Evelyne had spent an inordinate time deciding what that meant. What else did she have to do? Learning to cook and cleaning up after didn’t take up full weeks at a time.
“I think I should like some paint,” she told Gabriel, as he usually restocked anything she needed on his little visits. “Some new furniture. I’d like to make some of these rooms at least a little but more…cozy.”
“Write me out a detailed list. We’ll figure it out.”
She smiled. “You’re too good to me.”
His smile was…tight. She studied it now, then picked up the glass of wine she’d already poured, sipped. He gave it a fleeting glance, before his eyes moved to his own untouched glass, then his plate.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. She didn’t think there was, and she also knew he wouldn’t tell her if there was, but she wanted…something. A reaction? A blip? To be able to read this way he dealt with her.
“Everything is going according to plan,” he said. “Your father has told the press that he has a ‘suspect’ in your disappearance.”
“Who?” Evelyne demanded, setting the wineglass down a bit too hard. Worry spiraled through her. Did Father suspect Alexandre? Gabriel?
Gabriel lifted a shoulder, cutting through the chicken in a lemon cream sauce. “He’s keeping it quite tight-lipped, which makes me believe it’s a story to save face. If he hasnoidea what happened to you, he looks like a fool.” He took a bite, nodded approvingly. “So he’s invented this ‘suspect.’ With any luck, he’ll invent a story that makes everyone think you’re dead.”
How odd for that to be counted as luck.
She looked down at her plate, poked at the chicken as dread and the deflation of any wisp of happiness took up residence in her stomach. “He’ll never stop looking for me.” She knew this deep in her bones. The idea of her somehow tricking him, escaping him would not be one he’d ever get over. Gabriel would and could protect her, she had no doubts.
But would it require her to live like this always?
“No,” Gabriel agreed in that easy way of his. “But I think he might tell the country you were murdered. He hasn’t yet, but it’s a rumbling. He’ll keep looking, since he knows you weren’t, and it’ll never sit right with him that you escaped, but if he’s the only one looking… It makes things easier for us.”
He lifted his hand, and for a moment, she thought he’d put it over hers. Instead, he reached for his wine. Took a drink.
A very large drink. What was that about?
She watched him eat, thought about it as he easily led the conversation around to a wide variety of topics. It was not a surprise, exactly, that he was so intelligent, so well-versed in so many things. He was a wealthy, privileged man.
But he spoke to her…like an equal. She hadn’t fully realized how rare that was until this moment. Her brother had a…paternal way of dealing with her, which she’d never minded overmuch. He had been her protector for her whole life, and she had certainly spent a lot of time wishinghewas her father.
The staff treated her in much the same way, even the well-meaning ones who were simply scared of her father, not loyal to him in that way. Her life had always been an odd extreme of privilege and punishment.
But the way Gabriel asked questions about what she knew, what she thought, made her realize that even Jordi had treated her a bit like a child who couldn’t possibly have opinions of her own.
The thought depressed her. It spoke to desperation, she supposed, that she’d believed his seduction had been love, simply because he had given her any attention.
Gabriel nudged her plate. “You need to eat, Evelyne.”
“You are the only one who has ever concerned themselves with if I do not eat.”
“I’m sure that isn’t true.”
“I’m sure you’d be wrong,” she muttered, poking the chicken with her fork, then forgoing the food for another sip of wine. She studied him, didn’t bother to hide it through sideways glances or anything else.
“Father used to punish me if I ate too much,” she said conversationally. She supposed she had to admit that some of her food issues stemmed from trauma right there. “Or if I did not like something I was supposed to. Or if I made a mess of things. A princess should eat small portions and do it prettily,” she recited.
She looked up, vaguely amused at howsillyit all seemed, but the expression on Gabriel’s face was not what she expected. She had not been sure what to expect, but certainly notrage.
She swallowed, surprised that the fury she saw there did not frighten her, did not remind her of being in her father’s office, but instead seemed to hit her bloodstream like alcohol—a burning, freeing,fizzingwave of what could only be termed as desire.
That someone might actually be…angry on her behalf. Not because they were related, but because it had…harmed her. She knew that everything Gabriel did was because Alexandre was his friend, but beingangryon her behalf was something…else.
Something abouther.
“Your father is a scourge,” Gabriel said darkly, but she saw the way he was fighting back the severity of his reaction. He breathed carefully, unclenched the hand that had balled up into a fist.
