That was a legitimate question he had asked himself a multitude of times since he had contacted Sara and requested she work with him. Especially now that she was standing in his office, beautiful and wrenching in her grief, her determination. “I asked you to be a part of this project, because yes, I want your technical expertise, but I also want to respect your feelings, make sure I handle the presentation in a way you’re comfortable with. And I want the tenacity of someone who is personally invested.”

Now she looked like the one who wanted her gone. She even took a step back toward the door. “I am personally invested. Unfortunately.”

He hadn’t meant to nick at her wounds. He’d been trying to reassure her that he was in fact intending to be considerate of her feelings, of the personal nature and newness of her mother’s death. Yet he had obviously upset her, and Gabriel rubbed his jaw, not sure what to say. Social skills were not his forte and he was starting to feel frustrated. So he just said what he was thinking. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“I don’t know.” She shook her head. “I don’t know. And I agreed to do this, so I shouldn’t be grilling you like this.”

“It’s going to be fine. I think we’ll work well together. I’ll see you tomorrow at one. Here.” That was most likely a huge mistake, but all his materials were in his office, and if he was intimidated by one little broken blonde, then he wasn’t man or fallen angel, but simply pathetic.

She nodded, clutching the schedule and her purse, backing up another step.

“Let me walk you out.” His eighteenth-century manners, buried under a century of solitude, resurfaced, along with his feeling that he had control of the situation. He could deal with this.

“No, no, I’m fine.” Sara moved, revealing the sketch of Anne pinned to the wall behind her. “Bye.”

Then she was gone and he was staring into the pleading eyes of his long dead lover, captured by his own hands, and possibly killed by the very same.

Sara had only walked a half block on Royal Street when she saw a coffee shop and veered straight into it. She needed an iced tea and a minute to sit down, gather herself. She hadn’t expected this would be so difficult, that she would feel so awkward in Gabriel’s presence. He spoke to her with such apparent effort, like he was struggling to carry on a conversation, yet his eyes pierced her, made her feel stripped and vulnerable, weak.