Page 88 of Vicious Temptation
“The veal bolognese for your wife, then. And you, sir?”
He addresses Danny, lightly, and my head is spinning. It’s a simple mistake. Easy to make with the two of us here, with two children. But it feels like someone jolted me back to reality.
“Not my wife,” Gabriel says with a chuckle, and the server looks up sharply.
“My apologies.”
I don’t hear what else Gabriel says, or anything, for a moment. It shouldn’t hurt, not at all—but the moment he says it, it feels like a stabbing pain in my chest. Not just what he said, but how he said it, so easily, as if it was a silly mistake.
What I’d been thinking, just a moment before. But it felt so much worse, hearing it out loud.
I swallow hard, fighting back senseless tears. Today has been perfect—everything has been perfect, up to this point, and I don’t want to ruin it. I tilt my chin up, intending to meet Gabriel’s eyes, and let him see that I don’t care, but he’s not looking at me. He’s talking to Danny, and that gives me another moment to gather myself.
I’m being ridiculous, I remind myself, tearing off a small piece of bread and busying myself with that. I know what this is. I was the one who suggested it to Gabriel, who came up with the plan for us to be friends with benefits, for him to introduce me to what it’s like to be with someone who makes me feel safe. And that goes beyond the bedroom. It’s driving lessons and afternoons at lunch and days like today, where he gently ushers me into knowing what it’s like to be a normal person again. A woman who wears her favorite clothes and goes to museums and out to dinner and doesn’t live in fear of a panic attack in the middle of it all.
The only thing that can ruin all of that is if I let myself get attached. And that’s the last thing in the world that I want. I’m happy here, and I don’t want anything to spoil that.
I have everything I could possibly want. I can’t lose it over developing feelings for someone who I know is unavailable. Who has been nothing but honest with me on that front, since the very start.
But it’s harder than I imagined it could be. And it feels that way for the rest of the evening, because it feels like we’re a family. It feels like that when dinner comes, and Cecelia loves hers, but insists I try it, and then wants to try mine, leading to the two of us sharing our meals back and forth. It feels like that when we drive to the theater district for the showing of Wicked, and the four of us sit together. And it feels like that on the drive home, when Gabriel puts the soundtrack on, and he and Cecelia sing off-key together the whole way back.
I tell myself that this is just a vision of what I could have in the future, with the right man. A man who has all the good qualities that Gabriel does, but who is emotionally available, who wants to fall in love again.
The fact that Gabriel feels like the right man doesn’t factor into it. It can’t.
I go upstairs to change, and Gabriel takes Cecelia and Danny up to bed. I stand in front of my mirror for a minute, draping the leather jacket over a chair, rubbing my hands up and down my arms. I’m not ready for today to be over. And I’m rapidly having to face the fact that I am ready for something else—and that will change everything about what Gabriel and I are to each other.
I start to reach for my earrings, to slide them off, and a knock comes at my door. I jump, startled, and hear Gabriel’s voice on the other side, asking if he can come in.
“Sure.” I hear the tremor in my voice, and I can’t quite look at him as he steps in. I slide my earrings off, setting them on my vanity, and I catch a glimpse of him in the mirror, watching as I reach up to take my hair down. I see him swallow, hard, his throat working as my hair slides free of the pins, heat building in his gaze. It sends a shiver over my skin, and I can feel the tension thickening in the air.
It feels sexual, but it feels domestic, too. Like a husband watching his wife after a night out. I can’t ignore that feeling, the gravity of it, and what it means for what will happen to my heart in the wake of all of this—but I’m also not ready to stop.
I’m not ready for things to end—not without one final thing between us.
“I came up to ask if you wanted to have a drink with me downstairs.” Gabriel’s voice is lightly gruff, tight with desire, and I feel heat bloom through me.
“That sounds nice.” The words stick in my throat. “I was going to change.”
Gabriel’s eyes sweep over me. “I like the dress.”
I turn to face him, and he says nothing, his hands in his pockets. But I can hear everything he’s not saying. I want to look at you, like this, now that I can. I want to take it off of you. I want you.
“Maybe I’ll leave it on,” I say softly, and he pushes the door open, letting me walk out first as we head back downstairs.
He pours us both a drink, bringing a glass of wine for me and a glass of cognac for himself into the living room with us. I feel another wave of heat ripple through me as I remember that first night we had drinks, the wine I spilled, and the way he knelt down so close to me, close enough to kiss. I know what his mouth feels like on mine now.
But there are things I still don’t know, and I want to find out.
“Did you enjoy the day?” Gabriel sits down, not in his armchair like he usually does, but next to me. “I always like going to the museum.”
I nod. “I do, too. Clara and I can spend entire days just wandering through them.” I try to think of something else to say, but my head feels muddled, my thoughts impossible to sort through. I want it to be tonight, and I don’t, all at the same time.
Today felt like the fantasy of a perfect day, everything that we could have had in a different life, everything I still can have, if I find someone I can love and who can love me the way I need to be in return. And while my heart feels like it’s cracking at the idea of things with Gabriel ending—I think this is how I want it to end. On a day like today, with this night—us, together, the way it could be if things were different.
I take another sip of my wine, and set the glass down, turning to look at him. Gabriel meets my gaze, and I think he knows what I’m going to say. But he’s patient, as always, letting me come to him. Letting me set the pace.
“I want you,” I whisper.