13. Gabriel
Gabriel
After putting Peyton to bed, I head into my home office and close the door behind me.
I do have some work to do, so it’s not entirely for no reason. I tell myself that as I trudge down the hallway and seal myself in, feeling the quiet settle around me.
The truth is, I’m not quite sure why I’m retreating here. The evening was… nice. Surprisingly nice, even with that awkward moment between me and Alexis toward the end.
Still, I know what’s happening here. I’m avoiding her. I don’t really think I can face going to bed with her right now. Not after watching the spark in her eyes dim when I shut her down.
I head for the drink cart in the corner of the room and pour myself a rocks glass of whiskey. For a few seconds, I just hold the glass, staring into the amber liquid as it catches the light from my desk lamp.
I should be used to this, to being alone with my thoughts. I’ve had years of practice since Melanie died. But something about tonight feels different, more weighted. Maybe it’s because, for a few hours, it almost felt like a real family dinner.
I take a sip, feeling the burn as the whiskey goes down. Then I head back to my desk and settle in, opening my laptop. There are a few market reports I need to look at, some stuff Tristan forwarded to me at the end of the workday.
I loosen my tie, taking another sip of the whiskey, then unbutton my cuffs, rolling my sleeves up.
I don’t feel the same pressure to look put together when I’m working from home.
At the office, everyone has a certain expectation of how the Thorne brothers will conduct themselves, how we’ll look and dress and act.
But here, there’s no one watching. I can do what I please.
Well… for a few minutes, there’s no one watching.
Awareness prickles through me, along with a faint sense that I’m not alone. I glance up, and sure enough, there’s a quiet knock on the door a second later, barely a whisper against the wood.
“Come in,” I say, not entirely sure if I sound welcoming or resigned. The door creaks open, and Alexis steps in, looking uncertain. She’s changed into sleepwear, sweats and an oversized, green t-shirt that nearly swallows her whole.
“Sorry,” she says in a small voice. “I didn’t want to interrupt.”
“It’s fine,” I tell her, closing the laptop. “What’s up?”
She swallows as if she’s nervous, and I feel a pang of guilt. Just when she was starting to warm up, I had to go and put that wall back up. She lingers near the door, like she’s preparing to make a quick exit. Fuck.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m headed to bed,” she says. Then she turns to leave.
I have to do something. To say something before she walks away again, before this distance between us calcifies further.
I clear my throat and say, “Alexis.”
She pauses, glancing over her shoulder. Her hand hovers by the doorframe.
“Do you want a drink?” I indicate my glass of whiskey.
For a moment, she just stares at me, her eyebrows lifting in surprise. Then, shyly, she steps farther into the room. “Um, sure.”
I get up to grab the decanter of whiskey, pouring another glass, and hand it to her. She lifts it to her nose, her face scrunching up as she catches a whiff of it.
“That’s strong stuff,” I tell her, amused. “Macallan’s fifty-year single malt.”
“I have no idea what that means,” she says, staring into the caramel liquid as if she’s afraid it’s poison.
“That means it’s been aged for fifty years,” I explain. “And that it’s one of the best whiskeys money can buy.”
“If you say so,” she says dubiously. She takes the tiniest sip, her nose wrinkling at the taste before she swallows. I have to hold back my smile. “Wow. That’s… um, intense.”
“It’s an acquired taste.” I lift my own glass to my lips, savoring the familiar warmth. “It’s worth it once you’re used to it.”
She takes another tentative sip, her expression still apprehensive.
“Do you like it?” I ask.
“No,” she admits.
That gets a laugh out of me. “Not a Macallan fan, huh?”
“I’m more of a ‘sweet white wine’ kind of person.”
“You know,” I tell her, “that bottle of whiskey cost fifty grand.”
She makes a choked sound, her eyes going wide for a second. “Seriously?”
“Yup.” I take another sip. “Most people tend to like it.”
She sighs, then shrugs one shoulder, a strange look crossing her face. “My family’s company makes luxury fashion,” she says, swirling the whiskey around in her glass. “Our designers always show up at Milan Fashion Week with models in dresses that cost hundreds of thousands.”
“So I’ve heard.”
“It’s all a waste, if you ask me. It doesn’t matter how expensive the clothes are, or how they look on the runway.
What matters is how they make people feel when they wear them.
” She pauses, then adds, “I feel good when I wear green. That’s my favorite color.
I’d rather wear this”—she plucks at the chartreuse t-shirt—”than a million-dollar black dress. ”
I cock my head, not sure how to respond. It’s certainly not a perspective I’d expect from a fashion heiress, and it catches me off guard.
She smiles at me ruefully. “My family doesn’t love hearing me say things like that.”
I liked it, though. I like that she didn’t pretend to enjoy the whiskey just to butter me up or something. I like that she was willing to be honest.
“I don’t know,” I say. I toss back the last of my whiskey, then move to pour myself another glass. “I think you’re onto something.”
She flushes, her freckled cheeks tinged with a faint pink. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She leans against the desk, her posture relaxing slightly. As she does, her shoulder brushes my arm, and a jolt of awareness shoots through me.
I clear my throat. I don’t want to ruin the moment we’re having, but I know I need to clear the air, get rid of any residual tension before it can fester. “Look, about what I said earlier—”
“It’s fine,” she interjects, shaking her head. She still looks a bit dejected, but she tries to muster a smile. “I get it.”
Silence hangs between us for a few seconds. Frustration gnaws at me. I don’t want her to feel undervalued in my house, but if she’s really going to understand where I’m coming from, I’ll need to talk about things I don’t usually discuss.
My brothers have the decency not to constantly ask how I’m doing or remind me of Melanie without warning, so I don’t tend to talk about her. I don’t know how to articulate my feelings to Alexis without reopening some old wounds.
But if this is going to work, I need to let her in. At least a little bit.
“Losing Melanie…” I trail off for a moment, unsure how to start.
Then I try again. “It was an accident. She fell and hit her head. It was just one of those freak things—there one minute, gone the next, and nothing anyone could’ve done.
” I swallow. “But losing someone like that, so suddenly? It throws your whole life into chaos. Everything changes overnight. And since I had Peyton to take care of, I had to put my grief on the back burner.”
Alexis is quiet, listening. I take a deep breath, trying to gather my thoughts.
“I struggled. A lot. For a while, it felt like I would never make it through. But I had to, you know? For her.” I swallow some of the whiskey.
The burning feeling in my chest keeps me talking.
“If nothing else, losing my wife made me more protective of Peyton. I had to become everything she needed, and after a little while, I found my stride, if that makes sense.”
She nods, still silent, her gaze fixed on the floor.
I sigh. “Sorry. You probably don’t want to hear about things like this.” A loss of this magnitude doesn’t make for great after-dinner conversation, and it’s not something most people have experienced when they’re her age. She’s probably uncomfortable, itching to get out of here.
“No,” she says suddenly, looking up. “I… I know what it’s like.”
I blink, surprised by the seriousness in her voice. “You do?”
Her eyes are distant, filled with a sorrow that seems too heavy for someone her age. “My sister, Noelle. She died when I was ten.” She takes a shaky breath, her hands clasping the edge of the desk for support.
“Oh.” I had no idea. Jesus, how could I be married to this woman and not know something so fundamental about her life? “I’m so sorry.”
Alexis waves a hand as if to dismiss my condolences, but I can tell that even after all this time, the loss still affects her. “She had leukemia. It took her really quickly. She seemed so healthy, until she wasn’t. And she only lasted six months after the diagnosis came.”
I grip my glass tightly. I want to reach out, to place my hand on Alexis’s shoulder. To draw her toward me, to comfort her with closeness. But I can’t. I don’t want to confuse her, and I don’t want to confuse myself.
“After she died, for a long time, I felt so guilty that she was gone and I was still here.” Alexis shuffles, her gaze fixed on the rug beneath our feet.
“And I felt lost without her. She was my big sister. She was…” She trails off, seeming at a loss for words.
Then she clears her throat. “So, yeah. I know how it feels.”
“I didn’t realize,” I say quietly.
She sniffles, and her hand flies up to swipe hastily at her eyes. “I don’t like to talk about it, to be honest.”
“I get that.”
She’s silent for a moment. Then she says, “After Noelle died, everything changed. Suddenly, I couldn’t just live my life anymore. I had to live it for her, because she didn’t get to grow up. I had to… I don’t know. Step into her shoes. Take on her role.”
I close my eyes. I know how that feels. Since I lost Melanie, I’ve had to take on a new role too. Not just as Peyton’s father, but as her only parent, as the one responsible for making up for everything she’s lost.
I glance at Alexis. Her copper hair hangs forward, loose tendrils framing her face as she bows her head. I realize that my perception of her has changed. The revelations of the past five minutes have altered the way I look at her once again.
She’s young, sure, and bright, and sweet. But there’s so much more to her. Depth I didn’t see before. Depth that I’m not sure anyone gets to see. For a moment, I’m at a loss for words, caught between wanting to comfort her and an unexpected sense of admiration.
“You shouldn’t have had to do that,” I say after a long silence. “Taking on someone else’s life. It’s too much to carry.”
She shrugs one shoulder, an attempt at nonchalance, but I can see the way her eyes glisten despite her efforts to hide her face from me.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I tell her.
“I’m sorry for yours,” she whispers.
Quiet settles between us. Her hand still rests on the edge of the desk, and I find myself reaching out reflexively to touch it. She flinches slightly but doesn’t pull away. I hear her sharp intake of breath.
She looks down at our joined hands, her lips parting as if she wants to say something, but she stays silent. The air between us crackles with sudden tension as she looks up, meeting my gaze.
Her eyes are filled with a mix of uncertainty and something else, something deeper that I can’t quite put into words. It’s a look that draws me in, pulling me past some invisible boundary that I’ve carefully avoided breaching.
I’m aware of how close we’re standing, the delicate shape of her hand beneath mine, the faint scent of her perfume mingling with the warmth of the whiskey between us.
My mind tells me to step back, to break the moment before it gets too intense, before I fuck up in a way that can’t be fixed.
My body doesn’t listen. I can feel the draw between us, pulling tight like an invisible thread.
Her breath catches. She feels it too. She knows what’s about to happen, as certainly as I do. She wants it to happen. I can tell by the way she sways toward me, like she’s tethered by that same thread.
I lean in, and my lips meet hers.
It’s a soft kiss at first. Her lips are warm, tentative against mine, like she’s testing the moment just as much as I am. For a heartbeat, we stay there, neither of us daring to push further, both of us suspended in the delicate balance between restraint and surrender.
Then I feel her relax, just a little, and her hand moves up to rest lightly on my chest. The touch is gentle, hesitant, but it breaks something open in me.
My hand slips to her waist, pulling her closer. I kiss her deeper, letting myself get lost in the fullness of her lips, the warmth of her body pressed against mine. Her scent wreathes around me as her fingers curl into the fabric of my shirt.
What the fuck am I doing?
The thought cuts through the haze of desire. I feel as though I’ve suddenly been doused with an icy bucket of cold reality.
I can’t. I can’t do this. What the fuck is wrong with me?
I pull away, my heart racing as I step back, creating distance between us. She stares at me, seeming a bit stunned.
The guilt comes rushing in like a landslide as my rational brain takes back over. I had drawn careful lines in the sand, only to have them washed away in an instant by a single kiss. A kiss that I initiated.
I clear my throat, turning away so that I don’t have to see the dazed look on Alexis’s face, or the flicker of hurt that creeps into her eyes.
“I have more work to do,” I say, my voice rough. I pace behind the desk and sit back down. My laptop is like a shield between us. I open it, my fingers hovering over the keyboard to insulate myself from the tension that lingers in the air.
“Okay,” she says faintly.
“You, uh, you don’t need to wait up for me.”
“Okay.” I hear the rustle of fabric as she turns for the door. I keep my eyes glued to the screen, pretending to focus on the task at hand, but my thoughts are racing.
When I look up again, after several minutes, she’s gone.
I lean back in my chair, rubbing my hands over my face, trying to will away the frustration that sits in my chest.
What the hell am I doing?