Gabriel’s Inferno Trilogy by Sylvain Reynard Page 0,289

just flown in from Harrisburg. Christa’s full, red lips curled back in disgust when the woman pulled out her iPhone and spoke very loudly in Italian to a maître d’ called Antonio.

As the night wore on, Christa soon realized her options were few. Ethan had a serious girlfriend, which meant that he wouldn’t be ripe for the picking. More than one of the bartenders were gay, and all the servers were women. Which left Lucas.

Lucas was a computer geek (not that there’s anything wrong with that) who assisted Ethan with security at the club, in a technical capacity. Lucas had access to the video recordings from the security cameras, and it was he who rather enthusiastically agreed to let Christa into the club after hours so they could sift through CD upon CD of footage, starting with September 2009.

And that was how Christa found herself sitting on the vanity in the women’s washroom with Lucas pounding into her on a Sunday morning when she should have been in church.

* * *

Gabriel and Julia arrived back in Toronto late in the evening on January first. They went to Julia’s apartment so she could drop off some things and retrieve some clean clothes. Or so Gabriel thought. With the taxi waiting at the curb for them to return, he stood in the middle of her cold and shabby apartment expecting her to pack an overnight bag. She didn’t.

“This is my home, Gabriel. I’ve been gone for three weeks. I need to do laundry, and I need to work on my thesis tomorrow. Classes start on Monday.”

His expression grew very dark very quickly.

“Yes, I’m aware of when classes begin.” His tone was clipped. “But it’s freezing in here. You don’t have any food, and I don’t want to sleep without you. Come home with me, and you can return tomorrow.”

“I don’t want to go home with you.”

“I told you I’d have the master bedroom redone, and it has been. The bed, the furniture, it’s all new.” He grimaced. “They even painted the walls.”

“I’m still not ready.” She turned her back on him and began unpacking her suitcase. He took one look at her activities and strode through the apartment door, closing it somewhat loudly behind him.

Julia sighed.

He was trying, she knew. But his revelations had scorched holes in her already fragile self-confidence, a self-confidence that had only begun to be rebuilt during their time in Italy. She knew herself well enough to know that her fear of losing him was grounded in her parents’ divorce and in Simon’s betrayal. Although she knew all these things, it was very difficult to will herself to disregard them and to believe that Gabriel’s love would never wane.

She’d just walked to her door to bolt it when he walked in, suitcase in hand. “What are you doing?”

“Keeping you warm,” he said stiffly.

Gabriel placed his suitcase down and disappeared into the bathroom, closing the door behind him. He emerged a few minutes later with his shirt untucked and unbuttoned, muttering something about having successfully turned on her damned electric heater.

“Why did you come back?”

“I am not accustomed to sleeping without you. In fact, I’m about ready to sell the damn condo and all my furniture and buy something else.” He shook his head and proceeded to undress unashamedly without further conversation.

While Julia used the bathroom, Gabriel examined some of the items she’d displayed on her card table—the book containing the Botticelli reproductions he’d given her for her birthday, a pillar candle, a book of matches, and the photo album of pictures he’d taken of her.

As he leafed through the album, he found himself aroused. She’d promised to pose for him again. She wanted him to photograph her. A month earlier he never would have believed that such a thing could come to pass. She’d been so timid, so nervous.

He recalled the look she had in her eyes when he took her to his bed after their horrible argument in his seminar. Thinking of Julianne’s eyes, large and terrified, and the way her body trembled under his hands, diminished his arousal. He didn’t deserve her. He knew that. But her own perceived unworthiness prevented her from seeing the truth.

He flipped through the pictures before focusing on one—Julianne in profile with his hand on her shoulder, his other hand holding up her hair, while he pressed his lips to her shapely neck.

She was unaware of the fact that he had a copy of that picture hiding in his closet. He’d