Chapter 5 Chapitre 5

Gabrielle did not expect this. As she made her way among the guests, her gaze put herself briefly on a man at the bottom of the room. He was not a stranger. A cold wave invades him as long as his eyes met those of man. This look, so familiar, froze it on the spot. A thrill of discomfort crossed her.

She immediately knew that he had recognized her, despite the distance. He stood there, pressed against a column, a glass of wine in hand. An image of him that she had always avoided, a memory that she believed buried, brutally re -emerged. His breathing was heavier, and a discomfort settled together, as if an invisible force attracted them to each other despite Gabrielle's desire to flee this face-to-face.

The noises of the reception seemed to dissolve around it, drowned in a fog of deaf echoes. She couldn't focus on anything else. Everything she saw was him.

The man slowly moved to her, without haste. Her gaze did not leave her. He looked calm, master of him, but something in the way he advanced a sense of danger. She billed her lower lip, seeking to master the anxiety that rose in her.

When he finally found himself in front of her, he did not greet her immediately. He looked at her for a moment, almost in silence, as if to feed on the expression of her face.

- Gabrielle, he finally says, her heavy tone of innuendo. You haven't changed.

She felt a thrill of irritation browse her spine. She hadn't changed. No, that was more than that. The man in front of her was a spectrum of her past, a heritage that she had never wanted to assume.

- Julian, she replied in a cold voice, seeking to hide her disorder. What are you doing here?

He sketched a smile, but he didn't reach his eyes. He knew. And she knew he knew. None of the two was fooled. He was always interested in her world, her secrets, everything she had tried to hide.

- I could ask you the same question, Gabrielle, he said with a fun of fun in his voice. But I guess the appearances are important, right?

She clenched her fists discreetly, her face closing more. She knew he was there for a reason. It was never trivial when a family member appeared at an evening like this. But at that moment, while she was screaming not to let her penetrate her world.

- I guess we have nothing to say, she replied, with a mastered coldness.

He fixed it for a long time, an almost cruel radiance in the eyes. Then, without warning, he spoke in a low voice, just to hear.

- You know, I always found that the secrets had a way of revealing itself at the wrong time. They always end up bursting on the surface. No matter how much we try to hide them, Gabrielle. No matter how much you think you can flee.

She felt the warmth of her words, even if she tried not to give in to the effect he had on her. He knew, and he played with this knowledge like a cat with a mouse. But at that moment, Gabrielle did not have the luxury of flank. She had to be strong.

- I advise you to go away, Julian, she says, his tone always as freezing. Otherwise I may regret you.

He stared at her for a moment, her smile widening. He knew she was far from being in control. He delighted with this power, he liked to play this game with her. But he had no catch on her, not yet. Not this time.

- Be careful what you want, Gabrielle, he whispered, before turning away. The chains of the past are sometimes tighter than you think.

She didn't even have time to react that he was already blending into the crowd. Pressure in his chest only growed. Every second in her presence had brought out buried memories that she did not want to face. Julian was more than a simple member of his family; It was the face of an inheritance that she had done everything to ignore.

She hastened to leave the room, making her way among the guests as if the pressure of the atmosphere was too heavy. But each step brought her back to a truth that she could not flee, to a reality that was no longer a simple distant memory. Julian was there, and he hadn't come alone.

She stopped for a moment in the hall, breathing deeply, trying to calm the agitation that made her heart beat stronger than reason. Nathan's gaze, the intensity of his presence, mingled with that of Julian. She had never thought that these two worlds would come across. But now she understood it: something pushed her to face what she had always wanted to flee.

Nathan was right. Her secrets would always catch up with her, no matter how much she tried to hide them. And Julian, with his cold smile and his innuendo, was proof that his worst fears were about to come true.

Gabrielle had barely crossed the door of the reception that Nathan looked for. He had noticed his rushed outing and, above all, the brutal change in his behavior. He knew there was something that was nodding. He had seen her enter, confident, mastering his world. But the coldness that emanated from her now was as freezing as the distance that suddenly settled between them.

Her eyes remained fixed on her, observing the almost mechanical gestures she made to regain control of her own facade. She was standing straight, her jaw tight, and Nathan could read in her as in an open book. But he quickly realized that, this time, he could not decipher his gaze. There was a crack, a barrier that he had never perceived before.

He followed her discreetly through the room, her movements measured, observing her at each step. He had seen Gabrielle in so many different aspects - from the intense complicity to raw vulnerability, but this frozen mask, this coldness that she was revealing, he had never encountered her. It wasn't her. Not the Gabrielle he had known. Something had changed, something that escaped him, and this new distance disrupted him.

He approached the table near the window where she was isolated, pretending to look at any detail, her look stealthily directed towards her. She seemed to be absent, lost in thoughts that he did not understand. Then, their eyes finally met, and what passed between them was something that he had not anticipated: a moment of tension, as a silent awareness.

He walked slowly, one step after another. Her eyes did not leave her, trying to capture this new facet of Gabrielle, but she quickly avoided her gaze, looking down.

- Gabrielle started Nathan in a calm, almost sweet voice, as if he were aware of the slightest change in her. Everything is fine ?

She made a slight movement of the head, her lips stretching with a more tense than authentic smile. His silence said more than anything, but he did not intend to let him stretch longer.

- Yes, everything is fine, she replied in a tone that betrayed the speed of her lie.

But Nathan was not fooled. He had learned to read in the silences, and he was screaming that something was wrong. Not in the tone of her voice, not in the way she had dodged her gaze.

- This is not what your body tells me, he whispered, a touch of challenge in his words.

She stared at him, for a moment, as if she weighed each word. Her eyes were trying to defend herself against a truth that she didn't want to face. She was frozen, taken between the desire to repel this conversation and the need to understand why, after all this time, she felt like this.

- There are things that we are not talking about, Nathan, she ends up saying, with a carefully mastered coldness.

But Nathan, always more attentive to each inflection of his voice, understood. She had just moved him away. He was no longer a friend, a partner. No, at this precise moment, he was a stranger. And this distance, she was not accidental. It struck him in the heart. Their complicity, so obvious before, was already undermined by forces that he could not appoint. He sought to decipher what she was telling him without saying it, his eyes riding on her, trying to grasp the extent of the breach that was digging between them.

Gabrielle, she felt a deaf concern growing up in her. She had learned to protect herself, to lock up her emotions behind an impenetrable wall, but in the presence of Nathan, this wall was cracking. Why should he always be the one who sought to break his protections? Why, with him, the truth seemed more difficult to hide?

She turned away, her hands tight around her glass, and the words were formed by themselves, although her mind has not yet accepted their scope.

- You have ... you have a gift to make me vulnerable, Nathan, she said without really realizing it. It's almost ... dangerous.

The sentence, out of nowhere, resonated in the air as a silent confession. She didn't want it to be true, she even refused to admit it, but she knew deep down that her own emotions were on edge. Nathan's gaze, his constant attentions, had started to erode his confidence in herself, to give birth to doubts about all that she thought solid in her life. The worst part was that the attraction she felt for him was only strengthening this feeling of imminent implosion.

Nathan, meanwhile, did not respond immediately. He remained there, motionless, in silence, his piercing look crossing space between them. He let her breathe, he let her fight with her own contradictions. She had always been strong, but there, he could almost touch the fragility under this shell.

But what he felt, what he perceived in Gabrielle's attitude was not just a defense. No, there was something deeper, something that she had not yet dared to recognize. He could see that she doubted them, what they were together. She was looking for herself, she was getting lost in her own fears, in what their relationship became. He had seen it well, when his eyes had closed in contact with his gaze. A hesitation. An unused question.

So, he took a deep inspiration and approached a little more, decided not to let her escape this time. He knew there was only one way of breaking the silence that entered them, but he had to go there with care.

- You're right, he finally said, his voice becoming sweeter, but full of a truth that he had never said. I am dangerous for you. But it is only because I am more involved that you do not want to admit it.

Gabrielle's gaze hardens, but he barely noticed it. She was too busy looking for an escape in the depth of her own thoughts.

But Nathan knew one thing, despite everything: she could not flee indefinitely. She had not yet faced what she felt. Not yet. And he would wait until she realized that the distance she placed between them was not enough to erase what they were for each other.