Chapter 15
“Mr. Norris wants you in his office, Mr. Sinclair,” Devlin’s secretary told him when he came in the next morning.
“Later.” He wasn’t doing anything that didn’t involve aspirin and dim light.
She rose from her desk and walked toward him, holding out a pile of messages. “He says it’s urgent.”
Ignoring her, Devlin shut the door in her face. The last thing he needed was to see Sid. The night before he’d gone home and, lacking a better course of action, had gotten drunk.
Stumbling, knee-walking drunk. Not that it had done him any good. He could still remember every detail of every moment he’d spent with Gabrielle. And every detail of yesterday’s revelations.
His intercom buzzed. He swore and considered shoving the phone off the desk. The annoying noise continued until he snatched the receiver up and bellowed, “What?” into it.
Wincing, he reminded himself not to shout when he had a hangover.
“Mr. Norris just called again,” the secretary said, and sniffed. “I told him you hadn’t arrived yet.”
Her disapproval was clear from her frigid tone. Devlin swore silently and gave up, knowing he’d be badgered until he took care of it. “I’m going.”
Five minutes later he strode into Sid’s office. “You needed to see me?”
“Have a seat, Sinclair. Coffee?” At Devlin’s nod, he poured him a cup, handed it to him. Devlin immediately wondered what Sid was up to. The man wasn’t generally so solicitous.
“I tried to get you yesterday afternoon, but you’d left for the day.” Sid hesitated, sipped his coffee, fiddled with his watch. “Let me be blunt,” he finally said. “How would you like to be chief attorney of criminal defense litigation when I retire?”
Devlin stared at him. What the hell was going on? “Doesn’t Gabrielle have something to say about that? You offered the same position to her just yesterday as I recall.”
“Yes, ah, I know.” His pasty complexion reddened. “The thing is, she turned it down.”
Turned it down? “Gabrielle turned down the promotion?”
Sid nodded. “Yesterday afternoon, when I met with her again. Not only turned the position down, but she’s resigned from CG it was there for the taking.
Everything he’d thought he wanted, and nothing he now knew he needed.
Because none of it meant a damn thing if Gabrielle wasn’t there to share it with him.
* * *
One more wall down, Gabrielle thought with satisfaction, laying the paint roller in the nearly empty tray.
Not a bad job, especially considering she was no painter.
Absently, she wiped her hands on the back of her cutoffs.
So what if she’d put nearly as much paint in her hair and on her clothes as on the office walls?
It was looking good. Another couple of days and she’d be ready to open.
Her new office wasn’t impressive, but it was functional.
And it was all hers. She’d hung out her shingle that morning: Gabrielle Rousseau, Attorney-at-law.
She was happy, she decided. Maybe not ecstatically happy, but she was at peace.
With her father, with her career, with herself.
If there was a huge, gaping hole in her life, she would soon have enough work to fill it.
In time she would succeed, she knew that.
And she would work with the clients she wanted to work with, clients she chose to work with.
She was in charge of her own destiny now, and she found she liked it very much.
But Lord, she missed Devlin so much at times, she could hardly breathe for the pain.
She was surviving, but she wondered if the ache would ever dull.
What was he doing? Had he already moved into Sid’s office?
Nina hadn’t said so, but after Gabrielle had bitten her head off the first few times Nina had mentioned Devlin, she’d quit talking about him.
Was he happy? Did he miss her? Right. Somehow she couldn’t picture Devlin moping around with a broken heart.
He was a lot more likely to find some gorgeous babe to help him heal it.
And there were plenty of those around when the man in question was Devlin Sinclair.
Gabrielle didn’t blame him for hating her. Not much. But she did blame him for believing that she’d had Franco killed. That had hurt. Had they known each other at all? If they had, how could he believe her capable of ordering a man’s death?
It’s over so quit torturing yourself. She moved the ladder, picked up the paint can, and started refilling the tray.
“Nice digs,” a voice said from the doorway.