Six years ago…
He was smoking again.
It was a nasty habit. Adrianne had told him as much every night since she was thirteen. But Gabriel didn’t listen to, well, anyone.
Gabriel was sitting on the stone bench her grandmother had placed by the pond in the woods just outside Section 8’s main gate. Leaning back, arms crossed over his broad chest, long legs stretched out in front of him, cigarette perched precariously on his lush lower lip, he looked like an image that should accompany “bad boy” in the Urban Dictionary.
She was pretty sure no one else knew he came out here every night—weather permitting. But knowing what Gabriel was up to was Adrianne’s unofficial full-time job. She excelled at it.
So she’d been following him out here every night for years. It was her favorite part of the day.
While he’d never done or said anything the least bit inappropriate to her, Gabriel talked to her—had always talked to her—like she was an adult. An equal. Not the protected, untouchable daughter of Noah Riddick, and stepdaughter of Harper Hall.
When she was with him, she was just Addy. His Moonshine.
They’d become friends over the years. No one knew her the way Gabriel did—what she thought, what she felt, what she wanted. And she imagined few people (if anyone) understood Gabriel better than she did.
And if things went her way tonight, she’d be way more than just his friend.
She’d been fascinated with him since the first time she saw him. It took a year for her to develop a huge, impossible teenage crush on him.
But she was an adult now. As of—she glanced at her watch—two hours ago, Adrianne Riddick was officially eighteen years old.
And as an adult, she knew exactly what she wanted.
She wanted Gabriel.
If he wanted her too, she could always skip Juilliard. Or maybe he’d be willing to go with her? Either way was fine with her. As long as she had him.
He glanced up at her as she approached, and she noticed his hair was especially messy. That meant he’d had a rough day. He always ran his hands through his hair when he’d had a rough day.
“You know those things aren’t healthy, right?” she asked, nervously taking a seat next to him.
He smirked at her. “So someone keeps telling me.”
She flinched as he held eye contact with her while grinding the cigarette out in his open palm. “I hate it when you do that,” she muttered.
“I know,” he said, completely unrepentant. “That’s why I do it.”
Adrianne rolled her eyes. “Very mature.”
His gaze turned speculative. “You seem nervous.”
Gee, how can you tell? Is it the fact that my shoulders are so tense they’re practically attached to my ears? Or is it the full-body blush and occasional eye-twitch?
She cleared her throat. “I have a lot on my mind, I guess.”
He nodded. “I would imagine so. Leaving home is a big deal.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
“I might not be as nervous about it if I wasn’t going alone,” she said quietly.
Gabriel leaned forward and pulled a small leather pouch out of his back pocket. “That reminds me. This is for you. I would’ve given it to you at dinner, but…” He shrugged. “I knew you’d be here at some point tonight.”
Because her birthday dinner, with her entire family, had been a complete circus. He didn’t say that, but she knew him well enough to realize he wouldn’t have wanted to give her a gift amid all that madness.
With shaking fingers, she opened the pouch and pulled out the most beautiful necklace she’d ever seen.
The delicate chain was long—it would hang down between her breasts. And it obviously wasn’t costume jewelry like she usually wore. This was 18ct white gold, if she wasn’t mistaken. And at the end of the chain was a shiny half-moon pendant with a diamond winking at her from the middle.
“Oh, Gabriel,” she whispered on an exhaled breath. “It’s so beautiful. Will you help me put it on?”
The thin chain looked ridiculous in his big, rough hands as he took it from her. She turned around in her seat and pulled her hair over one shoulder, then held her breath as he leaned in and put the necklace on her.
“There,” he said, his warm breath fanning across the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine.
She turned back toward him, and he smiled as his eyes dropped to the pendant. “It’s perfect on you,” he said gruffly. “I knew it would be. And when you’re off making the world a more beautiful place with your music, that’ll remind you of who you are and of everyone who’s at home thinking about you.”
Well, if that wasn’t the perfect opening, she didn’t know what was.
Adrianne laid her hand over the pendant, which was now trembling with the pounding of her heart against her ribcage, and raised her eyes to his. “Will you be thinking about me, Gabriel?”
For a split second, the flames rose in his eyes. “Every day, Moonshine. Every day.”
Now or never, she told herself.
Before she could talk herself out of it, before he could stop her, she lunged forward and kissed him.
He was shocked. She could feel it in the tense set of his muscles. But his lips were every bit as soft and warm beneath hers as she’d imagined they would be.
And she’d imagined them a lot lately.
They were also still. He wasn’t pushing her away, but he wasn’t kissing her back, either.
Then, she shifted closer, practically crawling into his lap, and that’s when he grabbed her upper arms and set her away from him, gently but firmly.
“Moonshine,” he murmured.
“I love you,” she blurted. “I’ve loved you for…forever. And I know you love me, too.”
“Of course, I love you,” he said, his voice rough. “But…”
Adrianne put her palms on his chest. “I know, OK? I know this is awkward because I’m young. But you always told me that time passes differently in your world, and that the gap between us isn’t as huge as I might think, right?”
He shoved a hand through his hair. “I mean, yes, but…”
“And I’m an adult now, so that’s all that matters, right?”
Gabriel cupped her face in his hands so gently she wanted to cry. “No,” he said. “It’s not all that matters. You have your entire life ahead of you. You need to get out of here, away from all the madness, and live.”
“You could come with me,” she whispered.
He brushed a tear she hadn’t even realized she’d shed away with his thumb. “I’d only distract you from what you need to do. You deserve only good things—beautiful things—in your life. That’s not me.”
A sob threatened to claw its way up out of her throat. “You’re all I want. I want you to be…my first. Tonight. Please, Gabriel.”
A shudder rippled through him, and his gaze dropped to her lips for a split second, but she could feel the moment she lost him completely. The flames disappeared from his eyes as he said, “I can’t. If I could, I’d be the luckiest bastard in the world. But I can’t do that to you. It’d be completely selfish of me to keep you here. Your future is out there in the real world, not here with someone like me. You deserve better.”
Which was just a fancy way of saying, “Get lost, kid! You’re not woman enough for me.”
It was all a blur after that. Tears, sobbing, running away. Hiding in her room until it was time to go to the airport. Avoiding any and all contact with Gabriel.
But what she hadn’t seen at the time, what she now saw from his point of view as she read his memories, was him calling for her when she ran from him. His voice was raw, rough, his eyes filled with raging flames.
He’d followed her to the airport. Stayed in the shadows until her plane departed.
His pain had matched her own. He’d lost his best friend that day, just as she had. He’d wanted nothing more than to take what she’d offered him and keep her at his side. But he truly did believe she was better off without him. That he wasn’t good enough for anyone, let alone her—someone he loved with all his heart.
And he’d mourned her absence from his life, just as she’d mourned his for all these years.
He loved her. He always had.
And he was right. He’d never said he didn’t want her.
Well…that changed everything.