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Properly slept.

When his phone bleeped before dawn they made slow morning love, and he was so tender and deliberate it made her cross, and shiver, that he could give and damn well know that soon he’d take away everything they’d found.

How did she give this part of herself, how did he demand more from her body, when in an hour or so they would part?

She held onto her orgasm, fought a silent, futile battle, for he pushed her to pleasure.

Then lay there all wrapped in each other and sated.

‘You know,’ Stella said as lightly as she could, ‘if it all goes through, I’m going to be in Sant Lavia a lot in the coming year.’

He said nothing, and the peace she had found was fading, this tension building because she just didn’t get why it had to end so abruptly.

‘In fact, I’ll probably be there next month,’ she said, and felt his hand that had been stroking her arm pause.

But surely, he could be faithful for a few weeks?

She mentally corrected herself, faithful sounded a bit much, and then she realised she was preparing to speak again, to ask, to push for more time.

Oh, tread lightly, Stella.

‘We could maybe…’

‘Stella.’ His voice was low and pleasant but there was a note of warning, as if he knew the conversation she wanted to have.

‘But…’

Gabe closed his eyes and actually gritted his teeth, cross with himself about the night they had shared, for they lay entwined and when together they were…

Happy.

The one thing he didn’t want to be.

That complacent place, where a perfect world could be ripped from you in a moment. A naïve place that he did not want to inhabit again. Yet he caved in every time he was with Stella.

And he might again.

Each time a little more perfect, a step closer to happiness.

A place he refused to be.

‘I don’t get it.’ She sat up and covered herself with the sheet, shutting him out from the more intimate view as he shut her out of his future. ‘I’m not suggesting we hang off each other’s arms, I’ll be working and busy, but…’

‘I don’t want to be close to anyone.’

‘You’d really rather be alone?’

‘Yes.’

‘You’d rather fleeting, superficial…’

‘This wasn’t superficial,’ he corrected, for it was the deepest, the closest, the most natural he had been with anyone. ‘And that’s the part that concerns me.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Then I’ll say it more clearly. I do not want a relationship, I never want to have a family, I don’t want love or anything that comes close to it. If you want the truth, I’m relieved that my grandfather has died…’

She sucked in her breath, hating he could be so abrupt at times.