Chapter Twelve
“Yes,” Gabriela admitted to Guido, “it was a good day.”
But even as she admitted that, it felt as if there was a storm on the horizon.
Where was it all going? How could it end in anything but hurt and heartache?
Enrique had been worried about Marcello forming an attachment only to experience yet another loss, but now she could see the same thing looming on her horizon.
Her father stopped, and looked at her, having heard the hesitation in her voice. “My angel,” he said, “you know I don’t like to give advice.”
They both laughed at that obvious fib.
“Don’t worry so much,” he said softly. “Take it from me. There comes a point when you realize the secret to happiness is to just enjoy each moment.”
“You’re right,” she said, softly. “Especially this one with you, Papa.”
It seemed as if Guido’s message to just enjoy each moment was foremost in Gabriela’s mind when Enrique brought Marcello again the next day.
For the longest time in her life, she thought she would never have moments with Enrique in this garden ever again, that that part of her life was over. And yet, here they were, sitting on the bench together.
To Gabriela’s secret delight, the Prince had accepted the invitation for coffee this morning.
The rich aroma of the brew, blended with the gorgeous scent of him, especially against the backdrop of the laughter of children, was a heady way to start the day.
Their shoulders were nearly touching as they shared the bench, and she could feel the subtle warmth radiating from him.
Still, even doing her best to immerse herself in the moment, Gabriela could not help but notice the differences between them, and they were acute.
She had chosen a bright yellow sundress this morning, belted at the waist, with short sleeves and a full skirt.
When she’d put it on and twirled in front of the mirror, she had been quite pleased at the balance the outfit struck between being attractive and playful but remaining practical and professional.
But now, sitting beside him, she felt like a peasant.
Because, he was exquisitely put together this morning, 100 percent pure prince. He could easily have been chosen for the cover of any gentlemen’s magazine.
Enrique was beautifully dressed in a custom dark gray suit that showed off, rather than hid, his amazing physique, the broadness of his shoulders, the narrowness of his waist and hips, the length of his powerful legs.
He had on a crisp white linen shirt, beautiful shoes and cuff links, and a dark, narrow silk tie that had a hundred shimmering shades of gray in it.
The scent of soap and aftershave was subtle and masculine in the air around him. He was, of course, completely ready for whatever the official business of the day was.
“Marcello is very taken with Henri,” he told her, apparently unaware of the differences between them.
“Yes, they are on their way to a good friendship.”
“All last night,” he continued, his deep, beautiful voice tinged with humor, “I heard about Henri. Henri has a dog. Henri has a baby sister—awful apparently—Henri shares his room with his brother. Henri this and Henri that until I could have covered my ears and begged for mercy. If I wasn’t so happy that he was talking to me. ”
Gabriela felt the sweet satisfaction of being a part of beginning to repair the puzzling rift between the father and son.
“Did you know Henri has swords?” Enrique asked with a sigh.
“Henri has swords?”
“Light sabers. I’m afraid the possession of such items has raised Henri in a status that far eclipses anything I could ever hope to achieve.”
“Oh, the irony,” she said.
“I’m aware,” he said, “a pair of light sabers trumps royalty.”
“Every time,” she agreed solemnly, and then they laughed and they clicked coffee cups in their shared amusement.
“They’re from a movie, apparently. The light sabers.”
“Yes, Ryder of the Lost World.”
“I haven’t heard of it.”
“Ah, well, a hit with the under-ten set.”
“How is it you’ve heard of it, then?”
“In New York, you’d have to be living under a rock to have not heard of it. The merchandising is phenomenal.”
Then, just like that, just like old friends, they were catching up. They were talking about her job, and New York City, and favorite movies. It was easy between them, just as it once had been, just as if eight years had not flown by and taken their lives in totally different directions.
She loved this moment. When the future tried to intrude on her pleasure at just sharing time with Enrique, his deep voice washing over her, she reminded herself of Guido’s advice.
“He fell asleep in my arms on the way back to the palace yesterday,” Enrique confided in her.
Not home, she noted.
The way he said it, it was clear it was one of the best things he had ever felt.
Little boy asleep in arms trumps pomp and circumstance, she thought, but didn’t say.
Every time.
“You’ve decided Marcello needs mates,” Enrique said, taking another sip of his coffee and smiling out at the boys tumbling around the garden. Today, Henri had been joined by his cousin Emilio.
“Job one,” Gabriela said, marveling at how the ease of their conversation had dissipated most of her self-consciousness at sharing the bench with the suave man beside her.
“I thought that was finding a nanny.”
“This is just as important, I think. The first day I met Marcello, I heard him telling Geraldo he was his best friend. He needs friends who aren’t cats. Friends his own age.”
“I never had friends my own age,” Enrique said.
She let it go for a beat, and then she corrected him. “Yes, you did. You had me.”
Spontaneously, he took her hand, and squeezed. “Yes, I did,” he said, and they looked at each other for a moment, everything that they had ever been to each other laid raw between them.
The self-consciousness disappeared completely as their shared history welled up.
Even when he let go of her hand, she thought, but didn’t say, and you still have me. She realized her father had been right, as he so often was. And not just about doing her best to stay in the moment.
Gabriela had been given this job to do, to help this man find his way through the perilous new territory, of being a single parent, that he found himself in.
To be, to him, what they had always been.
Friends.
And more than friends. The words that must not be spoken sizzled between them, more powerful than if they said them, just as her mother had pointed out yesterday.
She loved him. She always had and she always would and it made things between them unbearably complex, though in this moment they simply felt blissful.
The gate squeaked open and a young woman came in and took in the garden at a glance. She strode to the bench and Enrique rose.
She dropped a curtsey and introduced herself as Matilda. Ah, Angelo’s daughter’s sister-in-law. She seemed respectful of the Prince, but not ingratiating or intimidated by him. Gabriela liked her immediately.
“I’ll introduce you to Marcello,” she said, but Matilda turned and looked at the rambunctious boys, her nephews both of them, careening around the garden, and smiled.
“I know, of course, who Marcello is. From what you told me, he’s allergic to the idea of a nanny, so I’ll just go insert myself without a formal introduction,” she said.
Within moments, she had gained the acceptance of the troop. Then, she inspected the Geraldo house from yesterday, now just collapsed sticks, and soon had all three boys eagerly organized to build a new one.
“Wow,” Enrique said, pleased as the boys marched out of the shed armed with hammers and scraps of wood. “I think she’s a winner.”
“Agreed.”
He was still on his feet, and he looked, ever so reluctantly at his watch. “I’m sorry.”
“No, no, don’t be. Go.”
Go to your life outside this garden. Go to that place of power and wealth and prestige. Go to that place I can never be a part of.
But a little voice inside her insisted on adding, But come back to me.
They fell into an easy pattern for the rest of the week.
Enrique would come with Marcello in the morning.
He and Gabriela would have coffee together in the garden while Marcello got to know potential nannies and new friends.
They shared memories. And laughter. And looks that said everything their voices did not say.
The morning visits were a tingling combination of tension and complete ease with another person.
Sometimes, Guido and Maria would join them, which acted as a buffer to the growing tension.
But now it was Friday.
The bench had come to feel like their place.
Today, Geraldo had found his place on her lap, and her fingers combed his mangled fur.
She was pretty sure it was not total forgiveness, but a relatively safe place from the little troop of sweaty boys rampaging through the garden in a rough-and-tumble game of tag.
Absently, Enrique’s hand also moved to the cat.
And then, to background shouts of You’re it, their fingers collided.
One of them, or both of them, could have moved their hand. But neither of them did. Instead, they stroked the cat together, their hands touching, moving in perfect sync, as if they had choreographed this moment.
How could such a simple thing, petting a cat together, be one of the most deliciously erotic things Gabriela had ever experienced?
She pulled away first. She folded her hands primly onto her lap. She cast a glance at him, and saw his hands, too, had been placed in detention. He was looking straight ahead, but then he, too, cast a glance at her.
An ember smoldering enough to start a forest fire leaped in the air between them, before they both, still in sync, ordered their eyes front again.
He cleared his throat. “I’ve never played that before,” he said, nodding toward the boys.
Handsy over a cat?
“You’ve never played tag?” she caught his meaning.
“No,” he said. “Never.”
“Well, maybe you could include it this weekend,” she said, trying, but not completely succeeding, to strip the croak from her voice. “What are your and Marcello’s plans?”
“The weekend?”
She glanced at him again. He was frowning.
“In my world,” he said, and she could hear a faint weariness, “there are no weekends.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Those are the busiest two days of the week, generally. That’s when most official duties take place. Building openings. Fundraisers. Speeches. Attendance at sporting or charity events.”
“But surely you set aside family time, don’t you?”
His silence was her answer.
“Do you work every day?” she asked, appalled.
“I have been,” he admitted.
“Well, that’s not fair to you.”
“I gave up my expectation of life being fair quite some time ago,” he said.
This was the part people did not see when they looked at royal families. They saw the wealth, the prestige, the fairy-tale balls, the extraordinary castles.
They did not see the sense of duty, the weight of responsibility, the ingrained sense of a life that did not belong to you, at all, but was to be used in service to your people.
“It’s really not fair to Cello,” Gabriela said, after a moment. “Enrique, you really have to have time set aside to spend with him. Designated time that he counts on every single week to be with you.”
“But what would we do?” he asked.
She looked at him fully to see if he was serious.
“What do you mean, what would you do? Anything. Play tag. Throw a ball back and forth, finger-paint, go to the beach, take a trip to the zoo, walk in the forest, lie in bed all day and read books, color, watch Ryder of the Lost World. Or just do whatever you normally do to have fun.”
Enrique felt Gabriela’s words landing on him with a sting, as if he was being hit by little pebbles.
When was the last time he’d had fun?
He could recall a ski trip to the Canadian Rockies a few years ago. And, there were, of course, endless balls and red-carpet events that people probably thought were fun, but were not.
There were invitations to sporting events, time spent on private yachts and private islands, visits to some of the most incredible places and the most exquisite residences in the world.
But underlying each of these things—even when it seemed as if it might be for fun or for leisure—there was always an official note.
It was forwarding a business relationship, it was cementing friendships with allies, there was always an agenda that was separate—but just as important, or more important—from the stated reason for being there and the event itself.
At all times, Prince Enrique was aware he was representing his family, and the island. There was no off time; you were always on. There was no letting your guard down.
There was no sitting with a beautiful woman, stroking a cat, in a garden.
“Take tomorrow off,” Gabriela said softly.
“Build on what you’ve started developing with Marcello this week.
You could take him to the Mariposa Garden.
It’s a beautiful place to have a picnic.
It’s actually closed to the public, right now for a cleanup, but, of course, they’d make an exemption for you. You could have it to yourselves.”
Enrique thought of clearing his schedule for tomorrow.
There would be people who would be disappointed. His mother would be irritated when she found out.
On the other hand, that would be the same mother who had sent Gabriela away. He suddenly didn’t give two hoots if she was irritated. In fact, he hoped she would be. A discussion needed to be had with her, obviously, and that might be just the thing to bring it about.
But it wasn’t really about the Queen. He realized he wanted, more than he had ever wanted anything, to have a day like the one Gabriela was conjuring in front of him.
A day of freedom. How rare was that in his life? A day with no appointments, no phone calls, no royal duties or engagements.
A day of no obligations.
Except the obligation to the person who meant the most in the world to him.
Or was that two people who meant the most in the world to him?
“I’ll take tomorrow off,” he said, after a moment, shocked at what an act of rebellion that giving in to that simple impulse felt like. “On one condition.”
“Which is?”
“That you come with us.”