I will love again

Part 3 - It's in the past

She couldn't breathe. The bare thought of spending the night in one bed with him, no matter how innocent Gabriel's thoughts to their sleeping situation might have been, made her so anxious, that she could hardly keep up a steady intake of air.

Her employer could see, that she was getting more and more excited, since the moment, the Concierge had brought them to their room and left.

With a sigh he watched her, trying to come up with anything, to distract her, from whatever scared her so much. There was no way, she would be so anxious to share a bed with him, right?

A knock on the door startled them both, but seemed to calm the young woman a little. At least until she had opened the door.

A grey haired woman stood outside and handed them their activity schedule for the weekend.

After cross reading it quickly, Nathalie's face paled.

"Is there something wrong", Gabriel asked her.

Without a word, she held out the piece of paper to him. He studied it thoroughly.

"Well", he then began, "they obviously didn't only put us into the couple's room, they also planned us for all the couple activities, especially the romantic ones."

Nathalie was looking towards her suitcase. Not knowing, that they would be doing all those things together, she had only packed a bikini instead of a bathing suit, as she didn't care much about some therapists or coaches seeing her like this. But imagining to be exposed that much in front of Gabriel almost made her faint.

"I cannot do that. I can't walk around like that", she murmured to herself and sank into one of the two armchairs, that were standing beside a small table. Resting her face in her palms, with her elbows on the table, she shook her head. Then Nathalie rubbed her eyes and sighed. The concerned designer knelt down in front of her and laid his right hand onto her left, caressing the back of her hand with his thumb. He tried to catch her eyes as he began to speak:

"Please, Nathalie, I need to know what's bothering you. I can't stand seeing you torturing yourself like this. So please tell me. If it's about that schedule, if you want to do the things rather without me, I can ask them to do a new one."

The assistant shook her head.

"It's just a stupid thing, that nobody else would probably even worry about. I just didn't pack the appropriate clothing to wear in front of my boss, that's all. I thought of strangers, probably female coaches and only packed, well..."

She had no idea, how to explain that to him. So she went to her suitcase and put it on the bed, to pull a tiny, dark purple bikini out of it.

"This", she finished her sentence.

Gabriel looked at what she was holding and instantly blushed. Though he had designed even more provocative underwear and swim wear, he had to admit, that this particular piece, or rather the two pieces made his imagination go nuts. The slip was made of a piece of cloth, about the size of a sweatband and three thin nylon strings, like shoelaces, and the bra was made of two pieces of fabric in the form of a fish scale and was held together by the same strings.

Yet he could not imagine, that her breasts, though they weren't too big, would be covered completely by those.

"I.............", he swallowed, "........see. Well, if you......don't feel........comfortable, wearing......this...........around me.....erm..... I don't know......it's an hour in the Jacuzzi at first.....you brought a bath robe, right? I can....promise....... you, to.....not look at....you.....until you're...completely....in the water......How's that?", Gabriel suggested then.