Their eyes met and Julia looked away. “It’s a lovely gesture, but I would rather have had a letter from you or a telephone call three months ago.”
It appeared as if he wanted to argue with her, but in an instant his expression changed.
“Where are my manners,” he muttered. He offered his elbow, escorting her to a small bistro table that was set up in a corner of the stone patio.
Small white lights shone down on the patio from the branches of an obliging maple. Julia wondered if Gabriel had hired an exterior decorator just for the occasion. He pulled out her chair, and when she was seated, gently eased it closer to the table. She noticed that the centerpiece on the table was filled with orange and red gerbera daisies.
“How did you manage all of this?” Julia unfolded her napkin and placed it in her lap.
“Rebecca is a wonder of New England industriousness.”
Julia gave him a questioning look, but her question was soon answered when Gabriel’s housekeeper served dinner. Rebecca was tall and plain and wore her salt and pepper hair in a short bob. Her eyes, which were large and dark, sparkled with amusement. Julia divined quickly that Gabriel had taken Rebecca into part of his confidence, at least as far as this evening was concerned.
Despite the elaborate décor and the perfect music, dinner was a simple affair by Gabriel’s standards: lobster bisque; a pear, walnut, and Gorgonzola salad; steamed mussels with frites; and then finally and most gloriously, a blueberry tart with sour lemon ice cream. Gabriel served her champagne, the same Veuve Clicquot he’d served the first time she dined at his apartment. That evening seemed so long ago, even though it was less than a year.
They made small talk during their meal, discussing Rachel’s wedding and Scott’s girlfriend and her son. Gabriel described the things he liked about his house and those he didn’t, promising Julia a tour. Neither of them were in a hurry to begin discussing the events leading up to their separation.
“You aren’t drinking?” She noticed that he’d imbibed only Perrier with his meal.
“I quit.”
Her eyebrows shot up. “Why?”
“Because I was drinking too much.”
“Not when you were with me. You pledged not to get drunk anymore.”
“Precisely,” he said.
She looked at him carefully, at the way his eyes indicated there was a very unpleasant experience behind his words. “But you enjoyed drinking.”
“I have an addictive personality, Julianne. You know this.” He smoothly changed the subject to something more pleasant.
When Rebecca served dessert, he and Julia exchanged a look.
“No chocolate cake tonight?”
“Non, mon ange,” Gabriel breathed. “Although I’d love nothing more than to feed you again.”
Julia felt her cheeks grow red, and she knew it would be a poor decision to go down that road with him before they had their conversation, but as he gazed at her with undisguised passion, she couldn’t bring herself to care.
“I’d like that,” she said, quietly.
Gabriel smiled as if the sun had just returned to the sky after a protracted absence and quickly shifted his chair so he was seated next to her. Close. Very close. So close that she could feel his warm breath on her neck, which goose pimpled in anticipation.
Gabriel picked up Julia’s dessert fork and placed some pie and ice cream on it and turned to face her.
As she gazed at him with longing, his breath caught in his throat.
“What is it?” She looked at him in alarm.
“I’d almost forgotten how lovely you are.” He traced the curve of her cheekbone with his unencumbered hand and brought the fork to her lips.
She closed her eyes and opened her mouth, and at that moment, Gabriel’s heart soared. Yes, it was a little thing—almost inconsequential if one were to consider what tales to tell a confidante. But Julia didn’t trust quickly or easily. The ease with which she made herself vulnerable to him made his heart beat quick and his blood pump fast.
She hummed at the mixture of flavors, opening her eyes.
He couldn’t help himself. He leaned closer so their mouths were parted by mere inches and whispered, “May I?”
She nodded, and he pressed his lips to hers. She was sweetness and light, gentleness and goodness, and the burning and searing goal of all of his earthly hunts and fascinations. But she didn’t belong to him. So he kissed her gently, like he first kissed her in the orchard, with both hands tangling in her long, curled hair. Then he pulled back to watch her face.
A contented sigh escaped her ruby lips as she sat with eyes closed, floating.
“I love you,” he said.
Now her eyes were open. Her expression reflected an unnamed emotion, but she didn’t say it back.
When dessert was well and truly over, Gabriel suggested they take their espressos to the tent, dismissing Rebecca for the evening. Night had fallen on this little patch of Eden, and like Adam himself, Gabriel led a blushing Eve to his bower.
She kicked off her shoes and curled up on the futon against the cushions, nervously chewing her fingernails while Gabriel lit the candles in the Moroccan lanterns. He took his time, adjusting them so their light flickered over the futon seductively. Then he lit the other candles that were scattered throughout the tent. Finally, he lay on his back next to her, hands behind his head, angled so he could see her face.
“I’d like to talk about what happened,” she initiated.
Gabriel gave her his full attention.
“When you showed up outside my apartment I didn’t know whether to hit you or kiss you.” Her voice was low.
“Didn’t you?” he whispered.
“I didn’t do either.”
“It was never your nature to be vindictive. Or cruel.”
She took a deep breath and began. She told him how it broke her heart to have left message after message with him, only to have them unacknowledged. She told him about her surprise at finding his apartment abandoned. She told him about the kindness of his neighbor, and Paul, and Katherine Picton. She spoke of her continued sessions with Nicole.
Julia was too busy fussing with her espresso to notice how unsettled he’d become. When she mentioned how the textbook he’d passed to her had ended up on her shelf unopened, Gabriel cursed Paul.
“You aren’t allowed to curse him.” Her tone was sharp. “It wasn’t his fault that you put your message in a textbook. Why didn’t you choose a volume out of your personal library? I might have recognized it.”
“I’d been ordered to stay away from you. If I’d put a volume from my library in your mailbox, Jeremy would have noticed it. As it was, I chose a textbook and I placed it in your mailbox after hours.” He huffed in frustration. “Didn’t the title mean anything to you?”
“What title?”
“The title of the textbook: Marriage in the Middle Ages: Love, Sex, and the Sacred.”
“What should it have meant, Gabriel? For all I knew, you’d labeled me as your Héloise and left me. I didn’t have any reason to think otherwise and you didn’t leave me with one.”
He leaned forward, eyes flashing. “The textbook was the reason. The title, the photo from the orchard, the image of St. Francis trying to save Guido da Montefeltro…” His voice cracked, and he paused, in agony. “Didn’t you remember our conversation in Belize? I told you I’d go to Hell to save you. And believe me, I did.”
“I didn’t know you’d sent me messages. I overlooked the textbook because I didn’t know it was from you. Why didn’t you call me?”
“I couldn’t talk to you,” he whispered. “I was told that the Dean would interview you prior to your graduation and that he would ask if you’d heard from me. You’re a lovely woman, Julianne, but a terrible liar. I had to send messages in code.”
Julia’s surprise registered immediately on her face. “You knew about the interview?”
“I knew about a great many things,” he said stoically. “But I couldn’t tell. That’s the point.”
“Rachel told me not to despair.” She captured his gaze for a moment. “But I needed to hear those words from you. Our last night together, you had sex with me, but you wouldn’t talk to me. What was I supposed to think?”
Tears overflowed her eyes. But before she could wipe them away with her hand, Gabriel’s tugged her from her safe corner into his outstretched arms. He pressed her to his chest and kissed her head, before wrapping his arms around her back.
Somehow, the feel of his arms around her made her cry harder. He squeezed her gently.
“My pride was my downfall. I thought I could court you while you were my student and get away with it. I was wrong.”
“I thought you chose your job instead of me.” Julia’s voice was filled with hurt. “When I discovered you’d moved out of your apartment…Why didn’t you tell me you were leaving?”
“I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Forgive me, Julianne. My goal was not to hurt you, I promise. I regret everything that you described.” He kissed her forehead once again. “I need to tell you what happened. It’s a long story. And only you can tell me how it ends…”
Chapter 45
Julia pulled away so she could see his face better, bracing herself for what was to come. Her sudden movement seemed to cause the scent of her hair to waft over to him.
“Your hair is different,” he murmured.
“A little longer, perhaps.”
“It doesn’t smell of vanilla anymore.”
“I changed my shampoo.” She sounded curt.
“Why?” Gabriel shifted his body to eliminate the gap between them.
“Because it reminded me of you.”
“Is that why you aren’t wearing your earrings?” he asked, fingering her earlobe.
“Yes.”
He paused and gazed at her, his hurt evident.
She looked away.
“I love you, Julianne. No matter what you think of me or what I did, I promise that I was only trying to protect you.”
She moved to lie on her side, careful not to touch him.
“I am your faithful one, Beatrice,” Gabriel quoted, his eyes brimming with emotion. “Please remember that when I tell you what happened.”
He took a deep breath and said a silent prayer before beginning his story.
“When you and I appeared before the hearing officers, my hope was that we would say very little and force them to show what evidence they had. But it became clear that they weren’t going to rest until they’d laid charges and punished us.
“I screwed up when I submitted Katherine’s grade for your work to the Registrar. Since the administration was worried you’d been awarded the grade because you were sleeping with me, they were going to suspend your grade while they investigated further.”
“Could they do that?”
“It’s a provision listed in the policies governing academic behavior. As long as the grade was incomplete, you wouldn’t be able to graduate.”