Gabriel's Rapture (Gabriel's Inferno #2)(94)

And what of Paul? Surely he’d use this as an opportunity to comfort Julia. And where would that comfort lead…Gabriel couldn’t entertain the idea that she would be unfaithful. But he knew through her messages that she thought it was over. Paul would simply have to provide a shoulder for her to lean on and he’d be back in her life, in her apartment, in her thoughts.

Angelf*cker.

The only relief he could find, if relief it was, would be to torture himself with music and poetry. He clicked a button, and Sting’s retelling of the story of David and Bathsheba filled the room. As the song swirled in the air, he gazed at Dante’s poetic reflection on the death of Beatrice and found his heart echoing the words from La Vita Nuova.

“An abject wretch like this

May not imagine anything of her,—

He needs no bitter tears for his relief.

But sighing comes, and grief,

And the desire to find no comforter,

(Save only Death, who makes all sorrow brief,)

To him who for a while turns in his thought

How she hath been among us, and is not.

With sighs my bosom always laboureth

On thinking, as I do continually.

Of her for whom my heart now breaks apace;

And very often when I think of death,

Such a great inward longing comes to me

That it will change the colour of my face;

And, if the idea settles in its place.

All my limbs shake as with an ague-fit;

Till, starting up in wild bewilderment,

I do become so shent

That I go forth, lest folk misdoubt of it.

Afterward, calling with a sore lament

On Beatrice, I ask, ‘Canst thou be dead?’

And calling on her, I am comforted.” Gabriel closed the document on his computer and traced a light finger over the photograph of the lovely woman who graced his computer screen. He would discharge his duty over the next few days, but he would do so without his Beatrice to comfort him. In her absence, perhaps he would succumb to his old temptations to deaden the pain.

Chapter 33

On a Friday afternoon in mid-April, Julia arrived at Rachel and Aaron’s apartment in Philadelphia. Rachel had planned on visiting her in Toronto and bringing the bridesmaid dress with her, but she had trouble getting the time off work. Since she was trying to save her vacation days for the honeymoon, Julia agreed to leave the comfortable confines of her hobbit hole, instead.

Rachel welcomed her friend with a hug, escorting her to the living room. Julia eyed the binders of samples and swatches that covered the coffee table.

“So the wedding planning is finished?”

Rachel shook her head. “Not quite. But I don’t want to talk about the wedding; I want to talk about you.” She eyed her friend with a concerned look. “This thing with you and Gabriel was a complete shock.”

Julia winced. “To me too.”

“He won’t return our calls or answer our emails, and believe me, we’ve tried. Scott copied me on the email he sent, and it was scathing.

“Did you know that Gabriel was in Selinsgrove a couple of weeks ago?”

“Selinsgrove?” Julia was dumbfounded. “I thought he was in Italy.”

“Why would he go there?”

“To finish his book. To get away from me.”

“The jackass,” Rachel cursed. “Have you heard from him?”

“Yes. He emailed to notify me that it was over.” Julia retrieved her purse. She pulled out two keys and a security pass and handed them to her friend. “These are his.”

Rachel gazed at the objects with confusion. “What am I supposed to do with them?”

“Keep them. Or give them to your father. I would have mailed them to Gabriel, but since he doesn’t want contact…”

Rachel placed the offending items on one of her wedding binders. Then, thinking better of it, she dumped his things into a drawer in one of the end tables, closing it with an oath.

“I know he went to my parents’ old house because one of the neighbors called my dad. Apparently, Gabriel was up at all hours playing loud music and prowling around outside.”

Julia’s mind instantly went to the orchard. It seemed reasonable, she thought, for him to take solace in the one place he’d always been at peace—his Paradise. But since she was tangled up in his memories of that space, she wondered at him going there. Shaking her head, she put the thought from her mind.

Rachel faced her friend. “I don’t understand why he would do this. Gabriel loves you. He isn’t the kind of person to love easily, or to say those words without meaning them. That kind of love doesn’t disappear overnight.”

“Maybe he loved his job more. Or maybe he decided to go back to her.”

“Paulina? Is that what this is about? You didn’t tell me that.” Rachel’s eyes flashed.

“Up until a year and a half ago, they were still—involved.”

“What?”

“At Christmas, we were fighting about her and, uh, other things. He told me their history was more recent than I thought.”

“I never so much as heard her name until the day she showed up at my parents’ house.”

“I knew about her. But when he and I first started dating, he made it sound as if he ended things with her back at Harvard. In reality, he’d been carrying on with her for years.”