Semua Bab Save it, Mr Arrogant! I Dumped You After Reborn.: Bab 191 - Bab 200

Evelyn POVA smile spread across my face before I could stop it. Of course, he was exactly on time. Gabriel Ross was many things. Unpredictable, dangerous, infuriatingly guarded. But he was never late.I grabbed my clutch, slipped on my heels, a simple pair of black stilettos that added three inches to my height, and hurried to the front door. The puppy, whom I'd started calling Biscuit in my head even though I hadn't committed to the name yet, scrambled after me from the living room, his tiny claws clicking on the hardwood."Stay," I told him. He sat, tail wagging, looking deeply offended at being excluded.I opened the door, and the sight I saw nearly made me faint. Two men stood on my porch.Gabriel was on the left. In a dark suit, no tie, white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. His dark hair was pushed back from his face, and his jaw was freshly shaved. He held a bouquet of deep red peonies in one hand, the stems wrapped in black paper. Vincent was on the right. Camel coat over a

Evelyn POVThe drive home was quieter than the drive there, but it was a different kind of quiet.The silence at the start of the evening had been loaded, tangled up with Vincent's tulips and my guilt and the weight of everything unspoken. This silence was warm and comfortable. The kind you only get with someone after the hard conversations have already been had and you're both just sitting in the relief of having survived them.Dinner had been extraordinary. Not just the food, though the food had been absurd. A seven-course tasting menu that included things I couldn't pronounce and flavours I didn't know existed. A wine pairing chosen by a sommelier who spoke to each bottle like it was a personal friend. Dessert was a dark chocolate something with gold leaf and a berry reduction that tasted like it had been invented specifically to make people close their eyes and moan.But it was the conversation that had made the evening. Gabriel, when he decided to actually let someone in, was fun

Evelyn POVMy back arched sharply off the bed. My hand slammed against the headboard, gripping it, and the other found his hair, fingers twisting into the dark strands. He worked me slowly, thoroughly, with a patience and attention to detail that bordered on cruelty. His tongue moved in long, deliberate strokes, finding every sensitive spot and returning to it, building pressure with a rhythm that he adjusted every time my body told him something, and my body was telling him everything.I couldn't think. I couldn't form words. The world narrowed to the point of contact between his mouth and my body, and everything else dissolved. My hips moved against him, matching his rhythm, and he let me, his hands steady on my thighs, holding me open, holding me exactly where he wanted me.The tension built in waves. Each one higher than the last, each one pulling me closer to an edge I could feel but couldn't reach. He took me to the brink and held me there, easing back every time I was about to

Evelyn POVThe words came out before I could catch them, raw and embarrassingly honest. The kind of thing you say to your best friend at seven thirty in the morning when your defences are down, and you're sitting in a bed that still smells like someone who isn't there anymore.Belle was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice had shed the excitement and softened into something gentler."Oh, Evelyn. What happened?""We spent the night together." I pressed the heel of my hand against my eye. I was not going to cry. I was absolutely, categorically, one hundred per cent not going to cry about a man at seven thirty in the morning. "He took me to La Maison Doree, and it was perfect, Belle. The whole evening was perfect. And then we came back here, and we..." I trailed off. "He left before I woke up. There was a note on the nightstand.""What did it say?""'I left, but will always think of it.'"Belle exhaled. Long and slow. "That man.""He's going to Bangria. He said it would be a whi

Evelyn POVI climbed into the passenger seat and pulled the door shut behind me. The interior of Vincent's car smelled like fresh leather and that clean, woodsy cologne he always wore. The one that was nothing like Gabriel's darker, heavier scent. The one that was still, if I was being honest with myself, faintly present on my skin from twelve hours ago.I buckled my seatbelt without looking at him.He pulled away from the kerb without saying another word to me. His hands at ten and two, his eyes on the road, his profile calm and composed in a way that would have been reassuring if the silence between us didn't feel like it weighed four hundred pounds.We drove for two full minutes without speaking.The morning traffic was light. Suburban streets gave way to the main road, and the storefronts of Wrenfield's small commercial strip slid past the windows. A woman walking a terrier. A man opening the shutters on a bakery. The world was going about its Tuesday morning as if nothing extraord