“Don’t speak to her like that.” Gabriel moved to stand in between them, shielding Julia with his body. He still wouldn’t look at her.
“Listen, you two, David and his minions are about to come through that door, and I’d prefer to be gone before that happens. So whatever conversation you need to have, make it quick,” Soraya snapped.
“Over my dead body.” John glowered. “We’re in enough trouble as it is. Come on.”
Gabriel shot his lawyer a look of warning and gritted his teeth, turning around to face Julia.
“What’s going on? Why did you tell them our relationship was inappropriate?” Julia looked up into dark, tormented eyes.
“You were not sensible of your own distress.” Gabriel leaned forward to whisper in an urgent tone.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means that he just saved your ass, that’s what it means!” John interrupted, pointing at Julia contemptuously. “What, exactly, were you trying to accomplish by emotionally vomiting all over the proceedings? I knew you were naïve, but just how stupid are you?”
“John, take your finger out of Miss Mitchell’s face or I will separate it from your body.” Gabriel’s voice dropped, his tone quiet but chilling. “You do not speak to her like that. Ever. Do I make myself clear?”
John closed his mouth.
Soraya used this as an opportunity to put him on the defensive. “My client is better off without the theatrics of either one of you. Don’t pretend you weren’t going to blame her for everything to save your client. Bloody coward.”
John muttered an oblique curse in response, but said nothing.
Julia turned to search Gabriel’s eyes. But his mask was firmly in place.
“Why did the Dean say that they were going to protect me from you?”
“We need to go. Now.” John tried to separate the couple as a noise inside the meeting room alerted them to the fact that the hearing officers were about to recess.
“Did they fire you?” Julia asked tremulously.
Gabriel gave her a pained look, then shook his head.
“Well done, John. I’m sure you’re proud of yourself,” Soraya hissed. “Did you have to sell your soul to David? Or maybe your body?”
“Blow me, Soraya,” said John.
“So you kept your job, but you can’t talk to me? What about last night, Gabriel?” Julia reached out a trembling finger toward his hand.
He pulled out of her reach and glanced sideways at John and Soraya, shaking his head.
“You promised you’d never fuck me. But what about last night? No words, no I love you, not even a note or a text this morning. Is that all it was to you? A good-bye fuck?” Julia’s whisper caught on an involuntary sob, and she raised her voice. “Who’s the Angelfucker now?”
Gabriel flinched.
It was more than a flinch; actually, it was more like a reel backward from a punch. He closed his eyes and groaned softly, shifting his weight to his heels as his fists clenched at his sides.
Everyone watched as his skin took on a ghostlike pallor.
“You wound me, Julianne,” he whispered.
“You keep your job, but you won’t talk to me? How could you do this?” she cried.
His eyes flew open, and they were a brilliant, livid sapphire.
“You think that I’d just show up, fuck you, and that would be how I would say good-bye?”
Julia watched his fists shake as he fought to maintain control.
“That was good-bye?” Her voice caught on the last word.
Gabriel’s eyes lasered into hers as if he were trying to communicate something wordlessly. He leaned forward so his nose was only inches from hers and dropped his voice so it was almost inaudible. “I did not fuck you. I’ve never fucked you.”
He pulled back slightly so there was some distance between them. He drew a long, unhurried breath. “You were throwing your life away for nothing—all those years of hard work, everything you dreamed of and ever wanted was going to be taken from you and you would never be able to get it back.
“There was no way I could watch you commit academic suicide. I told you that I would go to Hell to rescue you and that’s just what I did.” He lifted his chin. “And I’d do it again.”
Julia leapt forward, jabbing a finger into Gabriel’s chest.
“You don’t get to make decisions for me! This is my life and my dreams. If I want to give them up, who the hell are you to take that decision away from me?
“You’re supposed to love me, Gabriel. You’re supposed to support me when I decide to stand up for myself. Isn’t that what you wanted me to do? And instead, you cut a deal with them and dump me?”
“Would you two shut the hell up?” Soraya hissed. “The Dean will be walking through the door any minute. Come on, Julia. Right now.”
She tugged on her client’s elbow while John tried to step in between the two quarreling lovers.
“So that’s it? They say it’s over and it’s over? When have you ever followed the rules, Gabriel? Now you decide to follow them?” Julia asked, still furious.
Gabriel’s expression changed immediately. “I had no choice, Héloise,” he whispered. “Circumstances were beyond—”
“I thought my name was Beatrice. Of course, Abelard abandoned Héloise to keep his job. So I guess the name is more than apt,” she spat, stepping away from him.
At that moment, Professor Martin entered the hallway. He scowled and began walking toward them.
Gabriel turned away from Jeremy, lowering his voice further. “Read my sixth letter. Paragraph four.”
Julia shook her head.
“I’m not your student, Professor. I won’t be doing any reading assignments.”
Soraya pulled Julia away, and the two women hurried down the stairs just as the hearing officers came through the door.
Chapter 27
Gabriel ducked into the men’s room as soon as Julia left. He couldn’t risk calling her, since Jeremy might enter at any moment, but he was far from satisfied that she understood what was happening. Turning on a faucet in order to make noise, he quickly tapped out a short but explanatory email on his iPhone.
Having sent it, he turned off the faucet and exited, tucking his phone into his jacket pocket. He tried very hard to look grim and defeated.
As he walked over to the two men, Jeremy’s cell phone chirped.
* * *
When Julia awoke the next morning the numbness had worn off. Sleep would have been a welcome respite from reality, except for the nightmares. She’d been haunted by various dreams, all involving the morning she woke up alone in the orchard. She was frightened and lost and Gabriel was nowhere to be found.
It was almost noon when she crawled out of bed to check her messages. She’d expected at least a text or a one line email, offering some kind of explanation. But there was nothing.
He’d acted so strangely the day before. On the one hand he’d told her he hadn’t fucked her; on the other, he’d called her Héloise. She didn’t want to believe that he was so cruel as to flaunt the fact that he was ending things with a play on words, but he’d used the word good-bye.
Her feelings of betrayal ran deep, for Gabriel had promised that he would never leave her. He was far too eager to go back on his promise, she thought, despite the fact that the university had no jurisdiction over his personal life, so long as she was no longer his student.
A dark thought occurred to her. Perhaps Gabriel had tired of her and decided to put an end to their union. The university had simply handed him an opportunity to do so.
If her falling out with Gabriel had occurred a few months earlier, she would have stayed in bed for three days. As it was, she dialed his cell phone with the intention of demanding an explanation. He didn’t answer. She left a terse and impatient voice mail, asking him to call her.
Frustrated, she took a shower, hoping that the time to herself would afford her the opportunity to see her situation with clarity. Unfortunately, all she could think about was the evening in Italy when Gabriel showered her and washed her hair.
After she dressed, she decided to search for Gabriel’s sixth letter, so she could read paragraph four. He’d given her a clue, she thought, as to what was really happening. All she needed to do was find his words.
She wasn’t sure what he meant by letter. Did he mean emails or texts? Or both? If Gabriel was counting the emails, cards, and notes that he’d written to her from the very beginning of their relationship, then by her calculation the sixth letter was a note he’d left her the morning after their horrendous fight in the Dante seminar. Luckily, she kept it.
She pulled out the paper and read it eagerly.
Julianne,
I hope you’ll find everything you need here.
If not, Rachel stocked the vanity in the guest washroom with a number of different items. Please help yourself.
My clothes are at your disposal.
Please choose a sweater as the weather has turned cold today.
Yours,
Gabriel.
Julia wasn’t exactly in the best frame of mind to embark on a detective mission or to engage in any elaborate decoding of messages. Nevertheless, she turned her attention to the fourth paragraph and tried to figure out what Gabriel had been trying to communicate to her.
He’d lent her the British-racing-green sweater, but she’d returned it. Was he trying to tell her to look at one of the clothing items he’d bought her? Julia pulled out everything he’d ever bought her or that she’d borrowed and placed them all on her bed. She forced herself to take her time examining each item. But there didn’t appear to be anything unusual about any of them.
Was he trying to tell her to weather the storm? Or was he simply saying that his affection for her had turned cold and this was good-bye?
Her anger burned blue. She stomped to the bathroom to wash her hands, catching sight of her image in the mirror. The wide-eyed nervous girl who had started at the University of Toronto in September was gone. Instead, Julia saw a pale and upset young woman, with pinched lips and flashing eyes. She was no longer the timid Rabbit or the seventeen-year-old Beatrice. She was Julianne Mitchell, almost-MA, and she would be damned if she’d spend the rest of her life simply taking the scraps that others deigned to throw at her.
If he has a message for me, he can damn well say it in person, she thought. I’m not going on a scavenger hunt just so he can assuage his conscience.
Yes, she loved him. Looking at the photograph album he made for her birthday, she knew that she would love him forever. But love was not an excuse for cruelty. She was not a plaything, an Héloise, to be dropped like a pair of dirty socks. If he was breaking things off with her, she’d make him say so to her face. She was simply going to give him until after dinner to do so.
In early evening, she walked to the Manulife Building, the key to Gabriel’s apartment in her pocket. With every step she imagined what she would say. She wouldn’t cry, she promised herself. She would be strong. And she would demand answers.
As she turned the corner and approached the front door, she saw a tall, impeccably dressed blonde exit the building. The woman looked at her watch and tapped her foot impatiently as the doorman waved over a waiting taxi.
