Page 49 of Vicious Temptation
“I’m sorry. I know my father can be?—”
“It’s not your fault, Bella.” The words come out abruptly, and I flinch. Gabriel must see it, because he softens instantly, his voice doing the same. “This isn’t your fault. It’s between your father and I.” He pauses. “You mentioned you like photography. You must like it a lot, if you spend time just browsing like this.” He nods at the laptop.
I bite my lip. “I do,” I admit. I still can’t bring myself to tell him how much, to expose that part of myself to him. Especially now, when he knows so much about my past, has seen me crying in the middle of the night, when I’m sleeping in his bed—it feels too raw. Too vulnerable. Like I need to keep something to myself. “I’ve liked it for a long time. I haven’t gotten a chance to do much lately, though.”
Gabriel nods, almost to himself, as if he’s thinking something privately. He stands up, reaching into his pocket, and before I can process what’s happening, he sets that black credit card on the table. “Buy your equipment,” he says. “Whatever it is that you want. I don’t care how much you spend. Buy whatever you might need, and anything you want for it.”
“Gabriel!” I gasp his name before I can stop myself, and I see the way he tenses. His spine goes stiff for a minute, that tension rippling through him as his hands curl where they’re shoved in his pockets, and I see his jaw tighten. Something in me tightens, too, a twist in my stomach that feels like a primal reaction to what he just did, something I don’t fully understand. I only know that he’s a part of it, and so am I.
“I told you the other day to buy yourself something nice,” he says firmly, glancing back at me. “You didn’t then, so do it now. Whatever you want,” he repeats.
“I don’t think you understand how expensive this all is,” I protest weakly, and Gabriel chuckles, turning to face me a little more.
“I have some idea,” he says wryly. “Bella, I intended to pay you a wage for this job.” His voice is very low now, this conversation clearly intended just for us, even though we’re still in the kitchen. If Agnes can hear us, she’s doing a very good job of pretending that she can’t. “But your father insisted that the money go to him. I planned on talking to you later about all of this, but it’s clear that you need to understand the situation.” His jaw tightens again, his lips thinning. “I’m going to do something to rectify this situation. But while I handle that, you can start by buying yourself whatever camera, lenses, and anything else you want. Don’t give me back that card until you’re finished.”
And then he turns abruptly on his heel, leaving the room.
I stare after him, stunned by his generosity. It’s hard to imagine he’s serious—but I know he is. I could hear it in his voice, see it in his posture. Gabriel is the kind of man who doesn’t need to yell and shout to command authority. He can be quietly commanding, discreetly forceful, and something about that confident authority sends a shiver down my spine, my skin tingling in a way that feels almost—good.
I open the laptop again, looking at the listings of cameras, lenses, and all the equipment I could ever need. I look at the credit card, and I know what I’m supposed to do. I’m supposed to accept this gift, to do this without feeling guilty about it.
Don’t feel guilty, I think, picking up the card. Gabriel was right about one thing, I’m not being paid for this job. He said something about changing it, and I don’t know what he meant by that. I’m afraid to speculate. But if he wants to begin by paying me in photography equipment?—
Well, who am I to argue?
This time, I do as he asked. I add everything I want to the cart, and just about the time that Agnes and Cecelia are sliding the pie into the oven, I enter Gabriel’s credit card number and hit purchase.
I feel faintly sick, seeing the total, but then I remember that if I was working a regular job, I would have gotten two paychecks by now, almost. I’m not sure if they would have totaled that much, but I could ask Clara. She knows how actual jobs work. And with the fading of the guilt over the price comes a wave of excitement, all the ideas about what I can do with that equipment, the pictures I can take, flooding me.
And then a sharp, hard banging on the front door jolts me out of my thoughts.
Agnes frowns, closing the oven. “I’ll get it,” she says, shooing Cecelia towards the table. “Probably someone selling cable plans or something that doesn’t know we don’t need them to help with it.”
I don’t tell Agnes that no one has had cable in at least five to seven years, at least not anyone Gabriel’s age. I just ask Cecelia about the pie she and Agnes were making, and she’s only halfway through explaining to me the process for making a peach pie when I hear Agnes’ clipped stride coming back into the kitchen.
“Bella,” she says without preamble. “Your father is here.”
My stomach drops to my feet. Panic instantly sweeps over me. The only reason I can think of for my father to be here is that he’s decided he’s done with letting me play nanny at Gabriel’s, and he wants me to come home to marry whatever man he’s decided is the right choice for me. That sick feeling comes back, only for an entirely different reason this time, and the world tilts a little as I push myself to my feet.
Agnes must see my reaction, at least a little, because she shoots me a worried look as she walks to the table. I don’t want my father to come in here and bother her again, or Cecelia and Danny, so I force myself to walk out, all the way to the living room where I’m sure he’s waiting.
He hasn’t bothered to sit, although I’m sure Agnes offered it. He’s standing at the fireplace with his back to me, looking out of the living room window as if he owns this place, and an odd sort of anger rushes through me, a protectiveness over this home, as if it’s my home, and not Gabriel’s. Or rather, as if it were mine, too. All I can think is that he has no business barging in here. Gabriel wouldn’t barge into his home. He has more respect than that. But I feel certain that my father didn’t make an appointment.
“Dad?” My voice is higher pitched than I would like it to be. He turns, his face set in hard lines, and my stomach quakes again. “What’s going on?”
“I want a word with you, Bella.”
I swallow hard. “Okay,” I manage, hating the quiver in my voice, but unable to stop it. My father didn’t come here because he misses me. I was never under any illusions about that. But the reality of what he probably does want grows closer and closer with every second that passes.
“Gabriel came to my office today.” His lips press together, and I can’t help but frown.
“Did he barge in, or did he call first?” I know I shouldn’t have said it as soon as I do, but I couldn’t stop myself. My father is being rude, in the house of a man who has done nothing but try to help me, and I resent it. I resent him, more than ever.
“Don’t take that tone with me, young lady,” he snaps. “Gabriel came and practically interrogated me. About your past. About Pyotr.”
Cold ripples down my spine, and I realize this is about something else entirely. This is about Gabriel starting to dig in places where my father absolutely would not want him to go. “I’m sorry,” I manage, as meekly as I can. “I didn’t ask him to do that.”
“But you did tell him what happened.” It’s not a question—Gabriel probably wouldn’t have found out any other way, nor would he have had any reason to go looking for that information, unless I told him.