16. Chapter Sixteen
~Jennifer~
By the time Eda and Monica arrived at my house the next day, Gabe and I had lunch ready and waiting for them. It felt strangely familiar and comfortable for us to act as hosts together, and the more time I spent with Monica, the more I liked her. She seemed to have inherited the impulsive, extroverted genes in the family while Gabe tended to be more introspective, but they balanced each other out well, a lot like Eda and I did.
The conversation centred mostly around work. Monica had a lot of questions about my job, and I learned about her career while Eda and Gabe filled each other in on their day-to-day lives. Neither of the other women asked Gabe or I anything about our time together or our relationship in general, which felt out of character. They must have decided between themselves not to push us on the subject while we were all together, so I fully expected to be grilled by Eda once Gabe left.
The Carter siblings had to leave by mid-afternoon to get back to San Francisco at a reasonable hour, and Gabe and I shared an awkward moment on the front steps to say goodbye, knowing both our sisters were watching.
“I’m going to start looking for work here,” he reminded me, his fingers brushing lightly along my cheek. “And I’ll speak to my lawyer tomorrow and try to get a better timeline of when everything might be settled. I hate the idea of being away from you for very long. ”
I hated it too, but I could also appreciate that a little distance might be a good thing. In his presence, everything else fell away. Time apart might give us more perspective to examine our feelings and make sure that we weren’t rushing into anything.
“Let me know when you’re home safely.”
Our lips brushed together softly, not at all the kind of earth-shattering, tongue-devouring kisses we’d shared over the past 24 hours, but enough to send a trail of goosebumps down my arms anyway. The feel of him, the smell of him, the sight of him, even while walking away… I loved it all.
“Oh, yeah. You’ve got it bad.” Eda snorted once the car drove out of sight and the two of us walked back into my house. “The way you were looking at him? The only one more lovesick than you is him.”
“I’m not lovesick,” I argued, flopping down onto the sofa with a dreamy sigh that undercut my words. “I’m just happy. Is that a bad thing?”
“It’s not a bad thing at all.” My sister sat next to me, taking my hand in hers. “I’m happy for you. From all the things Monica told me this weekend, he sounds great.”
“You probably know him better than I do now,” I teased.
A wicked grin lit up her face. “I’m not so sure about that. I’m guessing you know him pretty well after this weekend, with that freshly-fucked look you have going on.”
I almost choked on thin air. “What? I do not.”
Her cackle filled the air between us as my cheeks heated.
“ If I had a freshly-fucked look, which I don’t, how would you even remember what it looks like?” I demanded, trying to keep some control over the conversation.
Almost instantly, the laughter stopped and the smile fled her face, replaced by a sympathetic purse of her lips. “It’s been a long time, I know. Monica and I talked about it, and I’m worried I haven’t been very helpful. ”
My head pressed into the back of the couch as I let out a groan. “You talked about my dry spell with Gabe’s sister?”
Eda shrugged. “Neither of us have much of a filter. You don’t want to know all the stuff we talked about.”
No, I probably didn’t.
“You know that I loved Matt,” Eda continued, “but Monica suggested that I put him on too much of a pedestal, making you feel like no one else would ever be good enough.”
“You didn’t do that. But maybe I did? Or maybe I just wasn’t truly ready to move on before now. Gabe and I actually talked about something similar.”
“It’s good that you feel comfortable talking to him about Matt,” Eda ventured, and I had to agree.
“Yeah. There isn’t much that doesn’t feel comfortable with him.”
“And what about Celine?” Eda asked, addressing the elephant in the otherwise cozy room. “What’s going on with your business?”
That part, I actually didn’t share with Gabe, since I didn’t want him to feel bad. When he asked about me not working the day before, I said I arranged to take the time off. The other part, the part I didn’t tell him, was that I’d had far fewer enquiries than usual over the past two days.
The situation didn’t call for full-blown panic yet, but letting it go without issuing some kind of response might not be possible after all. If I didn’t want the rumours and speculation to grow, I’d probably have to address them.
“Gabe said he’s going to talk to his lawyer tomorrow, and I might try to talk to her too to find out exactly what I can say about the situation without affecting the divorce proceedings. Celine is succeeding at causing trouble if nothing else. I still can’t believe they drove down here to avoid her spies. Did Monica tell you about their car chase?”
“Of course! I’m jealous. If you ever get a stalker, you better ask me for help.”
We shared a laugh before Eda brought the conversation back to Celine .
“She’s not really going to get half of his inheritance, is she?”
She grimaced at the thought, and so did I. “I really hope not. He’s going to do everything he can to fight it, and I’ll do everything I can to help.”
We chatted for another hour before Eda left to get ready for her upcoming week and I settled in with my work laptop and phone for the first time in two days. Unfortunately, my inbox had more scathing messages in it than anything else, angry rants from women accusing me of abusing my position and betraying the women I claimed to help.
This had to stop.
My blood simmering in my veins, I drafted a detailed post to explain the situation from my point of view. In the morning, I would try to run through it with Gabe’s lawyer and get her approval before I posted it. It might not convince everyone, but at the moment, everyone only heard Celine’s side. I had to at least give them a choice of whom to believe.
As much as I wanted to believe everything could be as easy and comfortable as the weekend with Gabe had been, I knew that we still had a few hurdles to get over first, and restoring my reputation would be the first one to cross off the list.
~Gabriel~
By the time Monica dropped me off at my house, we’d worked everything out between us. She promised not to share intimate details of my life with complete strangers going forward and I shared how things went with Jen over the weekend. Not the intimate details, obviously, but the more general ones, and my sister couldn’t have been more thrilled .
“I’m going to miss you if you move to Pasadena,” she pouted, but a twinkle in her eye gave her away.
“What are you up to?”
“What?” She tried to fake innocence, but I knew her too well for that.
“You’re up to something. What is it?”
It didn’t take her long to crack. “Eda introduced me to some of her friends in the LA theatre scene this weekend. I might be able to get some work there, and she said I could move in temporarily while I figure out if I want to make the move.”
“That’s moving pretty fast,” I couldn’t help pointing out.
“As opposed to you, Mr I-broke-up-with-my-wife-a-week-ago-and-already-have-a-girlfriend?”
Point taken, but I tried to defend myself anyway. “Jen and I haven’t defined a relationship yet.”
The lift of her eyebrows said more than a hundred words could. “Don’t bullshit me. You like her a lot, and I like her too.”
With that endorsement still ringing in my ears, I let myself into the house Celine and I had shared for the past two years, and nearly dropped my bag in surprise when I found her sitting at the kitchen table.
“What are you doing here?” I managed to gulp out between rushed intakes of breath.
“Last I checked, my name is still on the deed.” She didn’t offer even a smug smile, her expression set and serious. “Sit down, Gabe.”
Figuring it would be better to get whatever she had in mind over with, I took a seat across from her. “What do you want?”
“You know what I want. I have the paperwork all drawn up.” She tapped a stack of papers on the table next to her that I hadn’t even registered yet. “Sign this agreement and I’ll get out of your life for good.”
Looking at the hard lines of her face, such a contrast to Jen’s soft, warm smile, I struggled to remember why I ever found her attractive. “That’s between our lawyers now. I’m not talking to you about this.”
“I had a feeling you’d say that, but this has to be dealt with tonight.”
My eyebrows shot up in disbelief. “I’m not signing anything tonight. Why would I…”
My words died off as she pulled a photo out from beneath the pile of papers and slid it across the table to me.
A photo of me and Jen kissing each other goodbye on the front porch of her house earlier that day, Monica standing by the car and Eda on the porch next to us. My blood ran cold for a second before heating in my veins and I raised my eyes back to her with thinly-veiled fury. “How did you get this?”
She couldn’t have had us followed, not after Monica lost the guy tailing us.
The first sign of a smirk showed on her face, a tug on her lips that only made her look crueller. “The hotel you two shacked up at in Napa had a lot of interesting information.”
The rest remained unsaid but I filled in the blanks easily enough: she got Jen’s address from the hotel’s reservation system. Obviously, she had a way of accessing their security footage to get the photos of us there, so it shouldn’t have surprised me that she’d gotten into their computer system too, but even after all her scheming, I still couldn’t quite comprehend the lengths she seemed willing to go to.
“I bet there are a lot of people who would be interested in knowing where she lives. A lot of men whose lives she ruined. It would be a shame if it somehow got posted online.”
The heat that had been building inside me vanished in an instant, replaced with ice-cold fear. Jen didn’t ruin anyone’s lives; the men ruined their relationships all by themselves by cheating in the first place, but I would bet a lot of them didn’t see it that way. What if someone with a grudge took things too far? “You can’t post her address. Doxxing is illegal. It’s…”
“Very difficult to prove,” she interrupted, sounding almost bored as she threatened to expose Jen to dangers I could barely begin to imagine. “Do you think I haven’t figured out how to post it so that no one could trace it back to me? It’d be your word against mine.”
My eyes bore into her, trying to find some scrap of empathy or decency, and came up empty. “Why are you trying to ruin her? You’re the one who hired her! She did exactly what you asked her to, so why do you have it out for her?”
“What I hired her for?” Celine scoffed. “I hired her to prove you’re a cheater, not to actually cheat with you. She crossed the line.”
That answer made no sense to me. “She told me that you pushed her to meet me in person but she refused.”
“And then she did it anyway. She hooked you for herself.”
“Why do you care?” I exploded, slamming the palms of my hands down on the table so hard that she jumped. “You wanted to get rid of me, and you did.”
“I didn’t want you to fall in love with her!”
The words hung heavy in the air between us, ringing with sincerity. They might have been the first true thing she said all night.
Through parted lips, Celine drew in a deep breath, trying to regain her composure, but I pushed harder while I saw the crack in her armour.
“Why does it matter to you if I love her?”
I used the words even though I hadn’t said them to Jen yet, hadn’t even said them to myself. A declaration of love seemed premature, but I couldn’t deny we were heading towards it. It certainly felt possible in the near future.
I thought Celine might ignore the question or turn it back on me somehow, but she didn’t. The crack in her carefully constructed facade widened a little more as she replied, “Because you never loved me. Not like that.”
“Of course I loved you.” I told Jen the same thing the night before when we were talking about Celine and I meant it both times.
“Not like that,” she repeated. “I know how passionate you can be about the things you love. About travel and food and stupid stuff like that.”
‘Stupid stuff’. The fact that she would refer to my interests that way exemplified everything wrong in our relationship .
“You were never like that about me. You tried to be, I’ll give you that, but it never came naturally. Not like it does with her.”
That was… surprisingly insightful, and not completely incorrect. Things with Celine had never been like they were with Jen. I thought they were good between us, but maybe only because I didn’t know how good they could truly be with the right person.
“I realized it just before you proposed,” she carried on, dropping all her defenses as her shoulders slumped. “I almost broke up with you then because you didn’t seem to realize it the same way I did.”
I remembered the way she had started to pull away then, and how I thought I wouldn’t have even been that upset if it had been the end. “But then you found out I had all this money coming and you decided you could stick it out long enough to get your hands on it?”
Bitterness seeped into my words and Celine’s posture stiffened. “You were using me. It seemed like a fair trade.”
“Those two things are not equal. I tried to love you, Celine. I wanted to.”
“You shouldn’t have had to try .”
No, I shouldn’t have. I could see that now in a way I didn’t at the time. It didn’t excuse what she’d done, what she still wanted to do, but I had to accept it as an explanation.
“Things are different with Jen,” I admitted softly. “She didn’t plan it to be that way and neither did I. Nothing would have ever happened between us if you hadn’t pushed us together. Why did you do it? Why not wait another year and avoid all of this?”
Once again, I didn’t know whether or not to expect an answer, but again, she surprised me by giving me one. “I fell in love. It’s different with him too. I guess now you know how that feels.”
Well, we’d certainly made a mess of things. Her more than me, certainly, but maybe I should have picked up on the signs too. Maybe I should have realized that when I didn’t fall apart at the idea of losing her, I shouldn’t have proposed to her when she pressured me to .
Maybe I should have trusted that the right woman for me was out there somewhere. I just had to find her.
“I’m sure we can reach a reasonable settlement,” I offered as gently as I could, but as soon as the words were out of my mouth, all traces of vulnerability in Celine fell away. The cold, hard lines framed her face once more.
“I need the whole amount. There are debts I need to pay. You’ll sign this agreement or I’ll release Jen’s address. It’s not a negotiation, Gabe. It’s an ultimatum.”
“What debts?” I asked, momentarily distracted by her admission.
She shrugged defensively. “I got a few credit cards to pay for some of the things your salary didn’t cover. I knew I could pay it off when your inheritance came through.”
Well, that explained where she got the money to hire Celine and whatever investigator had been following us. The idea that she’d been accumulating credit card debt while I rode the bus to work and took a packed lunch every day should have made my blood boil, but at that point, I’d become almost numb to her deception. I could have asked how much money we were talking about, but I probably didn’t want to know.
“I can’t sign anything without even reading it,” I tried to reason with her instead. “Give me until tomorrow.”
I didn’t know what good one more day would do, but at least I could try to come up with a plan that didn’t involve destroying Jen’s security or signing away half of a fortune.
Her brown eyes searched mine, eyes I once looked into and pledged myself to, eyes which now felt completely foreign to me, and eventually, she nodded.
“I’ll come to your office tomorrow morning and you can give me your answer then. You want to move on, obviously, and I do too.”
She pushed the papers towards me, pushing the picture of me and Jen onto the floor in the process, and left the house without another word.
What the fuck am I supposed to do now?
~Jennifer~
Worn out from the high of Gabe’s visit and the comedown after he left, I planned on an early night, but a phone call interrupted my bedtime routine. I had already showered and put on my robe while I went through my skincare regime, but seeing Gabe’s name on the screen, I accepted the video chat and flashed him a warm smile.
“Hey. Are you home?”
I hadn’t seen much of the inside of his house yet, but he sat on a sofa, not in the car, so it seemed like a good guess.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
The flatness in his tone and the tightness around his lips instantly alerted me that something had changed. The man who left my house earlier that day had been replaced by a defeated, worried version of him. “What’s wrong?”
With a deep sigh, Gabe ran a hand over his face. “Celine just left.”
“She has some nerve showing her face.” The words slipped out before I even realized I meant to say them and they earned me a small smile, but only for a second.
“She’s got a lot more nerve than that. She has more than nerve. She has your address, Jen. Someone took pictures of us at your house today.”
Immediately, my eyes darted to the open windows overlooking my backyard, and I pulled my robe a little tighter around my body. “That’s concerning. How did she get it?”
“From the Four Winds’ computer system, apparently. I’m so sorry.” He let out another deep breath, looking down at something I couldn’t see before he got to the worst part. “She threatened to post it online if I don’t agree to give her half the money.”
My whole body froze, my mind leaping to the worst-case scenarios that Gabe had no doubt already considered. Men I’d exposed looking for revenge. Men who simply thought they had a right to me because of the pictures I posted online. People who might track me down for the sick pleasure of scaring me and those who might actually hurt me.
“Jen? You okay?”
Gabe’s concerned question cut through my dark thoughts and I forced a smile onto my face that I didn’t feel at all. “Yeah. I mean, I’m not great, but I’m okay. She knows that’s against the law, right?”
“She does, and she doesn’t care,” he confirmed with a grimace. “She said we’d have no way to prove it came from her.”
That sounded plausible, unfortunately. “I don’t suppose you happened to record her saying that?”
“I’m afraid not.” Gabe’s blue eyes held my gaze through the phone screen, trying to read my mind. “I won’t let her do that to you. If I have to sign these papers, I will.”
“No.” My head shook in determination as I pushed my fears down. “That would just be rewarding this psychotic behaviour. She can’t get away with this.”
“If it’s between the money and your safety, then I choose you. It’s no contest.”
His fierce protectiveness warmed my heart, but I didn’t agree with his conclusion. “I’ll move. If she puts my address out there, I’ll find somewhere else to live. At the end of the day, it’s just a house.”
“A house that you love.”
I did love it, but I turned his own words back on him. “If it’s between the house and justice for you, I choose you.”
Before either of us could make any other suggestions, his doorbell rang.
With a frown, Gabe looked over his shoulder. “I’m not sure who that would be. Let me go check.”
Rather than putting the phone down, he took me with him, dropping the screen to his side so I had a view of his jeans while he opened the door with his other hand.
“Allie?” His surprised tone came through loud and clear, but the name didn’t mean anything to me.
“Hi, Gabe. Can I come in?”
“If you’re here on behalf of your sister, then no. I don’t think so.”
“I’m not,” Allie insisted. “I’m here because of her, but not for her.”
Gabe didn’t sound convinced. “I’m actually on a call.” He raised the phone and the world on my screen tilted until I could see a pretty woman standing outside the door. She bore enough of a resemblance to Celine that I put the pieces together pretty quickly, guessing whose sister she must be.
I racked my brain, trying to remember anything Gabe had told me about Celine’s sister. I thought I could recall him mentioning that he believed she covered for Celine during her affair, so she must have known about it. What she would want with him now, I couldn’t imagine, and clearly, he couldn’t either.
“Is that Jen?” Allie’s gaze darted between me on the screen and Gabe off of it. “This concerns her too, so we can talk in front of her.”
With my curiosity thoroughly piqued, I gave my agreement. “That’s fine with me.”
Outnumbered, Gabe gave in. “Alright. Come in.”
The two of them walked back to the living room where Gabe had been sitting before, and he set the phone down in a holder on a piece of furniture in front of the sofa so that I had a view of both of them and he could look at Allie.
“If you know about Jen, you must know the whole story,” Gabe started. “I’m guessing you knew about it all before I did.”
Allie’s lips pursed but she didn’t deny it. Instead, she chose to make a confession. “You know that Brad travels a lot for work. A couple of years ago, I got involved with someone else during one of his trips. Celine helped me realize that I didn’t love the other guy, I was just feeling unappreciated, and she covered for me. I thought her situation might be similar, that she needed some excitement but that she’d eventually come back to you and I felt I owed it to her to repay the favour. So, yes, I knew about Isaac and I didn’t tell you.”
I stayed quiet, watching Gabe for his reaction since I assumed he knew Allie’s husband and this all had more relevance to him than it did for me.
His body remained tight, everything about him on edge. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because when Celine got Jen involved, I realized she didn’t just want a distraction, she wanted a way out, and I made her tell me why.”
“You know about the inheritance?” I asked, wanting to be sure we were all on the same page.
Allie nodded. “I do, and I know the lengths she’s gone to in order to make her case. However, I also know something else, something she’s too blind to see.”
“What’s that?” Gabe asked warily.
“Isaac’s only with her because of the promise of the money. He’s not in love with her.”
Gabe and I exchanged a look through the phone screen, and I had a feeling his thoughts mirrored mine: it would serve Celine right, quite honestly.
“How do you know?” I asked.
“She’s been staying with him since leaving this house. I went over there to see her a couple of days ago and met him for the first time. During my visit, he got a phone call and left the room. I needed to use the restroom, and when I came out, I could hear him talking to someone in another room down the hall. He promised someone he’d have a whole lot of money soon thanks to the ‘dumb bitch’ he’d hooked. I would bet anything he’s pushing her to seal the deal with you as soon as possible.”
“Did you tell Celine?” I wondered .
“Yes, but she didn’t believe me. She’s wrapped up in her own narrative, and when she told me today that she planned to expose you, Jen, I couldn’t take it anymore. This is all getting out of hand. I had to say something to you.”
She addressed the last part to Gabe, whose frown had deepened. “I appreciate your concern, Allie, but I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with that information or how it helps me.”
“Actually, it might help.” see Gabe, an idea had started to form in my head.
“I need as much information as you can get me on Isaac, including all of his social media accounts.”
“What are you thinking?” Gabe asked.
“He had no problem cheating with her, and in my experience, cheaters never change. Maybe it’s time to give him a little loyalty test. ”
Both of them turned to look at me as I gave a grim nod of determination. Remembering my brief interaction with Isaac at the travel agency when I went to see Gabe, an idea had started to form in my head.
“I need as much information as you can get me on Isaac, including all of his social media accounts.”
“What are you thinking?” Gabe asked.
“He had no problem cheating with her, and in my experience, cheaters never change. Maybe it’s time to give him a little loyalty test.”