Melanie comes into the picture. “We had a rainy day and the minute we could get outside Gabe went charging, didn’t you, Gabe?”
“Yep,” Gabe says. “But it doesn’t hurt. Are you coming for lunch, Gabi?”
“Not today, Gabe, but soon, okay? I promise.”
“Tomorrow?”
Crap. “Not tomorrow, no, but soon. It’ll be a surprise!”
“You used to come visit me more.”
“Gabe, why don’t you show Gabi your painting?” Melanie asks, saving the day because Gabe gets a proud smile on his face and a moment later, I’m looking at a large canvas of mostly smeared paint in all different colors.
“It’s modern,” Gabe says.
“It’s beautiful,” I say. I think about what Alex said in his last message about wondering if he’ll ever be able to talk to Gabe without breaking down afterwards. I wonder the same thing.
“This one is for Alex,” he says, as if reading my mind. “But I’ll make you one next.”
How am I going to tell him that Alex is gone?
“I can’t wait to see mine!” I say, my enthusiasm overdone.
We talk for another five minutes, but I can see Gabe getting distracted as he picks up his paint brush again and, after a promise to FaceTime him again the following day, we disconnect the call.
Miss Millie must have been waiting for me to wrap up because no sooner have I put the phone down then she’s outside serving dinner. Tonight, there is a whole roasted chicken with potatoes and green beans.
“This smells wonderful,” I say, inhaling. “But it’s a lot of food just for me. Is Stefan going to be home for dinner?”
Home. The word weirdly sounds more and more normal.
“He’ll be here later tonight, after dinner. You just eat what you like.”
“You know you don’t have to wait on me,” I tell her.
“I like it, Gabriela. It’s my pleasure. I’m just happy you’re home safe and sound. Now go on and eat. Let me know if you need anything and make sure you save room for dessert. I made you something special.”
My smile is authentic. “I will, thanks, Miss Millie.”
I eat on my own. I eat more than I think I will but that’s probably because the last few days, I’ve been eating so little.
When I’m finished, I go into the library, take a book off one of the shelves and curl up on one of the armchairs.
I’m so absorbed in the story that I only realize three hours have passed when I hear footsteps approaching and sit up, closing the book.
It’s Stefan.
The library door opens, and he stands in the doorway.
My heart thuds against my chest as I look at him. He’s wearing a black V-neck T-shirt and jeans. His thick hair is perfectly in place, and the dark shadow on his jaw accentuates the sharp line of it.
I look at his big hand on the doorknob and see that ring and I think about what he’s done with those hands. The violence he did to those men. The gentleness with which he held me.
My gaze lifts to his forearms, the muscle beneath the dusting of dark hair. Something stirs inside me. Inside my belly. It’s like a fluttering of butterfly wings.
I’m attracted to him. In spite of it all, or maybe because of it all, I’m attracted to him.
He saved my life.
But it could have been him to set me up, couldn’t it? Why would I rule him out? He’s the one who gave me the phone. Maybe it was like I thought. Maybe it was bugged.
I shake off the thought. I don’t believe that. I just don’t. Maybe it was the look on his face when he took that wretched, vomit-stinking hood off me. Maybe it was the fact he climbed that ladder down and wouldn’t let me go as he carried us both back up, even as the rope tore. I don’t know, and although I’m sure he’s no saint, I don’t believe Stefan would do that to me.
When I draw my gaze back to his, I find him watching me.
I think about how he was when he came to get me. When he brought me up out of the well on that ladder. When he held my hand and swore he’d never let anyone hurt me again.
When he came into my room drunk later that same night and warned me my reckoning was coming.
The look in his hazel eyes tells me tonight is that reckoning.
“Gabriela,” he says, coming into the library and closing the door behind him. Locking it.
Why do I note that one act?
He walks toward me and perches on the ottoman before my chair.
I sit up and put my hands on my knees. “Stefan,” I say, because he’s not the only one who feels justified to a reckoning.
“Doctor says you’re doing better, healing nicely.” He looks me over. When he reaches out to touch me, I pull back, making him pause for a moment before his hand is on my middle, my ribs.
He’s feeling for the bandage.
“It’s gone,” I say.
“Good.”
“Where have you been?” Thoughts of Clara cloud the edges of my mind, but I force them away.
“I spent a few days with my uncle in Taormina. He’s the one who told me where you were.”
“What?”
“Rafa’s father, Francesco Catalano. Our relationship is…difficult, but I owed him a debt of gratitude.”
“Rafa’s father?” Was he the man Rafa met with when we were out there? Why didn’t he tell me?
“Yes.”
“How did he know?”
“Someone overheard something probably from the men on the boat bragging about what they’d done.”
“I don’t understand.”
He studies me, stands up and walks across the room to look out the window into the dark night. “You don’t understand because people are duplicitous.” He turns back to me and when he approaches, I see his gaze momentarily drop to the photo album on the side table beside my seat before shifting back to me. “Only a fine line delineates between an ally and an enemy, and that line is constantly shifting.”
“What are you saying?”
“Just be careful.”
“Careful?”
“Who here knows you understand and speak Italian, Gabriela?”
I feel my face heat up. “Only you.”
“Keep it that way.”
He walks to a cabinet and opens it. I haven’t looked inside that one yet and I see now it’s a liquor cabinet. He takes out a bottle of whiskey and pours one. He turns to me and extends it.
I shake my head so he closes the cabinet then returns to sit on the sofa across from my chair.
“Who was the man you recognized?” he asks, crossing one ankle over the opposite knee as he sips his drink.
“I didn’t recognize anyone,” I lie because I haven’t figure out how to handle this yet.
“Don’t you want to find out who did this to you?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Come here, Gabriela.” He sits up so both feet are on the floor, and points to the space between his legs.
“Why?”
“Because I said so.”
I get up, walk over to him.
He takes my wrist and pulls me closer so I’m standing between his wide-spread legs. He leans back against the couch, sips his drink and watches me.
“Take off your dress.”