Beautifully Broken (The Montebellos Book 6)

by Clare Connelly

  He was quiet, and didn’t turn to face her.

  Butterflies mutated into full-blown nerves. “Gabe?”

  His shoulders were stiff. She waited, watching, and eventually he turned his head a little to the side, showing his autocratic profile.

  “Don’t worry about dinner for me. I’m going to go for a run.”

  Her stomach swooped to her toes. His tone was so cold, she couldn’t help but feel pushed aside. It wasn’t his fault, she reminded herself. He’d told her in no uncertain terms what last night had been about – he’d made no promises and had gone out of his way to make sure she understood that it hadn’t been a prelude to anything more than sex.

  Logically, she shouldn’t have been hurt or even disappointed, but she was. Her heart felt as though it had been stitched together wrongly, and the sharp sting of tears threatened to fill her eyes with moisture.

  Great. Just great.

  She spun away quickly, reaching for her phone and pretending fascination with the screen, loading up the video she’d cut together. She employed a professional editing team now but she was still au fait with the features of iMovie – enough to piece together a basic video.

  “Do you mind if I share the video?”

  Damn it, her voice wobbled the slightest bit as she asked the question. She cleared her throat, hoping the effect of coughing might confuse him.

  “Why would I mind?”

  She shrugged her shoulders, still not looking at him. “It’s in your kitchen. Some people are very private; I thought you might prefer —,”

  “No one is going to know it’s my kitchen,” he said simply, and now when she risked a glance at him, Gabe was leaning against the counter, looking at her with an expression that gave little away.

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  She needed to get out of there. Uncertainties were washing her as painfully as if they were acid.

  “Okay then.” She clicked into her channel, ignoring the hundreds of notifications, posting the video with a quickly-typed caption. Her followers would be surprised by the unscheduled video; they loved that sort of thing. It gave her little pleasure though, unlike her usual sense of accomplishment when she wrapped filming. She slipped from the room without another word.

  He ran longer than usual, one foot after the other, staring at the red numbers on the treadmill display as they counted upwards. Several times he dialled the speed higher than the programme, wanting to run until his lungs hurt and his legs were spent, wanting to run until he was too exhausted to dream.

  He ran and pushed Isabella out of his mind completely – or tried to. All day she’d been there, haunting him, so he’d eventually given up on avoiding her and gone to the kitchen – the one place he knew she’d be.

  Sleeping with her had been a mistake. For the hundredth time since her arrival, he wished she hadn’t come. He wished she hadn’t crashed her car, that she hadn’t found her way to his doorstep, that a raging snow storm hadn’t kept them locked together. He wished she was anywhere but here, even as he knew that was a lie. He was glad she was here, and he was tempted – oh so tempted – to go to her and instigate a repeat of the night before. But that would be another mistake, another thing to regret.

  And so he finished his run then took a cold shower, trying – again – to keep Isabella from his mind.

  She didn’t see him at all the next day. That was partly by choice – Isabella stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible, keeping to her room or the library upstairs, working on recipes, making lists of ingredients the assistant her publishers had assigned would need to procure before her arrival in New York. But as the day drew to dusk and then to night, her stomach demanded nutrients. Recipe research was hungry work.

  Tapping her pen against the side of the table, she looked towards the door, hesitating, and then scraped her chair back. A quick sandwich, something she could bring back to the office with her. Something she could make quickly and escape with, hopefully negating the requirement of seeing him again. Her stomach was full of butterflies as she went and she was filled with hope: hope that she wouldn’t see him? Or hope that she would?

  “Yes?” Gabe didn’t mean to sound testy, but he wasn’t in the mood for yet another welfare check from his family.

  “Nice to see you too,” Fiero responded with a similar tone, so Gabe grunted a half-apology.

  “What’s up?”

  It was bitingly to the point, but what else was new?

  “Elodie wants to ask you something.”

  Gabe frowned. That was new. While the women of the family were always trying to make sense of him, and to understand how they could ‘help him’, they didn’t often confront him directly.

  He braced for the well-meaning questions as Fiero shifted the screen to include Elodie. “Hi.” She grinned at him, her features unusually flustered.

  “Are you okay?” It was Gabe’s turn to evince concern.

  “Fine,” she nodded quickly. “It’s just – how do you know Isabella Moss?”

  He was as shocked as if a sixteenth century ghost had emerged from the woodwork and punched him in the gut.

  “What?”

  “Isabella. She’s there. With you. Now?”

  Gabe looked around the salon even though he knew for a fact Isabella wasn’t with him. He hadn’t seen her all day. Not since the night before in the kitchen when she’d got all excited about salmon of all things and he’d reacted by metaphorically pushing her away as hard as he could.

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Elodie looked crestfallen, but she brightened again quickly enough. “But she was?”

  “Why, may I ask, is this a problem?”

  Fiero briefly tilted the camera so his face came into shot, his expression holding an unmistakable warning: play nice.

  “It’s not a problem,” Elodie assured him. “It’s just I’m a huge fan of hers. I watch all her videos and when I saw that she’d filmed one from Il Nido, and that it was snowing outside the window, I just presumed…”

  “I see,” he muttered, closing his eyes on a wave of bleak amusement. She’d asked before posting the video and he’d assured her it would be fine. But of course one of his family members would have to have seen the clip. Why wouldn’t they?

  Gabe tightened his grip into a fist, keeping his expression calm and uninterested.

  “She’s someone I know,” he said with a casual lift of his shoulders. “She got caught in the blizzard.”

  “At Il Nido?” Fiero prompted sceptically.

  “As you can see.”

  “This is amazing. Do you think – would you be able to ask her to sign a cookbook for me?”

  “She doesn’t have any with her,” Gabe interjected quickly.

  “How do you know?” Fiero responded. Damn him, he wasn’t going to make this easy.

  Gabe expelled a sigh, his nostrils flaring. “Her car crashed. As you know, mine is the only house for miles. What choice did she have but to shelter here?”

  And what choice did I have but to let her? He mentally tacked on.

  “Oh, I’m so jealous,” Elodie squeaked. “You have to at least tell her how much I adore her videos. She’s so incredible!”

  “This is just because you are both Australian,” Fiero teased from off-camera.

  “It is not,” Elodie grinned, and then winked at Gabe. “But it doesn’t hurt.” Elodie leaned a little closer then. “What’s she like in person?”

  Gabe stared at the phone, lost for words. How could he describe Isabella?

  What adjectives would do her justice? She was kind, interesting, funny, confident, courageous. But none of those captured her spirit and his inability to find just the right word for Isabella was somehow infuriating. “I don’t know. Just like she seems on the videos,” he said, though even that wasn’t completely true.

  “Is that it?” Elodie pleaded, so Gabe made a strangled sound that was a little like a laugh.

  “What else do you want
me to say?”

  “I don’t know. You must have something else…”

  She’s beautiful. Fiery. An incredible lover.

  He closed his eyes for a minute, acutely aware that somewhere in this huge house Elodie was breathing the same air, hearing the same howling wind, and yet he wasn’t with her. He wasn’t near her. It felt as though he was defying one of the laws of nature by keeping his distance.

  “She’s…”

  “Yes?”

  He compressed his lips, drawing a blank. “I’m sorry, Elodie. I don’t have anything more for you.”

  “Oh.” Elodie smiled kindly. “Don’t worry about it. Just have fun.” She snuggled into Fiero so both were on the screen, their love for one another so obvious, Gabe felt an ungenerous desire to disconnect the call. In the last few years, his brothers and cousins had seemingly made it their mission to pair off and get all loved up. He couldn’t go back to Villa Fortune these days without having to witness some overt display of matrimonial contentment.

  Frustration whipped through him.

  It wasn’t like he had to go home often.

  He had Il Nido.

  “How’s Yaya?”

  “She’s well,” Fiero said, sharing a look with Elodie and then grimacing. “Though she is not quite as well as I have seen her.”

  Something chilled inside Gabe’s gut. “What do you mean?”

  “She had a stroke, Gabe. What do you expect? She’s older, and despite what we all want, there’s no way she’ll go on forever. You know that, right?”

  Gabe felt as though he had a rock boulder on his chest. “Of course,” he said quietly. “I’m not an idiot.” But they all were, when it came to Yaya. The woman who’d raised them was so much a part of their lives, he couldn’t imagine life without her. It was a possibility none of them had really contemplated.

  “It would be good if you could be here for Christmas.”

  I could turn it into Gravlax for Christmas morning.

  He pushed Isabella from his mind. She wasn’t a part of his life, nor his plans. She couldn’t be.

  “I will be, if at all possible.” He looked towards the window, where the wind was howling. “I’d have been there days ago, if this storm hadn’t blown in.”

  “And then you’d have missed Isabella Moss,” Elodie pointed out with a smile.

  “Exactly.” He couldn’t help the scowl that crossed his brow.

  Fiero laughed. “You’re annoyed you’ve been interrupted.”

  “I’m — not annoyed,” Gabe corrected.

  “Yes, you are. You like to go there to brood every December, and now you’ve got company.”

  “I doubt it’s a hardship,” Elodie pointed out. “She seems so fun and friendly. I’m sure she’s excellent company.”

  “That’s not the point,” Gabe said, looking towards the door. No Isabella. “I come here to be alone. Completely and utterly. I do not want to have a house guest – no matter how charming.”

  Gabe disconnected the call as soon as he could, feeling even less settled than he had done before.

  Isabella bloody Moss. It wasn’t enough that she’d taken over his every waking thought, but now she was infiltrating his family too?

  He strode into the kitchen, pulling a beer from the fridge and draining half of it before realising she was sitting at the kitchen table. Eating. Alone.

  Guilt washed through him.

  He took a second to study her, something flicking inside of him.

  “Isabella.”

  She blinked up at him, surprise on her face and then consternation. She scrambled to pick up a thick notepad and pen, standing and lifting her plate. “I didn’t think — you weren’t around. I’ll get out of your hair.”

  Hell. Is that what she thought he wanted? He couldn’t say he blamed her. He’d been colder than ice since they’d slept together.

  “Wait.”

  She flinched a little, her eyes wounded when they met his. He sighed heavily. “Don’t go.”

  She looked towards the door, as though measuring her means of escape. Hell, he’d made a mess of this.

  Dragging a hand through his hair, he returned to the fridge, pulling out a wine bottle and filling a glass. He held it towards her as a peace offering. She eyed it carefully, then shook her head.

  “I should go,” she said quietly. “I have work to do.”

  It was the right thing to do. The smart thing. But he didn’t want her to keep avoiding him. He was sick of knowing she was here and not being able to see her nor touch her.

  “This isn’t — I’m not —,”

  “Yes?” She pursed her lips in a gesture of impatience.

  “This isn’t about you,” he said, finally.

  “You’ve told me that already,” she said quietly. “You told me it’s about you coming here to be alone, and so I’m leaving you alone. That’s what you want, right?”

  Wasn’t it?

  What the hell was the matter with him?

  “It’s not that simple.”

  “Why not?”

  Great question. He slammed back his beer, cradling the cold bottle in the palm of his hand and watching her thoughtfully.

  “I like being with you.”

  She rolled her eyes and began to stalk past him. “That’s just sex,” she snapped. “And I know that’s what we agreed to, so I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that, but liking sleeping with me isn’t the same thing as liking being with me.”

  “I know that.” His hand reached out and curled around her wrist, arresting her before she could reach the door. She stopped walking, glaring at him, her lips parted on a whoosh of surprise. “When I say I like being with you, I mean it. I like your stories and your laugh, the way you get excited when you talk about food. I enjoy your company.”

  Her eyes were wide as she stared at him in obvious shock. “You say that as though you’ve just written your own death warrant,” she muttered after a minute, wrenching her hand free. “And I’ve had enough of people liking me ‘except for this’ or ‘except for that’. I’ve had enough of people wishing with all their souls that they didn’t actually care about me.”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  She was wary, but didn’t insist on leaving him.

  “Nothing’s changed,” he frowned. “Nothing can change, for many reasons – yours and mine. This is what it is: a few days out of time. But I don’t want to ignore you and avoid you. I don’t want to push you away when the truth is, you’re all I can think about, Isabella Moss.”

  She startled, her eyes lifting to his, her teeth jabbing into her lip.

  “I don’t want you to ignore me.”

  “You sure? Because you made it pretty obvious that’s exactly what you wanted the day after we —,”

  “Yes, I know,” he agreed sotto voice. “I panicked.”

  More surprise etched itself across her face. “You panicked?”

  “You looked at me as though — you were so happy and I freaked out. I don’t do this. Ever. Being trapped here together means I can’t —,”

  “Escape,” she supplied with a hint of fiery sarcasm. “Are you really such a shit that you only have sex with women you can run away from?”

  Despite the tenor of their argument, he laughed, a short, sharp sound. “I suppose I do.”

  She, however, was not amused. “Why?”

  His smile dropped. No. He wasn’t going there.

  “My point is, I think we should work out a different way to exist here. Something more — mutually satisfying than this.”

  She tilted her head to the side. “You’re talking about sex again.”

  Desire flared in the pit of his stomach. “I’m talking about sex,” he agreed. “And company.”

  “So if we sleep together you’ll deign to speak to me afterwards this time?”

  “Do you really think I’m such a bastard that this is a quid pro quo?”

  “If I do think you’re a bastar
d, whose fault is that?”

  Surprised at the accuracy of her insult, he dipped his head, not sure what his face would show but wanting to hide it from her.

  She’d asked why he was like this, and as much as he hated talking about Carmen and Avery, he suspected that if anyone had earned a right to know and understand, it was the woman standing opposite him.

  “I hate Christmas.”

  The statement was, on the surface, out of left field. But she didn’t react like that. She didn’t tell him ‘so what’ or ‘I know’. Instead, Isabella waited, reaching across for her glass of wine, the sip she took some kind of tacit agreement to stay – for now – and hear him out.

  “I always have. Even as a boy, despite the fact my grandmother makes a big fuss every year, and in our family it is a huge deal.” He grimaced. “I’m not like them. At all.”

  “Your family?” She prompted, her fingers delicate on the bowl of the glass, her eyes watchful.

  He nodded once, but didn’t elaborate on that score. It wasn’t really relevant, even though her own upbringing probably predisposed this woman to understand, better than anyone, the scars his childhood had left on his soul.

  He didn’t like to dwell on that part of his past. He was luckier than most. He had his brothers and cousins, Yaya and until a few years ago, Gianfelice.

  “I don’t understand. So you don’t like Christmas and that means…what?”

  He compressed his lips. “It’s not —,” he swore under his breath, dragging his fingers through his thick hair, turning away from her to get his bearings. If he told her this, she’d look at him differently. She should look at him differently.

  He discarded the beer bottle and strode to the fridge, pulling another out then bracing his hips on the countertop. She was waiting, watching him, her face holding no judgement. Only her eyes showed a hint of curiosity, a spark of something like concern.

  “I used to be involved with a woman. Carmen.” The words emerged clinical and cold, despite the raw emotion behind them. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about this in a long time, if ever. Only Raf, who’d been with him in the car on that awful, fateful night.

  A flicker at Isabella’s lips showed her surprise, but still she said nothing, only took another sip of her wine before shifting, pulling up to sit on the edge of the benchtop, her beautiful body languid and graceful with the gesture.