32. Chapter 32
Chapter thirty-two
Abbie
W e’re about to leave Gabe’s house when I laugh and turn to Gabe. “Wait. We were supposed to leave Dexter behind.”
He laughs. “So we were.” He scrubs his jaw. “I do believe we have a lot on our minds. I’ll take him back inside.”
Dexter is not pleased with this news, and whines when Gabe tries to get him out of the vehicle, but he gives in and heads inside like a good boy.
Gabe follows him inside the house, and I stare down at the message from my asshole of an ex. He was threatening Gabe and Gabe didn’t blink, in fact, he baited him. He asked for trouble. I know Gabe knows Kenneth is a bad man. I know he knows Jean Claude is a bad man. So why push the limits? Because he knows Jean Claude and certainly he knows his father. No matter what odds he might be at with his father, he’s still his son. They are still parent and child. Gabe isn’t operating blindly or without resources. That’s why I came to his firm. I knew that. I know that now.
I glance back down at the message with no new text to follow. I’d have expected to get one after that call. Another threat for sure. But it didn’t come. Is my ex afraid of Gabe? Could this go away that easily? No. No, it feels too easy. It feels like a problem waiting to erupt, but right now, I need to just help my mother get through this night. The animals need to be settled, but in the back of my mind, a new fear erupts. Gabe opens the car door and eyes me. “I’ll drive.” He casts a look at the driver. “We’re done for the night.”
“Oh. You have a car here?”
“I do,” he says, holding up a BMW key and then offering me his hand.
A few minutes later, we’re settled into a fancy black sporty BMW with Gabe looking quite sexy behind the wheel. “How is Dexter?”
“Happy with his chew bone. I need to stock up on those things.” He starts the engine. “Mike’s Burgers, here we come.”
I rotate to face him. “Gabe—”
His hand is immediately at the back of my neck, his lips on my lips, his tongue licking against mine before he says, “Whatever you’re about to say, we’ll handle it.” He strokes my cheek. “I promise. Let’s just get your mom through tonight.”
“What if relocating the animals somehow sets up a takeover of the property? What if I missed something in the contract?”
He pulls back and looks at me. “How carefully did you read the contract?”
“I made them revise it three times.”
“Then does relocating the animals revert the property to your ex?”
“No. Not unless I missed something. I normally trust myself, but now—this just feels too set-up.”
“It was set-up,” he confirms. “We already know that, but that doesn’t mean there’s a contractual reason.” His hand settles on my leg. “It’s proven that if you aren’t occupying the property, then you’re more likely to give up the fight to keep it. At the risk of sounding like an ass, when this is just business, I’ve used it myself.”
“You have?”
“I have and I told you, my father’s a prick. He’ll do anything to win, which is one of the main reasons we pushed him out of the firm. I promise you, this was his doing.”
“You think your father set-up the flooding of the shelter?”
“Yes,” he says, “I do.”
“He’s that bad?”
“Yes, he is, but I know how to fight my father. You’re not going to let the shelter become a ghost town. The day after tomorrow, we’ll have a clean-up crew there and we’ll make damn sure we get at least some of the animals back in their places within seventy-two hours.”
“Gabe, that’s big money. I have to wait on the insurance and—”
He leans in and kisses me. “It’s almost the end of the year. Grant me the tax write-off. I need it.”
My hand settles on the steady thrum of his heartbeat. “You’re impossible.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“You’re generous to the extreme and I appreciate it—but I don’t want you to feel like I’m taking advantage of you.”
“I volunteered my help and for a good cause.”
“And here we are. Burger time,” Gabe says again, with a smile. “You’re going to love these burgers like a fat kid loves cake.”
I laugh. “That’s a very politically incorrect joke.”
He wiggles his eyebrows and sets us in motion. “That’s me. Politically incorrect.”
“Yes, you are,” I agree, and once we’re on the road, “Bend you over without a finger of Vaseline. Really?”
“Did you want me to be gentler with him?” he asks, his tone serious as he opens the door for me.
“No,” I say, laughing again. “No. I don’t want you to be gentler with him but you crack me up.”
We laugh and joke for the next five minutes until we’re at the burger joint where we are both eager to get inside, walking hand in hand, with hurried steps. Once inside, we claim a table with open seating and a waitress eyes Gabe as she approaches us with a greeting and request for our order. “Two of my usual.” He glances at me. “Cheeseburger and fries. That works, right?”
“Yes. It does. Well done.”
“Well, then my usual works perfectly,” he concludes, his gaze warm with this realization, as if our liking the same burger the same way turns him on while he is what turns me on. The way he looks at me. The way he talks to me. The way he protects me. And the way he makes me laugh. “Let me adjust my pants,” I say, snorting while repeating his earlier statement. “Do you say that kind of thing in all negotiations?”
“Shit does tend to come out of my mouth. It works with Reid, though. He’s a hard-ass that just drives nails in people while I take them off guard with the unexpected. We’re a good team.”
“You’re close, then?”
“More so lately, since Reid met his wife. He’s changed. He’s the first one to tell you she changed him.”
“Softened him?”
“Yes. Big time. A lion that can rip your throat out and then purr like a kitten for that woman now.”
This description softens a bit of the hardness my divorce has created in me. It gives me hope. It makes me feel that real love exists. “You haven’t spoken about your mother.”
There’s a crackle in the air around him before he says, “She passed a few years back.”
“Were you close to her?”
“No. No, I wasn’t, but I should have been.”
“Why weren’t you?”
His jaw clenches and he cuts his stare, seeming to struggle with words, I never get to hear. Our food is set in front of us. We chat with the waitress and by the time she’s gone, my mother is texting me. “She’s about twenty miles out,” I say. “Just enough time to eat.” I stare down at the burger with a huge bun and cheese bubbling everywhere. “It looks amazing.”
“It is,” Gabe assures me, but the light in his eyes is captured by shadows that clearly relate to his mother. He doesn’t want to talk about her. “Try it.”
“If I can keep from wearing it,” I joke, picking it up.
“I’ll lick off anything you get in the wrong places,” he promises, a wicked gleam eating away at those shadows in his eyes.
“You,” I joke. “The things you say.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean.”
In other words, he should have been closer to his mother, but he wasn’t. He sees a flaw in himself there. “And yet you’ve never married. Why is that?”
His mood sombers again instantly. “The same reason I wasn’t close to my mother, Abbie. I’m not a good guy and I’m being unfair to you by pretending that I am.” He slides his plate aside. “I’m not the kind of guy you fall for.”
I slide my plate away. “You’re confusing me. You said—”
“I know what I said. I want you to fall for me anyway.”
“You’re not a good guy, but you want me to fall for you,” I repeat.
“I don’t just want you to fall for me. I’m going to make sure you do.”
“And then break my heart?”
“No. I’m pretty sure you’re my karma. You’re going to break mine.”