Love & Loss (The Austin Series)

by C. J. Fallowfield

  ‘Sofia, your home is beautiful,’ I uttered. It looked like something out of Home and Garden magazine, far too extravagant for my tastes, but I could still appreciate it.

  ‘Well I have my ex-husband to thank for that,’ she smiled as we shrugged off our coats. A man in a butler’s uniform appeared from nowhere and took them from us. We sat down facing her and Gabe took my hand.

  ‘What did your ex-husband do?’ he asked.

  ‘He was in the diamond trade,’ she smiled. ‘So you see Gabe, I can assure you that I am not interested in your father for his money, I have plenty of my own thanks to my divorce settlement.’

  ‘Sofia, please accept my apologies. I certainly wasn’t trying to imply anything,’ Gabe replied quickly, as I realised that was how she’d known about the carat of my ring.

  ‘No apology required. I would be thinking it if I were in your shoes, but I can assure you that it’s not the case. I care for him very much.’

  ‘Just care?’ Gabe asked. That was rude I thought to myself as I looked at him and frowned.

  ‘I didn’t want to make you uncomfortable Gabe, I can imagine that this is not an easy situation for you, but no, I don’t just care for him. I love him, very much,’ she said softly.

  ‘Then I’m happy for both of you, as I know he feels the same about you.’

  ‘Thank you, that means a lot,’ she smiled. I picked Gabe’s hand up and kissed it, proud he’d apologised and now put her at ease. The butler returned and handed us a silver platter from which we took a flute of champagne. ‘To new beginnings for us all,’ she toasted.

  ‘I’ll second that,’ I smiled.

  ‘New beginnings,’ nodded Gabe and smiled at me. ‘Well, while we’re on a roll Sofia, how would you feel about joining us on the flight back to the UK to spend Christmas with us all?’ Sofia’s eyebrows went so high they were in danger of disappearing into her hairline, while I nearly choked on my champagne. Obviously neither of us had seen that coming.

  ‘Gabe I … I don’t know what to say,’ Sofia gasped as she held a hand to her throat.

  ‘If you would say yes I know it would mean a lot to Dad.’

  ‘I’m incredibly touched, thank you so much and if you wouldn’t mind me taking you up on that offer next year I’d love to. I’m so sorry but I’ve already made commitments to spend it with my family here. I never … I just didn’t imagine …’

  ‘I’m sorry, I put you on the spot.’

  ‘No, please don’t apologise, it means a lot that you offered, Robert and I just hadn’t anticipated you wanting me there, given that we’ve only just met.’

  ‘Well I understand that it’s Dad’s fault that I only just found out about you. I was slightly out of sorts when I meet you on Friday night and I didn’t want you to think that it was personal, it wasn’t your fault. I was just slightly stunned that not only was he seeing someone, but that it had been going on so long and it was serious.’

  ‘I can imagine,’ she smiled. ‘Well we’ve met now and I hope that we can meet many more times and get to know each other, all of us,’ she added with a nod in my direction.

  ‘That would be lovely Sofia,’ I beamed, happy that things were going well. ‘Would you think me terribly rude if I asked if we could go and see the view?’

  ‘Not at all, it is rather spectacular,’ she smiled.

  Antonio picked us up after a delicious light lunch of grilled calamari followed by a chicken Caesar salad and a bottle of crisp Chardonnay. Gabe insisted on paying and Sofia insisted on us being dropped home first to give us time to pack before we left for the theatre. She got out of the car as Antonio handed Gabe our shopping bags and she walked with us to the lobby.

  ‘Goodbye Gabe, thank you for a lovely lunch, it was nice to finally get to spend some time getting to know you.’ She kissed him on each cheek and nodded her head.

  ‘You too Sofia, I’m happy that Dad has someone in his life and I’ll look forward to seeing you again soon.’

  ‘Now look after this one,’ she laughed with a look over at me. ‘She’s a wonderful girl.’

  ‘She is,’ Gabe smiled and I felt myself go pink as they both looked at me. Sofia and I hugged tightly.

  ‘It was lovely to meet you Sofia, thank you so much for my night out on Saturday, I had so much fun.’

  ‘Me too. We’ll do it again soon. Happy Birthday for tomorrow, Robert has a little something in his case for you and have a wonderful Christmas both.’

  ‘You too,’ Gabe and I replied at the same time and laughed.

  ‘Goodbye.’ She waved and started walking away, then abruptly stopped, turned and walked up to Gabe and whispered something in his ear. I watched puzzled as his face lit up and she winked at me, blew me a kiss and headed out to the car.

  ‘What was that all about?’ I asked.

  ‘Never you mind,’ Gabe smiled and grabbed the bags and then my hand.

  ‘That’s not fair. What did she say to you? You looked ever so happy about it.’

  ‘I am, but it’s a secret,’ he said tapping his nose, before he lifted up all the shopping bags.

  ‘Gabe, that’s unfair. Will you ever tell me?’

  ‘When the time’s right,’ he replied with another mysterious smile and punched in the elevator code and pulled me in. ‘Right, how do you feel about first time elevator sex?’

  ‘Do we have time?’ I asked, a big smile on my face.

  ‘I’ll make it quick.’

  ‘Do it,’ I giggled, then screamed as he lunged at me as the doors closed.

  I sighed as I looked at myself in the mirror. Part of me didn’t want to go home, I’d loved our trip, but even more I’d loved having Gabe almost back to normal and I was dreading an escalation of his stress levels again when we got back. I touched up my mascara and straightened my black lace dress, the one I’d worn on our first meal out together and packed the remainder of my toiletries and took them to put in my case. Gabe wandered in wearing his charcoal grey suit and a black shirt and I sighed as I looked at him, partly through lust, partly through sadness.

  ‘Don’t,’ he said as he caught my eye. ‘We’re going to come back again and we have your birthday, Christmas and our new apartment to look forward to.’

  ‘I know, you’ve just been so relaxed over here and I’m so worried how you’ll be when we get home. I don’t want you making yourself ill again.’

  ‘I won’t Mia, I’m seeing Dr Jarvis tomorrow afternoon and as long as we stick to our agreements and you keep yourself safe, I’m going to make sure I try and take it all in my stride ok? Let’s just enjoy the rest of our evening baby. Are you all packed?’

  ‘Yes,’ I nodded.

  ‘Then let me put the cases by the elevator, Seb’s going to take them down to Antonio, he’ll drop us off for dinner and take them onto the airport then come and pick us up later.’

  ‘Ok,’ I sighed. He strode over and clutched my chin and tipped my face up to his.

  ‘We’re going to have loads more amazing holidays Mia and everyday living with you will feel like a holiday, it always does whenever I’m with you.’ He kissed me tenderly as I gripped the lapels of his jacket and slumped against him. ‘No sagging,’ he laughed as he pulled away, ‘I need a decent meal after that light lunch and you were so excited about Phantom.’

  ‘Then stop working me up with lovely kisses like that,’ I sighed. He smiled and wheeled our cases out and I carried the shopping bags that I couldn’t fit in and took one last look around the apartment and smiled sadly. So much had happened here in these six short days, and I felt like Gabe and I had made real progress, individually and as a couple.

  Gabe held my hand as we climbed the steps to the plane and we were welcomed by Tim and shown through to the main cabin, where Robert was already seated with a newspaper and a glass of whiskey and he looked up and smiled.

  ‘Mia, Gabriel. How was your evening?’

  ‘Amazing,’ I smiled. ‘We had a lovely dinner and the show was fantastic, even with someo
ne grumbling all the way through that we should have had better seats.’ I looked up at Gabe and he rolled his eyes.

  ‘Well we should have. Next time I’m booking further in advance so we can have a box. Come on, let’s get you strapped in.’ He helped me into my seat and did up my safety belt and kissed me.

  ‘What can I get you both to drink?’ asked Tim.

  ‘A bottle of the Bollinger Rose please Tim and three glasses. It’s officially Mia’s birthday in both time zones,’ Gabe smiled.

  ‘It is?’ I exclaimed looking at my watch.

  ‘It is,’ he nodded with a smile. ‘And you can have one of your presents now, but I’d like to leave the rest until we’re home. I’ll be back in a moment.’

  ‘Happy birthday Mia, we’ll have a proper celebration later, presents and all,’ smiled Robert.

  ‘Thank you and thank you again for letting us stay in your apartment, that was so kind of you. I have a present for you too, to say thank you.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you Mia, though totally unnecessary.’ He stole a glance behind him and then looked at me with raised eyebrows. ‘How is he?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘Better than I expected, but noticeably more tense this evening. It will be good that we’re all together for the next few days to acclimatise him to being home again.’

  ‘It will,’ Robert nodded. ‘I’m wondering if I should stay longer?’

  ‘Robert you have Sofia to get back to, you’re already spending Christmas away from her and we have the move to keep us occupied, we’ll be fine.’ I flicked my eyes to the back of the plane to warn him Gabe had just reappeared from the cabin. Robert looked up at him as he took his seat.

  ‘Gabriel thank you so much for asking Sofia to come back with us for Christmas, she was very touched, as was I.’

  ‘Well I’d hate to be away from Mia for Christmas, I didn’t like the thought of you feeling obliged to try and make things easy for me.’

  ‘There’s no obligation,’ Robert frowned. ‘I just want what’s best for you, you don’t need additional complications in your life right now.’

  ‘Dad I was just shocked on Friday, you did kind of spring it on me out of no where, but Sofia isn’t a complication, she’s your girlfriend and I actually like her. Plus if you love her half as much as I love Mia then it’s not about me trying to make an effort, I want you to be happy. You deserve to be happy.’

  ‘Thank you son, that means a lot.’ Robert smiled, looking incredibly touched.

  ‘Right, here’s a present for Mia,’ Gabe smiled as he pushed a beautiful gift bag in my direction as the plane began to taxi out.

  ‘Gabe, I had my trip here as my present, I wasn’t expecting you to get me more.’

  ‘Really you’re going to start arguing with me over my spending again?’

  ‘Gabe,’ I objected and looked over at Robert embarrassed, but he just kept his head in his paper.

  ‘Just open it please Mia.’

  ‘Ok.’ I opened the bag and took out the Jimmy Choo tissue paper and looked at Gabe surprised before carefully unwrapping it and gasped in surprise and happiness to find a gold metallic cracked leather clutch bag with a band of thin gold chains around it forming the clasp. ‘Gabe it’s gorgeous, thank you so much. I’ve always dreamed of owning something by Jimmy Choo, I love it.’

  ‘I like you in gold,’ he shrugged.

  ‘Then I’ll wear gold tones for the surprise party tomorrow night,’ I smiled as I leaned across the table and squeezed his hand.

  ‘Doug?’ came Robert’s voice.

  ‘Doug,’ sighed Gabe with a nod.

  ‘He’ll never change,’ laughed Robert as we all sat back as the plane took off.

  I came out of en-suite all seductively dressed in my white baby doll and gasped in amazement to see he’d fallen asleep again, stretched out on his back, his forearm over his eyes. I sighed and turned out the lights and climbed in next to him, shuffling up to lay at his side and carefully lifted his arm from his face and tucked it under the duvet, holding his hand as I kissed his shoulder and fell asleep.

  I woke up suddenly, wincing as I felt a kick to my shin and heard Gabe moaning. I reached out to put on the bedside light and saw he was writhing in the bed and muttering, with a really distressed look on his face.

  ‘Gabe,’ I whispered softly.

  ‘No … not again, not Mia … no … please,’ he groaned.

  ‘Gabe, you’re dreaming,’ I whispered as I reached out and gently stroked his forehead. He bolted upright, swatting my hand away and looked around panicked until his eyes found mine. He sighed, reached out and grabbed me pulling me back down into the bed in his arms. I could feel his chest pounding and he was taking short sharp breaths. ‘Gabe are you ok?’

  ‘Fine. I’m fine.’

  ‘You don’t seem fine. What were you dreaming about?’

  ‘Nothing,’ he replied with a kiss to my forehead. He let me go, jumped out of bed and shut himself in the en-suite and I sighed. It wasn’t nothing, he was dreaming about his Mum, I knew it without him even telling me. It was the anniversary of her death and we were flying home somewhere he felt wasn’t safe for me, it was triggering some kind of panic attack for him. I got up and tried the door, but he’d locked it.

  ‘Gabe, can I come in.’

  ‘Go back to bed, I’ll be there in a while,’ came his voice.

  ‘Can I do anything? Get you anything?’

  ‘I told you I’m fine. Go to bed.’

  I did as I was told and turned out the light, deciding pushing him wasn’t going to help, but when I woke up a second time to find him back in bed thrashing as he kept calling my name, I couldn’t sit back. His forehead was damp with perspiration so I soaked a face cloth in cool water and wrung it out and sat on the edge of the bed and gently grabbed one of his hands and tried to reassure him by talking to him gently while I mopped his brow. He calmed down and took in few deep pained gasps and slowly opened his eyes, disorientated.

  ‘Hey,’ I smiled. ‘It’s ok, I’m here.’ I pressed the cloth to his forehead again and kissed his cheek and heard him let out a soft moan. ‘You were having a nightmare.’

  ‘I woke you up again?’

  ‘You seemed really distressed. Please don’t tell me you’re fine, because you’re suffering and I want to help. What can I do?’

  ‘Come back to bed and stay close to me,’ he replied as he rubbed his face before picking up my hand and kissing it. I removed the compress and set it aside and headed back to my side of the bed, reaching to turn out the light. ‘Don’t,’ he whispered. ‘Leave it on.’

  ‘Ok,’ I nodded. I shuffled down the bed and held out my arm and he rolled over it into my side, one arm draped across my stomach as he lay his head on my chest and I curled my arm around his neck and pushed my fingers into his hair, caressing his scalp. ‘Do you want to talk?’

  ‘No,’ he replied.

  ‘Ok.’ I picked up his hand resting against my hip and kissed it, before linking fingers with him as I continued to stroke his hair with my other hand. ‘When we get home tomorrow, you’re going to leave me at the apartment to sort out some washing and spend some time with Lexi while you see Dr Jarvis, then you’ll come back and pick me up and we’re not going to leave each other’s sides for the next week, so you don’t need to worry, nothing will happen to me because I’m going to be with you. You have a whole week to get used to us being home and starting a new routine ok?’

  ‘Ok,’ he nodded against my side.

  ‘One day at a time Gabe, that’s what we’re going to do, we’re going to make it as easy as possible.’

  ‘I just can’t lose you too Mia.’

  ‘I know, I’m not going anywhere Gabe. Come on, sleep for me baby, you don’t need to have nightmares because I’m right here, I’m not going anywhere.’ I talked him through all the things I wanted to do to set up the apartment as I stroked his hair and planted the odd kiss on top of his head and I eventually felt him fall asleep and sighed.
Since I’d known him I couldn’t recall him having a nightmare that woke him, or causing him so much distress. I hated that he was so tortured and that there was so little I could do to help. I closed my eyes, but it was a long time before I fell to sleep.

  Christmas Eve

  Riley pulled up outside the apartment and Gabe and I hopped out with my case, and left Robert to head off home with the rest of the luggage. We looked up at the building and smiled at each other to see the new windows were in, looking all sparkly and new.

  ‘Come on,’ he ordered, grabbing my case for me. ‘Let’s get in there and see what’s happened.’

  ‘But I want to see Lexi, she’d be gutted if I didn’t go to see her straight away. She thought she wasn’t seeing me until tonight and I really want to surprise her.’

  ‘Fine, we’ll go and see her first, but I want to go in the apartment before the builders clock off for Christmas, if they haven’t already.’

  I kissed him and we meet Tom the architect coming down the stairs so I left them to talk and carried on up without Gabe and let myself into the apartment. I shut the door, turned around and screamed as a naked man came wandering out of the bathroom and froze as he saw me.

  ‘Who the hell are you?’ I exclaimed as he automatically cupped his groin.

  ‘Me? Who the hell are you?’ he uttered.

  ‘Ermmm the person who owns this apartment,’ I retorted as I put my hands on my hips. I turned and scowled as Lexi came rushing out of her bedroom in a t-shirt.

  ‘Shit, you weren’t supposed to be home until later,’ she exclaimed. ‘I wasn’t expecting you.’

  ‘Obviously not,’ I replied. ‘Stop right there,’ I snapped with a pointed finger at the stranger who was inching back towards my bathroom.

  ‘I’m going to get dressed.’

  ‘Not in my bathroom you don’t … naked guy. Get in the utility which is in the kitchen over there,’ I pointed. ‘You’ll stay in the utility until I tell you that you can come out,’ I ordered. He looked at me confused and looked back at Lexi who raised her eyebrows at me. ‘Gabe’s on the stairs and will be coming in here any moment and I take it from your guilty face that Doug doesn’t know you’re fucking around, so if you’d like it to stay that way get him out of sight, now.’