Chapter 33 Gabriel
Gabriel
“Where is she? ” I snarl.
Sydney’s night shift bodyguard, Troy Reuben, adjusts his stance in front of the hotel elevator. “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you unless she says so.”
She left me. I returned home barely an hour after I’d left the house to find a note on my pillow telling me she was sorry for chasing me off, that I can keep the house, and it was time for me to focus on taking care of myself because “I’m not dragging you down with me.”
“I have to talk to her. She wants me to find her.” The tracker in her necklace led me directly here. She’d have left it at home if she didn’t want me here.
“It’s the middle of the night. She’s got coverage. Go home. Maybe she’ll call you when she wakes up in the morning.”
“She isn’t asleep.” I won’t punch Sydney’s personal protection officer in the face. It would compromise her safety. But I want to. “I’ll tear this building apart until I find her.”
“Maybe you will. But you’re not getting in to see her until she’s ready to talk to you.”
“You son of a bitch—”
“This was the deal. I’m hers, not yours. You put me on this job because you know my word is solid.”
Done wasting my time on a dead end, I bark at Kurt, “Find her.”
The tracker in her necklace has her location pinpointed. Now we have to figure out which one of twenty possible floors she’s on.
With four of us, it takes less than ten minutes. It’s still too long.
I stride down the corridor and assess the threat separating me from my wife.
Lieutenant Annabel Farris, one of the first female Army Rangers, now retired from active duty at forty-two years old, five foot ten, brunette, and particularly skilled in close-range combat, stands directly in front of Sydney’s door.
To protect my wife, Annabel would shoot anyone she deemed necessary, including me.
Brute force is a no-go. Even if I could get past her without taking life-threatening damage, Sydney would never forgive me for hurting one of her “minions.” I could drag hotel management into this, but discretion is important under the circumstances.
That leaves charm, something I’m told I have in abundance.
I produce a smoldering smile and lean one shoulder against the wall next to her with my hands in my pockets and one leg crossed at the ankle over the other. Casual. Just here for a chat, Lieutenant. “Hey, Annabel. How’s the night shift treating you?”
“Don’t even think about it.”
I drop the act and stand up straight. “Her phone is dead. Otherwise, she’d tell you to let me in that door.”
“Let her sleep, Gabriel.”
“You assholes keep saying that. I know my wife. She isn’t asleep. At the very least, check on her, yourself.”
She shifts uneasily. “I’ll text her. If she—”
Fuck discretion. “Open this goddamn door,” I bellow.
The door swings open behind her to reveal a disheveled and fully dressed Sydney, her eyes swollen and rimmed in red. “Gabriel Allen McRae, don’t you dare yell at Annabel for doing her job.”
Relief floods through me at the sight of her.
Then I remember my middle name was her father’s first name.
There’s probably a reason she remembered that detail tonight of all nights.
“I’m making sure you’re okay, because this note“—I rip the paper out of my pocket and brandish it—“scared the shit out of me. You think I’m better off without you? No, Sydney. I’d never recover from losing you. ”
Her lips roll in on each other. “I didn’t think you’d get that note for a couple of days.”
A couple of days? “Let me in, Sydney.”
She darts a glance at Annabel before turning to face me, her brows coming together and her gaze raking over me. When she yanks me into the room with her, I catch a brief glimpse of Annabel’s cool professional mask slip into surprise, then Sydney pushes the heavy door closed behind us.
“Talk to me,” I say.
She swallows hard. “Where did you go?”
“To a restaurant near our house.”
She moves closer than anyone would consider conversational distance. “What did you eat?”
“Nothing. I left before the nachos arrived.”
She’s inches from my face now, obviously trying to smell alcohol on my breath. “Who were you with?”
“My brother.” I hook my arm around her waist, spinning us and backing her against the wall. I speak against the shell of her ear. “Ask the real question, Walsh.”
“What were you drinking?”
I hate her distrust. Resent it. But even Henry asked, because I left the house at midnight like a man on the edge.
I move, my lips millimeters from hers, waiting for the hitch of her breath, for her eyes to close, and the subtle tilt of her chin that means acceptance. When it comes, my mouth meets hers. I hold her steady, cradle her head in both palms, and I invade, thrusting inside the moment she opens for me.
Her tongue moves against mine, her body instantly relaxing the moment she tastes me, her hands sliding up to hold my shoulders.
I lift away and glare into her eyes. “I don’t drink alcohol. I don’t do drugs. I don’t have sex with anyone but you. Ever.”
Her breath shudders.
“You could have called me. You could have joined me. I know you checked the app,” I say.
“I didn’t look at it. I’m not chasing after you.”
“You can’t chase me when I’m right here going fucking nowhere. Talk to me. Call me. Track me down. I don’t care. You’re never finding me doing anything that would hurt you. We had a fight. I left to give us both time to cool off, and you jumped straight to packing a bag.”
“Because I’m bad for you. I thought . . .”
“I know what you thought.”
She covers her eyes and rubs. “The last thing my father said to me was ‘Shoulda let you drive.’ I was eight years old. You said you’d have had Bronwyn find her own ride, and all I could hear was his voice as he died, telling me that if he could have done things differently, he wouldn’t have stayed home.
He wouldn’t have refused to drink. He was sorry he hadn’t put his responsibility onto me so he could keep doing what he wanted to.
He was dying, and never saw that he was the problem.
But that was him. It wasn’t you. You didn’t keep living like that. ”
Every bit of my resentment drained away the moment she started speaking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was his job to take care of you, not the other way around. You don’t need to save me, Sydney. I can save myself.”
She shakes her head. “I woke you up and drove you out of our house. I can see that I’m hurting you. Don’t lie and say I’m not. If I make you start drinking again, I’ll never forgive myself.”
“If you think anything you say or do could make my choices your responsibility, you’re wrong.”
“I can’t fix another person,” she says. “I know that.”
I brush the tears from her face. “If you’ve accepted that you didn’t cause it, can’t control it, and can’t cure it, then the answer is staring you in the face.”
She frowns and shakes her head.
I take a deep breath. “Accountability is everything for an alcoholic. You can’t cure me, but you also can’t make me act outside my own will.
A man beats his wife, then claims she made him do it because she pushed his buttons.
He says that’s not his fault, right? If she would just stop pissing him off, then he wouldn’t lose his temper. Is that the truth?”
Her full lips tighten. “Of course not.”
“A woman wears revealing clothing. Is it true a man can’t control his sexual urges? Is he entitled to sex because she made him want it?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I agree. But what about ‘Life is too stressful. I need to drink because my boss sucks. Because my wife is a nag. Because I’m under too much pressure? Because I just broke up with my girlfriend.’ When you hear that, do you have the same reaction? Or does it make sense to you?”
“It’s not the same.”
“It is exactly the same. I’ll bet your father taught you that his drinking was everyone’s fault but his own.
The first thing any addict likes to do is make his problem someone, or something, else’s fault.
I drank to go numb. I told myself I needed it because life hurt too much without it.
But I will face any pain and feel every cut a thousand times before I go back to being that man.
You could break my heart, Sydney. You could tear me to pieces with grief.
But not even you are powerful enough to make me drink. ”
“It’s more complicated than that.”
“No it isn’t. The only person responsible for my decisions is me, and I have too many reasons to stay clean and sober.
You’re one of them, but not all of them.
My family matters. My employees matter. I matter.
I called my brother because I wanted someone to talk to.
If he couldn’t make it, I’d have called my counselor, then I’d have found a book to read until I was too tired to keep my eyes open.
Do I crave it? Not often, but sometimes.
And when I do, I have anchors. Unless someone holds me down and dumps that shit down my throat, everything else is my choice and my responsibility, and I choose to never go back to that life.
You can’t fix me, but you can’t break me either. ”
“Not everyone would agree with you,” she says.
“I don’t need everyone to agree with me. I only need you to believe in me.”
The muscles in her face work with emotion. “Okay.”
I press my fingers to her temple. “You let it in here.” I place my palm over her heart. “Now, let it in here.”
Her face crumples, and she nods soundlessly.
I lift the seashell charm where it dangles next to her wedding rings.
She hasn’t worn the rings on her finger yet because they’re still way too large for her, but she’s kept them on the chain around her neck from the moment she found them.
It means something that she didn’t take them off. “You wanted me to find you.”
“If you came home, I needed you to know I was safe and hadn’t done anything stupid. I didn’t want to scare you.”