“Eden,” he murmured gently.
“Gabriel,” she replied, approaching him with slow, measured steps. “You are missing your own celebration.”
A faint smile touched his lips, though his gaze remained serious. “I fear I have grown rather fond of escaping such gatherings.”
“Does my company disturb your solitude?” Eden asked, tone teasing, yet uncertain.
His emerald gaze softened instantly. “No, quite the opposite.”
She came to stand beside him, gazing thoughtfully at their reflections shimmering faintly upon the pond’s surface. “You seem distant tonight,” she observed quietly.
Gabriel sighed, tension visible in the set of his broad shoulders. The memory of his father’s cold dismissal during their last argument flickered through his mind. An evening filled with harsh accusations, silence where approval should have been, and the sharp echo of a slammed study door. The air that night had been just as heavy, just as still. It clung to him now, a reminder that no matter how far he had come, certain ghosts still lingered.
“Forgive me, Eden. Memories hold tightly to this place.”
“You spoke briefly of your father before,” Eden prompted softly, noting how Gabriel’s posture stiffened slightly, his jaw tightening as though the words carried weight he was not ready to lift, carefully venturing into sensitive territory. “Is he among those memories tonight?”
He was silent for a moment, eyes fixed on the still waters. “He believed in strength above all,” Gabriel began softly. “Emotion was weakness, vulnerability. It was unacceptable. He made certain I understood that from an early age.”
Eden’s heart ached at the quiet pain in his voice. “It sounds terribly lonely.”
Gabriel smiled bitterly. “Perhaps. But loneliness, Eden, can become a strange comfort when it is all one has known.”
She turned toward him slowly, eyes searching his face gently. In the moonlight, she saw more than the weariness etched along his brow. There was a flicker of hope in his gaze, a quiet ache he could not quite conceal. “Is that why you have kept yourself distant? Even now?”
Gabriel nodded slowly, reluctance shadowing his features. “I have learned that distance is safer. Easier. Less painful.”
Eden’s voice trembled slightly as she whispered, “And is safety truly worth sacrificing your happiness?”
He looked at her sharply, surprise flickering briefly across his face. “You speak as though my happiness is somehow within reach.”
“Is it not?” she challenged softly, her voice brave despite the vulnerability she felt.
He stepped closer, drawn by the honesty in her gaze. “It feels impossibly distant.”
“And yet,” Eden whispered gently, pulse racing at his nearness, “perhaps not entirely impossible.”
Gabriel reached up slowly, his fingers hesitantly brushing her cheek, touch feather-light. Eden leaned into his caress, heart pounding fiercely.
“You tempt me beyond reason, Eden,” Gabriel murmured, voice thick with longing. His breath caught as his fingers lingered against her skin, the fragile walls he had spent years building beginning to crack. A part of him screamed to pull away, to guard his heart, but another part, the one she had awakened, ached to close the distance between them entirely. “Yet every instinct warns me to protect you from myself.”
She placed her hand gently over his, pressing it tenderly against her cheek. His touch sent a warm shiver down her spine, her skin tingling where their hands met, grounding her in the fragile intimacy of the moment. This was different from anything she had known before, not born of flirtation or fleeting passion, but of trust slowly earned and longing finally named. “Perhaps I do not desire protection, Gabriel.”
His eyes darkened with raw emotion, voice barely above a whisper. “You do not understand the weight I carry. The hurt I could bring?—”
“Then share it,” Eden urged softly, courage swelling within her heart. “Let me carry it with you.”
Eden’s voice trembled with quiet conviction as she stepped even closer, her hand tightening around his. The lantern light danced in her eyes, and in that moment, she looked both brave and heartbreakingly open, offering not just comfort but an invitation to trust, to hope. Her pulse beat steady under his fingertips, and her gesture struck him with quiet intensity, stripping away the distance he had clung to for so long."
Gabriel closed his eyes briefly, wrestling visibly with internal turmoil before meeting her gaze again, vulnerable and open. “You make me want things I believed lost to me forever.”
The words sank deep, sending a shiver through her chest. Hope surged before she could catch it. Bright, reckless, and terrifying. What if he meant it? What if this time, he would not disappear? What if there was a way for them to be together?
In that moment, she forgot about everything else. Her parents’ wishes, Mr. Price, her reputation. She stepped closer, their bodies nearly touching, her heart aching with the intensity of her emotions. “Then do not deny yourself,” she whispered, her voice steady though her fingers trembled at her sides. A cool breeze teased the loose curls at her temple, and she swayed subtly closer, drawn to the warmth of him.
For a moment, Eden felt as though the world held its breath with her. She had offered more than words. She had bared her soul, daring him to reach for something neither of them had allowed themselves to hope for.
Slowly, Gabriel lowered his forehead to rest gently against hers, and Eden’s breath hitched. The heat of his skin against hers sent a tremor through her, chasing away doubt and filling her with a strange, fragile courage she had not expected to find in his embrace.
