we are leaving later this morning I thought it best if I ensure you have something to eat—’
‘Leaving?’ Bella cut in incredulously, the breakfast tray forgotten as she stared up at Gabriel. ‘As in going back to England leaving?’
He gave a haughty inclination of his head. ‘As in going back to England leaving,’ he confirmed evenly.
Bella was completely stunned as she watched Gabriel begin to take his clothes from the wardrobe obviously in preparation for packing them.
Gabriel had decided they were leaving. After only two days of their planned week-long honeymoon!
She gave a confused frown. ‘This is all rather sudden, isn’t it?’
What on earth were her family going to make of them cutting their honeymoon short like this? Especially Toby!
Gabriel saw the doubts flickering across Bella’s face. A face that showed the strain of the last few days and nights in the heavy tiredness of her eyes and the unhappy slant to her mouth.
The same strain that Gabriel was feeling. Although he doubted that Bella’s strain was for the same reason as his own!
He shook his head. ‘You are unhappy here, Isabella.’
‘So are you!’ she shot back.
His mouth tightened. ‘We were not talking about me.’
‘No, we weren’t, were we?’ Bella said. ‘Why is that, Gabriel? Why is it that you can never give me a straightforward answer to a straightforward question?’
Those dark eyes narrowed warningly. ‘Perhaps because the questions you ask have no straightforward answer.’
She sighed in disgust. ‘You’re doing it again!’
Gabriel was well aware of what he was doing. But he could not tell Bella of his fears, of his need to leave here, before he once again put her life at risk if she conceived a second time. ‘If you think that your family will be concerned at our early return from our honeymoon, then I suggest you go straight to your cottage. That way no one even has to know we are back.’
Bella frowned. ‘What’s the difference between us staying here for another five days or hiding out in my cottage?’
Gabriel gave a humourless smile. ‘I said that you could go straight to your cottage, Isabella, not that I would be joining you there.’
Her face blanked of all expression. ‘I see…’
‘Do you?’ Gabriel said grimly.
‘Oh, yes,’ Bella snapped as she placed the breakfast tray on the bedside table before swinging her legs to the floor and sitting up. ‘I can be ready to leave in half an hour or so, if that’s okay with you?’
Gabriel had thought Bella would be pleased at the idea of leaving the island today. That she would be even happier at the idea of being relieved of his company once they were back in England. But instead she merely looked angry.
‘There is no rush,’ he told her. ‘I have radioed ahead and instructed that the plane be fuelled and ready to leave as soon as we arrive.’
‘Now I know where Toby gets his organisational skills from!’ Bella huffed as she stood up. ‘I would like some privacy to get showered and dressed, if you wouldn’t mind, Gabriel?’ She looked at him challengingly.
‘Would it matter if I did?’ he growled.
Her eyes flashed violet fire at him. ‘Not in the least!’
His mouth thinned to a severe line. ‘As I thought. Eat some of the breakfast, Isabella,’ he instructed. ‘You will feel less sick on the helicopter if you have eaten.’
‘No—I’ll just have something to be sick with!’ she contradicted him mutinously.
‘That is true, also,’ Gabriel murmured dryly.
Bella glared. ‘Please don’t attempt to try and sugarcoat it for me!’
She looked so beautiful as she faced him across the room, her face flushed with anger and the darkness of her hair a wild tangle about her shoulders, the long, pale cream nightgown clinging to the lushness of her curvaceous figure.
It was all Gabriel could do to stop himself from taking the few steps that separated them before gathering Bella into his arms and making love to her until she screamed for mercy!
Instead he stepped towards the bedroom door. ‘I will be outside if you should need me.’
‘I won’t,’ she assured him firmly.
No, she probably wouldn’t, Gabriel acknowledged ruefully as he strode outside into the sunshine to take deep, calming breaths of the fragrant air.
Much as he had done the previous evening as he walked along the moonlit shoreline and reminded himself all the reasons he dared not make love to Bella again…
‘I thought you said you had to leave?’ Bella reminded Gabriel many hours later as, having driven her to her cottage, he now lingered in the sitting-room.
The helicopter flight to the mainland had been less traumatic than the one going to the island, Bella having been prepared for the uneven flight this time.
The long flight on the Danti jet back to England had been free of incident, too—probably because neither of them had suggested going anywhere near the temptation of the bedroom at the back of the plane!
Once they’d landed in England Bella had protested the need for Gabriel to drive her back to the cottage. She could find her own way, she’d said. But it had been a battle she had lost. As she lost all of her battles against Gabriel…
But having been delivered here safely, Bella now expected him to leave. In fact, she was counting on it. Mainly because if Gabriel didn’t soon go and leave her to her privacy, Bella knew she was going to give in to the hot tears that had been threatening to fall all day!
‘Are you not going to at least offer me a cup of coffee?’ Gabriel asked.
Her eyes widened. ‘It’s late, Gabriel, and I thought you had somewhere else to go.’
He frowned. ‘I did not say that.’
‘You implied it.’
Gabriel was well aware of what he had implied. As he was aware, now the time had come to part from Bella, that he was reluctant to do so.
‘I am not sure it is the right thing to do, to just leave you here on your own.’
She laughed humourlessly. ‘I’ve lived on my own for two years, Gabriel—’
‘You have lived here with Toby,’ he cut in firmly. ‘That is not the same thing.’
No, it wasn’t, Bella accepted ruefully, already aware of how quiet, how empty, the cottage seemed without her small son’s presence.
‘I’m
