A Blind Fall

epilogue

Three years later

"I can't believe he managed to convince you to stay in France! To take you away from us, the Home..."

Gabrielle rolled her eyes upwards and braced herself for Rose's unrelenting attempt to guilting her into taking the next flight to the US as had been her routine the last three years. "Yes, yes. I'm here." She sighed, rubbing her temples to keep her from pacing again.

"Dad is totally disappointed with your once a year, brief visits and totally angry with that husband of yours for always whisking you back there soon as you land." The woman went on barely stopping to catch a breath.

Rose was and always would be the closest person to Gabrielle and they understood each other at an unfathomable level and as the years went by, their relationship despite the distance had strengthened with their similarities piling up. Besides an intense friendship, they were now both married and they would both be mothers soon as Gabby was well into her first trimester and well Rose, she wasn't about to give her precious son any siblings with her attention-needing husband and a whiskey empire to run.

She smiled, catching the last bit of the other woman's rant. "...him. Seriously, I'm beginning to think Oscar's needier than Warren and if he weren't making you so positively happy I would detest him."

She imagined Rose's perfectly plucked brow quirked, her hand propped on her waist in show of her attitude. "Stop exaggerating, will you? We can't always be flying over there because he has a company to run and besides, you do come here when you can. As for uncle Archie, Helena has him preoccupied with hopping countries and enough charities. And you can't blame my husband for wanting to be with me always." She countered, giggling girlishly.

She was standing at the bedroom balcony, her eyes gazing at the horizon where the sun would soon be rising from to light up the earth, brighten it up with its warm rays. It was a slightly chilly morning but another beautifully scenic dawn that always brought a smile to her face, and a thankful, silent prayer on her lips.

The ecstatic rambling of Rose through the phone faded as the phone was gently ripped from between her ear and hand just as a warm, hard body pressed into her from the back. "Good morning," The raspy, sleep-wrangled voice breathed.

"Hmm," She hummed, a lazy grin spreading across her blushing cheeks. "You'll get me in trouble with Rose. I was on the phone with her." The distinct sound of something thrashing on the floor assuaged that her rascal of a husband intentionally dropped her phone on the floor. "You really are a tool." She teased.

The hardness in his Calvin Klein pressed onto her back. "I can show you a real tool." He murmered into her ear before suckling at her lobe. "The smell of you makes me lose my mind, it's flowery and just divine." He continued to whisper, his hand caressing along her thigh through the silk of her short nightdress.

Just when she thought he'd lift it up or rip it from her body and just take her there, she felt the abrupt absence of his heat, the masculine scent of him eliciting a protesting moan from her throat. There was now a distance between them as he turned her to face him, only to find his jaw set, his eyes devoid of emotion. It still made her head spin attempting to unravel how he could just switch off like that.

"W-what?" Gabrielle stuttered, goosebumps rousing all over her skin and she was confident it had nothing to do with the breeze swirling around them. "Oscar?"

When he spoke, it wasn't the seductive, sexy drawl that made her want to drag him to bed. It was an authoritative, controlled demand that made her knees weak and her body shiver with unbearable desire. "What did the doctor say?"