Page 56 of Winter With You

‘Tell me why you order burgers at midnight and who you were talking to in your dressing room the other day before the show.’

Now her heart felt like it had stopped and was in freefall down towards her toes. She let go of his hand, but he was too quick to hold on. She was shaking her head before she even realised it.

‘No,’ she said, also almost involuntarily.

‘No, what?’ he whispered.

He was stroking her fingers, gently, caringly and she was so touch-starved she longed for it as much as she desperately wanted to push it away.

‘You don’t get to ask me that,’ she said to him. ‘No one gets to ask me that.’

‘Because it hurts,’ he said.

He hadn’t asked it as a question. He had stated it like fact. Like he knew it was fact. And that was too close. Too much. As was his hand, still knotted with hers on the walkway of this bridge over the river. ‘I can’t.’

‘Ask me something,’ he encouraged. ‘Ask me anything you want to and I’ll tell you the truth.’

‘Like what?’

‘Anything,’ he said again.

She took a moment then locked eyes with him. ‘Tell me why your family’s so complicated. That’s what you said. That they were complicated. What does that mean?’

He didn’t hesitate for more than a second. ‘It means none of them are like me. And I won’t compromise on being me.’

As his words hit her she was overcome by a sensation of recognition, of understanding like never before. And it was so powerful Gabriella didn’t even know if she moved or Luca moved or if the universe somehow moved them both. But before any implications could be considered, before she even had a chance to make rational thought, she wasn’t just holding his hand, she was in his arms and he had whirled her around until she was backed up against the fence, his weight colliding with hers in a force of passion as their mouths met. And Gabriella drank in the moment, the little things – the way the inside of his mouth felt, how his tongue moved with hers, tantalising, teasing, turning her on… This didn’t feel like only a kiss, it felt like a re-introduction, a more truthful one than she’d ever given away before. Until…

He broke away, then seemed to second guess himself and reached out to touch her hair, only to draw back again. ‘Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It was unprofessional.’

‘Yeah,’ Gabriella said, nodding. ‘It really was.’

‘Sorry,’ he apologised again.

‘OK, you can stop with the apologies now. Don’t they say it takes two to tango or cha cha slide or whatever?’ She was shaking more on the inside than she was from the outside temperature, but it was pointless to admit that now. He regretted it. And so should she. Another un-thought-about fuck up. Or, as her mother liked to call it, a Gabriellaism, said like it was a venereal disease.

He went to reply but she looked at her watch and beat him to it. ‘We should go. I need to collect Phoebe and Mr Darcy.’

‘Sure,’ Luca said, hands going into the pockets of his coat as she began to walk. ‘Let’s go.’

34

THE ROYCE HOTEL, MANHATTAN

‘You know if anyone catches us with Mr Darcy they will either kick us out of the hotel or they will call the dog pound,’ Gabriella said, helping Phoebe hold still an excitable Mr Darcy as they neared the hotel entrance after she had picked her niece up from Sybille’s home.

‘Stop mentioning the dog pound. Mr Darcy doesn’t like it. And we need to get him a collar and a lead.’

Attachment. She knew Phoebe would become invested quickly and this was not good. They were here for such a short period of time and what happened after that? But, the dog distraction was making Phoebe happier and Gabriella wanted that more than anything else. So, for now…

‘What we need to do first and foremost is get Mr Darcy inside without him being sent to the pound,’ Gabriella said.

‘The fire escape,’ Phoebe said with authority. ‘Like how we escaped from La Façon. You take Mr Darcy up that way and I will go up and open the door for you.’

‘We can’t do that here,’ Gabriella said. ‘The fire doors are alarmed.’

‘Oh,’ Phoebe said, deflating.

Gabriella’s gaze went to the bell hop, who was pushing a golden trolley up the ramp at the entrance…