Her heart and stomach churning, her hand engulfed in his giant paw, she let him help her to her feet.
Keeping a firm hold of her hand, he stretched out and snatched a towel off the heated rail. Instead of passing it to her, he released her hand so he could open it up and wrap it aroundher in the same way her mother had done when she’d been a little girl.
To her distress, tears she had no control over spilt out.
Tommaso forced air down his closed throat. Feminine tears had never had any effect on him. Gabriella’s tears, though…
He’d witnessed a young teenage Gabriella flip off a skateboard while doing stunts and slash her arm open without shedding a tear. She must have taught herself not to cry over physical pain.
He remembered how she’d held herself with such bravery when she’d believed he was going to kill her. Her tears had been involuntary then, and they were involuntary now. He could see it in the way her beautiful face was contorting. She was trying to hold them back, and it was this stubborn bravery combined with the way the towel drowned her that pierced him far more deeply than any open weeping would have done.
Gently, he guided her to the bathroom bench. She shook her head, her body tensing when he tried to coax her into sitting on it.
“Gabba, it doesn’t matter,” he said quietly, understanding why she was reluctant to sit, “It will wash off.”
Blinking rapidly, biting into her bottom lip even as her chin wobbled and more tears poured down her cheeks, she sat.
There was a bundle of towels on shelves by the bath, and he took a smaller one than he’d wrapped her in and knelt. First covering her head with it to soak the worst of the excess water, he took a wide section of her hair and began to gently rub it dry.
“We should be at your meeting,” she whispered when the tears finally stopped falling.
“Yes.” He’d called Mattia and told him to start without him, told him he’d join him as soon as he could. Alfredo, one of the lower-hanging fruits of their organisation under suspicion, had been recorded passing on details of a shipment expectedthe following week. They’d been unable to discover who he was working with, but that didn’t matter. Alfredo was on his way to what he believed to be a meeting, but in truth would be an interrogation. “I’ll go without you.”
Her beautifully arched eyebrows drew together in question.
He gathered another section of hair. “You would have had to stay in the car for it. Better you stay here and rest.”
“I’m not ill.”
“Maybe not, but you’re in pain.”
“It’s just cramps. They’ll pass.” Her gaze finally darted to his. “I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was.”
Something spasmed on her face.
“I was angry with you for not telling me,” he clarified.
Her eyebrows drew back together.
Lightly clasping her chin, he turned her face so he could reach the back of her hair. “I’m not a woman, but I know how your cycles work. You must have known you were due to start your period, yes?”
Embarrassment colouring her cheeks, she gave a tiny nod.
He swallowed a sigh and continued drying her hair. He could not understand why he felt so wretched or why he felt such a compulsion todosomething for her.
“It’s such a private thing for me…” her quiet voice tailed off.
“You’re not used to talking about it?”
“Not with men,” she agreed.
“Not with your lovers?” he asked casually, moving her face back to him so he could work on the left side of her hair. Tommaso knew nothing about Gabriella’s past lovers. When it came to her sex life, she’d always been the modicum of discretion. He’d asked his sister over the years for info on Gabriella’s love life and had always been answered with a variation of, “What love life?” Of course, whenever he’d cheekilyprobed Gabriella about it, he’d always been answered with a middle finger.
After a long pause, she said, “There was only one.”
Now he was the one to pause before speaking. “Only one lover?”
