Reborn to Ruin Him novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Soup

Rosalind scalds Camille with hot soup, Gabriel smashes her ruby bracelet, and Trenton bandages the burn.

On the eighth day, I carried a bowl of hot vegetable soup into Rosalind's room.

I held it at arm's length with both hands, and I walked slowly. I had learned what she was capable of.

She was propped on the pillows with her phone, and she did not look up.

The moment I leaned in to set it on the tray, she threw herself backward.

Her shoulder caught the bowl.

Boiling soup went over the back of my hand and my wrist, and the bowl hit the floor and broke.

The pain was white. I bit down on a scream and did not make a sound.

"Rosie!"

Gabriel came through the door at a run. He had been in the hall.

He dropped to his knees beside the bed and gathered her up, though she had not a drop on her.

Then he turned and shouted at me.

"What the hell is wrong with you? She was lying there! You can't leave her alone for one day?"

Blisters were already rising on my skin.

I took my phone out of my pocket with my good hand and photographed my arm.

Then the soup on the carpet. Then the dry sleeve of Rosalind's nightgown.

"Are you taking pictures of her?" he said.

"Of my hand," I said. "I want it on record when I show the doctor."

Rosalind pressed her face into his shoulder. Her voice was small and trembling.

"Don't be angry with Camille. I lost my balance."

"Stop defending her," he said through his teeth.

"I'm not." Her eyes slid down to my wrist and stayed there. "It's only that bracelet. The red is so harsh. It's making me feel faint."

The ruby bracelet. Gabriel had given it to me the morning I turned eighteen.

He had traveled to three countries for stones that flawless. He said they would keep me safe.

I had never taken it off, not in the shower, not in the hospital bed forty years later.

"Take it off," Gabriel said.

I did not move.

He crossed the room in two strides and caught my wrist.

His thumb pressed the inside of it, right over my pulse, and for one breath he did not move that thumb.

Then he yanked the bracelet down over my blistered knuckles and brought it down on the corner of the dresser.

The chain snapped.

A broken link tore a line across my wrist, and blood ran over the stones and dripped onto the floor.

He didn't even look at it. He tossed the bracelet toward the rug.

"Next time you touch her," he said, "you leave this house."

"You tell me where to go, Gabe," I said, "and I will go."

His eyes flickered. Then he carried Rosalind to the window seat and sat with her.

I knelt and picked up every ruby, one at a time, and put them in my robe pocket.

I wrapped my wrist in a napkin, and I left.

In the kitchen, somebody was already standing at the sink with the tap running.

"Sit," Trenton said.

He had come by for papers. He still had his coat on and his briefcase in the doorway.

He took my arm without another word and held it under the cold water.

"I heard it from the stairs," he said. "Cami, I'm so sorry."

"It's all right."

"It's not." He dried the burn with a clean cloth and found the first aid box in the drawer without looking. "He's not himself. He's been like this for a week."

I let him dress the blisters. His hands were careful, and his voice was quiet.

"Let me take the bracelet to my jeweler," he said. "He can fix anything. Gabe will be ashamed of himself by tonight, and he'll want it back."

"No."

"Cami."

"No, thank you," I said. "I'll keep it."

He studied me for a moment. Then he smiled and shrugged.

"Whatever you need. I mean that. Come to me first, before anyone."

"I will."

He picked up his briefcase and went out the back, toward the garage.

I sat alone at the kitchen table and spread the rubies on the wood.

The links of the chain lay broken beside them. Eighteen stones, every one of them still whole.

I turned over the clasp.

On the back, in tiny letters I had never noticed, someone had engraved: Cami, always. G.

When I looked up, Gabriel was standing in the dark hall outside the kitchen door.

He had been watching me the whole time, with the scabs from the study door still on his knuckles and his mouth slightly open.

He saw me look at him.

He turned and walked away.

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