Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1)(147)

Gabriel

She fingered his inscription, tracing the curls of the capital G. The illustrations were, without doubt, the finest gift she had ever received.

In addition, Gabriel had given her a small photo album of black-and-white pictures. In some of them, her identity was recognizable. In the rest, the subject was only a glimpse of a face, or a lock of hair against a long, white neck or a laughing girl with her eyes closed. She felt beautiful when Gabriel kissed her and when he touched her. But viewing these photographs made her feel as if Gabriel saw her beauty. He saw and captured it, recording it forever.

Some of the pictures were sexy, some were innocent, and some were sweet. None of them were embarrassing or the kind of photo that would humiliate her if they were sent to her father or posted on the internet. Her favorite was one in which she stood in profile while a hand with long white fingers held up her hair, a man’s face in shadow pressing his lips to the nape of her neck. She could have blown that photo up to poster size and tacked it to the wall over her bed, the Holiday painting be damned.

Take that, simple Simon.  P

“Why are you calling? Is something wrong? Did you do something to Julia? I swear to God, Gabriel, if you — ”

Gabriel held his iPhone away from his ear as his sister expertly berated him. “I didn’t do anything to Julia,” he interrupted. “Her ex-boyfriend called her on Saturday, and she went to pieces. I’d like some answers.”

“Holy shit. Is she okay?”

“She was very upset. But she won’t tell me much.”

“Of course not. Why would she talk about it with her professor?”

Gabriel bristled. “We were discussing Thanksgiving and making plans for the trip when that motherf*cker interrupted us.”

“A bit angry there, Gabriel. Why do you care?”

“Because that bastard, whoever he is, sweet talked her father into di-vulging her unlisted cell phone number so that he could harass her.”

“Shit,” said Rachel.

“Quite,” said Gabriel. “So before I bring her back to Selinsgrove, where he might possibly pay her a visit, I’d like to know who I’m dealing with.”

His sister was silent.

“Rachel? I’m waiting.”

“I don’t know what you’re expecting me to tell you. This is Julia’s past.

You need to ask her.”

“I told you, she won’t talk about it.”

“Can you blame her? If you know that he’s a motherf*cker, then you know why she doesn’t want to talk about him. She won’t even say his name out loud — she’s that skittish.” Rachel paused for a minute and took a deep breath. “Simon’s father is Senator John Talbot.”

Gabriel blinked in recognition. “And?”

“Julia met Simon when they were freshmen. He swept her off her feet in the beginning, but I got the impression that he could be difficult. She went to Florence her junior year, and when she came back, they broke up.

I didn’t see her again until I came to visit you. Aaron hated Simon, so I didn’t spend a lot of time around them.”

Gabriel fumed. “You didn’t answer my question. What kind of difficulties are we talking about? Assault? Infidelity? Emotional abuse?”

“Honestly, I don’t know everything. I pieced together a few things from a conversation I had with Natalie, Julia’s old roommate. Simon was an arrogant jerk who liked to have Julia on his arm. It’s obvious he crushed her spirit. I think we can imagine the rest.”

“He said that Julia is disturbed. That she needs professional help.”

“The guy is a lying bastard, Gabriel. What did you expect him to say?”

Rachel exhaled her frustration. “Julia’s biggest problem is him. If you want to help her, you should try to make her life easier and not harder. I hope you aren’t intimidating her anymore with your pretentious bullshit. She had enough of that with him.”

“Actually, we’re getting along quite well.” He sniffed.

“As well as in the pictures I e-mailed to you?” Rachel giggled wickedly.

“We have a professional relationship.”

“You might be fooling everyone else, but you can’t fool me. Julia broke down and told me she had a date with someone Saturday night, and coincidentally, you’re with her on Saturday when Simon calls. So tell me, Gabriel, did you see Julia after her date or before? And how was it?”

“We’ll arrive in Selinsgrove on Thursday. I’ll bring Julia to the house.”

Gabriel’s voice was cold.

“Good. I think she needs to tell her dad that she wants to stay with us.

If Simon comes to town, he won’t look for her there. And Gabriel, thanks for what you did about the house. Dad is so relieved. I think we all are, Scott included.”

“It was the least I could do. Bye, Rachel.”

“If you hurt her, I’ll kill you. Now go cheer her up and be gentle. Otherwise you’ll never coax her out of her shell. Love you.”

“I — bye.” Gabriel ended the call somewhat uncomfortably and returned to the task of preparing next week’s Dante seminar.

With the impending end of term, Julia’s workload increased expo-nentially. In addition to writing her thesis, she needed to complete essays for her seminars, which were due December fourth. On top of everything, she was working on applications to graduate schools for doctoral programs.