25. Chapter 25
Chapter twenty-five
Gabe
I don’t know what it is about this woman that makes me crazy, but she does. And I don’t do crazy. And sharing is fucking crazy. I don’t share. I cross the small loft that she now calls home after living as a billionaire’s wife, and I could use that information any number of ways. I’m about to process at least a few of those ways, when she steps in front of me, her hands flattening on my chest. “You do know that we just met, right?”
“What’s your point, Abbie?”
“You’re almost asking for a commitment, and I barely know you.”
“And your point?”
“I barely know you.”
An excuse I don’t like. “I’ll meet you downstairs.” I try to step around her and she closes her fingers around my shirt.
“Gabe. Please don’t do this.”
“Do what, Abbie?”
I’m back to processing her small loft, and how easily that could make her want her old lifestyle back. Maybe she hated her ex when she signed up for this place, and changed her mind.
“I don’t want him,” she says, her gaze lowering and then lifting. “I can’t fall for you, Gabe. I can’t and telling you I want just you says that’s what I’m doing. I’m not doing that.”
She’s not doing that.
Fuck.
Why do I care?
“I’ll meet you downstairs.” This time, I set her aside and head for the door.
“Damn it, Gabe!” she yells after me. “Stop. Please, stop.”
I stop. I can’t seem to fucking help myself but I don’t turn around. She steps in front of me, close, so damn close I can smell how flowery and sweet her scent is. The scent I want all over my body, quite possibly for the rest of my life, and that thought scares the shit out of me.
“Until I kissed you in the bar,” she says. “I didn’t want to kiss anyone. I was removed. I was afraid I was cold and I’d never warm up. I was afraid I’d never want a man again. So, do I want you? God, yes. Do I want anyone else? No, I don’t but that scares the hell out of me. I can’t dive in head first. I need to toe in and as it is, I’m waist deep. If that’s not good enough for you, then—”
I drag her to me. “I don’t dive in, Abbie. Ever. At all. And yet here I am, nose fucking deep, and if you don’t get there with me pretty damn quick, I’ll leave before I let you drown me.” I kiss her hard and fast and then release her. “Dexter and I are going to walk off some steam. I’ll see you downstairs.” This time, when I release her, she lets me go, and I escape. And it is an escape. I’m crazy about this woman and that hasn’t happened to me for a very long time. I didn’t want it to ever happen again.
Once I’m in the elevator, I scrub my jaw and my cellphone rings. I snake it from my pocket and eye Reid’s number. “Anything?” he asks.
“Walker’s looking into it.”
“That’s it?” he presses.
“I need you to lead this case,” I say. “I’m way too personally involved to not kill someone, instead of fucking them over in that legal, attorney kind of way I enjoy when I’m dealing with assholes.”
“How exactly did that happen?”
I laugh without humor, thinking back to how Carrie took my cold-ass brother to hot and bothered overnight. “I’m pretty sure it was a kiss and a fuck, brother.”
“The kind that gets her out of your system,” he says, understanding in his voice. “But only makes you want her more.” It’s not a question. He gets it. “The kind we both thought couldn’t happen to us. Just make sure you don’t fall any harder until Walker gets you those answers you need.”
Don’t fall any harder. Can I fall any damn harder? “Just go fuck your new wife, or eat chocolate in Paris, or whatever newlyweds do.”
“Gabe?”
It’s Carrie. “I’m here.”
“We worry about you,” she says. “That’s what these newlyweds do.”
“And fuck and eat chocolate,” Reid chimes in in the background before grunting from an apparent jab of some sort.
“I’m good. Perfect.” The elevator dings. “I have to go walk Dexter. You two go away.” I hang up and the elevator door opens.
Exiting to the lobby, my phone buzzes with a message that reads: Who’s Dexter? from Carrie.
I type with: The strange kid that lives with my new girlfriend but isn’t her child and sure my humor is off tonight, and certain to get me another call, I delete that message. I then type: A dog from the shelter. He’s mean like me so like I said, go away.
She replies with: We love you, too, Gabe, and I’ll go away in exchange for a picture of Dexter.
I grimace and exit to the valet area and find Dexter snarling at a tall, lanky man that looks a bit more like a serial killer than the dog does. I don’t think cheering Dexter on for good instincts wins me any dog sitter points though, and I quickly intervene. I take the dog’s leash from Jesse, the kid who drooled all over my woman earlier, and Dexter approves by appearing to smile at me. A crazy, killer dog who smiles. He really is trying to own his name.
I kneel to pet Dexter, about to take him for a walk, when a man on a bike stops by the door and approaches the doorman. “I need to make a delivery in the building.”
My spidey senses that anyone who is not my enemy doesn’t know I possess, go off. Apparently, Dexter’s serial killer senses go off again, too, because he starts a low snarl.
The dude with the delivery gives me a freaked out look and I just quirk my lips in a smile that isn’t a smile, but rather a taunt.
The doorman takes over from there. “For who?” he asks, of the man regarding the delivery, and considering he’s a tall black man who looks like he could rip your throat out, and bench press you afterward, the delivery guy tunes out Dexter and gives him his attention.
“Abigail Tanner.”
“I’ll take it,” I say. “I’m on my way up to visit her.”
The delivery guy shakes his head. “I have to hand it to her.”
She’s being served by her crazy fucking ex. “I’m her attorney. If you have something—”
“I’m here,” Abbie calls out, exiting the hotel with a small bag on her shoulder.
“Abigail Tanner?” the delivery guy asks, swooping in on the moment.
She frowns. “Yes, why?”
He rushes towards her and shoves the envelope at her. “You’ve been served.”
He gives her his back and leaves. Abbie pales and stares at the envelope. I eye Jesse and hand him the leash. “Get Dexter loaded up, will ya, man?”
He nods and quickly complies. I step to Abbie and take the envelope. “This is a layering effect,” I tell her. “What my father does when he wants to wear you down and make you agree to something.”
She swallows hard and nods. “Come on.” I lace my fingers with hers and lead her to the car, helping her inside, and she doesn’t ask me for the envelope. Once she’s sealed inside, my mind chases all the possibilities in this envelope.
I join Abbie in the car and once I’m there, I try to set the envelope aside. “I need to see it, Gabe.”
“Wait until you get through tonight. Let me—”
“No,” she says. “I can’t have that hanging in the air. I need to know what I’m facing.”
My lips thin and I hand her the envelope. She stares at it and then rips it open, reads a moment, and then opens the door, and tries to get out. I catch her arm to try to stop her, and she whirls on me. “Let go, Gabe. The game is over.”
Dread cuts thorough me with the certainty that my father knows I’m involved and he just drew the first blood: mine. But he won’t draw the last. Not if he makes me lose Abbie.