15. Gabe
GABE
My perfect morning deflates like a balloon.
What the fuck just happened?
Am I in the middle of a nightmare?
I swear I woke up, took my shower, pulled on a pair of jeans, and came downstairs looking for everyone, and now Katherine has to be married to gain her inheritance? Seriously. What the fuck?
My pulse roars in my ears.
“How long—” God, I don’t want to know the answer to this, do I? But I ask anyway, because we’ve already established that Henry was a son-of-a-bitch and Katherine was groomed in his image. Just how far did the apple fall from the tree? “When did you find out?”
There’s something about her demeanor that makes me think the discovery was recent.
She moves to the refrigerator and pulls out a half-gallon of milk. “The night before the auction.”
Why is she so calm? Why is King so calm?
I place my coffee cup on the counter because my fingers are going numb. No, my whole body is going numb. It’s like someone snipped my spinal cord or something. My nerve endings are just gone. And the only thing left of me is the static in my brain.
The night before the auction.
That explains so much.
“So you were husband hunting.” Of course.
A bitter laugh bubbles up my throat. Of course she was.
The milk carton drops to the counter with a thud. She turns toward me, arms coming up, crossing tightly over her chest. She probably doesn’t mean to shove her tits up like they’re on a silver platter, but then again, maybe it’s all part of the act.
Fuck, I hate the doubt worming its way through my mind, but I can’t stop it. It’s like a virus chewing its way through me. She stares at me, and I stare right back.
“Her mother signed her up for that auction,” King says, his voice calm, like he’s a hostage negotiator.
I shrug off his touch. Of course he’s going to side with her. And I wouldn’t expect any less.
Did someone turn the heat on? Why am I sweating?
“Doesn’t matter,” I say. But it does.
Tell me I’m wrong.
Tell me this is all a mistake. That I have it wrong. That there’s a reasonable explanation. A timeline that doesn’t utterly screw me over.
But she doesn’t say a word.
“Tell him, Wildfire.”
God, I am so fucking stupid. Falling for the enemy’s granddaughter. Believing we had some destined connection. That she was different. That she was trying to escape her childhood, just like I was.
“So that’s all this was?” I brace my hands against the cool stone countertop. “A desperate bid to snag a husband?”
Nothing. Not a peep from her.
I grunt a laugh, backing away. “And we gave you three to choose from.”
I nod as the pieces of our story break apart and realign to form a new puzzle with an entirely new, sinister picture.
Did she even have a panic attack? Was it all an act? What an incredible actress she is.
“Stop,” King says.
“Nah. It’s okay. But I’m taking myself out of the running. You’re down to two, Your Highness.”
I jog up the stairs and switch into a pair of running shorts. I’m lacing up my shoes when King storms in.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
I glare up at him, needing to guard my heart against his handsome face. Still, his frown slays me. “I could ask you the same thing.”
Tugging a t-shirt over my head, I grab my phone, and I’m out the door and jogging down the stairs. Katherine stands to the side of the foyer, an arm crossed over her middle, eyes downcast.
“It’s probably best for you to be gone by the time I get back.”
She looks up at me, and I see the unshed tears in her eyes. For a split second, I soften. My heart begs me to go to her. To wrap her in my arms and get back to the happiness of last night, where everything felt so complete and perfect.
But then she nods.
The last bit of hope inside me shrivels and dies.
Acid burns through me, and I bolt out the front door, slamming it behind me, and then I run. And run. And keep on running.
Only when I’m in a quiet corner of Central Park do I stop and look around. Birds chirp, hopping through the trees. A siren blares in the distance. And all my demons come out of the shadows, an insidious army hell bent on finishing my destruction.
A shout bursts from me, and I throw my arms back, letting it all out. Then I crumble, landing in the dirt, sitting back on my heels.
I feel my security team pressing in. The tech wunderkind has lost it. Finally. They have no idea what to make of me. I have no idea what to make of me either.
Before Katherine, I never paid any attention to the energy around me. What were others thinking? Doing? Feeling? Before her, I only concerned myself with facts, figures, ones and zeros.
Now, their concern is so obvious.
“Are you okay, Mr. Rothburn?” one of them asks.
“I’ll live.”
Because I have no other choice. I existed before I met her, and I can go back to that. Back up to my penthouse in the sky, where no one can touch me. Where I’m chasing every high, making every last dream I ever had come true.
And that’s where Kingston finds me. Ass in the dirt watching squirrels chase each other around a tree. He sits across from me, arms braced on his knees. We stare at each other, but he doesn’t say anything.
I have no idea how long I’ve been out here. Long enough that I’m pretty sure those two squirrels are about to have a throwdown.
He just sits and waits me out, which is so unnerving.
Every part of me aches, from the balls of my feet to my hips to my heart and most definitely my head. I used to get headaches like this before I left the farm. My brain would spin out, thinking of too many things in too many directions, racing faster and faster with ideas and grand plans.
One time, I’d been handing my father tools while he worked on a tractor, and I was babbling away.
Faster and faster, from topic to topic, regurgitating all the things I’d learned at the library that week, absolutely feral for knowledge.
Enthralled with technology and possibilities, and so, so happy to share with someone.
Anyone. Looking back at my eight-year-old self, I can see that I’d been so sure he was listening. Hanging on my every word.
The slap across my cheek had come out of nowhere. Whack!
I fell to my knees, clasping my cheek as tears bloomed, dribbling down onto the dirt.
“Stop that racket, boy.”
I close my eyes and hot tears press against my eyelids. It’s been almost thirty years, and the memory still haunts me. No doubt, I was an annoying child. Nose in a book, head in the clouds, heart as far away from agriculture as could be. But I’d been kind, helpful, even sweet.
And all they’d done was try to crush not just my dreams, but me. Over and over again, until I’d escaped.
But that slap didn’t hurt nearly as bad as I do right now.
Fresh tears slide down my cheeks, and I glance through them at King.
“What are you thinking about?” he asks, still calm.
Why isn’t he yelling at me?
“Doesn’t matter.” I wipe my cheeks.
“You’re crying, Gabriel. I’d say it matters a lot.”
“Why are you here?”
“Because—” There’s a pause, and then he pushes the words out. “I care about you.”
His soft green eyes are wide and imploring, like he shouldn’t have to explain it. What did Katherine say he called them? Heart words?
But the broken little boy inside me doesn’t understand why he’s sitting with me now. In my whole life, the only person who’s ever been at my side with unwavering loyalty is Alex.
I thought about calling him, but he has enough on his plate.
But Kingston is here. This man I let into my heart and into my body. And he’s an arm’s length away, waiting for what, me to get my head together?
“What are your demons telling you, Gabe?”
I glance around, almost sure I’ll see them lurking. The doubt monsters. The vicious voice telling me I’m stupid. The ghost of Henry Chanler with his fake smile.
“She didn’t say a word,” I croak.
Her silence was so damning.
“Would you have believed her if she’d told you you had it all wrong?”
“Of course.”
Golden brows lift over soft green eyes.
“I would have listened,” I say.
“Over all the noise in your head?”
I look away. A bright red bird hops across the ground, disappearing beneath a bush.
Kingston’s right.
“You’ve been looking for a way to prove you’re right.
That you’re so much smarter now. But I think you’ve had it backwards.
” He slips his phone from his pocket and taps the screen a few times.
“Henry was an all-caps bully. Lucinda’s not that much better.
But Katherine? Has she ever bullied you?
Lied to you? Treated you like shit beneath her Louboutins? ”
My brain latches on to his second question. It’s an almost comical a-ha, gotcha moment. “She didn’t tell me about the inheritance stipulation.”
He huffs a laugh. Like literally laughs in my face.
“She didn’t tell me either.”
Fuck. He has a point.
“You act like she held a gun to your head and walked you into a courthouse.”
I sigh, then run my hands down my face. “I thought you’d be happy. Less competition now.”
When I look at him again, he’s holding his phone out to me. “You’d be so fucking lucky to be married to her.”
His barb hits its mark. Shame sizzles across my skin. I take the phone, scared and hopeful of what I’ll find.
It’s a stream of texts between him and Katherine, starting with her saying: remind me I don’t look good in orange.
It’s all there in black and white. Their conversation. I glance at the date. The night before the auction. He asks what Cruella did now. I’m assuming Cruella is her mother. Katherine answered that she was signed up for the auction against her will.
Had she really told her mother not to?
She had no reason to lie about that.
The next message is from King. Wear the green dress.
Then, you’ll look like a million bucks and your ass will be the envy of every woman in Manhattan.
Holy shit.
How prophetic.
It’s like the universe read his text and made it happen. Twice.
“You were right. She looked incredible.”