What she didn’t understand was why he didn’t want to give it to her.
“Can I ask why you were estranged from Mae?” She paused on the bridge to take hold of the rope that formed the rails and looked up at the stars. “I know she didn’t exactly reach out. She was very reserved. Is that a family trait?” she tacked on lightly.
“To some extent.” He moved to stand beside her. “I don’t spend a lot of time navel-gazing and paying therapists to tell me my family of origin is the source of all my problems, but what little I remember of my mother, she was very quiet. Regretful, perhaps, but I may be projecting. Given that Mae drove my mother to marry my father, I didn’t see a point in pursuing a relationship with her and possibly winding up committing a similar act of recklessness.”
“Present marriage excluded.”
“Of course.”
She smiled briefly, but it faded to sadness. “Your parents weren’t in love?” Was that why he didn’t feel he was capable of it? He had no example of it?
“My father was. Perhaps my mother was.” What she could see of his shadowed expression was inscrutable. “I don’t remember them fighting, but I was young.”
“How did she die? Mae never said.”
“A complication with her pregnancy. She wouldn’t let them take the baby and they both died.”
“I’m so sorry. That’s terrible.” She thought of Mae’s inexpressive face on the few occasions when she had mentioned her daughter. She must have been containing so much pain.
Much like Gabriel’s mask of indifference as he nodded toward the end of the bridge where their villa sat.
She didn’t take the hint.
“You lost a brother or sister.” He must be terribly lonely.
His shoulder jerked. “I wouldn’t wish my childhood on anyone else.”
She cocked her head, thinking of what he’d said about being bullied. “Mixed race? I thought America was the great melting pot, accepting of all.”
“What does that even mean?” he scoffed. “I’m pig iron, that’s true, but I wasn’t something anyone had use for until I refined myself into that other American ideal, the self-made man.” He spoke with an infinite depth of cynicism.
“I hate that feeling of not fitting.” Her heart panged with more than empathy. She was living that feeling even now. “The pageant school was a competitive place, but at least we all looked and sounded the same. The whole time I’ve been at Mae’s, I’ve felt like a big, sore thumb. Now I’m with you and I’m a square peg trying to fit into a dollar sign.”
“Fitting in is overrated.”
“I do that.” In so many ways, they were so alike. “I convince myself I don’t want what I can’t have.”
His resounding silence made her look up at him. He seemed so remote in that moment, her heart lurched.
“What I mean is, I always told myself it didn’t matter that I didn’t have money of my own because my needs were always met,” she tried to explain. “It works as a coping strategy. Especially when I looked at all the money Mae had and she didn’t have what she really wanted, which was her daughter.”
Still he said nothing.
“I’m not saying you’re wrong,” she hurried on. “Mae was difficult. I presumed she was controlling and isolated me because she had lost her daughter, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was her nature from the beginning. Maybe your mother felt suffocated and pushed Mae away. I wouldn’t think your mother giving birth to you was an act of defiance, though. She probably wanted a family. If she had survived and you had siblings, you maybe wouldn’t have felt so set apart.”
“It’s late. We should both get some sleep.” He touched her shoulder.
She hesitated. “Together?”
“I don’t think that’s wise.” His flinty gaze met hers, read the injury she couldn’t hide. “I did warn you,” he said of his gentle rebuff.
If this was how much it hurt to be close to him, then pushed away, he was right. It was too much to bear. More than she wanted to risk.
Forlorn, she went to bed alone.
* * *
He didn’t hear her so much as feel her move through the villa as sunrise approached. He rose from the bed where his mind had been too noisy and his body on fire with the knowledge he could have her—he only needed to compromise what few principles he had.
He had taken things way too far by the plunge pool, rationalizing that he was doing a damned public service by granting her the experience she craved.
He had pushed the boundaries, though. He had seduced her and had wanted all that they’d done and more. Everything. He was quite convinced she would have gone all the way if he’d guided her there.
Her startled newness to his most intimate caresses had told him she was as virginal as she claimed, however, passionate response notwithstanding. Recognizing that had allowed him to keep his head and take her to dinner instead of keeping her under him the rest of the night.
When she appeared dressed for dinner wearing a dreamy, adoring smile, he had realized his arrogant mistake. He had spent the next hours backpedaling, not wanting to lead her on.
Because he wasn’t like other people. He might meet society’s expectations by marrying and producing heirs, but only because he saw the elegant simplicity in it. He didn’t want or need a wife and family. He wasn’t trying to “fit in” or feel closer to anyone.
I do that. Convince myself I don’t want what I can’t have.
Her words shouldn’t stick like a fishbone in his throat, but they did. He was an honest person, especially with himself. And he had always known himself to prefer being alone.
At least, he had managed to convince himself he preferred living solo. It wasn’t lost on him that he was clinging to that belief even as he stood here watching her instead of lying alone in his bed.
She wore a pair of loose pajama bottoms and a snug, sleeveless top. She took a moment to look out at the western horizon, still purple and dotted with fading stars, then looked to the moon.
No. She was orienting herself.
She took up a stance facing north and rubbed her palms together, taking her time, taking in the world around her, taking a few deep breaths. Then she slowly drew her hands apart, fingers relaxed. She began to shape an invisible ball.
Chi.
He set his own palms together and began working up his own energy sphere as he walked out in his boxers and joined her.
She glanced at him, but neither said anything. He had taken the odd class in many different martial arts over the years, but hadn’t done tai chi in a long time. Even so, it was easy to follow her fluid movement when she stepped her feet apart and began. As she turned west and moved so gracefully, her forms could have been mistaken for a modern ballet, but each move was as much a practice of self-defense as his own lightning-fast kung fu.
He matched his breathing to hers, mirroring the care she took as she moved in and out of block and protect, retreat and strike, gather chi, shield, jab and push, draw in again.
Did he notice the elegant line of her spine? The thrust of her breasts and the curve of her ass as she lunged? Yes. It filled him with sexual vigor and admiration for nature’s ability to