Chapter 37. Room For Two

“Then we don't know,” Gabriel said.

Diana waited for the rest. The suggestion that she would change her mind. The reassurance that money could solve any problem she had not actually named.

He brushed his thumb along her waist.

“You haven't answered my question,” she said.

“Sometimes I've imagined a child. Usually a little girl who would make my mother unbearable.”

Diana felt an unexpected ache.

“And sometimes,” he continued, “I've imagined getting old with someone who knows when I need to be left alone and comes back anyway. The child was never the clearest part.”

“What was?”

He looked around her narrow kitchen, at the shirt she wore and the two cups in the sink.

“This.”

She wanted to believe that so badly she had to look away.

“You don't have to say it because I'm here.”

“I wouldn't want you to give me a child because you're afraid I might leave.”

Diana pressed her