“I know.” Why did it seem like he was telling her something else? Reassuring her, yes, but himself also. And there was something lingering, waiting, hovering between them . . . like everything had been said and yet nothing.

Or maybe she was just tired and needed sleep. It had been almost two days since she’d slept, and she had gotten drunk in the interim. That wasn’t good for her body, or her state of mind. She was exhausted and hypersensitive.

Which might explain why she said randomly, “Your mistakes shouldn’t supersede your gifts.”

He brought Angel up to his face and nuzzled the fur on the back of her neck with his chin. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that your drinking problem shouldn’t prevent you from drawing and playing the piano. You have extreme talent . . . those are gifts that you can’t deny. They need to be shared.”

She wasn’t sure what she expected him to say, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t protest, didn’t agree, didn’t scoff, just put Angel down on the couch and looked at Sara. His poignant looks destroyed her, because they said everything, yet nothing. They were cries for help, tosses of defiance, pleas for understanding, hints at love, yet a barrier that warned the world off. He broke her heart with those looks, made her yearn for solidarity, togetherness, for the comfort of leaning on another person, for the pleasure of being that shoulder in return. To take care of and be cared for. To love and be loved.

“Come lie down with me,” he said, reaching for her hand. “I need some sleep.”

Apparently that was all Gabriel could offer her.

He had warned her, and she had harbored no illusions that it could be more, really, when she had thought that she could have an affair with him, some hot sex to feel good, to forget. But Gabriel didn’t do casual sex, that was obvious, and maybe she didn’t either. If she never had before, why the hell would now be different, when she was actually emotionally engaged, intrigued, longing for Gabriel in ways she couldn’t have him? Sex would be disastrous, would shatter her resistance, strip away her barriers, show him the truth about what she was feeling.

She suspected neither one of them was ready for that.

But Gabriel could and was offering her companionship, a quiet and safe place to stay, to rest.

She took his hand and walked to his bedroom with him.

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

He disappointed her.

He could sense that. Sara wanted more. She wanted him to touch her, to make love to her.

Gabriel wanted to do that. Both his body and his soul yearned for that connection with her. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he stripped away Sara’s strength, if he made her miserable and desperate and clinging.