The sound of a car pulling up outside was a welcome distraction despite the late hour. Part of him was convinced that Jess had apprehended her mistake and returned. Hauling open the front door with enthusiasm he wasn't willing to admit even to himself, he walked across the verandah. But the woman who exited the gleaming sedan wasn't the one he wanted to see.
"What are you doing here, Sylvie?"
She waited for him to reach the car. "I got back tonight from a trip to Wellington. I heard what happened with you and Jess."
The sound of his wife's name made his entire body react with an explosive mix of need, denial and anger. She was his. She wasn't supposed to leave him.
"Gabe." Sylvie put a hand on his arm. "What we had was good."
"We were over a long time ago. I don't recall either of us crying tears over the split."
"We could have it again." Her voice was even but determined. "I'm ready to settle down and so are you. She just wasn't the right woman."
At that moment, Gabriel knew without a doubt that Sylvie would accept his decree to remain childless. She'd never ask anything more from him than he was prepared to give. That was how their relationship had always worked-two practical adults with little emotional investment in each other or their relationship. "No, Sylvie. You can't renew what was never there."
Her face blanched. "She'll never know you like I know you."
He'd had enough. "The single reason you know about the fire is because you overheard your father talking to the old coroner one night," he reminded her.
"You never knew me." And nobody, not even her father, knew the real truth of who'd set the blaze.
Gabriel had told only one other person, the sole human being he trusted to never break her silence or use it against him. Because she was too gentle, too loyal, too damn loving. And he'd known that from the day he'd proposed.
"Do you really think Jess can ever be the kind of wife you want?"
The question silenced everything around him. "Maybe not," he said quietly, "but she's the kind of wife I need."
Sylvie's arm dropped away. "She's not here though."
No, she wasn't. He'd let her walk away. It might rank as the most idiotic thing he'd ever done but some mistakes could be rectified. Jess was his wife and she was going to stay that way. He refused to let her have her way on this one crucial point.
Jess had taken Richard at his word and not worried about finding an apartment for the week that he was in Australia. He had insisted she housesit for him when she'd phoned to ask about cheap rental accommodation. Leaving the night she'd arrived, he'd told her to rest and reconsider going back to her "beautiful shark." She'd thrown herself into work instead, doing sketch after sketch on a small pad she'd bought at a nearby bookstore.
And if her mind kept drifting to the last page in the pad, to the sketch she'd done first, at least she was able to stop herself from turning to it. Except at night. When her defenses crumbled and she gave in to the most awful kind of loneliness.
Conceding defeat after yet another long morning spent in a useless attempt to wipe Gabriel from her mind, she decided to walk the short distance to the gallery. Maybe Trixie, one of Richard's assistants, would like to go for a late lunch. It looked like rain so she hoped Trixie knew someplace nearby.
Pushing through the glass door of the gallery, she stopped dead at the sight of the man waiting inside. "Gabe?" Her whole body came to vibrant, turbulent life.
"You weren't at the apartment."
She fiddled with her purse, crushing that initial burst of wild hope. "Did you need to travel up here for a meeting?"
He looked very businessmanlike in his dark pants and crisp shirt. Except that it was that green shirt, the one permanently stamped with memories of his furious passion and her complete surrender. The emotional impact was devastating. But, of course, that wouldn't have occurred to him when he'd put it on.
"Yes, a very important meeting." Moving forward, he reached past her to reopen the door. "Let's take a walk."
She probably should have told him where to put his orders, but she was still so shaken up at the sight of him that she walked out without saying a word. It took the crisp winter-turning-to-spring air to slap her back to sanity.
"What did you want to talk about?" Facing him on the sidewalk, she tried not to let his presence affect her, a hopeless endeavor. Gabriel had affected her from the first-anger, passion, hurt … love. "Did you want me to sign something to speed up the divorce?"
A flash of some dark emotion sparked in the green of his eyes. "Trixie told me there was a park nearby."
She fell into step beside him despite her better judgment.
"Were you ever going to call me?" he asked, as they reached the narrow path, which cut between two buildings and led to the park.
She told herself she was imagining the edge in his voice. "I wanted to get settled into an apartment first. I thought it'd be more convenient for you to know where to send my paintings and things." A flat-out lie. She'd just been unable to bring herself to talk to him. The wound was too fresh, the hurt too close to the surface.
He thrust his hands into the pockets of his pants, shirt pulling tight across broad shoulders. Even now she had to curl her own hands into fists to keep from giving in to the urge to stroke.
"And you didn't consider that I might've been worried about you?"
The path ended. Needing time to think, Jess looked out over the empty green space. The usual crowd had probably been put off by the inclement weather.
Clouds hung thick and heavy in the sky, threatening to break at any moment. But that thought was a momentary diversion-Gabe was waiting for an answer.
"No." She turned toward him. "I know I lie low on your list of priorities, somewhere beneath overseeing the reconstruction of the stables and above balancing your checkbook. Actually, I'm not so sure about that last one."
The skin of his face stretched taut. "Then why do you love me?"
Chapter 18
Everything shattered. "I don't know!" she cried. "You're arrogant, emotionally shut off and far too used to getting your own way. If I had any sense at all, I'd stop loving you this instant."
Moving so fast she barely saw him, he grabbed her by the upper arms. "No."
"You can't control this, Gabe." She put her hands against his chest and pushed, her breath coming in jagged bursts. "I wish you could. Then everything would be exactly as you want, and I'd be happy right now instead of feeling as if I've been cut into a thousand pieces!"
He wouldn't let her push him away. "If you love me, why are you in Auckland? You could've stayed on Angel. You can come back today and I won't say a word."
"You know why I'm here!" She fisted her hands against the power of his heartbeat. "Even if I could accept living with a man who sees me as nothing more than a convenience-"
He kissed her. A passionate, hard, almost angry kiss that caught her unaware and swept her under. Thunder boomed in the sky but it was nothing to the fury of the storm raging inside of her.
"I need you."
She couldn't believe what she thought she'd heard. "Gabe?"
"You're the most inconvenient wife I could imagine." He cupped her face with work-rough hands. "You argue with me constantly, don't do anything I tell you to do, make me chase after you like a teenager with his first crush and keep sneaking into my thoughts when you're supposed to fade into the background. What the hell's so damn convenient about that?"
Her heart was pounding so violently, she couldn't hear herself think. "I'm not sorry."
"Of course you're not. That would be too convenient." He touched his forehead to hers. "Come back to me, Jessie. I don't think I can stand returning alone to that empty house."
She wasn't going to let him off the hook that easily. Jessica Bailey Dumont was through with settling for less than everything. "Why? Why do you want me to come home?"
"You're my wife."
"Not enough."
He hugged her close, tucking her head under his chin. "Stubborn, stubborn woman.
You know why."
She was weakening under the weight of emotion in his voice, able to hear the words he couldn't say. But she needed this and if their marriage was going to work, he had to find the tenderness to give her what she needed. She wasn't sure he'd ever go that far. And then he did.