He put the menu down and picked up his glass of wine but he didn’t bring it to his mouth. He looked into the blood-red contents of his glass, his frown deepening. ‘I had just turned eighteen.’ He took a mouthful of wine and then put the glass back down. ‘It’s not a day I’m particularly fond of recalling.’
‘Who were you fighting?’
His gaze met hers. ‘My father.’
Frankie gasped and clasped a hand to her throat. ‘Your father gave you that scar?’
Gabriel’s eyes hardened as if the very mention of his father made everything in him turn to stone. ‘Yep. Not exactly father of the year material, my old man, but there you go.’
Frankie swallowed. ‘What were you fighting about?’
His gaze moved to the base of his wine glass, his fingers pushing it away in a precise movement. He looked back at her with a brooding grimace, something in his gaze shifting as if he had come to some sort of resignation. ‘I didn’t like the way my father earned a living. I didn’t find out what he was actually involved in until my eighteenth birthday when he asked me to join the company.’ He put his fingers up in air quotes over the word ‘company.’ ‘He figured I was an adult by then and would have no qualms about breaking the law.’
Frankie opened and closed her mouth in shock. ‘So, he hit you when you refused to work with him?’
‘Violence is my father’s language,’ he said in a grim tone. ‘He uses his fists or employs others to do it for him.’ He touched the scar again. ‘But, yes, this was his handiwork.’
‘Oh, Gabriel... I’m so shocked and sad that you have such an appalling father. And here I am complaining about mine. I’m so sorry for dumping all my stuff on you. You must think me a spoilt, overly indulged brat.’
He reached across the table and captured her hand. ‘Don’t apologise. I know it wasn’t easy with your father. He was a good man, a decent man, but he had his faults.’
Frankie placed her other hand on top of his where it was holding hers to the table. ‘Was your father ever violent towards your mother?’
He pulled his hand from between hers and leaned back in his chair, his expression clouding once more. ‘She got the occasional black eye and once she had to have a cast on her arm. She always had an excuse for how she got hurt. She slipped, walked into a door or whatever. As a child you don’t really question it, or at least I didn’t back then.’ He sighed and added, ‘There was a lot I didn’t question back then.’
‘You didn’t witness the violence?’
‘I was only nine when she died so it’s hard to recall what went on behind closed doors. They didn’t seem to argue much but that was probably because my mother knew better than to disagree with him.’ He released a savage-sounding sigh. ‘It wasn’t an easy life for her. We had no money—that came later, after she had died. She did her best to provide for us but the constant struggle for food and taking care of four kids and a difficult husband took its toll.’
‘How did she die?’
A flash of something dark and angry backlit his gaze. ‘For years we were told it was suicide. But on the day of my eighteenth the truth came out. He had given her drugs to stop her from reporting him to the police. Strong painkillers that shut down her breathing. No one questioned it as anything but an intentional overdose.’ A shadow passed over his face as if he was recalling that terrible day. Her heart ached for him. Ached for the small child he had been and how hard and cruel life had been towards him.
‘Oh, Gabriel... How awful for you,’ Frankie said. ‘You must have felt so devastated to lose her. And your poor siblings. They’re younger than you, yes?’
‘Yes.’ He picked up his wine and took a mouthful but when he put the glass back down his expression got that boxed-up look about it again. ‘I hate talking about this stuff.’
‘I can imagine it must be dreadfully painful.’
A silence passed.
Gabriel’s gaze met hers. ‘I torture myself with the what-ifs. What if I had come home earlier from school? I might have been able to save her. Get her to hospital in time.’
Frankie’s chest was tight with emotion. How sad that, like her, he blamed himself for his mother’s death. ‘But you were just a child. That’s your father’s guilt to own, not yours.’
He moved his mouth in a semblance of a smile and took her hand, his thumb toying with the diamonds on her engagement ring. ‘I tried to make it up to my mother by taking care of my siblings. I had to grow up damn fast. I can’t really recall hanging out with my friends or kicking a ball after school. There were months on end when I didn’t even go to school. My father got a new partner after what I thought was an indecently short space of time. One of many women who came and went over the years.’
Frankie was starting to understand why Gabriel was such a closed book when it came to his past. It was so painful to revisit it. To talk about it. To vocalise the intense sadness and loss that had stained his existence. And the guilt, which she understood more than most. She stroked the back of his hand where it was holding hers. ‘Thank you for telling me about your past. It helps me to get a clearer picture of who you are. You’ve always seemed to me a little aloof and unknowable.’
‘Is that why you refused to have dinner with me four years ago?’ There was a teasing glint in his eyes.
Frankie pulled her hand away and leaned back from the table, shooting him a mock-reproving look from beneath her lashes. ‘I was annoyed that you expected me to say yes. I thought you were unbearably arrogant.’
He gave a self-deprecating smile. ‘It was good for me to get a knock back. It made me all the more determined to win you over eventually.’
Frankie frowned. ‘But you never asked me again. Not until two days ago, I mean. I might have got married to someone else and had a bunch of kids in the meantime.’
‘There are inherent risks in every decision one makes,’ he said with an enigmatic smile. ‘But lucky for me you were still single and in need of a rich husband.’
Frankie cleared her throat in a theatrical fashion. ‘Ahem. Here’s a little newsflash for you. I did not want a rich husband.’ She sent him a glare that would have made a swarm of wasps duck for cover. ‘A man’s bank balance is not their most attractive feature. Not in my books anyway.’
‘What sort of men have you dated?’
Frankie forced herself to hold his unwavering gaze. ‘I hope you’re not one of those men who has to know every single detail about a woman’s sexual past?’
‘Not unless there is something about her past that could have an impact on her present.’
Frankie could feel her cheeks starting to glow but she somehow managed to maintain eye contact. ‘How many partners have you had? A rough guess will do.’
‘Not as many as you might think.’
She raised her eyebrows. ‘You’ve hardly been living like a monk, though, have you? You’re always in the gossip pages with yet another gorgeous woman hanging off your arm.’
‘They don’t always end up in my bed or at least not for long.’ A frown flickered across his forehead and he picked up his wine glass and took another sip.
‘So, you’ve never fallen in love?’
‘No.’
‘Because you’ve not met the right woman or because you don’t want to fall for anyone?’
It was hard to read his expression. The screen had come back up. ‘I’m not incapable of loving someone, I just chose not to love an intimate partner in that way.’
‘But is it something you can choose? Don’t you think falling in love is something that just happens? It’s not something you can control, surely?’
His gaze hardened with cynicism. ‘I’ve controlled it so far.’
Frankie couldn’t hold his gaze and focused on watching her index finger leave a pathway through the condensation on her water glass. ‘I’ve never been in love either. I’ve
had the odd crush but that’s as far as it went.’ He was silent so long, she glanced up to find him watching her with a frowning expression. ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’
‘I meant what I said the other day, Francesca.’ His tone had a note of gravitas. ‘No matter if we end up consummating our marriage or not, this is temporary. We are temporary.’ She didn’t care for the way he leant on the word ‘we.’ Was it so impossible that he could end up feeling something for her? Something more than temporary lust?
Frankie gave him an arch look. ‘I’m not sure why you find it so necessary to keep reminding me. Perhaps it’s because you need to keep reminding yourself?’
He held her gaze in silent combat that made the base of her spine tingle. She was determined not to look away. Not to back down from this battle of wills. But as every pulsing second passed she could feel her resolve weakening.
The longer she looked into his cynical dark gaze the more she worried he would see her nascent feelings for him. Feelings she had no control over. Feelings that were growing, changing, evolving into something she had never felt for anyone before. She had shared some of her deepest pain with him and he had shared his. It had created a connection between them—an emotional connection that made it hard for her to dislike him any more.
In fact, she admired him all the more for what he had gone through. How could she not? He was a man who had risen out of the depths of despair and loss and turned his life into a success, not a poor me sob story. He was strong and yet gentle. Principled and focused on achieving worthy goals.
‘I’m not the happy ever after you’re looking for,’ he finally said. ‘It’s best you accept it from the outset otherwise you’ll get hurt in the long run and I would hate that to happen.’
‘You don’t have the power to hurt me.’ Frankie picked up her wine glass and raised it in an airy toast, mentally crossing her fingers in case she was tempting fate. ‘To not falling in love.’
Gabriel touched his glass against hers, his eyes holding hers in a steely lock. ‘Cheers.’
* * *
Once their meal was over, Gabriel them drove back to the villa with his thoughts going back over their dinner conversation. It was a new experience for him to talk about his family with someone. He had not spoken of his mother’s death for years. He didn’t even talk about it with his sister Carli, mostly because she didn’t remember their mother. The phone call out on the terrace earlier that evening had been from one of his brothers. Nothing could sour Gabriel’s mood more than a conversation with Ricci. Carli had apparently let slip to Ricci that Gabriel had warned her about associating with the rest of the family. Carli was torn between two worlds—the so-called security of their criminal family and making her own way. So far, she hadn’t quite made up her mind.
But somehow, Frankie had got him to open up about his difficult family background—the pain and shame of it he could never quite shake off. He carried it with him like the scar on his face. His past could never be erased no matter how much he tried to distance himself from it. It followed him like a toxic vapour, poisoning his thoughts, robbing him of what little joy he had managed to claw for himself out of living a decent, hardworking and productive life.
Gabriel knew he was flirting with danger by marrying Frankie. She was an old-fashioned girl at heart looking for her handsome prince to ride off into the sunset with her. But he couldn’t give her false hope. Neither could he allow her sink into financial ruin while he had the means to protect her. He had calculated the risks, measured them and decided that a short-term marriage would solve both of their problems. Was he a misguided fool for insisting on the no-falling-in-love rule? He’d never had an issue with developing feelings for other partners. He admired and respected many of the women he had dated but he had never developed lasting feelings for any one of them.
But the more time he spent with Frankie the more he realised he had never allowed anyone else close enough to know him. To understand the things that drove him, the ghosts and shadows of his past that had shaped him into who he was today.
* * *
When they arrived back at the villa, Gabriel helped Frankie out of the car. She walked with him to the front door and seemed to be as preoccupied as he was. Her smooth forehead was wrinkled in a frown and her teeth kept worrying at her lower lip. ‘Tired?’ he asked once they were inside the villa.
Her smile was fleeting. ‘Not really...’
Before he could stop himself, he took her hand and lifted it to his mouth, pressing his lips against her fingertips. Her pupils flared and her tongue crept out and flicked over the pillowy softness of her cherry-red lips. She lifted her other hand to his face, tracing the scar on his cheekbone with her finger, her touch so light he wondered if he imagined it. But then she stepped up on tiptoe and placed her lips against the scar in a gentle kiss. The soft press of her lips sent a shockwave through his body and it took more willpower than he wanted to admit to stop from pulling her to him and crushing her mouth to his.
But she must have sensed the internal struggle he was enduring. Her gaze met his and her cheeks bloomed with a delicate shade of pink. ‘I meant what I said at dinner... Thank you for telling me about your childhood.’
He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and released it. ‘I’ll see you in the morning. Sleep well.’
Her expression faltered, she gave a couple of rapid blinks, her eyes falling away from his. ‘Goodnight...’ Her voice was barely above a whisper.
He had only taken a few steps when her voice stalled him. ‘Gabriel?’
He turned to look at her. ‘Yes?’
She fidgeted with her engagement and wedding rings on her left hand, her teeth pulling at her lower lip. ‘Why did you ask me to have dinner with you four years ago?’
‘Why does any man ask a woman to dinner? Because he fancies her.’
A small frown began to pull at her forehead. ‘My father didn’t...erm...put you up to it?’ There was an uncertain quality to her voice.
‘No. Why would you think that?’
She shrugged but her frown didn’t go away. ‘I just wondered if he’d suggested it to you...’ She bit her lip again.
Gabriel came back to her and tipped up her chin with his finger to lock his gaze with hers. ‘Your father had nothing to do with my decision to ask you out. Do you really find it so hard to believe I wasn’t attracted to you? Am still attracted to you?’
Her eyes were luminous grey-blue pools, shimmering in a whirlpool of doubt and hope. She moved closer as if pulled by the force of a magnet, her hands sliding upwards to rest against his chest, her lower body brushing his. Heating, tempting, torturing him. She lifted her hand to his face, tracing the contour of his mouth, her touch so electrifying his lips fizzed and buzzed and burned.
‘Gabriel...’ Her voice was barely a thread of sound and yet it resounded with the same need he could feel pummelling his body.
He cupped her face, holding her gaze. ‘Tell me what you want, cara.’
She moistened her mouth, the flick of her tongue sending a lightning rod of lust to his groin. ‘I want you.’ She moved closer, pressing her body against the throbbing ache of his. ‘Ever since you kissed me earlier today... I just can’t stop this ache. Do you...do you feel it too?’
Gabriel wrapped his arms around her curvaceous body, his blood going at rocket speed. ‘Can’t you feel what you’re doing to me?’
Her creamy cheeks became tinged with pink. ‘Make love to me?’ Her soft tone was touchingly tentative, as if even with the hard evidence of his need pressing against her body, she still couldn’t quite believe he wanted her.
Gabriel lowered his mouth to hers, brushing her lips once, twice, three times. ‘Are you sure about this? It’s been a rollercoaster of a day and you might regret this in the morn—’
She placed her finger over his lips, blocking his speech. ‘I won’t regret it. I wan
t you. It makes sense to make ours a proper marriage even if it’s only for a year.’
He stroked his thumb across the plump softness of her lower lip. ‘Let’s take this upstairs. I don’t fancy making love to you for the first time in the foyer.’
He took her by the hand and led her upstairs, stopping outside his bedroom. He was torn between making passionate love with her and giving her more time to make sure it was what she truly wanted. How could he be sure she didn’t feel obliged? He had done all he could to give her the freedom of choosing. He had promised her he would remain faithful even if they didn’t consummate their marriage. ‘It’s not too late to change your mind.’
She glanced at his mouth, her throat rising and falling. ‘I’m not going to change my mind.’ Her eyes came back to his. ‘It’s what I want. What I need.’
Gabriel opened the bedroom door and led her inside and closed the door. He needed it too. He needed her.
Badly.
CHAPTER EIGHT
FRANKIE LOOPED HER arms around his neck, her fingers playing with his hair, her mouth crushed beneath the passionate pressure of his. She had been fighting her attraction to him from the moment he’d proposed marriage. Who was she kidding? She had been fighting this fervent attraction for years. And now they were married she could indulge herself in experiencing his lovemaking. Why shouldn’t she? It was what she wanted. It was what he wanted too.
Gabriel’s tongue danced with hers, stirring her longing until she was making breathless whimpering sounds, aching to get as close as she possibly could. His hands cupped her bottom, drawing her against his hardness, the proud swell of his flesh making everything that was female in her shudder with delight. The slight graze of his jaw against her face when he changed position was a heady reminder of their essential differences. Male and female. Experience and inexperienced.
Should she tell him she was a virgin? The words assembled on her tongue but she couldn’t bring herself to say them. She didn’t want him to change his mind about making love with her. She didn’t want to confirm to him how different she was from his other lovers.
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