Undertaking Love Page 0,94
heart swooped around in her chest like a caged bird.
‘Don’t say that.’
‘Why not? It’s the truth and you know it, Marla. I love you. I’ve loved you since the first day I saw you.’
Marla slid her glass onto the table, not trusting her hands to hold it any longer. ‘You’re being ridiculous, Gabe... you don’t know what you’re saying. It’s been a long day.’
‘I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life. I love you.’
‘Stop it, Gabe. Please, just stop.’
He dragger his chair closer until his knees touched hers.
‘Deny it all you like, but you feel it too. I see you, Marla.’ He reached for her hands. ‘Your mouth says one thing, but your eyes beg me not to listen.’
‘No!’ Marla could feel her well-organised world ripping apart at the seams, and hot tears splashed down her cheeks as she battled to yank the edges back together again. She stumbled to her feet and turned away to grip the cool steel edge of the sink.
Gabe was behind her in seconds, so close that his breath warmed the exposed skin on the back of her neck.
‘Tell me you didn’t feel it when we made love in your garden. In your shower.’ He braced his hands either side of her on the counter. ‘In your bed, for fuck’s sake, Marla.’
The raw catch in his voice squeezed her heart, and she rounded on him in fury and frustration. ‘I didn’t feel it. There, is that what you want? It was sex, Gabe, not love. Grow up...’
He shook his head, and his eyes glittered with hurt every bit as intense as hers.
‘You’re wrong Marla, and you damn well know it.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m not.’
‘Prove it.’
He kissed her. Hard. Marla couldn’t fight him; his nearness wiped away any last vestige of her will power. His kiss was desperate and furious as he hauled her body against his own, and for a few treacherous seconds she let herself hold him.
His mouth softened instantly over hers, achingly sweet – she could taste his love. Honey-coated promises of things that could never be, of roses around doorways and dark-eyed babies with gypsy curls.
Emotions battered her from all sides as his hands moved to cradle her face.
Lust so strong she wanted to rip her clothes off and drag him down onto the kitchen floor; frustration so jagged she wanted to smash every bottle on the drainer behind her; and a protective rush more powerful than any lioness as her fingers slid into his sooty hair and held him close.
Soothed him.
Loved him.
When he lifted his head, the look in his eyes told her that he knew.
He’d dragged the truth from her, in actions if not words.
‘I’m not the enemy any more, Marla. You don’t have to hate me.’
It was the worst thing he could have possibly said. His words mainlined right into the visceral vein of fear that ran through Marla’s core.
She needed those barriers between them.
She needed a reason to hate him.
She swiped at her mouth with the back of her hand as she fought to get her breathing back under control, and pushed against his chest to put some space between them. He waited for her to speak, his whole body braced for impact, like a passenger on a jet free falling out of the sky.
‘You’re right. I don’t have to hate you anymore. But I don’t love you, Gabe, and I never will.’
Chapter Forty
Cecilia poured two glasses of wine and put them down on the kitchen table along with the open bottle ready for the refills. She had a feeling they were going to need them.
She stood behind Marla’s chair and stroked her hair for a few seconds. She’d listened to her daughter cry herself to sleep every night for at least two weeks, and she wasn’t prepared to do it again tonight.
Marla didn’t want her hair stroked, and she didn’t want to talk. She wanted to go to bed.
‘What’s wrong, honey?’ her mother asked.
Marla fiddled with the belt of her dressing gown as Cecilia pulled up a chair beside her.
‘Nothing,’ she sniffed.
‘Nothing doesn’t make you cry as much as you have been these past few weeks.’
Marla’s shoulders slumped, defeated. She didn’t have enough fight left in her to deny the truth any longer. Gabe had laid his soul bare that day in the chapel, and she’d sent him away because she’d been too scared to be honest with him, or with herself.
‘It’s Gabe.’
Cecilia nodded and lifted her daughter’s chin.
‘You love him.’
Even though the answer