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THIRTY-ONE
LAYANA
From the gala to fancy brunch to shopping in a fancy department store, I felt like I was living in a different world. This life belonged to a princess. I was mid-ball Cinderella, pretending I belonged until the clock struck midnight and the spell fell apart.
The future didn’t matter. I didn’t need to have everything figured out. Reality might be waiting in the darkness with a barbed wire baseball bat, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t enjoy the fantasy while it lasted.
Soft music hummed in the background. No one but an eagerly smiling clerk was in the store with us. Apparently that was a thing you could do with billionaire bucks—book a store for only you to shop. I steered Gabriel toward a towering wall of pillows. If Belle’s library had been filled with pillows instead of books, this place would be it.
Gabriel’s phone rang. He silenced it without even looking at the screen.
“Are you sure you shouldn’t at least check that?” I asked.
“I’m sure.”
“What if it’s an emergency?”
He frowned and checked the screen. “It’s only Pamela.”
“Don’t you always jump when Pamela calls, Mr. Workaholic?” I teased, but only kind of. I actually wanted to know what he was thinking.
“Not today.”
“One day just for me, huh?”
Instead of answering, he asked, “What about you? Do you have any commitments you need to attend to?”
“Nah. I’m just spending some time helping Juno do her thing for now. That’s a drop-in as I please kind of gig. Plus, it’s Sunday. Sundays were meant to be lazy.”
“How is the writing going?”
I’d been writing up a storm. But all of it was about him, every private thought and detail. I felt a blush carrying up the back of my neck.
“Good.” I grabbed a pillow to change the subject and held it between us. “Check this out.”
It wasn’t particularly fluffy. And the fabric felt like it was sandpaper’s cousin, suitable only for a potato sack race at a family reunion.
Gabriel touched it, recoiled, and frowned. “You enjoy the feel of this?”
“Can you imagine leaning your face against the fabric when you curl up on the sofa for a nap?”
His frown deepened. “Unfortunately, I’m imagining it right now.”
I shoved the pillow back onto the shelf and pulled out another covered in long, faux fur. “Or this.”
I pressed it straight up to Gabriel’s face.
He pushed it away, wrinkled his nose and narrowed his eyes. Then he sneezed.
I laughed. “Okay, seriously, do you have any opinions at all about color or feel?”
“Nothing like the last two.”
I grinned at him and pointed up to one that caught my eye. It was the same forest green shade as the light that poured through the wine bottle stained-glass above his fireplace. “The green one.”
He reached up on his toes and pulled it down. “You like green.”
“It’s a fabulous color. Apples, grass, turtles…”
