The only thing I want isyou, Gabriel thought. Although the angle of Alessia’s armchair hid much of her from his sight, the little he could see was enough to make his chest tighten and his pulses surge. That his appearance had such a visible effect on her only heightened the sensations, and he ground his feet into the carpet and filled his lungs slowly before speaking again. ‘Have you eaten?’
She tucked a strand of her silky dark hair behind an ear. ‘Not yet. I’ll order something later, but please, don’t wait for me. The chefs are used to preparing dishes any time of the day or night.’
‘I’ll wait until you eat. Did you want another coffee?’
‘No, thank you. I’m limiting myself to one a day.’ She pressed her belly as explanation.
The tightness in his chest loosened and expanded, and he nodded his understanding. ‘Can I get you anything else?’
‘No. But thank you.’
Gabriel nodded again and turned down the corridor that led to the kitchen. The aroma of freshly ground coffee greeted him, and he poured himself a cup and added a heaped spoonful of sugar while taking a moment to gather himself together.
He’d fallen asleep surprisingly easily considering everything, but had woken with a weighty feeling in the pit of his stomach. He’d felt Alessia’s absence from the bed at the same moment everything that had occurred between them on their wedding night had flashed through his mind. The weighty feeling had spread to his chest as, for the first time, he had an insight into how she must have felt that morning to find him gone.
Why had he never allowed himself to think of that before? He didn’t have the answer. He’d always acknowledged to himself that his behaviour that morning had been abhorrent but all the justifications he’d heaped on himself had smothered his ability to think of how it must have been for Alessia.
He wished he could say that she was overreacting. One-night stands happened all the time. Alessia wasn’t his first and, princess though she was, she was a modern woman so he doubted he was hers either—although her reaction to his question about monogamy and his reaction to that reaction told him previous relationships were a subject best avoided between them—but what they’d shared didnothappen all the time. The chemistry between them had been off the charts.
It still was.
That Alessia refused to act on the chemistry was a situation of his own making. It was on him to make things right.
Carrying his coffee back to the main living area, he took a seat on the armchair closest to her. Her eyes flickered up from the book she was reading, colour rising on her cheeks.
‘I would like us to take a visit to the stables at some point this weekend,’ he said. ‘We need to start thinking about how we want it to be renovated.’
‘Sure.’ She closed her book. ‘I’ll ask Ena—my private secretary—to find the keys for us. She’ll be at her desk in an hour.’
‘What about your domestic staff? What time do they start?’ All the times he’d been at the castle, whatever the time, the stone walls had contained a hive of activity, worker bees efficiently getting on with their individual tasks, unobtrusive but always in the background.
‘This is an official day off for me so they won’t come until I call for them.’
‘Do you have many free days?’
‘My weekends are normally free, but sometimes I have engagements to attend, sometimes issues crop up that need to be dealt with—my role within the family isn’t something I can turn on and off. None of us can.’
‘How many engagements do you go to each week?’
‘It varies.’
‘What do you like to do in your free time?’
Alessia studied him warily before answering. All this talk about engagements made her think there was a real irony in Gabriel making the effort to engage with her as he was currently doing when she’d been the driving force on their night together, forcing him to engage in conversation with her. She remembered thinking that he didn’t seem to like her. Clearly he’d wanted her but that was physical desire. It was the liking ofher, her personality, she’d had doubts about. She still had them. For all his excuses about ghosting her, she couldn’t help but think that if he’d liked her more, he would have returned her call.
She wished she didn’t feel so resentful that he was only making this effort to engage and get to know her now as part of his efforts to build trust between them so they could have some kind of harmony in their marriage rather than because he wanted to know her for her own sake as she’d so longed to know him.
But there was no point thinking like this. She had to think of their marriage as being like her headmistress’s proverbial bed and imagine it having a lumpy mattress. Alessia had no choice but to lie on it and play her part in flattening those lumps, and as she thought that, she was helpless to stop the image of them naked, entwined together on a real bed, and helpless to stop another wave of longing.
She expelled a slow breath and forced herself to answer. ‘Sometimes I see friends. Sometimes I go shopping. Sometimes I’ll spend a whole day reading or watching boxsets. It depends.’ And then, because she knew shehadto get over her resentment and find a way to deal with her hurt otherwise she’d be condemning them both to a lifetime of misery, added, ‘What about you? What do you do on your days off?’
‘I don’t take many days off but when I have free time I like to unwind with a bourbon and a good film or a book.’ He nodded at the book on her lap. ‘What are you reading?’
Bracing herself for a cutting comment, Alessia showed him the cover. It was a historical romance, the kind of book her brothers had always laughed at her for enjoying.
Gabriel didn’t seem to find anything amusing about her literary choice, pulling a musing face and asking, ‘Any good?’
‘So far.’