She giggled. “Yeah, but that’s not gonna help you. Okay, how about chocolate?”
“She’s not gonna forget what happened over a box of chocolate.”
“Not that alone, but if you plan something with chocolate and you naked, like you naked…covered in chocolate…” she mused with a sigh.
I snapped my fingers at her. “Focus, Zo. Now isn’t the time for your inappropriate fantasies.”
“Sorry.” She cleared her throat. “So like I was saying, plan a sexy night, maybe involve Tiara, too, like make a cute invitation and let Tiara bring it to her. Gabi picks it up and walks in on you while you’ve made yourself a debauched dessert for her. How about that?”
“I like it. That could work. Thank you, Zo.”
She went back to typing things on her laptop. “You’re welcome. Now go PA before she notices anything.”
I fixed my shirt and stepped into the office. “What time would you like to go to lunch today?”
Gabriella barely looked at me. “I don’t know.”
“You have an editor meeting at eleven and another at three. You have to eat something. You skipped breakfast.”
“Well, you can see how busy I am. I’m not going out for lunch.”
“I’ll pick up something for you then. Any preferences?”
She just shook her head.
I rubbed my head in frustration and headed out. After the first meeting ended, I went to get some sandwiches. When I returned, Gabi wasn’t there.
“She canceled the three o’clock and left,” Zoey said.
“She didn’t say where she was going?”
“No, and she switched off her phone.”
“Cazzo.”
“It’s okay. She’s a little upset, so what? At the end of the day, she’ll be back. You go plan your date, and hope for the best. Who can resist a chocolate covered you?”
I followed her advice despite knowing in my heart fixing today wasn’t going to be that easy. Three months together, and we never fought like that. She never shut me out like that. She was hiding something from me, something she wanted to say and didn’t know how to say it.
I set everything and put Tiara in the bedroom with the invitation. Gabi would find the invitation when she went to change, and I’d be a chocolate covered treat hiding in the kitchen waiting for her arrival.
Tiara squeaked when I was about to close the bedroom door. “Sorry, baby girl. This treat isn’t for you. I can’t let you stay with me in the kitchen. You’ll eat me.”
I lit candles, dimmed the lights and stripped naked, a box of her favorite chocolate on the table and a liquid chocolate bottle in hand at standby. But hours passed, and she didn’t come home or answer her phone.
Tiara started to scratch at the door, so I put on my pants, went in and opened it for her. “You need to go, baby girl?”
She ran to the other bedroom and hopped to open the doorknob.
“No, Tiara. You know we can’t go in there.”
She wouldn’t leave, kept scratching and sniffing under the door, and tried to hop to open it again. Then she went on barking.
“What’s wrong? I can’t open—”
Squeak.
Bed squeak.
