Chapter 11
GAbrIEL
Wednesday morning, Gabriel arrived early.
The café hadn’t changed in the years he’d been coming back to it. Worn wooden floors, mismatched chairs, a chalkboard menu that never carried more than six items. Old jazz drifted through the room that was soft enough to think over.
His mother used to bring him here when he was a kid, back when life felt simple. He came back on the days he needed to remember the version of himself that existed before everything sharpened and hardened into the man he had become.
He paid for two coffees. The thinning stack of fast-food gift cards he had been carrying for two weeks brushed his fingers as he tucked his wallet back into his jacket. He took the table by the window.
The door opened at nine fifty-eight. Tessa walked in wearing jeans and a white blouse, her hair pulled back, studying the room like she wasn’t sure she had the right place.
He stood. “You found it.”
“I almost didn’t.” She took in the mismatched chairs, the chalkboard, the jazz drifting from the speaker above the counter. “How did you find this place?”
“My mother took me here a long time ago.”
She sat across from him. The table was small enough that her leg brushed his when she settled, and neither of them moved away.
“I didn’t sleep well,” he said.
“Why not?”
“I kept thinking about Thursday.”
Her cheeks went pink. “Which Thursday?”
“Both of them.”
The last Thursday, when he had pressed her against her building and kissed her until neither of them could think. And tomorrow at his apartment, and whatever happened after.
“Gabriel.”
“Yes?”
“We’re in public.”
“I’m aware.”
“You’re looking at me like we aren’t.”
“I can’t help it.”
She laughed, low and surprised, and drank her coffee.
“Tell me something,” he said.
“What?”
“What do you carry in that bag? Besides the food.”
Her eyebrows rose. “You noticed.”
“I notice everything about you.”
“Water bottles. Hand wipes. Sometimes sandwiches if I’ve time to make them. Socks in the winter.”
“Socks.”
“People forget about feet. Being cold from the ground up is different from being cold from the wind.”
“How do you know that?”
“My mom told me. Before things got better. There was a winter we couldn’t afford heat.
She said the worst part wasn’t being cold.
It was feeling it seep up through the floor.
Through your feet. Into your bones.” She took a sip and set the cup down.
“So I carry socks for when it gets cold, in case someone needs them.”
He held still. Anything he said would’ve been the wrong thing.
“What should I carry?” he asked.
“Why?”
“I want to learn. What else should I have in my bag?”
She stared at him.
“I mean it.”
“You don’t have to do what I do. It’s part of my mission.”
“I want to.”
She searched his face. He didn’t know what she found.
“Protein bars,” she said finally. “The kind that don’t crumble. Water bottles with caps that seal. Nothing made of glass. Hand wipes if you can—hands get dirty fast in a city.”
He memorized every word. “So protein bars, water, and hand wipes. Anything else? A tent? A small generator?”
She laughed, and the sound loosened something in his chest. “Start with the protein bars. Work your way up to disaster relief.”
“Why do you want to do this?” she asked. “Carry supplies. Learn my system.”
“Because you asked me if I had ever been hungry, and I said no, and I want to understand.”
“You can’t understand hunger by carrying snacks.”
“No. But I can understand you.”
Her hand stilled on her cup. The silence stretched, and she didn’t fill it.
She picked up her latte and took a long sip. When she set it down, her eyes were wet, and she wasn’t bothering to blink it away.
“Wednesday coffee. Is this what we’re doing now?”
“If you want.”
“I’d like that.”
“And lunch when we can. Walks. Texts. I’ll take whatever you’ll give me.”
“So we’re actually dating.”
“Are we?” He leaned forward. “Is that a problem?”
“No. It’s not.”
“Good.”
They sat with their coffee cooling. Outside, strangers passed the window.
“I have a meeting at eleven,” she said.
“I have a call at eleven thirty.”
“We should go.”
“Probably.”
Thursday came too slow and too fast.
Gabriel stood outside Tessa’s building at six fifty-five, hands in his pockets, trying to look like a man who wasn’t about to crawl out of his skin. He had changed his shirt three times. He skipped the tie. Left the top two buttons undone because he didn’t want anything formal between them.
He was losing his mind.
At seven exactly, he buzzed her apartment.
“Come up,” she said through the intercom.
He took the stairs two at a time to her fourth-floor apartment, where the door was already open.
She stood in the doorway in a simple black dress that skimmed her body like water, clinging to every curve he had spent weeks trying not to think about. Her hair was down. Her lips were a bold, unapologetic red that made every civilized thought evaporate from his head.
“Hi,” she said.
He forgot how to speak.
“You okay?”
“No.” His voice came out rough. “You look—” He stopped. Started over. “You look—”
Pink touched her cheeks. “Is that a problem?”
“Yes.” He stepped into the doorway, close enough that her hair brushed his shoulder. “Because now all I want to do is forget we have dinner plans.”
The math was simple. Two hours across a candlelit table, or two hours behind a closed door with that dress. He was already hard, and she hadn’t even touched him yet.
“I’m trying hard to be a gentleman when all I want to do is—“ He caught himself. “We should go. Before I do something that gets us both in trouble.”
“What kind of trouble?”
“The kind that involves that dress ending up on your bedroom floor in the next thirty seconds.”
“Oh.”
“So. Coat. Now. Before I change my mind about being civilized.”
She grabbed her coat. He helped her into it, his palms resting on her shoulders longer than necessary.
The car was waiting. He opened the door, let her slide in first, then followed. The privacy screen went up.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“My place.”
“Your place.”
“I hired a chef. Thought you might like being on the receiving end of service for once. You spend every day feeding other people. Tonight, someone feeds you.”
She was quiet for a beat.
“You hired a chef.”
“Four courses. Wine pairings. The works.” He took her hand and laced his fingers through hers.
“I considered cooking myself, but my last attempt set off the smoke alarm and Knox banned me from the kitchen. This way we can actually spend time together. Also, I want you to like me. Burned pasta seemed like a risk.”
She laughed. “I already like you.”
“Then I want you to keep liking me. Burned dinner is a known deal breaker.”
“Noted.”
The car wound through Manhattan. He kept her hand, his thumb making small circles against her palm, his body screaming for more even as he forced himself to wait.
When they pulled up outside his building, he helped her out. The doorman nodded.
“Evening, Mr. Sterling.”
“Evening, Phillip.”
As the elevator climbed, neither of them spoke. All he could hear was her breathing.
The elevator dinged, and they stepped into the hallway, where he unlocked his door and held it open.
Tessa moved past him and stopped.
He watched her face and tried to imagine what she saw.
Warm. Lit by candlelight that softened the room and turned the walls gold.
The table set with linen napkins and real silverware.
Soft music drifted from hidden speakers.
In the kitchen, a woman in chef’s whites plated appetizers with the skill that came from years of practice.
Tessa turned slowly, taking it in.
“You really did this.”
“I told you I would.”
“It’s perfect.”
He took her coat and hung it in the closet, then led her to the table and pulled out her chair. She sat, smoothing her dress as she settled.
The chef brought the first course, seared scallops with a citrus reduction. Gabriel watched her take her first bite. She closed her eyes.
“Good?”
“Incredible.”
They ate, and they talked.
She told him about a wedding she had been hired for the previous fall where the bride had decided three days out that she wanted the menu to be a tribute to her grandmother’s village in Sicily.
Tessa had spent forty-eight hours sourcing four ingredients she couldn’t find in New York and ended up driving to a specialty importer in New Jersey on the morning of the event.
He told her about the time Ronan had insisted on serving guests at his and Devney’s engagement party himself, in the actual chef’s apron, and had given everyone a sermon about each dish before they could eat it.
Tessa laughed until the wine in her glass shook.
The second course came. Risotto with wild mushrooms. He watched the tension leave her shoulders, course after course appearing without her lifting a finger.
By the time dessert came—a chocolate soufflé with raspberry coulis—she was leaning back in her chair with wine in her hand, eyes bright and cheeks flushed.
The chef emerged from the kitchen with her bag over her shoulder. “Everything’s covered. The rest is in the fridge. Have a wonderful evening.” She let herself out. The door clicked shut behind her.
“This was wonderful. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
“Why not?”
He stood and offered his palm. “Because the night isn’t over.”
He guided her to the couch and sat. She turned toward him until the space between them disappeared. Even then, the closeness felt insufficient.
“Come here,” he said.
“Where?”
He rested his palm on his thigh. “Here.”
She hesitated only a fraction of a second before she moved, swinging one leg over his hips and settling into his lap with her knees braced on either side of him. Her palms anchored on his shoulders, and his hands settled at her waist as he brought her firmly against him.
“I’ve been thinking about this all week.”
“Only this?”
“Among other things.”
Her hips moved in a slow, deliberate rhythm that tested his restraint. The heat of her pressed against him through the thin fabric of her dress, and his grip tightened.
“Tessa.”