve always dreamed of.
I don’t want to be the person who stands in the way of that. ”
I tried to let her words soak in. Didn’t she understand that it wasn’t Penelope I wanted, wasn’t Penelope I saw completing the family in my dreams? “But I love you.”
I’d not said it before, but I’d felt it from the moment I saw her at Dexter and Hollie’s place.
The feeling hadn’t been small. It hadn’t been subtle.
It didn’t start as some seed and grow tall—it smacked me around the head and left bruises.
I’d tried to ignore it. Deny it oxygen. Beat it back. But it refused to give up.
I didn’t want Penelope. I didn’t want anyone else. I loved Autumn.
Autumn put her head in her hands, covering her face so I couldn’t see her reaction. Silence thundered between us, stretching the few centimeters between us into a valley.
She didn’t say it back.
I knew she felt it. But she didn’t say it back.
She dragged her fingers from her face and exhaled.
“You owe it to yourself to give her another chance,” she said after what seemed like hours.
“And I can’t be the person who stands between you and your opportunity at having a life you always dreamed about, Gabriel.
I can’t be the person that stops Bethany’s mother from being with her. ”
“You’re not,” I said.
“I don’t want to be an excuse.”
“An excuse? What, you think I’m getting an itch scratched with you, so I don’t need to take my wife back?”
I hated the way she winced when I spoke. I’d never seen the expression on her face before—like she was in pain and didn’t know how to heal.
“I don’t want to be the reason you don’t try to make it work. The reason you don’t give your wife and the mother of your child a second chance.”
“Even if you weren’t here, I wouldn’t take Penelope back.” I’d made that decision the day she left. I wasn’t going to subject Bethany to the merry-go-round of Penelope coming in and out of our lives. She left; she’d have to live with that decision.
She looked me in the eye. “You said you loved me.” She said it like a question.
“Yes. I love you. I think I’ve loved you since we met, though I wouldn’t admit it to myself.”
She blinked again and again and again. “Then do it for me. Do it because I asked you to. Try again with Penelope.”
“This is insane. I’m not going to take Penelope back. Us not being together won’t change that.”
“Prove it,” she said.
“You want me to call her and tell her?” She was shaking her head before I got the words out. “Then what? Tell me what I need to do to prove it to you and I’ll do it.”
“Try to make it work. Spend time with her. Take her to dinner. On a date. Remember why you married her. Try to picture that family you had in your imagination when you were a child and do your best to recreate that.”
“You can’t be serious.” I didn’t understand what she was saying. Why would giving Penelope a second chance be for her? It didn’t make any sense.
“I have faith in you, Gabriel. You think you saw second chances go horribly wrong when you were a kid, but you’ve been breathing second chances into every piece of furniture you restore.
Every time you strip the varnish off an old desk or replace the hinges on a bookcase, you give that piece of furniture a second chance.
It’s inside you.” She reached out and placed her hand on my cheek.
I knew in that moment that there was nothing I could do to change her mind.
I wanted to sink into that feeling of her soft skin against mine, wanted to drink it in and commit it to memory. I’d do anything to make her stay.
“If I try and it doesn’t work, then what? I spend the rest of my life wishing for you?”
“I’m away for a month, Gabriel. Not even in the same country as you. Give it time. You all deserve some time to get to know each other again.”
“And then?” I knew I’d miss her as soon as she closed the door.
“Don’t think about the then. Just be in the present this summer. I’ll see you at Hollie and Dexter’s wedding.”
“What? That’s weeks away.”
“It’s really not long at all.”
“But we can talk and—”
“Please, Gabriel. Don’t think about me. Focus on your family.
Give it these few weeks and see how you feel then.
Do it for me,” she said. “For Bethany. For you. Put your anger aside. See that Penelope isn’t your father and taking her back doesn’t mean you’ve become your mother.
It’s not just Penelope that deserves another chance.
Or Bethany. It’s you, too. You deserve that perfect family you always wanted. ”
Penelope wasn’t my family. Not anymore. “And what if you’re my perfect family? Are you really going to walk away?”
She shook her head and for a moment, I thought she might stay. “What if I’m not, Gabriel? What if you’re meant to be with Penelope?”
She closed her eyes as if she were saying a silent prayer. A shiver passed through me and ice crawled up my spine, paralyzing every movement, every breath, every beat of my heart. And I didn’t know if I’d ever feel warm again.