Page 77 of Vicious Temptation

Two hours later, I’m bundled into the car with Cecelia and Danny, on our way to Central Park to meet Clara. My new camera is in a case next to me, and all of the lighting and extra accessories that I bought are neatly arranged upstairs in my room. Some of it I have no idea when I’ll even use, but Gabriel was insistent that afternoon that I buy whatever I wanted, and it was too hard to say no.

Incidentally, that’s no longer the only thing about him that’s too difficult to say no to. That I don’t want to say no to any longer.

I wonder, as we drive, how much I want to tell Clara. A part of me thinks I should just keep it all quiet, rather than let her dig too deep with the questions she’ll undoubtedly have.

The other part of me desperately wants to tell someone—my best friend, specifically—about everything that’s happened to me since last night. How much things have changed since we had lunch, in such a short span of time.

Jason drops us off near the park, and I focus on getting Cecelia and Danny safely out of the car and onto the sidewalk. It’s the second time I’ve been in the city with them, and I wonder how many times it will take before I don’t feel a faint sense of panic at the idea that I’m responsible for their well-being. Is this what parents feel like all of the time? I can’t help but wonder.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I look at it to see that Clara dropped a pin for me with her location in the park. I put my new camera around my neck, a feeling of pleasure washing over me at seeing it there. I text Gabriel as we walk into the park to let him know that we’re here safely, with Gio trailing us.

His response pings on the screen only seconds later.

Gabriel: Good. Have fun. I’ll see you tonight.

It doesn’t escape me that that’s the second time he’s said that. Nor does it escape me that the text feels, like so many of our interactions lately, far too intimate for what we actually are to each other. More than friends, even, which is all that we’re supposed to be.

I shove the phone back into my pocket, focusing on getting Cecelia and Danny to where we’re meeting Clara. Danny runs ahead, and I call after him to be careful, trailing Cecelia as she skips along the path, her new doll tucked under her arm. She wanted to have a picnic with her, so in the leather bag slung over my shoulder, there’s an arrangement of things for exactly that. Danny insisted on bringing along a selection of his action figures to join in the fun.

Just thinking about it makes something in my chest feel warm and soft. Cecelia and Danny aren’t mine, but I feel like I’m coming to love them as if they were. Already, after only a month, I feel like I can’t imagine leaving. I can’t imagine leaving them, and when I think about it, that warm feeling turns into a tight, painful knot in my chest.

But I won’t have to, I remind myself. Not for a long time, as long as I don’t let things with Gabriel get out of hand, and screw this up.

Ahead of me, I see Clara waving to us, standing up from the bench that she’s sitting on. Cecelia and Danny run towards her, already having decided after that one day that she’s a friend.

Clara is cautious, I can see, since she’s basically still a stranger, but both of them nearly bowl her over. Danny grabs her around the legs, and Cecelia hugs her from the side, arms wrapping around her waist. Clara laughs, leaning down to give Cecelia a one-armed hug, and tousles Danny’s hair.

“You two should be careful of hugging strangers,” she says with a laugh, and Cecelia wrinkles her nose.

“You’re not a stranger,” she informs Clara primly. “You’re Bella’s friend. So you’re our friend.”

I pick up the camera, unable to resist getting a picture. It shoots like a dream, the lighting already amazing before I’ve even adjusted any of the settings, and I feel a flutter of excitement at the prospect of getting to toy with it for the rest of the afternoon.

“That looks new.” Clara’s gaze immediately lands on the camera. “That nanny gig is really paying off, hm?”

I flush. “Gabriel got it for me. As a way of apologizing, I guess, for my pay going to my father for a while.”

Clara raises an eyebrow. “That’s it?”

“Does it need to be something else?” I lift it and snap a picture of her. “I’m going to be even more of a menace with this one,” I inform her, as she narrows her eyes at me.

“Fine. Then I’m going to be a menace with the questions.” She falls into step with me as we follow behind Cecelia and Danny. “For instance, you seem to be in a particularly good mood today.”

“I have a new camera.” I held it up, as if she needed reminding. Clara wrinkled her nose at that.

“It’s not that. It’s something else.”

I only just manage to not raise a hand to touch my neck, suddenly worried that I have a hickey, or something else visible. But I clearly remember that Gabriel didn’t kiss my neck this morning. In fact, the only place besides my mouth that I remember him kissing hard enough to leave a mark was my breast.

My face heats at the memory, and Clara lets out a laugh. “Gotcha!” she crows. “You’re blushing like a tomato. Tell me what’s going on.”

I swallow hard, looking ahead to gauge how much space there is between us and the kids. “I’ll tell you after the picnic,” I finally concede. “While they’re playing and won’t overhear.”

Clara whistles. “Ooh, juicy. Okay.”

We make a loop around a section of the park, and I keep one eye on Cecelia and Danny—with some help from Clara—taking pictures of anything and everything I see. I’m partially just working on tweaking the lighting and getting all of the settings the way I want them, but I’m also just enjoying taking photos for the sake of it. Some of them will be absolute garbage, but as I click away, I also know that some of them will be really good. There will be ones in the mix, that sneak in, that are what I was trying to capture all along. That’s always how it works.

When we find a nice open grassy spot, I shake out the blanket that I brought, setting out the cheese, fruit, olives, and loaf of homemade sourdough that Agnes packed. “I helped bake that,” Cecelia says proudly, pointing at the loaf, and Clara raises an eyebrow.

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