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I leaned back into his embrace. His lips came down on my shoulder, and once he nudged my hair to the side, he kissed along my throat until I shivered.
This was a postcard moment. Outside the large windows, snow fell over the city, but inside the fireplace was burning, and I was in the arms of the man I loved. I was in the arms of a man who miraculously still loved me. A dark cloud was hanging over us.
Knowing there was no need to postpone the inevitable, I turned and pressed my lips briefly to his. When I pulled away, I saw something in his eyes I hadn’t seen before.
“Are you okay?” I asked him. When he gave me a nod, I continued, “We should probably get started looking through this stuff.”
He cleared his throat. “I’ll place an order to room service.”
My nerves were frayed, and I was so on edge that like on the train, I doubted I’d be able to eat more than a few bites of anything, but he wasn’t as worried about what we would find. I knew he had to be hungry and that was before the rumbling in his stomach confirmed it. I pressed at his chest.
“Okay.” As he went to the desk and picked up the laminated book which I presumed continued a menu, I moved to the two boxes instead and put both of them on the table in front of the couch.
I heard Gabriel as he placed the order, but I wasn’t focused on what it was. Despite the years that had passed between us, he still knew me so well. I focused my attention on the first box. I didn’t have scissors or a knife with me, so it took a bit longer to release enough of the tape so I could pull it off. Once I had the first box opened, Gabriel returned to me. He sat down beside me, and the first item on top was a picture. As I turned the frame over in my hand, my heart ached for the lives lost. It was a picture of Gabriel with his parents, and it had been taken after I’d moved to Portland.
The three were standing in front of the ocean, and it wasn’t even a beach I recognized. Franklin and Gabriel looked so much alike. Father and son both holding up Ashley, who was stunning in her coral-colored bikini. There was such happiness on their faces, and something twisted in my chest.
“This is a great picture. Where was it taken?”
Gabriel looked down at it, then set it aside. “Fiji,” I think.
I reached into the box and picked up the next few photographs, and one had me sucking in a ragged breath. It was a picture of his family with mine.
“New York,” I murmured as I recognized the mountain locale right away. The elder Grimes and Blakes were sitting on a large couch, and Gabriel and I were in front on the rug. We were holding hands and smiling so hard at one another. “We were what? About ten here?”
“Something like that,” he said, then abruptly stood. His voice was strained, as was the expression on his face. He was trying to pretend as if all was fine, but I also knew this man and he was anything but okay.
GABRIEL
I’d taken Harper to Washington D.C., even though it was the last thing I’d wanted to do. It meant so much to her, but with each passing second, I was rethinking this trip altogether. Cliff had been after for me for months to come and collect my father’s personal belongings, even offering to send them to me, but I had put him off for good reason. I didn’t want to see what was left of my parents, of my dad whom I idolized my entire life. Now, Harper was showing me why I had waited as long as I had.
I didn’t want to see the place where my parents renewed their vows in Fiji, or be reminded of trips our families used to take together because it just reinforced the truth that they were all gone.
I had to get away, so I stood quickly, then moved over to the window. Even looking out over the city skyline, I was reminded of the many trips I took with my father to this place. Although he lived in Chicago, he commuted a lot to the east coast, and as I got older, I joined him on many of those trips. He’d always been so proud to show me off. I was his only child. His son. The one who’d carry on the Blake name.
“What’s wrong?” Harper asked as she moved over to me.
She hadn’t seen how hard it had hit me to lose them the first time, and the last thing I wanted to do was tell her. I’d been a complete mess. My life had once again started to spiral. Harper already blamed herself for their death. I didn’t want to add to her guilt. It’d been an accident. The very idea that her uncle could’ve played a role in the malfunctioning that caused a plane to go down was ludicrous.
“Nothing I—”
The knock on the door had thankfully caused the perfect interruption, and I knew it was room service. They couldn’t have come at a better time. I stepped aside so the attendant could wheel the cart inside, then I tipped him generously. Once he was gone, I looked over at Harper.
She was already heading back to the couch, so I cleared my throat. “We can look at that later. Let’s go into the dining room to eat.”
Our suite was over twelve hundred square feet with floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out to The Park at City Center. It was located on the ninth floor of the hotel so it had stellar views, none of which compared to the woman now walking beside me.
I rolled the cart all the way to the dining room, then spent the next minute or two placing the domed plates in the center of the table. I’d gotten a few different options for us to choose from, and noticing the extra plates I’d asked for, I set them down where we would be sitting. Harper mentioned not being too hungry, but I had made sure to grab a house salad in hopes that she would at least eat that if nothing else.
“Mmmm, that smells good,” she remarked the second I uncovered the Spaghetti Bolognese. The other two covered dishes were the Chicken Cacciatore and Eggplant Parmigiana.
I could tell she wanted to at least try a little of each entrée so I spooned some onto her plate, then gave myself a bigger portion. I finished filling her plate with some of the salad before sliding it in front of her. Lastly, I checked the cart for wine glasses and finally found the two. I grabbed the bottle in a bucket of ice and used the corkscrew to open it. Once I had some pinot noir in each glass, I turned to my own food.
“You always think of everything,” she said, and I grinned.
“There’s only one other thing I’d rather do than wine and dine you, Harper.”
“And that would be?”
