Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno #2) 8

“I will. Thank you. I don’t know what I would have done…” Julia’s voice trailed off as she warred with her emotions.

Surprisingly, Katherine reached across the table and patted Julia’s hand. She touched her awkwardly, as a distinguished bachelor professor might pat the head of a crying child, but not without feeling.

“You’ve graduated with honors. Your thesis is solid and could form the basis of what will hopefully be a fine dissertation. I look forward to watching your career with interest. And I think you will be very happy in Cambridge.”

“Thank you.”

When it was time for her to leave, Julia intended to shake Katherine’s hand but was surprised when she was pulled into a restrained but warm hug.

“You’ve been a good student. Now go to Harvard and make me proud. And drop me an email now and then to let me know how you are.” Katherine pulled back and looked at Julia fixedly. “It’s quite possible I’ll be giving a lecture in Boston in the fall. I hope we’ll run into one another.”

Julia nodded her agreement.

As she walked to her small studio on Madison Avenue, she stared in wonder at the gift Professor Picton had placed in her hands. It was a worn and rare early edition of Dante’s La Vita Nuova that had belonged to Dorothy L. Sayers, who had been a friend of Katherine’s dissertation director at Oxford. In it was Sayers’s marginalia, written in her own hand. Julia would treasure it always.

No matter what Gabriel had done, persuading Katherine Picton to be her thesis advisor was a gift so great she would be forever in his debt.

Love is doing a kindness for someone else, not expecting to receive anything in return, she thought.

Early the next morning, Julia, Tom, and Paul loaded everything into the back of a U-Haul and drove eight hours to the Norris farm, which was located just outside of Burlington, Vermont. The Mitchells were warmly welcomed and were persuaded to stay a few extra days so Ted Norris, Paul’s father, could take Tom fishing.

Julia silently doubted that any other inducement would have delayed his rigorous schedule, but that was before either of them had tried Louise Norris’s cooking. Paul’s mother was an excellent cook who made everything, including doughnuts, from scratch. Tom’s stomach was in love.

On June fifteenth, the night before the Mitchells and Paul were supposed to leave for Cambridge, Paul couldn’t sleep. His father had called him out of bed well after midnight because of a bovine emergency. By the time the crisis was averted, he was far too agitated to go back to bed.

He had two women on his mind. Allison, his former girlfriend, had been visiting when he arrived with Julia two days earlier. They were still friends, so the gesture was well meant, but Paul knew that part of her reason for being there was to size Julia up. He’d told Allison about Julia at Christmas, so she was more than aware of Julia’s presence in his life and his attachment to her. An attachment that he had to admit was unrequited, at least, at that time.

Still, Allison was friendly to Julia, and of course, Julia was her own shy but charming self. It was awkward for Paul as he watched his past and his potential future make small talk while he fumbled for something to say.

When Allison called his cell phone before bed that evening and said that Julia was lovely, he didn’t know how to respond. Of course he had feelings for Allison. They had a long and good history as friends before they began dating. He loved her still. But she’d broken things off with him. He’d moved on and met Julia. Why should he feel guilty?

While Paul was contemplating his very complex (yet simultaneously non-existent) love life, Julia was wrestling with insomnia. When she finally grew weary of tossing and turning she decided to creep from the third floor garret she was occupying to the kitchen to get a glass of milk.

She found Paul sitting alone at the large, harvest table, eating a rather expansive dish of ice cream.

“Hi.” He took in her appearance with a swift but appreciative look.

Julia walked over to him wearing an old Selinsgrove High School T-shirt and a pair of running shorts that had St. Joe’s cheekily sewn onto the seat.

(To Paul’s eyes, she was Helen of Troy in leisurewear.)

“You can’t sleep, either?” She pulled out a chair to sit next to him.

“Dad had a problem with one of the cows. Heath Bar Crunch?” He dished up a large spoonful of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream and held it out to her.

It was her favorite flavor. She gently took the spoon out of his hand.

“Mmmmm,” she groaned, eyes closed. She opened her eyes and handed back the spoon, resisting the urge to lick it clean.

Paul put the spoon in the bowl and stood up. She blinked at him and instinctively moved back in her chair.

“Julia,” he whispered, pulling her to her feet. He pushed her hair behind her shoulders, noting that she didn’t flinch when he did so. Their upper bodies grazed one another. He looked into her eyes with an expression of heated intensity. “I don’t want to say good-bye.”

Her face crinkled up into a smile. “We won’t be saying good-bye. We’ll email and talk on the phone. If you come to Boston, we’ll see each other.”

“I don’t think you understand.”

Julia freed her wrist from Paul’s hand, stepping back. “It’s because of Allison, isn’t it? I don’t want to create trouble for you. Dad and I can make the trip by ourselves.”

She waited patiently for his response, but instead of looking relieved, he looked conflicted.

“This isn’t about Allison.”

“It isn’t?”

“Do you really have to ask me that?” He took another step toward her. “Don’t you know?”

Leery of rejection, he raised his hands slowly and cupped her face. Her fine features were engulfed by his large hands. He held her tenderly, worried about such fragility underneath his grasp, and slowly began to stroke her face with his thumbs.

Julia tore her eyes away from his. “Paul, I—”

“Let me say this,” he interrupted forcefully. “Just once, let me tell you how I feel.” He inhaled and waited until she met his gaze again before he spoke.

“I’m in love with you. I don’t want to be apart from you because I love you. The thought of having to leave you in Cambridge is tearing me up.”

Julia inhaled slowly and began to shake her head.

“Just hear me out. I know that you aren’t in love with me. I know it’s too soon. But do you think that you could be—in time?”

She closed her eyes. Her mind raced ahead to envision a future she hadn’t previously considered—a crossroads of possibilities. She thought of what it would be like to love Paul, to be held and kissed by him, to have him take her to his bed upstairs and make love to her, gently and sweetly. For she knew above all things that Paul would be sweet.

He would want marriage, of course, and children. But he would be proud of her academic career and support her in it.

She found herself unrepulsed by these images, for they were good. She could have a contented life with a decent man who had never done her ill and who, she knew, would probably never so much as hurt her feelings as long as he lived. She could have a good life with him.

He lifted her chin and she opened her eyes.

“There won’t be drama and fights and exes like Professor Pain. I will treat you respectfully, and I will never, ever leave you.

“Choose me,” he whispered, his eyes deep and intense. “Choose me and I will give you a happy life. You’ll never have to cry yourself to sleep again.”

Tears began to stream down her face. She knew that what he was saying was true. But knowing the truth and wanting the truth are two very different things.

“I’m not like him. I’m not an inferno that blazes and dies out. I’m constant. I’ve held back because I knew that you only wanted to be friends. But just once, I’d like to be able to show you what I feel without holding back.”

He took her silence as acquiescence and wrapped his arms around her. He bent down so their lips could meet and poured all his passion and love for her into a single kiss. Paul’s mouth was warm and inviting. What began as a gentle contact quickly became urgent with desire.

With a split-second decision, she opened to him, tentatively, and his tongue quickly entered and met hers, his hands ending up in her hair. There was no domination, no pressing of boundaries, nothing overwhelming or crass.

Paul kissed her for as long as he could without becoming obscene, then slowly lessened the pressure of his lips on hers, pecking her briefly before moving his lips to her ear. “I love you, Julia. Say that you’ll be mine. You won’t regret it.”

Julia tightened her arms around him as the tears fell.

Chapter 41

Over breakfast the next morning, Louise Norris looked with concern between her son and the young woman he loved. Her husband, Ted, tried to keep the conversation moving by talking about the ill cow he’d tended to the night before. Tom tried to cram a homemade doughnut into his mouth without appearing like a barbarian, and failed.

After breakfast, the kitchen emptied like a galleon full of rats docking in a new port, leaving Paul and Julia sitting across from one another, each fidgeting with their coffee mugs and avoiding one another’s eyes.

Julia broke the silence. “I’m so sorry.”

“Me too.”

She chewed on her lip as her eyes darted to meet his, wondering if he was angry or bitter. Or both.

But he wasn’t. His dark eyes were still kind, but he appeared defeated. “I had to try, you know? I didn’t want to wait until you’d found someone else. But I won’t bring it up again.” He pursed his lips, and a resigned expression passed over his face. “You don’t need to worry about me embarrassing you.”

Julia leaned over the table and took his hand in hers. “I wasn’t embarrassed. I know that we would have had a good life together. I care for you too. But you deserve more. You deserve to have a life with someone who will love you the same way that you love her.”

Paul released her hand and walked away.

“Care to explain why he’s so quiet?” Tom turned to Julia as they waited for Paul to come out of the men’s room at a gas station in New Hampshire.

“He wants more than I can give him.”

Tom squinted at something in the distance. “He seems like a good man. He comes from a good family. What’s the problem? Got a thing against cows?”

He was trying to make her laugh, but it had the opposite effect. He quickly held his hands up in surrender. “What do I know? I thought the senator’s son was a good match for you. So I guess I’m a horse’s ass.”

Before Julia could disagree, Paul returned to the U-Haul, ending the heart to heart conversation between father and daughter.

Two days later Julia stood on the front steps of her new building, saying good-bye to Paul, feeling worse than she had when she rejected him in his parents’ kitchen. He hadn’t been cold, or rude, or resentful. He hadn’t shirked any responsibilities in terms of driving from Vermont to Cambridge, or unloading Julia’s things.