Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,113

new favorite dessert. And the memory of her fingertips in his warm mouth and the way that his tongue artfully…

Focus, Julia. You need to take a shower. Preferably, a cold one.

She quickly drank the water he’d left for her and tapped the note against her teeth. The last time she’d slept in his bed she’d had a very rude awakening in his living room. Although he’d been tender with her last night, she worried he might snap at her this morning.

She opened the door to the guest room and stuck her head out, eager to discern any signs of life. When she was satisfied that she was alone, she walked quietly to the master bedroom and closed the door behind her. She retrieved her clothes and entered his large bathroom, making sure to lock the door.

Gabriel had left another note with a wine goblet filled with orange juice. It was garnished with an orange slice. Clearly, Gabriel has a thing for garnishes, she thought.

On the note, she read:

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 sipped the orange juice as she examined the items before her. Laid out on the vanity with military precision was a new toothbrush in its packaging, toothpaste, a new disposable razor (which she examined with an arched eyebrow), various feminine-looking toiletries from a company called Bliss, which were all scented with vanilla and bergamot, and a lavender-colored mesh shower sponge that was commonly referred to as a poof.

Had Gabriel asked Rachel to purchase these items for his guests? Or was Gabriel the kind of man who kept random unused shower poofs on hand for just such occasions? Perhaps he followed a color-code: lavender for virgins, red for Paulina, black for Professor Singer, green for the Emerson whores…Julia doubted the lavender one had ever been used before.

A virgin poof for a virgin…how fitting.

Julia stopped herself. Gabriel had asked for forgiveness and tried, gently, to suggest that she refrain from jumping to conclusions about him. And here she was, jumping to conclusions over a shower poof.

Looking around, she found a white, Turkish cotton bathrobe hanging on the back of the door and a pair of ladies’ bedroom slippers by the bathtub. They were far too large for her and would have been far too large for Rachel’s feet too. This time Julia limited her negative reaction to a roll of the eyes.

It took more than a few minutes for her to figure out how to operate his very fancy shower, for it had multiple settings for body sprays, water pressures, and temperatures, and was extremely complicated. Julia was only interested in the large and central tropical rain shower, which was, of course, controlled by the last lever she pulled.

While she surrounded herself in vanilla and bergamot and tried not to think of Cream Earl Grey tea, Julia asked herself some very serious questions. She suspected that Gabriel would want to have their conversation as soon as possible. It was going to be painful. And what was she going to do afterward? Try to be friends with him? For what purpose?

She realized that if she focused on the future, she’d never be able to address the past, at least not adequately. So she was determined to focus solely on their past interactions, including his rudeness and condescension this semester. He needed to explain himself, and she needed to listen without jumping to conclusions. Then she would tell him exactly what she thought about him.

Yes, it was going to be painful for both of them. It saddened her to realize that she had never had a healthy romantic relationship, when one of the things she wanted most in life was to enjoy affection and love. And Gabriel, despite the fact that he came from a good albeit adopted family and was intelligent, handsome, and wealthy, was probably incapable of having a healthy romantic relationship at all.

Her mother’s relationships were far from healthy or normal, and Julia had seen too many of them from an early age, an endless parade of myriad dysfunctions. In contrast, her father’s relationship with Deb Lundy was normal enough, if not a little on the casual side. They cared for one another, Julia thought, but their care was cool and small, like a distant star.

Gabriel’s love would burn hot like the sun, if he was