Page 21 of Enchanting Eris
Chapter Eighteen
Eris
By day three of almost sleeping in until the afternoon, Eris knew she would struggle once she returned home and tried to get back on schedule. It would take a week to re-regulate when she returned to Virginia, and it would just make her think about Gabriel when their time together was over.
That just brought on a wave of sadness, and she tried to ignore the thought as she rose from bed.
This morning he was on a phone call, and she was eating cereal as she watched the hands on the clock tick closer to noon. He’d been on the phone for over twenty minutes, bickering with someone, and his apologetic eyes glanced her way before he went into the bedroom to continue to talk without closing the door. She could hear an irate man’s voice on the other side of the phone, but it was all she had to go on. He wasn’t shutting her out per se, but she had no idea what might make him so grumpy either. It probably had to do with work, and it occurred to her she wasn’t entirely sure what Gabriel did for work. Not really.
As she ate, the phone call stirred up old memories. It made her think about why things never worked out between them the last time.
“This isn’t the time, Ms. Adrienne,” he said, causing her heart to clench in her chest. They were sitting on the porch of the main lodge, joking about what they planned on doing next week when they both returned to their lives. Eris had already pried and learned his job gave him more flexibility than hers did, but he’d never mentioned a woman in his life before. He didn’t even give his job a real title.
It left a dirty feeling across her skin, and she shifted away as he finished the call. Ms. Adrienne sounded a little formal for anything like a relationship, but seeing as they were at Rawhide Ranch, it wasn’t completely reaching to think this might be more than a professional conversation.
Well, professional and a bit uncomfortable. Maybe she was being a little insecure and yearning too hard, but until they officially popped the bubble and went back to their everyday lives, why couldn’t she pretend this was real and forever?
“Your accounts are in jeopardy because you’re making irrational decisions,” Gabriel barked, and this tone was nothing like his commanding voice in the bedroom. She hardly recognized the man beside her, his brows pinched in frustration and his fist tapping on the arm of the rocking chair. Is this who Gabriel was when he worked? “You’re losing money because you tried to get back at your husband. The two of you will ruin your investments and your savings if you keep it up. Call your advisor and do not call me about this again.”
He hung up the phone, and her big, rounded eyes stared at him until he looked up. Sighing, he dragged a hand down his face before speaking. “That was a client.”
“What kind of client?” she asked carefully, glad to hear at least it had nothing to do with romantic endeavors.
“I work with money,” he replied, sliding the phone into his pocket.
This wasn’t news to Eris; she knew his job had to do with money and numbers, but that was as deep as they had gone into that conversation so far. He was a numbers guy who lived somewhere on the East Coast, and she was an outdoors girly from Virginia. He knew she was in college, but she hadn’t divulged anything about her degree as of yet. It was on the tip of her tongue to do so before this phone call.
“I’m not a financial advisor, which is exactly what Adrienne needs,” Gabriel went on. “She’s going through a divorce with her husband. Before the split, I helped with managing their financials on my end, allocating for investments and boring shit like that. Now that they are separating and there’s questions about who’s money is whose, it’s out of my hands.”
Eris blinked, folding her legs beneath her on the rocking chair. Seeing into Gabriel’s life was kind of nice, but he was so very serious about work. Her job didn’t have any high stakes, but she wasn’t quite sure how to feel about one phone call upsetting his mood this much. Investments and money management sounded like serious work, but it also didn’t really give her a title to work with. “Does work interrupt your daily life like that a lot?”
“I don’t have that many clients. When you work with big accounts, it isn’t necessary, and sometimes it causes conflicts. Most of them are people I’ve known for many years, and they trust me to manage their investments.” He blew out a breath, pressing a finger between hiseyebrows. “Adrienne isn’t even really my client. I always worked with her husband, Erik.”
Looking away, Eris tried to decide why it bothered her so much. Adrienne definitely didn’t sound like someone he was ever involved with, and Eris didn’t want to deal with other woman drama. She hadn’t considered that could be an issue when she decided to visit the Ranch to begin with. “You’re so different when you work.”
“They’re losing half a million, which is a big deal for them and for me. My pay cut is ensured by how well their investments do, and frivolously buying things to get back at each other will cut into those investments quickly. I have something to lose if they burn through all their cash too, like with any of my clients.”
“It’s eight in the morning,” Eris said, lifting her eyes to his again. “Eight in the morning on a Saturday. My flight leaves later today, and you’re getting blown up by clients at odd hours. Is that just another thing that’s part of your life?”
He frowned, brow pinching together. “It’s never really bothered me. My phone is open?—”
“It doesn’t bother you because you don’t care when your life is interrupted, or because you’ve never wondered why calls like that might bother someone else?”
Eris stood from the chair, and he followed suit. She scowled, picking her sandals up off the chair where she left them and abandoning her coffee. “I separate work and my personal life, Gabriel. That’s important to me. Connecting to someone who isn’t a workaholic is important to me too. I guess since you haven’t been on your phone much this week, I never realized how much your job intervened in your day-to-day routine.”
“It doesn’t always happen,” he said seriously, holding out a hand. “You don’t have things that come up in your work life that get in the way?”
“I’m in my final year of college,” she snipped, looking him up and down. Over the past week, even though something was missing, she felt truly connected to him. Now, there was a distance between them, growing like a chasm. “I don’t have a job that I’ve sold my soul to. I’m studying agriculture. Nothing will be life or death if I don’t answer my phone while I’m still in bed.”
Gabriel blushed, looking away. She wasn’t sure if he did it out of habit, or if he even bothered to look at the caller-ID before answering. Since they’d still been tangled up in each other when he’d first answered the call, she’d been kind of surprised he’d picked up at all. Then they’d made their way downstairs, and his phone rang again, and their final morning together was cut into a second time.
“I’m not used to having someone around all the time,” he said carefully, his dark brown eyes boring into hers. “Work has always been my focus. But now…”
She was grasping at straws, but his voice trailed off, and she couldn’t help taking the bait, desperately hoping he had something more to say. “Now?”
Gabriel deflated, his shoulders drooping. Even if he wasn’t used to opening up like this, he couldn’t at least try? “Now, I… I don’t know. This is different from anything I’ve had with a person before.”
Eris sighed, letting her hopes fall away again. It was too soon to declare love, but didn’t he feel the connection? She feared maybe it was all in her head because Gabriel gave her things and made her body cry out for more in ways no one else had before. It could be a purely physicalattraction, but she swore it could be more if he would open up.
