Chapter 18
Chapter Eighteen
Eris
By day three of almost sleeping in until the afternoon, Eris knew she would struggle once she returned home and tried to get back on schedule. It would take a week to re-regulate when she returned to Virginia, and it would just make her think about Gabriel when their time together was over.
That just brought on a wave of sadness, and she tried to ignore the thought as she rose from bed.
This morning he was on a phone call, and she was eating cereal as she watched the hands on the clock tick closer to noon.
He’d been on the phone for over twenty minutes, bickering with someone, and his apologetic eyes glanced her way before he went into the bedroom to continue to talk without closing the door.
She could hear an irate man’s voice on the other side of the phone, but it was all she had to go on.
He wasn’t shutting her out per se, but she had no idea what might make him so grumpy either.
It probably had to do with work, and it occurred to her she wasn’t entirely sure what Gabriel did for work. Not really.
As she ate, the phone call stirred up old memories. It made her think about why things never worked out between them the last time.
“This isn’t the time, Ms. Adrienne,” he said, causing her heart to clench in her chest. They were sitting on the porch of the main lodge, joking about what they planned on doing next week when they both returned to their lives.
Eris had already pried and learned his job gave him more flexibility than hers did, but he’d never mentioned a woman in his life before.
He didn’t even give his job a real title.
It left a dirty feeling across her skin, and she shifted away as he finished the call. Ms. Adrienne sounded a little formal for anything like a relationship, but seeing as they were at Rawhide Ranch, it wasn’t completely reaching to think this might be more than a professional conversation.
Well, professional and a bit uncomfortable. Maybe she was being a little insecure and yearning too hard, but until they officially popped the bubble and went back to their everyday lives, why couldn’t she pretend this was real and forever?
“Your accounts are in jeopardy because you’re making irrational decisions,” Gabriel barked, and this tone was nothing like his commanding voice in the bedroom.
She hardly recognized the man beside her, his brows pinched in frustration and his fist tapping on the arm of the rocking chair.
Is this who Gabriel was when he worked? “You’re losing money because you tried to get back at your husband.
The two of you will ruin your investments and your savings if you keep it up.
Call your advisor and do not call me about this again. ”
He hung up the phone, and her big, rounded eyes stared at him until he looked up. Sighing, he dragged a hand down his face before speaking. “That was a client.”
“What kind of client?” she asked carefully, glad to hear at least it had nothing to do with romantic endeavors.
“I work with money,” he replied, sliding the phone into his pocket.
This wasn’t news to Eris; she knew his job had to do with money and numbers, but that was as deep as they had gone into that conversation so far.
He was a numbers guy who lived somewhere on the East Coast, and she was an outdoors girly from Virginia.
He knew she was in college, but she hadn’t divulged anything about her degree as of yet.
It was on the tip of her tongue to do so before this phone call.
“I’m not a financial advisor, which is exactly what Adrienne needs,” Gabriel went on.
“She’s going through a divorce with her husband.
Before the split, I helped with managing their financials on my end, allocating for investments and boring shit like that.
Now that they are separating and there’s questions about who’s money is whose, it’s out of my hands. ”
Eris blinked, folding her legs beneath her on the rocking chair.
Seeing into Gabriel’s life was kind of nice, but he was so very serious about work.
Her job didn’t have any high stakes, but she wasn’t quite sure how to feel about one phone call upsetting his mood this much.
Investments and money management sounded like serious work, but it also didn’t really give her a title to work with.
“Does work interrupt your daily life like that a lot?”
“I don’t have that many clients. When you work with big accounts, it isn’t necessary, and sometimes it causes conflicts.
Most of them are people I’ve known for many years, and they trust me to manage their investments.
” He blew out a breath, pressing a finger between his eyebrows.
“Adrienne isn’t even really my client. I always worked with her husband, Erik. ”
Looking away, Eris tried to decide why it bothered her so much.
Adrienne definitely didn’t sound like someone he was ever involved with, and Eris didn’t want to deal with other woman drama.
She hadn’t considered that could be an issue when she decided to visit the Ranch to begin with. “You’re so different when you work.”
“They’re losing half a million, which is a big deal for them and for me.
My pay cut is ensured by how well their investments do, and frivolously buying things to get back at each other will cut into those investments quickly.
I have something to lose if they burn through all their cash too, like with any of my clients. ”
“It’s eight in the morning,” Eris said, lifting her eyes to his again. “Eight in the morning on a Saturday. My flight leaves later today, and you’re getting blown up by clients at odd hours. Is that just another thing that’s part of your life?”
He frowned, brow pinching together. “It’s never really bothered me. My phone is open—”
“It doesn’t bother you because you don’t care when your life is interrupted, or because you’ve never wondered why calls like that might bother someone else?”
Eris stood from the chair, and he followed suit.
She scowled, picking her sandals up off the chair where she left them and abandoning her coffee.
“I separate work and my personal life, Gabriel. That’s important to me.
Connecting to someone who isn’t a workaholic is important to me too.
I guess since you haven’t been on your phone much this week, I never realized how much your job intervened in your day-to-day routine. ”
“It doesn’t always happen,” he said seriously, holding out a hand. “You don’t have things that come up in your work life that get in the way?”
“I’m in my final year of college,” she snipped, looking him up and down.
Over the past week, even though something was missing, she felt truly connected to him.
Now, there was a distance between them, growing like a chasm.
“I don’t have a job that I’ve sold my soul to.
I’m studying agriculture. Nothing will be life or death if I don’t answer my phone while I’m still in bed. ”
Gabriel blushed, looking away. She wasn’t sure if he did it out of habit, or if he even bothered to look at the caller-ID before answering.
Since they’d still been tangled up in each other when he’d first answered the call, she’d been kind of surprised he’d picked up at all.
Then they’d made their way downstairs, and his phone rang again, and their final morning together was cut into a second time.
“I’m not used to having someone around all the time,” he said carefully, his dark brown eyes boring into hers. “Work has always been my focus. But now…”
She was grasping at straws, but his voice trailed off, and she couldn’t help taking the bait, desperately hoping he had something more to say. “Now?”
Gabriel deflated, his shoulders drooping. Even if he wasn’t used to opening up like this, he couldn’t at least try? “Now, I… I don’t know. This is different from anything I’ve had with a person before.”
Eris sighed, letting her hopes fall away again.
It was too soon to declare love, but didn’t he feel the connection?
She feared maybe it was all in her head because Gabriel gave her things and made her body cry out for more in ways no one else had before.
It could be a purely physical attraction, but she swore it could be more if he would open up.
She might not be sharing all her kinks within a week of meeting him, but Gabriel hardly shared anything of himself at all.
She stepped back, and disappointment flooded her chest when he didn’t step with her.
“I need someone who doesn’t just care about my body, but me too.
You don’t have to miss all your business calls, but I don’t want someone who is a slave to their phone.
Thank you for this morning, Gabriel. I’ve had the best time at the Ranch.
I just think our personal lives are at odds with each other. ”
“Eris—” he began, pleading.
But she wanted some space, and she realized she should have excused herself when he was still on the call.
It would give her more time to think instead of making rash decisions.
Eris always did jump into things headfirst. Her flight would leave in a couple hours and she still needed to pack and head to the airport.
“I’m going to finish packing and ask for a ride,” she continued, stepping further away. Something in his expression shattered, but she didn’t stay to analyze it and pry. “Thank you for this week, Gabriel. This is an experience I will never forget.”
Turning, she ran off before he could pursue.
A tiny, unspoken part of her hoped he would give chase, and run through the halls to get her back.
Hunting her down to claim her and demand that they could work this out.
But she never brought that desire up, and right now, she was in no mood to start talking about her fantasies, either.
Not when the illusion of this past week was breaking apart right before her very eyes.
Eris came out of the memory as Gabriel returned, a pinch in his brow as he sat at the small, two-person table with her. He looked frustrated but not upset. “I’m sorry, Eris. That call was unexpected.”
She pushed around the cereal in her bowl, dropping her gaze. “Another… money issue?”
“Investments,” he said, and she didn’t bother to look up and read his face.
He sounded surprised enough that she remembered something like that, and she wondered if he would guess where her mind went in his absence.
“An unhappy client, but nothing to be overly concerned about. I gave him my hours and told him if he phoned again I would have to call him back, as I am on a vacation.”
She almost dropped her spoon, the memory from last year still fresh in her head. “You told him that? Your… client?”
“Eh, more like a business partner,” he said, placing an arm around the back of her chair.
Unlike the last time this happened, he was open and providing more answers than he’d given her previously.
“I invest the money in smart ways on ethical projects and on crypto that’s booming, and I take a percentage.
Sometimes the market does fluctuate and sends people spiraling.
They can stand to lose thousands, sometimes hundreds of thousands, but my job is to try and avoid that.
I study the market and investments, but I don’t have as much to lose as they do.
Still, it’s something I can address in emails and such around our day. ”
“But your job is important—”
“So is yours,” he said, finally drawing her gaze up.
There was a deep frown on his face now. “I know, Eris, that last time I brushed you off. It was unfair of me. I let my frustration from a business prospect bleed into our conversation that morning, and it ruined our last few hours together. I never even got your number before you were gone.”
She pressed her lips into a thin line, thinking about that too.
It was always on her mind about how they never bothered; the Ranch was so tight-knit that they could make plans with ease and they could stay together until they went to sleep, or later.
Phone numbers almost felt like putting distance between them instead of creating intimacy, and she hated that.
But not asking for his number, even once, created a void between them that she couldn’t cross after leaving.
She didn’t dare call the Ranch and ask for his personal number, even if she knew it was a possibility.
Gabriel had the same options, and he never did so, either.
“My work allows me to live a comfortable life,” he continued carefully. “And I made myself available to, well, clients at all hours because I never had anyone that I was regularly seeing who I cared about. Now it’s different.”
Her heart swelled, and that sounded very close to an admission. It was almost a mirror of their conversation last year, but this time, it felt like things were heading somewhere positive instead of crashing out. “So the call you just took hiding in the room…”
He frowned again as her voice trailed off.
“I could have stayed in here, but I didn’t think you’d want to hear all that jargon about numbers and bad decisions.
My job is to invest and keep my clients from doing something too stupid that’ll end up costing both of us money.
Other than that, it’s a lot of mentally calming down whoever just made a poor decision. ”
Eris smiled finally, reaching over to grasp his hand. “Are you going to tell me about my poor financial decisions?”
“Depends,” he replied, arching a brow. “Did you buy a million-dollar boat because of a mid-life crisis?”
Unable to hold it together anymore, Eris snorted at the idea. It broke the tension between them, and Gabriel cracked a smile too. The idea that she might ever have money to burn like that was ridiculous.
He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles again, calming the roar of worry in her belly. They only had two days left, and he was quietening her concerns without even trying. So if he could give her that little extra assurance, why couldn’t she take it?
Scooting closer, she leaned in to kiss him until the doubts turned off and he responded by dragging her onto his lap. It would be a repeat of sex this morning before they’d crawled out of bed, but she wasn’t complaining. At this point, she dreaded the end.