Page 24 of Vicious Devotion

It was hard to sleep last night, even with the pills, knowing how close he was. I wanted more than anything to go and knock on his door, ask if I could stay, and slip into bed with him. I had a feeling he’d say yes, if only because he’d be worried about me. But I don’t want him to let me sleep next to him out of pity. I want him to do it because he wants it, too. I want him to be the one to ask me.

I made the first move, when I asked for our prior arrangement. When I told him that I trusted him to be the one to help me learn to be okay with being touched again. When I told him that I trusted him to be all of my firsts—that that was what I wanted. If anything is ever going to happen between us again, I want him to be the one who asks this time.

But I know he won’t.

I walk downstairs, into the kitchen where Agnes is serving breakfast. Gabriel is sipping a cup of coffee, looking devastatingly handsome and far too awake, his dark hair combed back, wearing jeans and a button-down. Cecelia and Danny have already dug into their food, which appears to be waffles, a mountain of scrambled eggs, and ham. There’s syrup, a dish of what looks like honey mustard for the ham, and carafes of orange juice and water next to a pot of coffee and a ceramic crock of creamer.

Home. It’s what I think of, the moment I step into the kitchen, and the thought makes my chest ache. In a relatively brief amount of time, Gabriel’s house in New York became home to me. I hadn’t expected it, but it did. And now, this brings that feeling rushing back, all over again.

It makes me want to roll up my metaphorical sleeves and put some elbow grease into fixing the villa up even more than I already did.

I sink down into one of the chairs, automatically putting food onto my plate, even though I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to eat. I’ve eaten like a rabbit for months, ever since my almost-marriage to Pyotr. Picking up running again and the workouts that I did with Gabriel in his basement gym made me eat a little more, increased my appetite, but after what happened with Igor, I’m finding it hard to eat again. Every time I take a bite, I feel my stomach twist into knots, that feeling of dread never far behind any of the good feelings that flicker in and out.

I can feel my cheeks heat, just a little, thinking about those workouts with Gabriel. About what else we did down in his basement. I can also feel him looking at me, and I don’t dare look up, because I feel sure that he’ll see what I’m thinking in my face if I do.

“What are you going to do today?” Gabriel asks, glancing between Agnes and me. I stare at my plate, trying to push the thoughts of being alone with him away, and focus on the distraction of the project ahead of us instead.

Anything other than wondering what Igor is doing right now, if he’s already found out where I’ve gone, or if he’s setting plans in motion already to come and take me back.

We talked a little about the house, last night in the kitchen over wine. Agnes told Gabriel that she and I were both going to work on the renovations, and Gabriel repeated his insistence that we didn’t have to commit to doing that. But I was pretty sure I saw what looked like at least a little bit of relief on his face.

“We’ll do a walkthrough first,” Agnes said. “See what needs to be tackled the most, and go from there.”

“We should probably focus on the spaces that we use the most,” I add, finally looking up from my plate. Gabriel’s expression is neutral—I can’t read anything of what he’s thinking on his face. He’s been immeasurably calm about all of this, and I wonder if he really doesn’t fear what might happen, or if he’s just hiding it for my sake. “Living room, bedrooms, etcetera. And then we’ll tackle the other areas that don’t get as much traffic.”

“Sure.” Gabriel nods. “Get whatever you need. I trust you both to do whatever’s best.”

I glance over at Agnes. “I’ll put off my usual run until this evening. We can get started on the house after we clean up from breakfast?”

She gives me an agreeable smile, and I feel a small flush of warmth, a feeling of belonging that I never had with my own family. I didn’t know my mother, and my father has always been the furthest thing from ‘warm’ that anyone could possibly imagine. The closer I get to Agnes, the more glad I am to have someone like her in my life.

After breakfast, Gabriel leaves to explore the estate and touch base with his employees here. Agnes and I clean up the remains of breakfast—with help from the children—and then start the process of taking inventory of what needs to be done to renovate the villa.

While we do it, Danny is kept occupied by letting him run his cars up and down the wood-floored hallways—they all need to be refinished anyway, so Agnes and I agree that he can’t possibly do that much damage. I pull up a website with paint colors and another with wallpaper samples for Cecelia to look at, telling her to make notes of what she likes as we make our way through the house. With both of the children adequately occupied, Agnes and I start to discuss what we think ought to be done with the house.

With every room, I fall a little more in love, as we talk about colors and tiles and furniture, and how to keep the vintage, rustic Italian heart of the house while still updating it to feel modern and habitable. But I also can’t stop the flickers of imagination that spring into my mind with every room—visions of a life here with Gabriel. Of what it could be like if he and I were something more. If things were different, if they were safe, if he felt capable of falling in love again. If I wasn’t flooded with guilt every time I think of what a relationship with me has already cost him, and what it could still cost him in the future.

Before Igor turned my life upside down for a second time, I thought I was fine with the arrangement that Gabriel and I had come to. My plan was for him to be the first, but not the only man I’d ever be with—someone trustworthy but emotionally unavailable to help me get comfortable with intimacy again before I tried to find Mr. Right. But that was before. Before I realized, in the wake of Igor’s upheaval, that Gabriel is who I want when everything is falling apart.

My psychologist might call it trauma bonding. She might say that the emotions of losing my virginity, mingled with all my worst fears coming back to call, have made me get attached to Gabriel in a way that doesn’t have anything to do with love.

But I think I would have fallen for him regardless. I think it was already starting, before he ever touched me. And I think that I’m going to have a very, very hard time finding a man who can meet the bar that Gabriel has set for other men.

If I ever have a chance to try for that at all.

Maybe that’s for the best, I tell myself as Agnes and I look at the cracked vintage bathroom tiles in one of the guest bathrooms and try to decide if it’s salvageable. I’m in Italy for the time being, and I’m in no hurry to let someone else into my life. I don’t even know if I can believe that I have a chance for the kind of future I’d begun to allow myself to hope for. Thinking about whether or not I’ll ever find someone who meets the high standards Gabriel has set feels like putting the cart too far before the horse, at this point.

Right now, all I can hope for is that we’ll all survive this. That I won’t cost Gabriel even more.

Those thoughts spiral, the worry growing more insistent, and I start to feel fidgety and anxious as the day passes. When Agnes announces that it’s time for her to go and make dinner, I go upstairs, change into my running clothes, and go for a run, needing to work out some of the excess emotion. I don’t venture far, finding a dirt path that heads down towards the vineyards and loops back to the house. I don’t want to explore too much until I know more about who else is here. But just being so far from New York has made me feel freer, safer, than I’ve felt there in months. I wore a short-sleeved top and leggings to run in, and the warm Italian sun on my arms makes me smile, drawing in a deep breath of the fresh countryside air.

A part of me already wants to stay. If it wasn’t for Clara?—

Clara. I realize with a jolt that I need to call her. The last few days have been full of so much chaos and trauma that it didn’t even occur to me to think that she’s probably panicking, wondering why I haven’t called her. This is the longest stretch of time I think we’ve ever gone without talking. It’s possible that Gabriel thought to clue her in—but I don’t want to assume that, especially with so many other things having been on his mind. And even if he did, she’s bound to be worried by now, since I haven’t called.

I head straight up to my room as soon as I get back to the villa, still sweaty from my run as I dig through my bag to see if Gabriel packed my cell phone. I find it in one of the side pockets, and quickly plug it in while I shower, since it’s stone-dead.

The shower feels incredible. I scrub myself down until I’m pink and the entire bathroom smells like warm peaches, and I wash my hair twice after both walking through the house all day and going for a run. I throw on a pair of sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, and grab my phone. It’s only one in the afternoon back in New York, so Clara is at work, but her boss is pretty lenient, and I have a feeling she’ll find a minute to step away.

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