Gabriel's Rapture (33 page)

Julia straightened her shoulders. “You didn’t say good-bye with a conversation. You said it by fucking me against a door.”

He strode toward her quickly.

“Stop it
. You know my opinion of that word. Never use it in reference to us again.”

Here was the old Professor Emerson, simmering beneath Gabriel’s chastened exterior. He’d been soft with her, so she found his change in tone jarring. But she’d been exposed to his ill temper before and discovered, at that moment, that it didn’t really trouble her. So she ignored him and stood up, prepared to escort him out.

“Don’t forget this.” She picked up his cell phone.

“Thank you. Julianne, please—”

“How’s Paulina?”

Her question hung in the air like an arrow, poised in flight.

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m wondering how often you saw her while you were gone.”

Gabriel placed his phone in his pocket. “I saw her once. I asked for her forgiveness and wished her well.” His tone had the air of finality.

“Is that all?”

“Why don’t you just come out and ask the question, Julianne?” His lips pressed into a thin, angry line. “Why don’t you ask me if I slept with her?”

“Did you?” She crossed her arms over her chest.

“Of course not!”

Gabriel’s answer was so swift, so vehement, Julia retreated slightly. He was righteously indignant, his fists clenched.

“Maybe I should have been more specific. There are a lot of things a man and woman can do short of sleeping together.” She raised her chin defiantly.

Gabriel glared, forcing himself to count to ten. It would not do for him to lose his temper now. Not when he had so far to go.

“I realize that you and I have very different views of my departure, but I assure you, I didn’t seek out other women.” His expression grew gentle. “I was alone with your pictures and my memories, Julianne. They were poor companions, but the only other companion I wanted was you.”

“So there wasn’t anyone else?”

“I was faithful the entire time. I swear it, on Grace’s memory.”

His oath stunned them both, and as their eyes met she saw his sincerity. She closed her eyes. Relief began to well up inside her.

He took her hand, cradling it gently in his. “There are a lot of things I should have told you. I’ll tell you now. Come with me.”

“I’d rather stay here,” she whispered, her voice taking on an eerie sound in the flickering darkness.

“The Julianne I remembered hated the dark.” He released her hand. “Paulina is in Minnesota. She reconciled with her family and met someone. We agreed that I would no longer be supporting her, and she wished us well.”

“She wished you well,” Julia muttered.

“No, she wished
us
well. Don’t you see? She assumed we were still together and I didn’t tell her otherwise. In my mind, you and I were still together.”

This was Gabriel’s own arrow, pointed back at her. He hadn’t told Paulina that he was single, because in his mind, he wasn’t. The realization washed over her.

“There’s no one else.” His voice was the soul of sincerity.

She averted her eyes. “What were you doing in front of a closed coffee shop in the middle of the night?”

“I was working up the courage to ring your doorbell.” Gabriel began twisting the platinum band on his left hand. “I had to convince Rachel to give me your address. She was understandably hesitant.”

Julia’s eyes dropped to his left hand. “Why are you wearing a wedding ring?”

“Why do you think?” He pulled off the ring and held it out to her.

She recoiled.

“Read the inscription,” he urged.

Hesitantly, she took the ring and held it up to one of the candles.
Julianne—my Beloved is mine and I am hers.

A sick feeling entered her stomach, and she quickly returned it to him. He replaced it on his left hand without a word.

“Why are you wearing a ring with my name on it?”

“You said that you didn’t want to talk.” His voice was gently reproving. “If you’re allowed to ask me questions, can I ask about Paul?”

She blushed and looked away. “He was there to pick up the pieces.”

Gabriel closed his eyes. He was perilously close to giving in to his temper and saying something cutting, but that would only succeed in pushing her further away.

He opened his eyes. “Forgive me. This ring has a mate, smaller in size. I purchased them at Tiffany in Toronto on the day I bought the silver frame for Maia’s picture.

“I still think of you as my other half. My
bashert
. Despite what happened, there was never any question of me pursuing someone else. I have been faithful to you since you told me who you were, back in October.”

Julia suddenly found it very difficult to speak. “Gabriel—these past few months, without a word, then tonight…”

He looked at her with compassion, his arms aching to hold her. But she was too far away. “We don’t have to have this conversation now. Just—if you can stand it, please let me see you tomorrow.” He gave her a look filled with longing.

She met his gaze briefly. “Okay.”

He exhaled loudly. “Good. I’ll speak to you tomorrow, then. Rest well.”

She nodded, opening the door.

“Julianne?”

He stood in front of her, far too close. She looked up at him.

“Will you—let me kiss your hand?” His voice was wistful and small, like a young boy.

She waited for him to kiss the back of her hand, then without thinking she reached up and pressed her lips to his forehead. Suddenly, his arms were around her back, pulling her flush against him.

Although he had trouble thinking of anything other than Julianne when he was kissing her, Gabriel focused his attention on trying to communicate with lips and mouth that he hadn’t betrayed her. That he loved her.

When she kissed him back with equal passion, he moaned.

He made sure to be gentle, if not intense, and as her own movements slowed, he began to nibble slightly at the fullness of her lower lip, before pressing closed mouthed kisses to both cheeks and finally, the end of her nose.

When he opened his eyes he saw a flood of emotions pass over Julia’s pretty face.

He ran his fingers through her damp hair, once, twice, and gazed down at her longingly. “I love you.”

She was silent as he walked through the door.

* * *

Gabriel’s kiss did nothing to strengthen Julia’s resolve, but she would not consider it a mistake. She’d been curious about what it would be like to kiss him again and was surprised at how familiar it was. In mere seconds he succeeded in causing her pulse to race and her throat to constrict.

She couldn’t deny that he loved her. She’d felt it. Even Gabriel, with his polished manners and charm, couldn’t lie with his kiss.

There was something different about him. He seemed softer, somehow, more vulnerable. Yes, there was the occasional show of temper and the old Professor Emerson, but she knew that Gabriel had changed. She just didn’t know why.

By the following morning the power had been restored and Julia was able to recharge her phone. She called the manager at Peet’s and explained that she was under the weather and would be taking the weekend off. He wasn’t happy about it since it was the fourth of July weekend, but there was little he could do.

After a long hot shower, (a shower spent dreaming about Gabriel’s lips and old, suppressed memories of the two of them together), Julia felt much, much better. And only a little worse. She sent a quick email to Rachel, explaining that Gabriel had returned and declared his love for her. An hour later, her phone rang. She expected that it would be Rachel. Surprisingly, it was Dante Alighieri.

“How did you sleep?” Gabriel sounded cheerful.

“Well. And you?”

He paused. “Not as well as I used to—tolerably, I suppose.”

Julia laughed. This was the Professor Emerson she remembered.

“I want to show you my house,” he said.

“What, now?”

“Today, if you’re willing.” He sounded worried she might refuse.

“Where is it?”

“It’s on Foster Place, near Longfellow’s house. Ideal for a commute to Harvard. Not so convenient for BU.”

Julia was puzzled. “If it’s inconvenient for BU, then why did you buy it?”

Gabriel cleared his throat. “I was thinking that—I was
hoping
that…” He struggled to find the right words. “It’s small but it has a beautiful garden. I’d like to know what you think of it.” He cleared his throat again, and she swore she could hear him tugging at his shirt collar. “Of course, I could always move.”

She hummed in response, not sure what to say.

“Now that you’ve had a good night’s sleep, will you talk to me a little?”

Julia had never heard Gabriel sound so nervous. “Of course. But it isn’t something we can do over the phone.”

“I need to pay a visit to campus to see my new office. It won’t take long.”

“There’s no rush.”

“Yes, there is.” Now Gabriel’s voice was heated.

She sighed heavily. “I could come over later.”

“Come for dinner. I’ll pick you up at six thirty.”

“I’ll take a cab.”

Julia broke the awkward pause that followed with an explanation that she needed to go.

“Fine,” said Gabriel stiffly. “If you wish to take a cab, that’s your prerogative.”

“I’m going to keep an open mind until we talk, and I’d like to ask you to do that too.” Her tone was conciliatory.

Gabriel felt as if he were hanging on to his hopes by a very thin thread. He was far from certain that she would take him back. And even if she did, the old specter of jealously taunted him. He didn’t know how he would react if she revealed that she’d turned to Paul in her grief and shared his bed.

God damned Angelfucker
.

“Of course,” Gabriel said, his voice strained.

“I’m surprised you called me. Why didn’t you call me while you were away?”

He was silent for a moment. “That’s a long story.”

“I’m sure it is. I’ll see you tonight.”

She hung up the phone, wondering what his story would include.

* * *

When Julia arrived at Gabriel’s new home, she surveyed it with no little puzzlement. It was a two-story frame house with a simple, unadorned front, and it was painted a charcoal gray with darker trim. There was almost no front yard to speak of and a small, paved car pad to the house’s right.

In an email that included directions, Gabriel had sent Julia a link to the original real estate listing for the property. The asking price had been over a million dollars. The house had been built prior to World War II. In fact, the entire street had been a neighborhood of Italian immigrants who built the small, two bedroom houses in the nineteen twenties. Now the street was populated with old-moneyed yuppies, Harvard professors, and Gabriel.

As she took in the tidy simplicity of the building, Julia shook her head.
So this is what a million dollars can buy you in Harvard Square
.

As she prepared to knock on the front door, she was surprised to find a note on it in Gabriel’s hand.

Julianne,
Please meet me in the garden.
G.

She sighed, and just like that she knew that tonight was going to be very, very difficult. She walked around the side of the house and down the little paved driveway, gasping when she rounded the corner.

There were flowers and greenery, wisps of sea grass and elegantly trimmed boxwood, and in the very center of the garden stood what looked like a Sultan’s tent. A fountain sat on the right side of the green space, featuring a marble statue of Venus. Underneath the fountain was a small pond filled with white and red Koi.

Julia walked toward the tent so she could peer inside. And what she saw pained her.

In the tent was a low, square bed, exactly like the futon that graced the terrace of the suite she’d shared with Gabriel in Florence. In the suite where they’d made love for the first time. On the terrace where he fed her chocolates and strawberries and danced with her to Diana Krall under the Tuscan sky. The futon where he made love to her the following morning. Gabriel had tried to reproduce the ambience of that terrace down to the very color scheme of the bedclothes.

The voice of Frank Sinatra seemed to float from somewhere closer to the house, while almost every flat, fireproof surface held a tall, pillar candle. Ornate Moroccan lanterns were suspended from crisscrossed wires overhead.

It was a fairy tale. It was Florence, and their apple orchard, and the wonders of an Arabian night. Unfortunately for Gabriel, the extravagant gesture begged the question: if he was resourceful enough to construct a Moroccan caravan in his garden, why couldn’t he have told her he planned to return?

Gabriel saw her standing in his garden, and his heart leapt. He wanted to pull her into his arms and press their lips together. But he could see from the set of her shoulders and the stiffness of her spine that such an act would be unwelcome. So he approached her carefully.

“Good evening, Julianne.” A silky voice caressed her ear as Gabriel leaned in from behind her.

She hadn’t heard him approach, so she shivered slightly. He rubbed one arm and then the other, up and down, in an act that was supposed to be comforting but in reality caused a deep erotic flush to dance across the surface of her skin.

“I like the music,” she said, pulling away from him.

He extended his palm as an invitation. Cautiously, she placed her hand in his. He pressed an unhurried kiss to her knuckles before releasing her.

“You’re stunning, as always.”

Gabriel’s eyes slowly drank in the sight of Julia in her plain black dress, her pale, shapely legs in a pair of black ballet flats, and the way the gentle whisper of wind blew a few strands of hair across her glossy, reddish lips as she turned to face him.

“Thank you.” She waited for him to comment on her shoes, for his eyes rested on them a little longer than was polite. She’d worn the flats because they were comfortable and because she wished to assert her independence. She knew he wouldn’t like them. Surprisingly, however, he smiled.

Gabriel was a little more casually dressed in a white linen shirt and khaki pants, with a navy linen jacket. His smile was perhaps his most decorative asset.