Evelyne only scowled. In any other situation, Evelyne’s expression would have amused him. She looked a bit like a spoiled princess, thwarted, when she was none of those things.
“But when she did have time for me, we enjoyed each other. Early on in our relationship, she confided in me that she had a stalker. A man from her neighborhood who followed her around, harassed her, though he’d never touched her. I promised to protect her. Happy to do anything for her, feel powerful and…” A savior. Just as he’d felt with Evelyne.
There was simply no way he could fool himself into thinking he could handle all that warred inside him when he dove beneath the surface of feeling. He would hold on too tight. He would scare and hurt her.
He had perhaps saved Gia from one awful thing, but he had only introduced another. How could he expect any different when it came to Evelyne?
He would be the monster Gia had once told him he was. Because hewasthat, deep down. His need to protect or save was only a function of some dark, horrible part of his psyche.
“As much as I don’t relish thinking of you protecting any woman you slept with aside from me, that’s hardly something to be ashamed of. You wanted to help. You always want to help. You’re a good man, Gabriel.”
He shook his head. “You are very,veryfar off, Evelyne. I… There is the same violence in me that was in your father.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Gabriel. My God.”
“It is true. I do not revel in it the way he did. I am notproudof it as he was, but it is there. One day I came to pick Gia up from her shift, and he was there. Her stalker had cornered her, put his hands on her, was trying to get her into his car.”
Gabriel hated to relive this, but surely she had to see what a risk she ran. If he could get it through to her that surface was all he could ever be, then both her and their child would be safe from this dangerous, destructive thing inside him.
“I do not remember everything in that moment. Just the rage. In the aftermath, I know I pulled him off her, and I…” Gabriel swallowed. “I cannot say I fought him, because he didn’t fight back. I simply beat him.”
“But he was hurting her,” Evelyne said softly.
Gabriel shook his head. “Yes, but there were alternatives. Beating this man did not save her. She stood there, watching. Violence on top of violence. She was screaming at me to stop by the end. Thank God for Alexandre. He waded in, pulled me off, and asked if I wished to be the same kind of man as your father. It was the only thing that saved me from killing that man.”
Evelyne was quiet for a very long time. He did not dare look at her. This story would have to change things for her. It had changed things forhim. Everything.
“Gia called me a monster. And Iwasa monster. Even Alex saw it. He just knew how to stop it.”
Still Evelyne said nothing. Gabriel realized he was breathing heavily, winded almost. Like something was happening inside him. Some great force of change.
He shook his head, pushed the heel of his palm to his chest. There was no change. Only the truth. “It is all I have in me, Evelyne. Obsession or nothing. Drowning or skating. There is no middle ground for me. And once the switch is flipped, I cannot be trusted to make the correct decisions.”
She slid off the bed, moved over to him even as he held up a hand to ward her off. She took that hand in her tiny one.
“Gabriel, how silly to think so.”
He pulled away from her hand, took steps back. Regarded her with as much ice as he had left in him. “I was hoping you’d be mature enough to understand.”
She regarded him with that royal superiority he found infuriating. Because it made her seem infinitelymature. “You were hoping I’d run away. Since, this time around, you cannot.”
“You’d be surprised what I could do, Evelyne.”
She shook her head. “Perhaps this feeling you have inside you is true. I cannot believe it. I cannot buy into this story you’ve told yourself. Or perhaps Gia and Alexandre told you. You are no monster. You arenothinglike my father. Rushing intosaveis not wrong.”
“It is if you are willing to do worse.” Would he have had any remorse in killing that man? In the moment, there had beennone. Not until Alex had told him what he was in danger of becoming.
All because he had wanted to save Gia and make her love him.
Evelyne sighed heavily. “I cannot see this the way you do, Gabriel. I have been the woman in that scenario. And while Alexandre stepped in and stopped it when he could, I would have not called you a monster if you’d done to my father what you did to that man. I would have cheered. And I cannot find a way to feel guilty about that.”
He shook his head. “You don’t…” Of course, he couldn’t say she didn’t understand. Even though shedidn’t. She could only see this from her own eyes. Not from his. Not from Gia’s. Not from Alexandre’s. So while she might understand what it felt like to have someone step in and save her, she did not understand it to his degree.
“Perhaps you thought this story would change my mind about you, but it doesn’t. And more, it doesn’t change our reality. You have a responsibility to all the people you love, and no matter how you might wish to, you cannot walk away from it.”
People you love…He looked at her in horror as that clutching feeling in his chest threatened to make it fully impossible to breathe. “Do you think I love you?”
“No,” she said, with a sadness that cut through him like a knife. “But I think if you let yourself fall from the surface, you could. I have certainly fallen in love with you.”
