Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,262

gave him a moment or two to himself, then she stood beside him and cautiously wrapped her little finger around his. “I’m sorry.”

He didn’t respond.

“Thank you for rescuing me from Simon.”

Gabriel scowled. “You know that I have a past. Do you intend to keep bringing it up?”

She lowered her gaze to her shoes. “No.”

“That remark was beneath you.”

“I’m sorry.”

He kept his eyes trained on the city that was spread out before them. Red tiled roofs shone in the sun, while Brunelleschi’s dome dominated the view.

Julia decided to change the subject. “Christa was behaving strangely at your last seminar. She seemed resentful. Do you think she knows about us?”

“She’s sour because I haven’t welcomed her outrageous advances. But she met the deadline for her revised proposal and her work was acceptable.”

“So she wasn’t—blackmailing you?”

“Not every woman is your rival for me,” he snapped, pushing away her hand.

Her eyes widened in surprise. “That remark was beneath you.”

After a moment, the anger seemed to seep out of him. His shoulders slumped. “Forgive me.”

“Let’s not waste our time together arguing.”

“Agreed. But I don’t like the idea of Paul emailing you. Although I suppose you could be friends with worse persons.” Gabriel sounded unusually prim.

She smiled and pressed her lips to his cheek. “There’s the Professor Emerson I know and love.”

He pulled out his phone so he could take her picture against the background of the beautiful view. Julia was laughing, and he was taking picture after picture when his phone began to ring. The not so dulcet tones of London’s Big Ben sounded between them.

Julia gave him a challenging look.

He grimaced and pulled her into an intense kiss. He cupped her face with his hand, determinedly parting her lips with his own and gently slipping his tongue inside.

She kissed him back, wrapping her arms around his waist to pull him closer. And all the while, Big Ben chimed.

“You aren’t going to answer it?” she finally got a chance to ask.

“No. I told you earlier, I wasn’t going to speak to her.”

He pressed his lips to Julia’s once again, but only briefly.

“I feel sorry for her,” Julia said.

“Why?”

“Because she created a child with you. Because she still wants you, but she’s lost you. If I were to lose you to someone else, I’d be devastated.”

Gabriel huffed impatiently. “You aren’t going to lose me. Stop that.”

Julia smiled weakly. “Um, I need to say something.”

He moved back.

“This is coming from my concern for you. I want you to know that.” She looked at him in earnest. “I feel sorry for Paulina, but it’s clear that she’s been holding what happened over your head in order to keep you in her life. I’m wondering if she gets into trouble just so you’ll rescue her. I think it’s time for her to develop an emotional attachment to someone else. Someone she can fall in love with.”

“I don’t disagree,” he said stiffly.

“What if she can’t be happy until she lets you go? You let her go and you found me. It would be a mercy on your part for you to let her go so she can find her own happiness.”

Gabriel nodded grimly and kissed her forehead but refused to say anything more on the subject.

The rest of their stay in Florence was a happy one, a counterfeit honeymoon of a sort. They frequented various churches and museums during the day, in between returns to their hotel, where they would make love sometimes slowly and sometimes madly. Every evening Gabriel would choose a different restaurant for dinner, and they would walk home afterward, pausing on one of the bridges to make out like teenagers in the cool evening air.

On their last evening in Florence, Gabriel took Julia to Caffé Concerto, one of his favorite restaurants, which was positioned on the banks of the Arno. They spent several hours over a multi-course dinner, leisurely talking about their holiday and their burgeoning sexual relationship. They both confessed that the past week had been an awakening of sorts—for Julia, an awakening to the mysteries of eros; for Gabriel, an awakening to the mysteries of the four loves intertwined.

In conversation, he finally revealed his surprise. He’d rented a villa in Umbria for their second week of holidays. He promised to take her to Venice and Rome on their next vacation, possibly in the summer after they visited Oxford.

After dinner, Gabriel led her one last time to the Duomo. “I need to kiss you,” he whispered, pulling her body close to his.

She was going to