It shouldn’t matter, she knew that. Her sexual history—or lack of it—was no one’s business but her own. It shouldn’t matter, but she suspected that for Gabriel it would.
After the longest passage of silence had passed, hands more than twice the size of hers wrapped around her fingers.
‘I can see I have much to do to make amends,’ he said, his expression as serious as his tone, ‘and I will do my best to do that. There is much to learn about each other, but I should warn you, I’m not one for baring my soul. I have always been a private person.’
‘Would you believe it, but I’m not one for baring my soul either?’ She gave a rueful shrug. ‘Not usually, in any case.’ And then she shook her head as if disbelieving. ‘And yet I cried in your arms and told you everything I was feeling that night because on some level I must have trusted you.’
It was the first time Alessia had considered that. Though there had been no forethought behind it, she’d trusted Gabriel with her feelings as well as with her body that night. She’d unbuttoned herself to him like she’d never done with anyone else on this earth, and then he’d left her life as if he’d never been in it. Was it any wonder she was so scared of getting close to him again?
The look on Gabriel’s face as another long stretch of time passed told her he was thinking the same thoughts.
‘Yes,’ he finally said. ‘I think I do believe that, and I will do whatever it takes to rebuild your trust in me.’ Then he released her hands and lifted the bedsheet for her. In a softer tone, he said, ‘It is late. We should get some sleep.’
She hesitated. Should she sleep in the guest room? Insist he sleep in it?
But the expression in his gaze was steady. Reassuring. And it made her mind up for her.
Her heart in her throat, Alessia slipped back under the sheets while Gabriel leaned over to turn out the lights, then her heart almost shot out of her ribs when he reached for her.
‘I’m just going to hold you,’ he murmured, and pulled her rigid body to him. Then, having manoeuvred her as easily as if he were manipulating play dough so that her cheek was pressed into his chest and their arms wrapped around each other, he dropped a kiss into her hair. ‘Goodnight, wife.’
‘Goodnight, husband,’ she whispered.
The moment Alessia awoke, her eyes pinged open. There was an arm draped over her waist, the attached hand loose against her belly. A knee rested in the back of her calf.
The duskiness of the room told her the sun had already risen.
From Gabriel’s steady, rhythmic breathing, he was in deep sleep.
She had no idea how long she lay there, afraid to move so much as a muscle. Afraid of the feelings swirling inside her. The deep yearn to wriggle back into his solid body and press herself to him. To wake him...
Holding her breath, she slowly inched herself out from under his arm. Once she’d inched herself off the bed too, she carefully picked up her book and her phone, and crept out of the room. Only when the door was closed behind her was she able to breathe.
Downstairs, she padded into the kitchen and fixed herself a coffee. It was the one thing she liked to do for herself, and when she had days without any engagements, she relished the solitude and independence the early mornings gave her. The days she had engagements, staff surrounded her before she’d even climbed out of bed.
Her hand clenched around her favourite coffee mug, and she squeezed her eyes shut. Hurt and anger had made her tell Gabriel she would accompany him to Madrid. She wondered if he would even pretend not to be relieved when she told him that wouldn’t be possible after all?
Rolling her neck, she pulled herself together and took her coffee into the day room, opened the curtains, snuggled into her reading chair and opened the book.
Ten minutes later and she was still on the same page. It didn’t matter how many times she read the same passage, the words refused to penetrate. Or should that be, her brain refused to concentrate?
With a sigh, she closed her eyes.
Her brain refused to concentrate because it wanted to think about Gabriel, and nothing but Gabriel.
Wasn’t it enough that her stupid brain had taken for ever to go to sleep because Gabriel’s arms had been around her and her every inhalation had breathed in the divine scent of his skin? Wasn’t it enough that her body had also taken for ever to relax itself into sleep for the exact same reason? She swore it had taken at least an hour before she’d even been able to breathe properly. And then there were all the thoughts that had crowded her already frazzled mind, every single one about Gabriel, never mind the battle between her mind and her rigid yet aching body. That had been the worst of it. That yearning ache deep inside her that had spent hours begging her to wake him with a kiss.
‘You’re up early.’
If Alessia hadn’t already finished her coffee she would have spilt the contents of her mug, which was still in her hand, all over herself.
Snapping her eyes open, she turned her head and found Gabriel in the doorway looking at her with an expression that made her heart inflate and her belly flip.
Black hair mussed, his jaw and neck thick with stubble, all he wore was a pair of low-slung black jeans that perfectly showed off the muscular chest her face had spent half the night pressed against, and the yearning that had kept her awake for hours hit her with its full force.
The hint of a smile played on his mouth. ‘What does a man do for coffee here?’
Her certainty that he could sense or see the effect he was having on her sent a flush of heat thrashing through her, and she had to clear her throat to speak. ‘There’s a pot made in the kitchen.’ Trying not to cringe at the overt croak in her voice, she straightened her back and added, ‘If you’re hungry, press three on any landline and it will connect you to the palace kitchen. The chefs will make you anything you want.’