Page 44 of Love Unraveled
“Do you want to talk?” Gaston pulled a strand of hair from her face and lifted his head slightly so he could see her better. “Sophie?Est-ce que tu vas bien?”
Was she all right? She wasn’t sure. A numbness was stealing in and taking the place of all emotion. She shrugged a shoulder, and Gaston rubbed it, sighing.
“You must talk about it.” He kissed the top of her head. “You have suffered great loss,ma chérie.You thought to escape it, but it has followed you,non?”
Was that what she’d been doing? Running from her past? But no, she was seeking revenge in the only way open to her. In passing on information, she was facing it, was she not? It wasn’t a question she could ask Gaston.
“It was the Frenchman…the daughter…her mother forever lost to both of them.” Her eyes burned, but she did not have the urge to cry. She was certain she had no tears left.
“Oui. I know,” he said, running a soothing hand over her head.
Gaston had been there. Had he not, Sophia would likely not have survived. He had refused to run with his father, to leave France, had refused to leave Sophia. So he’d moved in with her family in their modest home in Paris. He was sixteen, and she was thirteen. He’d been with them for close to a year when… Her heart beat fiercely, but she forced herself to follow the trail of thought. She couldn’t remember where he’d gone that day, nor why she and her mother had been in the streets, but the memory of what had happened had not dulled with time.
She and her mother had been almost safely back home when the noise had grown and a large group of people had come around the corner. They’d been a motley crew. Loud—pitchforks, knives, and sticks raised high—they’d dragged along well-dressed women, one shrieking, her fear piercing the shouting. Sophia’s mother had pushed her into the side lane leading to the back of their home, but it had been too late. They’d been spotted.
Her mother had yelled at her to run, but she could not. She’d stood rooted to the spot. The mob had descended like ants on an apple. The rest was a blur of images. An arm raised. Her sweetmaman’s terrified expression as she disappeared beneath them. A man spotting Sophia. His limping gait as he walked slowly toward her, grinning, his front teeth missing. She’d closed her eyes as he’d grabbed the front of her dress, the rending unheard in the deafening noise from the street. The man curled in a ball on the ground, holding his stomach, blood oozing through his fingers. Gaston pulling her through the alley.
“I still dream of her,” Sophia whispered. “Of her beauty. Her kindness. Of the warmth of her hug.”
“I am sorry,mon amour. If I’d been minutes earlier…”
“No,” she said, lifting her head. His dark eyes were pools of sorrow. She’d not considered his pain, his guilt. “No, Gaston. If you had tried to intervene…” She paused, pushing her overwhelming emotions back into the corner. “I would not have you either. Nothing could have been done.”
She rested her head back on his chest and closed her eyes, but the scenes played out behind her lids, and she could not bear it. She opened them again, staring across the room at the empty grate. “I have always dreamed Papa would suddenly appear like the Frenchman on the stage. That he would one day be returned to me. It hurt to see it play out.” She blinked, trying to relieve the stinging in her eyes. “It is a foolish dream.”
“Dreams are not foolish, Sophie. Without them, we have nothing.” He stroked her hair. “Dreams of you kept me going in the early years.”
Sophia did not miss the implication. She shifted and sat up, turning to look him in the eyes. “And in the later years?”
Gaston held her gaze for a moment before answering. “Dreams and anger, I suppose. I wanted to hurt you, as you’d hurt me.”
“Wanted?”
Gaston caressed the side of her face. “Wanted to, yes. Now all I want is you. Back in my arms. Back in my life.” He hesitated, and she pressed her cheek into the warmth of his palm. “Perhaps I dream too big?”
Sophia did not answer him, for she did not know herself. She turned her face into his hand and kissed it before pulling back. “Stay with me tonight?” She ran a finger down his chest. “We can make love and forget everything.”
He did not appear surprised by her request and seemed to consider it but shook his head.
“You do not want me.”
“Oh, Sophie, I have never wanted you more.” He leaned in and kissed her nose, then rested his forehead on hers. “But not like this. When we make love, it will be to remember who we were. We will let those two young lovers share the moment with us. It will not be to forget.”
Sophia sucked in her lips, fighting a resurgence of emotions. She did not want to be alone, but she would not beg him to stay.
Gaston shifted off the bed and removed his jacket, walked over to a chair, and hung it carefully over it. He tugged at his cravat, loosening it before unbuttoning his waistcoat. She watched him undress until he was wearing only his drawers, the remainder of his clothing neatly piled over the back of the chair.
He walked toward her, and his desire was evident.
“No need to look at me like that. I have not changed my mind, Sophie, despite what my body wants.” He perched on the end of the bed and ran his hand over his face before swinging his legs onto the mattress and rolling onto his side. “Come,mon amour, curl in. Let me hold you while you dream new dreams.”
She did as commanded, and his heat enveloped her. The steady rise and fall of his chest against her back and his arm draped lightly over her waist were not titillating. Instead, they were calming. The weight of fatigue overwhelmed her, and she began to fade into the gloaming between wake and sleep.
“Je t’aime.”
Sophia didn’t know if Gaston had truly said he loved her or if she was already dreaming new dreams. “My Gaston,” she said on a sigh before letting go and drifting off to sleep.
Chapter Thirty-Four
