“I’m so sorry, Olivia. All I can say is that a marriage between us would have been a mistake, and I was stupid to propose in the first place. You should have smacked me up the head instead of humoring me. You deserve someone who loves you every bit as much as Charles did, and not just someone looking for a mother for his children.”
Olivia swallowed and nodded, smiling bravely. “I have to admit I’ve been having doubts as to whether or not I could be the mother your children deserve, when I’ve never had much experience with children. I think you’re right—it’s best we realize now before we make an even bigger mistake. Neither one of us wants—or deserves—to be second best.”
Gabriel nodded silently, grateful for Olivia’s graciousness and understanding.
She turned to leave his office, saying, “I came here straight from the airport, and I really should get home. I’m sure my housekeeper has been holding down the fort since the blizzard but I know she’ll be glad to have me back.”
At the door she paused, her hand on the knob, and turned to him. “Just tell me something—is there someone else?”
Gabriel hesitated, but decided he owed her the truth.
“Yes,” he admitted. “It happened in the summer, and I didn’t think I would ever see her again. But she’s back in my life now, and it’s not fair to you when I’m in love with someone else.”
Olivia nodded, a resigned expression on her face. “It’s hard enough to fight Elle’s ghost, I would be a real masochist to want to battle a living woman as well. I wish you much luck, Gabriel. I do want you to be happy.”
“Thank you, Olivia,” he said softly. “I want you to be happy, too.”
Olivia gave him another fleeting smile, but this time, the smile was real, and left the room. He heard her speak briefly to Matt in the hall and then her footsteps faded away. He waited another minute for her to say goodbye to Williams at the front door and then to drive away, and then he sprinted out of his office, determined to go to Maria immediately.
He ran into Matt in the hallway, and Matt grabbed his arm, forcing him to stop. “Hey, wait a minute! Are you still engaged?”
Gabriel shook his arm free, his mind already on Maria. “No, I just broke it off with Olivia.”
“Oh thank God.” Matt heaved a sigh of relief. “Okay, I assume you’re going to Maria now, then. Good, because she’s in her room in a terrible state and I think seeing you with Olivia hurt her badly.”
“I know,” Gabriel replied distractedly. “I have to go to her now!”
“Well good luck!” Matt called out to his retreating back. Under his breath he muttered, “I’m sure you’re going to need it.”
GABRIEL TOOK THE STAIRS TWO at a time and nearly ran to Maria’s room. Without bothering to knock he opened the door, and his heart nearly stopped at the sight of Maria’s bags open on the brocade-covered bench at the foot of the bed, filled with clothes. She was sitting on the bed, a pile of crumpled blue silk in her lap and he recognized the dress she was wearing the night they met.
Her gaze flew from the dress to him at the sound of his entrance into the room, and he slowly stepped in, closing the door behind him. Desperation rose in him at the evidence that Maria was planning on leaving him—again. Anger started to curl inside, mixing with the desperate fear.
“Running away again, I see. Tell me, were you planning on sneaking out or were you actually going to tell me this time?”
Maria’s face flushed but she didn’t deny his accusation, which infuriated him.
“It was obvious that it was time for me to go.”
“Obvious to whom?” he growled. “Not to me, and not to my children. Were you even going to say goodbye to them? You promised me you’d stay, dammit!”
Maria stood up, eyes flashing and he could see the heartbreaking fear and pain beneath the anger in them. “Why would I stay? To see you make love to Olivia right in front of me? It’s obvious that you two belong together and I won’t be the other woman—not any longer!”
“I told you I don’t love Olivia! I only got engaged to her for the children. And I just broke my engagement to her, so don’t use her as an excuse to run!” he snarled.
She paled, but said, “But she loves you, I can tell! Why would you end your engagement when she’s right for you?”
Gabriel swore, knowing he had to convince her of the truth or Maria would leave him. “I didn’t realize that she loved me until I broke off our engagement, but it doesn’t make any difference. I don’t love her and I can’t, because I’m in love with you.”
Maria stared at him, but instead of reacting in any of the ways he anticipated, she said flatly, “I don’t believe you.”
“What?” he stared at her, barely able to process what he was hearing. “What do you mean, you don’t believe me? I love you!”
“And I’m telling you I don’t believe you!” she yelled suddenly. “How can you love me when you have Olivia?”
“Because I don’t love Olivia, I love you!” he roared back. “Why won’t you believe me? You’re supposed to be able to tell when someone is lying—you have to know I’m telling you the truth!”
He frantically tried to think of what he could have done that would cause her to doubt him to this extent. “Is it because I didn’t pull away when Olivia kissed me? I wanted to, God I wanted to, but I didn’t want to embarrass her, not before I broke things off with her. I’m sorry if that hurt you—if I could do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate to push her away, I swear.”
He saw the doubt still on her face, the fear. How could he make her understand what she meant to him?
“You were the first woman I slept with after Elle died. I hadn’t even been tempted to before I met you. I told you that meeting you changed my life—I haven’t lied to you.”
Maria was shocked by his revelation that he’d been celibate for four years before they made love. Maybe their night together did mean as much to him as it did to her, but there was still one question she had to know the answer to, even if it hurt her.
“Did you sleep with Olivia?” Maria whispered, hating herself for asking, for caring.
“Yes,” he admitted harshly. “It was just once after we got engaged, mostly because it was the next logical step rather than from any great desire, at least on my part, and I can tell you honestly that it was nothing compared to what we shared.” He almost told her that he couldn’t stop thinking of her nearly the entire time he was with Olivia, and had felt like an absolute bastard for doing so.
She bit her lip, trying not to feel devastated at the idea of him with another woman, doing those wonderful things he did to her with Olivia, and failing miserably. “I know I don’t have the right to be upset or jealous, but I hate that you were with her!”
“That’s true—you don’t have the right,” he told her softly, and then when she gasped, the ache from his words an agonizing burn in her, he said, “You don’t have the right—yet. I want to give you that right, if you’ll let me.”
She stared at him, wanting so much to reach out and grab what he was offering. It was everything she’d ever wanted, and more—he was offering her everything he had to give—but she could no longer hide from her fear.
“But how can you be so sure that you love me? No one has really wanted me before, not since my parents died. Not my foster parents, nor even the Church—they all found me lacking in some essential way. I even failed as a nun!” Maria cried.
Realization swept through Gabriel and all he wanted to do was to hold her close to his heart and never let go. He could finally see the root of her fear. It wasn’t him she doubted—it was herself.
She didn’t think she was enough for him.
If she let him, he would spend a lifetime proving to her that she was more than enough—she was everything.
“How can you see yourself as a failure?” he asked her tenderly. “So what if you were a terrible nun? I’m glad for it—if you weren’t a terrible nun, then I would never have met you. You forced me back to life and to let go of the past, you helped me reach out to my children, you brought love and joy back into my life. I’ve never met anyone as loving as you, or as purely loveable. How can I not love you, with all my heart, body and soul?”
Gabriel’s soul was in his eyes, and Maria couldn’t look away as hope, delicate yet powerful, rose inside her.
“Christmas is supposed to be the season of miracles, right?” he said. “Well I consider you to be my God-given miracle, because He saw how much I—and my children—how much we need you. After loving and losing Elle, I know exactly how fragile life can be. I won’t give you up, and I won’t let you give us up. So as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one question left that needs to be answered, and everything depends on it.
Do you love me?” He held his breath, desperate to hear the words from her.
“Yes,” she whispered. “More than anything, more than I can say, I love you.”
She suddenly smiled wistfully. “How could I resist you? I’ve been in love with you since our night together, practically since the moment I first saw you play the piano. That’s the real reason I ran away the next morning—I panicked, because I couldn’t deal with my feelings and knowing you wouldn’t feel the same. How could you?”
“My love, I adore you but you can be incredibly dense,” he said tenderly.
Maria gave a choked laugh, nodding in agreement.
“Because if you’d stayed that morning you’d have realized that I felt the same. I fell for you that night as well, and I was determined that it would be the first night of the rest of our lives together.”
“I’m just so scared that one day you’ll wake up and realize that you made a horrible mistake, and this beautiful dream will turn into a nightmare. I don’t want you to have any regrets about choosing me,” she confessed painfully.
He smiled lovingly at her. “I think it’s safe to say that I’m as close to a sure thing that you’ll ever find, but you know as well as I do that life comes with no guarantees. All I can do is to promise to always fight for us, but you have to trust me, and trust in our love. Do you?”
After an endless moment, Maria nodded and slowly smiled, and it was like dawn breaking across her face. “I do.”
Gabriel shuddered, nearly sagging in relief and glorious, unrestrained joy. He held out his arms. “Then come here.”
With a laugh that was nearly a sob, Maria practically leapt into his arms, throwing her arms around his neck and her legs coming up to cage him. He buried his face in her neck, holding her as tightly as she held him, breathing in the sweet, unique scent of Maria.
She was finally, finally his, and he would never let her go.
An eternity later, he heard her say, “Gabriel?”
He lifted his head to look at her beautiful, clear blue eyes. “Yes, darling?”