8. Gabriel

8

GAbrIEL

A fter breakfast, while Agnes and Bella take stock of the house, I grab a set of keys and go out to where my dad's old car is waiting—a 1975 Land Rover that I remember learning to drive one summer when I was a kid. I feel a punch of emotion hit me in the gut as I climb in, breathing in the scent of saddle soap and what I swear is still a faint hint of his tobacco, even though I know that's impossible.

My father loved this place. He inherited it from my grandfather, who inherited it from his father before him, and so on—the same old story. It's been in the family for a long time, and I feel a twinge of guilt when I think about the business I've come here to handle. I know how my father would feel about me potentially selling the place off.

I have a lot of good childhood memories here. If Delilah hadn't passed away not long after I lost my parents, I probably would have brought her and the kids here for the summers. This particular summer wouldn't be the first time Cecelia and Danny are seeing something that's a part of our family heritage. But there's nothing I can change about that, and I'm glad they're at least seeing it now, especially if I do decide to sell.

The drive through the estate is peaceful, and full of nostalgia for me, memories of summers that feel a long time in the past by now—especially after how the last few years have gone. I stop by the vineyards first, looking at the rapidly growing grapes and checking in with the workers and their foreman. The vineyard has been running well for years now without much input from me—my estate manager, Lucio, does a good job of handling the business. I'm not needed here to keep it functioning—at least not the portion of it that involves the wine business, and that sends another flicker of guilt rippling through me as I consider my plans for the estate.

I have a full portfolio of business interests back in New York, and those responsibilities require all of my focus. I work with some of the most powerful and dangerous men in the world, and that means I need to be aware and on my guard at all times, ready to handle situations when they arise, ready to defuse situations if necessary. Ready to pivot at a moment's notice. I've gotten so used to the rhythm of it all over the years that it's like second nature to me now, a muscle memory that I can flex without thinking about it.

But as a result of all of that, I've mostly ignored this estate. It's running along fine, but it's far from its full potential. A quick look at the books in the back office tells me that, as soon as I examine our production schedule and the volume of wine being produced. The estate could be doing more in every respect—with the wine, the racehorses, even the house itself and what it could be used for. A small part of me rebels at the idea of my family home being used as a vacation rental—but the other, more practical part of my mind says that before right now, it hasn't been used at all for years. Other families could get to enjoy the home that's been sitting empty for years, making their own memories.

Nostalgia isn't a good enough reason to keep a place. I know that, even if I've had a hard time admitting it. And it's my nostalgia, not Cecelia's or Danny's, which makes it even harder to justify not letting it go. What time I would spend trying to get this place back to its real potential could be spent making other memories with them, when this whole situation with the Bratva is resolved. They'll have a chance to enjoy it this summer, which is a bright spot in an otherwise dark mess of things—but when the issue of Igor is resolved, we'll go back home. That's as good a time as any for me to make a change, and leave this part of my past behind.

By the time the sky is starting to color, I've seen all I need to see for the day—enough to know what I need to focus on for the time that we're here. I lock the door of the stone building that serves as a second office and storage for a lot of the estate's records, and turn just in time to catch a glimpse of Bella going for a run.

She's far enough away that I can't see much of her, but I can see enough. It's not that I've forgotten how good she looks in her workout clothes, just that the stress of the last few days has eclipsed the memory. But it all comes rushing back in an instant as I see her jogging along the path, my gaze instantly fixing on the curve of her ass in the tight leggings that she's wearing.

My physical reaction is instant. I feel the rush of blood to my cock, the throb of arousal as I watch her veer back towards the house. I'm rock-hard before I even register the sensation, the memory of those perfect hips and firm ass under my hands enough to make my palms itch. Everything about her was—is—perfect.

I feel another sharp jab of guilt for ogling her. Just because I've had her in my bed, just because I know every inch of her intimately, doesn't mean I have the right to look at her that way now. Especially when that part of our relationship is supposed to be over.

I gave her everything she wanted. I taught her how sex is supposed to feel. I showed her all the ways she should expect to receive pleasure. And I made sure that her first experience of having a man inside of her was one that she would remember in only the best ways.

After that, this was supposed to be over. Done. She was supposed to just be the nanny again.

And I was an idiot to think that was possible.

I groan, pressing the heel of my hand against my cock as I watch her disappear around the side of the house. It throbs under my hand, reminding me that it's been days since I've so much as jerked off. I used to go weeks, sometimes months, without touching myself, my libido all but dead in the wake of losing the one person who had meant the most to me. But Bella has made me feel alive again in a number of ways.

This is the most inconvenient one, considering our current situation.

I have half a mind to go back into the office, lock the door, and give myself the relief I so desperately need. But the last thing I need is someone seeing me through the windows—and if there's one thing I've learned about the desire Bella rouses in me, it's that a quick, furtive stroke will do nothing to ease my arousal.

Instead, I grind my heel against the base of my stubborn erection once more, willing it to go down, and stride back uncomfortably toward the house.

There, I'm at least distracted enough to take my mind off of it. Bella is nowhere to be seen—Agnes tells me that she went upstairs to shower after her run, an image that I quickly banish from my mind, and I go up to shower as well. Once again, I do everything in my power to keep from thinking about her, or else my shower will turn out to be a longer one than I meant for it to be.

It's pointless, anyway, I tell myself, ignoring my erection as I scrub myself clean and towel off. Nothing satisfies my need for Bella except the woman herself. And even then, I could go all night with her, in a way that I haven't been able to with anyone in a long time. I can fuck her as many times as she wants me, over and over again. All it takes is a look from her, a sound, to make me hard.

Desperately trying to shove all thoughts of Bella—and what it is about her that arouses me—out of my head, I put on a pair of jeans and a black linen t-shirt and head downstairs. I'm greeted by the smell of herbs and cooking meat, and I walk into the kitchen to find Cecelia setting the table; the kitchen is noticeably cleaner than it was this morning, although there are still all of the things that need to be repaired. I also notice a number of bright sticky notes taped to a variety of surfaces, which makes me smile.

"What are those?" I ask, and a voice that makes all the hairs on my arms stand up as prickles run over my skin answers from just behind me.

"We wrote down all of our ideas and put them on the notes, so we can come back tomorrow and start looking for what we want to actually do," Bella says, walking into the room with an ease that makes me think she looks right at home here. Most of the tension seems to have drained out of her, and she looks utterly beautiful in a pair of dark blue jeans and a sleeveless eyelet tank top, her chestnut hair pulled up into a high ponytail. I blink, thinking what looks like earrings are a trick of the light, but then I see that it isn't. She's replaced her usual rose gold jewelry with a pair of gold earrings made up of a handful of thin chains that brush the side of her neck as she moves.

I grabbed a pouch of what looked like jewelry when I packed for her. Clearly, she's decided to put it to good use. The sight of the swaying earrings makes me think of running my own finger down the length of her neck, and all of the blood in my body immediately rushes south again.

I sink down into the kitchen chair at the head of the table, looking anywhere except at those damned earrings.

"This place is going to be beautiful again with a little TLC. I just know it," Bella continues enthusiastically, going to the counter to scoop up a large wooden salad bowl and bringing it to the table. She moves through the kitchen with a confidence that I've never seen in her before, and it's mesmerizing to watch. "Agnes and I got really excited today, making plans."

"Me, too," Cecelia chimes in, bringing a plate of sliced sourdough bread and a crock of olive oil with herbs to the table to set down next to the salad—which I see now is mixed greens, with peaches and soft, crumbled goat cheese that's undoubtedly from the estate itself sprinkled over the top. "Bella and Agnes are letting me pick out color schemes."

"She's got a knack for it," Agnes says, joining the rest of us as she brings a china platter that I recognize as being from my mother's wedding set to the table, an herbed roast chicken surrounded by potatoes and vegetables sitting in the center of it. A moment later, Aldo comes in, sinking down next to his wife as she sits down primly and hands me a carving knife.

"You might have a future interior designer on your hands." Bella grins at Cecelia across the table. "Her first project can be right here at home."

Something squeezes in my chest, a tight band of emotion that makes it hard to breathe for a moment. This is what I've been missing for years. I can feel it here, right now, in the way Bella is looking at my daughter and the way Cecelia is smiling back at her, in the peace among the six of us at the table, as much a family as anyone ever was.

I want to keep this. This feeling, this moment, I want to freeze it in time and never let it go. But I know I can only ever keep it for a little while.

Bella will leave, eventually, when this matter with Igor is over, and she's safe again. She's happy here now, but one day, she'll feel safe enough to seek out a different life, a life of her own. She'll decide on a career she wants—maybe pursue photography for real now that her father is no longer holding her back. She'll meet someone. And she'll leave this job, and this family behind, a starting point on the way to a better life than she would have had otherwise.

The thought should make me feel good. It's what I set out to do for her. But the idea of losing her makes my chest ache in a different way. And the thought of someone else with her, touching her, doing all the things to her that I still imagine and dream about at night, makes me feel a jealous possessiveness that I'd forgotten I was capable of.

But she's not mine. And I feel sure that if I tried to make her mine, I'd only disappoint her in the end.

I push the thoughts away as we start to eat, focusing instead on how excited Cecelia is to tell me about the house and their plans for it, about the color palettes that she likes, her ideas for paint or wallpaper for different rooms. Her enthusiasm warms me—I like the idea that even once this place belongs to someone else, it'll still have my family's mark on it. Not only my parents' contribution to it, but my children's, as well.

I'd meant to break the news about the plans to sell to everyone over dinner. But seeing the excitement on Cecelia and Bella's faces about the renovation makes me not want to say anything just yet. I can already imagine how their faces would fall, how the tone of the dinner would change. I know the explanations I'll have to go into and the conversation I'll have to have about the reasons for the sale. And I don't want to kill the moment.

I also don't want to mar the one thing that seems to be bringing Bella happiness right now, distracting her from thinking about all of the possibilities of what could happen once Igor retaliates. And I know he will. I have to find out how to defend against it, how to ensure he doesn't harm anyone I care for again—and I also want to keep those fears as far from Bella as possible, in the meantime.

When dinner is done, and the table cleared, I see Bella start to leave to take the children upstairs. I know I should just let her go and end the night, but I put out a hand instead, touching her arm.

She goes very still, glancing over at me, one eyebrow raised questioningly.

"Come back down when you're done, and have a glass of wine with me?"

I see the hesitation on her face. I can guess what she's thinking about, what she's remembering—that first night that we sat in the living room back at the house in New York and had a drink together, and the glass that she spilled, that moment when it took everything in me not to kiss her.

My blood throbs in my temples. I should tell her never mind . I should tell her that I'm going to turn in for the night, instead. But I say none of that, no matter how clearly I know that I should.

"Okay," she says softly, and then she turns to go.

When she comes back down, I'm in the living room. She and Agnes got the room reasonably livable today—the plastic and drop cloths are gone, the furniture is dusted. The fireplace doesn't look usable just yet, but fortunately, it's summer. I'm standing at the mantle, looking out at the darkened estate beyond the tall window just to my right, when I hear her footsteps behind me.

I have to force myself not to turn around instantly. Not to make it abundantly clear with a single motion how much I was looking forward to seeing her when she came down.

When I finally turn around, I see her silhouetted in the doorway, walking into the room. Even in sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, her hair piled messily atop her head, she takes my breath away. I want to reach out and run my fingers down one of the thin strands of hair brushing against her cheek. In the low, golden light from the lamps scattered around the room, she looks luminous.

Not touching her feels like one of the hardest things I've ever had to do.

I reach for one of the two glasses of wine I poured, handing it to her instead. "I know you've told me you want to," I say finally, casting another glance around the room, "but I feel like I need to remind you that you don't have to do anything involving these renovations, or getting the house livable. It's not your job. You can stop anytime."

"You make it sound like an addiction," Bella teases quietly, taking the wine glass. Her fingers ghost against mine as she does, and I feel the touch jolt over my skin, like electricity. "I know I don't have to," she adds, sinking down on the edge of the couch and taking a sip of the wine. "But it's good to have a project. It occupies my mind. I know my job is watching Cecelia and Danny, but it's not as if they're babies. They take care of themselves a lot of the time. I'm just here to structure it, and to be there if they need me. Cecelia is loving the project, by the way," she adds with another small laugh. "If you couldn't tell at dinner. I never knew she'd get so excited over decorating."

"Neither did I." I fight the urge to sit down next to her on the couch, knowing it will be harder to keep from touching her if I do. I sink down in a wing chair near the fireplace instead, running my fingers over the worn velvet nap. "It makes sense, though, now that I think about it. She had a dollhouse she loved when she was little. She reorganized it constantly. Always wanted new furniture for it more than new dolls. And now she's obsessed with the ones from that store you took her to."

"I saw that she brought the one I picked out with her." Bella takes another sip of her wine, looking pensively towards the window. "She was really worried about me. I'm sorry, Gabriel." She glances back towards me. "I'm sorry I brought that into your life. I?—"

"Don't," I say firmly, shaking my head. "We talked about this on the plane, Bella. It's not your fault." The expression on her face tells me that she's not going to drop it, but I wish she would. I want her to trust me. To believe that I'll keep her safe.

Mine. The word burns through my head again, and I shove it away. She isn't, whether I want her to be or not. But that doesn't mean I can't protect her.

"It's objectively—" she starts to say, but I fix her with a look that makes her drop her gaze. "I know you had some idea of the risks, after I told you what happened. But did you really think Igor would?—"

"No. I didn't," I interrupt, before she can go any further. "But that's on me, Bella. Not you. I didn't take the threat seriously enough, and I'll regret that to my dying fucking day, but taking it seriously would never have involved sending you back to your father, or anywhere else. I should have added more security, and reached out to contacts to find out a way to head the threat off—shit, there's any number of things I could have done that I'm working on doing now, to try to fix it. But I don't regret anything about you, Bella. And I don't want you blaming yourself."

She takes another sip of the wine silently. From the look on her face, I can't tell if it's going to be that easy for her. But I have every intention of reinforcing it, if it comes up again, as many times as it takes for her to believe me when I say that this isn't her fault. I'll never be convinced that it is.

"How can I not?" she asks finally, her teeth still biting her lower lip. I want to reach out and take her face in my hand, pry her lip from her teeth with my thumb, and kiss away the sting. Just the thought sends a pulse of desire through me, a warm ache swelling in my blood. But I don't move. She looks up at me, and her eyes look glossy, as if she's holding back tears. "How can I not blame myself? The things Igor said?—"

"Don't matter." I cut her off again, before it can spiral. "He's not going to get to you here, Bella. Whatever he threatened you with, whatever he said, whatever plans he had for you, they're over. Finished. And he can try to follow through; he can try to come after you, but I will find a way to stop him. I promise you that."

Bella nods, dropping her gaze again. I can't tell what she's thinking, and all I want is to take that worried look off of her face. I want to see her the way she was at dinner, happy and self-assured, as if she'd started to believe me when I say that I'll keep her safe. As if she'd started to feel at home again.

"You seem more confident here." I look at her, letting my gaze drift over her face as she leans forward, clasping her wine glass in both hands. "When you were helping Agnes serve dinner earlier, the way you moved around the kitchen—" I break off, unsure of how to finish the sentence. I want to say like you belong here, but there are so many layers to that sentence, so many parts of it that I know I should keep to myself.

Bella laughs softly, lifting her wine glass to her lips again. I see them brush against the rim, and I feel my cock twitch in my jeans, swelling against my thigh. Looking at her mouth has always made me feel like I'm going to come undone, from the very beginning.

"I don't know," she says softly, draining the glass of wine. I pluck it from her fingers and reach for the bottle on the old coffee table, refilling it halfway before I hand it back to her. "Maybe it's that the house in New York feels like it's so completely your space. Like I was a newcomer there, a little bit of an intruder, from the very start. Always on the back foot, learning the routines, getting used to things. It was already home to everyone there, when I moved in. But this isn't home to anyone—not even you."

The quickness with which she grasped that makes me feel slightly startled, taken aback. I hadn't realized she could read me so well, that she understood me that well. But Bella is someone who pays attention, who notices details, and we know each other in a number of intimate ways now. I suppose, I think as I watch her take another sip of the wine, that it shouldn't surprise me as much as it does.

"This is a neutral space," she says quietly. "And maybe since I'm helping to fix it up, I feel a little bit of ownership over it, too." She laughs. "Not that I actually think it's mine or anything like that," she adds hurriedly.

It could be. The thought springs up, and I try to squash it down just as quickly, along with my growing arousal. It's a foolish thought to have. Bella and I aren't together, and even if we were, I have plans to sell the estate. But I can't bring myself to talk about them out loud, right now. I'm not sure why, but it feels like I can't bring myself to say it. It feels like that same thought I had at dinner—that if anything is making her happy, making her laugh, I don't want to do anything to ruin it. She's had so much taken from her, and even though there have never been any plans to stay here, for some reason, telling her right now—when she's so hopeful about fixing the house up—that I plan to sell feels like taking something else away. It makes no sense, but my gut feeling is to stay quiet about that.

So I do. Because I'm beginning to realize, more and more, how much it means to me to make Bella happy.

She sits there, quietly sipping her wine, and I don't know what else to say. I can feel the tension between us, heavy in the air, and I want to get up and go to her. I want her . But I don't move, because I know all of the things we agreed to. And I don't know what she wants from me.

"I should go to bed," Bella says, draining her glass of wine and setting it down. "We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. And the kids are always up earlier than I would be, if I didn't have an alarm."

She smiles at me, standing up, and I watch her hesitate, for just a second, as she turns to go. "Good night, Gabriel," she says softly, and then she walks out of the living room, heading towards the stairs.

I watch her go, aching to touch her. To run my fingers through her soft chestnut hair as I tug it down from the bun it's in, to slide my hands down her waist, to squeeze her perfect ass in my palms as I wrap those long, perfect legs around me. My cock hardens in an instant, aching, and I toss back the rest of my wine as I wait long enough for her to be in her room before I go upstairs, too.

I can't trust myself not to touch her, if I pass her in the hallway right now. My restraint feels thin, frayed, and I don't want to do anything to upset her, to damage the trust between us. But I want her so badly that it feels hard to think about anything else.

Her bedroom door is closed when I walk past it, the light is turned off. For the briefest second, I think I hear a soft whimper of pleasure, and my cock throbs in response. I reach down, biting back a groan as I adjust myself in my jeans, fighting back the urge to linger in the hallway. To see if I hear her moan again—if Bella is in her room, touching herself. The thought of her long, slim fingers sliding over her wet pussy, rolling over her clit, makes me harder than I would have thought was possible.

It's not far to my room. I stride inside and close the door behind me, the familiar sound of Bella's aroused whimpering echoing in my ears as I strip my shirt off and undo my jeans, tossing them and my boxer briefs onto the floor. My hand is already around my aching cock as I lay back on the bed, visions of Bella straddling me, filling my mind as I fumble for a bottle of lube and flick it open, letting it drip onto my straining length.

God. "Fuck," I curse through gritted teeth as I spread it over my cock, the heat from my hand instantly warming it. It's easy to imagine that I'm slick from Bella's pussy sliding over me instead, dripping with her arousal as I start to stroke, gasping with pleasure at the much-needed friction.

I hadn't realized how much I needed this until I started. My mind is filled with images of everything Bella and I have done together, of her stretched out on the lounge chair poolside as I instructed her how to touch herself, of her eyes wide and glazed with pleasure as she saw my cock for the first time, watched me stroke myself for her. Her, pinned against the wall in my basement gym, her hand wrapping around me for the first time, the feeling of her hot, smooth hand sliding over my cock, urging me to come for her. The sight of her, painted with my cum, the vision of her spread out on the hood of my Ferrari, dripping wet for me as I ate her out. I groan, remembering how sweet she tasted, how hard I came for her as I licked her to a screaming orgasm on my favorite car.

And the first night. The only night.

My balls tighten, my cock throbbing in my fist as I remember how good she felt wrapped around me. Hot and wet and tight, every part of her body, utter perfection, letting me be her first. And god , I want to be the only cock that's ever in her. The only man who ever touches her like that. Possessiveness floods me, as hot as the arousal that pounds through my veins as I feel that electric pressure at the base of my spine, the promise of bliss as my cock hardens in my fist, and I feel the first pulses as my cum jets out over my stomach.

" Bella ." I groan her name, breathing it aloud in an ecstatic moan as my cock pulses again, painting my abdomen with my cum. It feels so fucking good, but it's not enough. I knew it wouldn't be.

Nothing other than her in my bed is ever going to be enough, ever again.

I slide my hand slowly over my still-pulsing cock, sucking in a breath as my fingertips graze the over-sensitive head. My thigh muscles twitch, my hips still arching up, seeking out the tight, perfect clasp of her body around me. I want to come in her, with her, feel her rippling around me while I fill her up, and just the thought is enough to make me start to harden again, before I've even fully come down from the first orgasm.

I drop my hand away from my cock, letting out a hiss of frustration. Jerking off is barely a solution for my arousal. Not even a solution—it barely takes the edge off. There are not a lot of options for meeting someone out here in the Italian countryside, but that's not the problem. If I wanted to, I could take the jet to Rome for a night and pick up some woman at a high-class bar or nightclub. Some model or celebrity with mile-long legs and plush lips who would do anything I asked.

The problem is that I don't want any other woman. I've never been a playboy, but after Bella, thinking of going and picking a woman up for a one-night stand just turns me off. I can feel my arousal fading, just thinking about it.

She's ruined me for any other woman. And that would be fine—if it wasn't for the fact that I can't…that I shouldn't have her, either.

I get up to go and clean myself up, frustration still humming through my veins, with no solution for it.

I don't want her to leave. I want her here, with me, with my family, for as long as I can possibly keep her.

What I have to figure out is how to stop myself from wanting her, before it drives me insane.