Sayla
His hand was warm. When his fingers spanned out across my lower back I felt his strength in the lightness of the touch—restrained, deliberate, guiding me into the dining room without pressure.
I should have been wary. He had spawned Gabriel, after all.
But there was nothing. No fear. No disgust. Nothing that made me want to pull away.
He pulled a chair out for me and as I sat he pushed it in.
Every movement slow and steady. An old fashioned mannerism that I hadn’t realised I’d missed until it was happening.
After twenty months of being treated like something scraped off the bottom of a shoe, it was a disorienting kind of pleasant.
That’s when I really looked at him.
And remembered his words.
“What happened to his fiancée?” I whispered.
He paused behind me. I felt him tense—just slightly, just briefly.
I’d gotten good at reading people after Gabriel.
Hypervigilance dressed up as intuition. At twenty-two years old I felt nothing of my past innocence.
I was worlds apart from the girl I’d been.
I missed her. The one who played with dolls and watched princesses find their princes and believed wholeheartedly that love was simple.
As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop them.
These damn tears.
The sign of weakness.
Stop fucking crying. That’s all you do, you miserable bitch.
How could I ever tell my family what I’d become?
A sob ripped out of my chest. The pain stabbed immediately through my ribs, sharp and unforgiving, and I almost laughed at the cruelty of it—pain that I deserved for being so fucking stupid.
Warm hands settled on my shoulders.
“Let’s get you to bed. I’ll bring your food upstairs,” he murmured, helping me to my feet.
His arm closed around my waist and I buried my face into his lapel before I could think better of it. He smelled clean. Expensive. Solid in a way that made no sense and every sense at once.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the fabric. “So sorry.”
He patted my arm and silently guided me back upstairs.
He didn’t tell me I had nothing to apologise for.
He didn’t say anything at all.
One step at a time. I was painfully slow and I began to panic.
Why?
I glanced up at him and before my eyes reached his face I realised I was clutching his lapel. I released his jacket instinctively—but his hand covered mine and placed it back against his chest.
The panic receded.
He wasn’t angry.
I focused on the stairs.
When we reached the bedroom he left me by the door and moved to lift the covers back, then quietly began to arrange the pillows. No fuss. No comment. As though this were simply a thing that needed doing and so he was doing it.
I didn’t think. I moved forward and sat on the edge of the bed, carefully raising my legs up. He placed the covers around my waist with the same steady unhurried hands that had guided me down the hall.
Without a word, he left.
The room settled into silence around me.
For the first time, I questioned everything Gabriel had told me about his father.
?
?
?
He arrived with a silver tray. No jacket, white sleeves rolled to his elbows. I stared at the size of his hands and the muscles shifting beneath the white shirt.
Gabriel had expected me to serve him. But nothing was ever perfect enough.
Too cold. Overdone. Tasteless. Eventually he’d found fault with my appearance too.
His parameters were in constant conflict—dress sexy but not too sexy, wear makeup but not too much, cook high protein meals on gym days, but those weren’t right either.
Too high in fat. Not enough non-starchy vegetables. The grains were too processed.
Here was his father placing a well-balanced meal on my lap without a word of complaint.
Orange juice and water were set on the nightstand. I noticed a small ceramic bowl of pills beside them.
“Those must not be taken on an empty stomach,” he said in a tone that didn’t invite debate. “You will rest and heal. There will be some physio arranged for your rib.” A pause. “Leave Gabriel to me.”
I didn’t know what to say.
He must have thought I was stupid when I continued to stare at him.
Then he dragged a chair beside the bed.
Lifted the spoon.
Blew on it gently before he offered it to me.
I just opened my mouth.
Chicken soup. Perfectly balanced—salt, vegetables, herbs, nothing fighting for dominance.
Another spoonful.
I stared at the thick buttered bread beside the bowl.
His deep chuckle snapped my eyes back to him. Without ceremony he dipped the bread into the soup and held it out.
My appetite came back all at once, sudden and ravenous. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Couldn’t remember the last time someone had fed me.
“Good girl,” he murmured, as I bit into the bread like I hadn’t seen food in weeks.
I stared at the tuna melt panini and the small fruit jelly waiting beside the soup.
None of it was packaged.
All of it was fresh.
I ate a little faster.