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Heat floods me, and I bite my lip, turning my attention to doing my hair and putting on a small amount of makeup, adding the dangling earrings that were in the bag Gabriel packed.
When I come downstairs, I’m startled to see him waiting in the foyer. “You’re not coming, too, are you?” I bite my lip, realizing that what I’m about to say sounds foolish. “I don’t want you to see my dress before the wedding.”
Gabriel smiles, but it looks terse, like he’s forcing it. “No, I’m not. I wanted to talk to you before you left. And give you this.” He slips his credit card into my hand, and I close my fingers reflexively around the cool, heavy metal card.
“About what?” I swallow hard as he takes my arm, steering me into the nearby office. He closes the door behind me, and my heartbeat kicks up a notch as I look at him. “Gabriel?—”
“I’m not going to pounce on you,” he says, the smallest hint of amusement in his voice. “Even though I remember very clearly what we did the last time you wore that dress.”
Heat floods my cheeks instantly.
“I wanted to tell you something. I’ve been thinking, since last night. Since I gave you the ring.” He lets out a slow breath, glancing down at the emerald on my finger before looking back up at me. “I know that you were trying to escape an arranged marriage when we met. I know you only barely escaped one with your life before that. I can only imagine how it must feel to end up in one now, even if it’s with someone you trust.”
I swallow hard, feeling the bright sting of tears behind my eyelids. Even that small admission means something to me—the fact that he’s at least trying to understand how this must feel to me. No one else has ever tried to do that before. To try to empathize with how the things that this world has required of me make me feel.
“If you’re miserable—” He pauses, and I can see how difficult saying this is for him. It looks like he’s forcing the words out. “After Igor is dealt with, when it’s safe again, you can go. I’ll give you a divorce, and you can be free of this. It has never been my intent to trap you in a marriage you don’t want, Bella.”
He holds my gaze as he says it, but I can feel that he doesn’t want to say any of it. That he doesn’t like the idea of this marriage ending. And knowing what I know of Gabriel—of his hesitance to love again, his feelings about marriage…and that he cares for me and would never intentionally hurt me—none of that makes sense.
“What would you tell Cecelia and Danny?” I ask, and Gabriel’s jaw tightens. He looks away briefly, and then back at me, as if that wasn’t the response he wanted.
“I’d tell them the truth. That it didn’t work out. That’s how it works in the real world, right?” He shrugs, as if it doesn’t mean much, but I can tell that to him, it does. “There’s nothing wrong with them understanding that.”
“You can’t get me pregnant then.” It’s a bad joke, but it slips out, the memory of how he growled that he’d do exactly that if need be still fresh in my mind. It shouldn’t send a hot shiver down my spine, remembering it, but it does.
Gabriel winces. “I’m sorry, Bella. I was—passionate, during that conversation. Too passionate. I would never do anything to you that you don’t want. Including—especially a baby.”
I know what comes to my lips is wrong. That it’s not what I really want. It’s a test, to see if he really is doing this only to protect me, that there’s no ulterior motive in him. That he’s not marrying me just so he has an excuse to have me in his bed, regardless of either of our feelings about it being more.
It’s not the right way to handle this. But my feelings and thoughts are so convoluted that it’s hard for me to know what’s right and wrong any longer.
“Then, after our wedding night, we shouldn’t sleep together,” I say calmly. “Just to be sure that doesn’t happen. Accidents are possible, after all. It’s better to be safe.”
Gabriel flinches. He tries to hide it, but I see the way he reacts, just for a second. I see the flicker of disappointment in his eyes. And it’s impossible for me to judge him for it, because I can feel every part of me rejecting the idea that I’ll only ever be in his bed once more. That the kind of pleasure I felt the morning after he said we should get married, when he fucked me in the library, is only going to be mine once more.
I expect him to reject the idea. To have reasons for why it’s not possible. Why we need to keep having sex after the wedding night.
But he nods, his jaw tight. “Alright,” Gabriel says quietly. “If that’s what you think is best.”
His acquiescence startles me. I don’t know why—I know he’s a good man. I know he would never force me. But it still shocks me, for some reason, I can’t entirely explain. Maybe it’s just that I’m so used to the idea that marriage means ownership, and I can’t imagine that a man who owns me would ever relinquish to have what he wants from me.
But Gabriel isn’t like all the other men. I realized that a long time ago.
“I need to go,” I say quietly. He nods, and as I move towards the door, I see a look of longing flash across his face, as his gaze drops to my mouth. I can see how much he wants me, in that one look. I can feel my own answering reaction to it, the need that pulses through me.
It feels like a magnet. And it feels so fucking impossible to walk away.
—
I’m mostly quiet on the drive to town. Agnes, Cecelia, and I get into the back of one car, driven by one of the security that Gabriel sends with us. Five other men are in a car following us. Once upon a time, I would have thought that was incredibly excessive. Now, I’m not sure if that will be enough to keep us safe.
Cecelia chatters the entire way there, asking me questions about what kind of dress I want, about the wedding, about flowers and colors and everything else. I answer her as best as I can, always falling back on the idea that this came on Gabriel and me very suddenly, without giving away the truth of what all of this is for. Agnes is quiet, and I want to know what she’s thinking, but I can’t ask her with Cecelia here. I have a feeling that whatever it is, it’s not appropriate to say in front of a child.
The idea that Agnes disapproves of all of this hurts. The idea that she might think I’ve trapped Gabriel in some way, seduced him into this, hurts too. But I know he would quickly disabuse her of that notion, if he knew she thought that. And they must have talked about it. I know the two of them are close.
I like Agnes. I feel close to her, after a relatively short amount of time, and I thought that she liked me, too. That she approved of me being a part of this family—even liked the idea of Gabriel and I together. I feel sad to think that might have changed for some reason.
But there’s no way to talk about it right now.
