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He’d spent the day coming to grips with it, asking himself if Gabriella felt the same way, telling himself that she did, she had to, that she was not a woman who’d live with a man, sleep in his arms every night unless she loved him.
And, God, the whole thing was terrifying.
To declare his love for her, to offer his heart to her and hope she wouldn’t reject it…
He’d thought about it, tried to figure out the best way to do it, delaying the moment because what would he do if she didn’t feel the same and then, standing in the shower after putting Daniel to bed, the water sluicing down, he’d finally decided, okay, this was it, he’d just go out there and tell her he loved her, loved his son, that he couldn’t live without them both…
“Dante,” Gabriella said, and he swung toward her and caught her hands in his.
“Gaby.” He spoke fast, afraid he’d lose his courage, wondering why it had taken him so long to come to his senses. “Gaby. Honey.” He took a deep breath. “This thing tomorrow. My brother’s wedding…” He swallowed hard; how come his mouth had gone so dry? “Taking you to it would be rough. You’d get dumped into the middle of my family and, trust me, we’re not something out of a Hallmark card. My mother and my sisters would ask a million questions. My brothers wouldn’t just ask questions, they’d do the Orsini version of the third degree. And my old man—Hell, where my father goes, so go the Feds. Plus, not a one of my family knows anything about this. You. Me. The baby.” He paused only long enough to swallow again to moisten his throat.
“So, here’s the thing, Gabriella. I don’t think—”
“I do not think so, either,” Gabriella said. “The truth is, I would much prefer to avoid what promises to be an overly sentimental family reunion .”
“What? No. See, you don’t understand—”
“But I do. I understand perfectly.” She drew her hands from his, gave him the kind of smile that made him understand the true meaning of a tight smile. “You say this wedding is tomorrow?”
“Right. Late morning. It’ll all be over by noon.”
“Excellent.”
“Yes. I thought so, too. Because—”
“My attorney’s name is Peter Reilly.”
Dante blinked. “Huh?”
“His office is on Seventy-second Street. He handled any modeling contracts that were outside the purview of my agency.”
“Gaby. What are you talking about?”
“I have been thinking, Dante. About our…our situation.” Do not cry, she told herself fiercely.
Just because he’s confirmed all your worst fears, just because he’d sooner do anything than introduce you to his family, you are not to cry!
“Yes,” he said slowly, “so have I. That’s the reason I just explained things—”
“And a fine job of it you did,” she said, and told herself how well she was doing. “I shall ask Peter a special favor, that he meet with us at his office tomorrow, even though it is a Sunday at, let us say, two in the afternoon.”
“For what?” Dante said, totally bewildered.
This cold little speech, the frigid glare, that was what a man got for telling a woman that as rough as it was going to be, he wanted to take her to his brother’s wedding? Tell his entire family he loved her? Tell them that she’d borne his child, that there would be another wedding as soon as they could get to the clerk’s office Monday morning?
“For what?” he repeated, his eyes searching her face.
“For drawing up a payment schedule for what I owe you.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“About resuming my own life,” Gabriella said. “You see, I have been thinking things over. And it is time that happened. This has been very nice but—”
“Very nice?”
“You have been most kind to me. Of course, it would have been better had your attempt to buy the fazenda gone through.”
“Better,” he repeated, his voice low and dangerous. “Buying you the fazenda would have been better than bringing you to live with me?”
“Well, yes. It would have taken me a very long time to repay you but the fazenda was my home—”
“And this is not.”
There was a terrible coldness in his voice. She wanted to put her arms around him, tell him that she had never been happier than she’d been the past days, that she wished, with all her heart, his home could really be her home, too…
“No,” she said, struggling to hold on to what little pride she had left, “it is not.”
