Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
After the driver drops me back at the Monarch, I stand outside the entrance for a long moment, staring up at the building as if I’ve never seen it before. Somewhere up there, David is waiting. Wondering where I went and why I ran out on him like the building was on fire.
What the hell am I supposed to tell him?
Hey, sorry I bolted after we had sex for the first time. Turns out my dead boyfriend is alive, and he thinks I tried to murder him. Also, he finger-fucked me in his underground lair and then kicked me out before I could come. How was the rest of your night?
A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat. I swallow it down as the valet shoots me a questioning look. My cue to go inside.
It’s a quarter past three, and the lobby is quiet—just a few die-hard gamblers stumbling toward the elevators and a bored-looking clerk at the front desk. No one pays attention to me as I make my way to the VIP elevator, swipe my keycard, and ride up to the penthouse level.
The suite is dark when I slip inside. David’s bedroom door is closed, a thin line of light visible underneath.
He’s awake, of course. I left him naked and confused after the most intimate thing we’ve ever done together.
Not exactly a recipe for a good night’s slumber.
He’s probably been lying there since I bolted, replaying everything, trying to figure out what he did wrong.
The answer is nothing. He did nothing wrong. I’m the one who’s wrong. I’m the one who’s broken.
I ease to the other side of the suite, then slip into my own bedroom.
As soon as the door snicks shut, I lean against it in the dark, pressing my palms flat against the cool wood and wondering for the twenty-seven millionth time what the hell happened tonight—and hating myself because whatever happened, it ended far too early.
I didn’t get answers. Hell, I didn’t even get an orgasm. But my body is still humming, and even now I can feel his hands on me. His mouth. The way he played me like an instrument, building me up to the edge of release and then—
Nothing.
I squeeze my eyes shut, but that just makes the memories more vivid. His face above mine, cold and triumphant. The contempt in his voice. The way he looked at me like I was nothing. Like I was less than nothing.
Like I was the enemy.
A sob catches in my throat. I press my fist against my mouth to muffle it.
Gabriel is alive.
The thought keeps circling back, no matter how many times I try to push it away. Gabriel is alive. After five years of grief, five years of mourning, five years of wishing on every birthday candle and shooting star that I could have him back—he’s alive.
And he hates me.
I slide down the door until I’m sitting on the floor, my knees pulled up to my chest. The tears come then, hot and silent, streaming down my face in the darkness.
How can he believe it? How can he possibly think I would ever hurt him?
But I know the answer. I heard it in his voice, saw it in his eyes.
Your fucking goons were right there, making it very clear that each and every blow was a present from you and Daddy Dearest.
That’s what they told him. That’s the last thing he heard before he lost consciousness, bleeding out in a shallow grave.
Me. My family. Used as a weapon to destroy him.
And I was the only one who knew about his place in Aspen.
From his perspective, it all makes a horrible kind of sense. The woman he loved, the only one who knew his secret location, the daughter of a man who never approved of their relationship. Of course she was involved. Of course she betrayed him. Why wouldn’t she?
Except I didn’t. And it hurts my heart to know that he could believe that even for a second.
He needs to know the truth. Somehow, someway, I need him to know the truth.
But how?
I grab my phone, my hands shaking so badly I can barely type.
You awake?
It’s after three, so I know it’s a long shot.
Even so, I stare at the screen, waiting for Harper to answer.
“Come on, come on.” She’s my person. She’s been my person since we were twelve years old, bonding over our mutual hatred of the ridiculous etiquette classes our parents made us attend.
She’s seen me through every crisis, every heartbreak, every moment when I thought I couldn’t go on, and I’ve done the same for her.
She’ll know what to do. She always knows what to do.
If she’d ever freaking answer.
Dammit.
Hello? You there? I hesitate, then send it again, but this time I don’t really expect a response. Her phone must be on silent.
But then the three little dots appear, and if I wasn’t already sitting, I’d have dropped to my knees in relief.
Unfortunately, yes. Weird night. What’s up?
Can you come to my suite? Please. I need you.
On my way. 10 min.
I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding. Then I pull myself off the floor, splash some water on my face, and try to make myself look like something other than a complete disaster.
It doesn’t work. The mirror shows me a woman with red-rimmed eyes, mascara smudges, and a look of shell-shocked devastation that no amount of cold water is going to fix.
Whatever. Harper’s seen me worse.
The soft knock comes exactly ten minutes later. I ease open the suite door and usher her in, a finger pressed to my lips as I gesture toward David’s room.
She raises her eyebrows but follows me silently into my bedroom.
The moment the door closes behind us, she takes one look at my face and opens her arms. I fall into them like a drowning woman grabbing a life raft.
“Jesus, Bella.” Her voice is soft against my hair. “What happened?”
I don’t even know where to start. The words tangle in my throat, too big and too impossible to get out.
“Gabriel,” I finally manage. “He’s alive.”
Harper goes completely still. And then her face crumples.
Not the way I expected—not confusion or disbelief. No, Harper’s pale gray eyes fill with tears, and her hand flies to her mouth, and for a moment she looks exactly like I must have looked in the back of that Town Car when Gabriel’s face emerged from the shadows.
“He’s—” Her voice breaks. “Bella, are you sure? How is that possible? The fire. His teeth. His cabin. And the ring—the one you gave him.”
“I know. But it’s true. Somehow, he survived.”
I’d forgotten, somehow, in the chaos of my own grief and shock and confusion, that Harper loved him, too.
Not the way I did—but she’d grown up with him, spent summers at the Grimm estate, been part of that strange little trio with him and Elliott.
She’d lost her friend. One of her oldest, closest friends.
“Oh my god.” She pulls me back into her arms, and this time she’s shaking too. “Oh my god, oh my god. Gabriel.”
“Leo texted me around midnight,” I say when we finally pull apart. “I was here, and I got a text that just said Gabriel’s alive. So I ran downstairs to get a car to go to Leo’s place—”
“And?”
I hesitate, but tell her everything. The drive there. The Beast and the fights that take place deep in its belly.
“He has an apartment there” I tell her. “And he kissed me. Because that’s what you do to people you think might have killed you.”
Her brows rise. “Wait. What?”
I grimace, then nod, blinking to force back fresh tears. “It’s true. He thinks I was involved. He thinks I killed him. They must have—I don’t know—drugged him or something. He said I shot him.”
Her hand flies to her mouth. “But—but he knows better.”
I shake my head. “He’s different,” I say, my voice so low she has to lean in. “He believes it, Harp. He really believes I was right there. That I killed him. But I could never—” The tears are flowing again, and she pulls me back into her arms.
“He wants revenge,” I whisper. “He means it, too. I know his face. He wants to hurt me. Probably to kill me.”
“That’s insane,” Harper says, holding me tight. “Gabriel knows you. He knows you would never do that.”
“I was the only one who knew about the cabin. He gave me the address once because I was going to Colorado for a ski trip. So from his perspective it all adds up. It all makes this horrible, twisted kind of sense.”
“Except it doesn’t because it’s not true.”
“Of course it’s not true!” The words come out louder than I intended. I force myself to lower my voice. “I loved him. I still love him. I would have died for him. But he looked at me tonight like I was a monster. Like everything we had was a lie.”
Harper’s quiet for a moment, then she tilts her head and furrows her brow. “You said he kissed you. But he thinks you tried to kill him?”
“The bastard was punishing me.
She hugs herself. “That’s harsh.”
“Yeah,” I say. “But I’d wanted it to taste like hope. Especially when he…” I trail off, certain my cheeks are going to burst into flame.
It takes her a second, then she whispers, “That prick.”
“I’m so fucked up,” I whisper, after I break down and tell her the full-on NC-17 version of what happened.” My tears are falling freely now, and I’m not bothering to wipe them away. “I wanted it, Harper. Even knowing what he believed about me, I wanted it.”
For a moment, she just looks at me, then she holds out her arms, and I slide into them, losing myself in her hug.
“I should hate him,” I tell her. “I should want nothing to do with him.” My voice cracks. “He’s been alive this whole time, suffering, believing I betrayed him. And even with everything he said, everything he believed about me—I still love him. What does that say about me?”
“It says you’re human,” she murmurs. “It says you loved someone with your whole heart, and you don’t know how to stop just because he’s become someone different.
Probably because now he’s wearing armor to protect himself.
And god knows he was already hard enough.
But underneath, your Gabriel is still there. ”
“Maybe. I don’t know. It feels like he hates me.”
“Maybe he does,” she says gently. “Based on what he believes, he would. But you can’t hate someone that intensely unless you loved them first.”
I want to believe her. God, I want to believe that somewhere underneath all that ice, my Gabriel still exists. That he’s just hidden, not gone.
But I keep seeing his face as he told me to get out. Cold. Triumphant. Cruel.
“There’s something else,” I say, pulling back from the hug.
“More? Oh, you poor thing. How can there be more?”
“David.” I watch her face as the name lands. “Earlier tonight. Before the text came. We...you know.”
Understanding dawns in her eyes. “You and David?”
“It just happened. We were watching a movie, and we’d been drinking wine, and we started talking about how neither of us had been with anyone in a while. And we might as well be friends with benefits, especially since, oh, we’re going to be married.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know. And then I got the text and bolted. So add another man who hates me to my karmic scorecard.
I scrub my hands over my face. “I didn’t even tell David anything. I just saw Leo’s text, and I bolted. He probably thinks I freaked out about the sex. About crossing the line with him.”
“Did you? Freak out, I mean.”
“No. I actually think it’s a good plan. Or I did before Gabriel came back. From the moment I got that text, I didn’t think about David at all.” I look at her miserably. “What kind of person does that make me?”
“A person in shock. And let’s be real. You weren’t starting something with David—it was sex and solace. He’ll understand.”
“Maybe,” I say. But the truth is, I know that David’s feelings for me have always skewed toward romance. And that if I hadn’t been so selfish, I should never have jumped on the FWB idea.
“You can talk to him tomorrow,” Harper says, reading my mind in her Harper kind of way. “Right now, sleep.”
“Will you stay with me?” I sound like a seven-year-old, but I don’t care.
“Of course.” She kicks off her shoes and climbs into bed. “We’ll figure everything out tomorrow. Tonight, you just need to breathe.”
I lie down beside her, letting her put her arm around me the way she used to when we were kids having sleepovers. Back when our biggest problems were mean girls and strict parents and whether the boy we liked would ask us to dance.
What I wouldn’t give to have those be my problems now…
“He scares me,” I whisper into the darkness. “Not physically—I don’t think he’d actually hurt me. But the way he looks at me now... It’s like he’s already decided I’m the enemy and nothing I say will change his mind.”
“Then we’ll find proof. Evidence. Something that shows him the truth.”
“How? If my father was involved, there probably is no proof.”
“We’ll figure it out.” Harper’s voice is firm. “We’re smart. We have resources. And we’re not going to let Gabriel Grimm spend the rest of his life believing a lie.”
“And if we can’t prove it? If he never believes me?”
She’s quiet for a long moment. “Then at least you’ll know you tried. And maybe that will be enough to let you move on. Besides, could you really stay with a man who doesn’t trust you?”
“No,” I whisper, my heart already starting to break. “I love him,” I whisper. “Even now. Even after everything. Is that pathetic?”
“No.” Harper pulls me closer. “It’s love.”
I don’t remember falling asleep, but I must have, because suddenly I’m dreaming.
Gabriel is there, standing in a field of golden light. He looks like he used to—before the scars, before the coldness, before whatever forged him into the man who accused me of murder. His eyes are soft. His hand is reaching toward me.
Izzy, he says. Come back to me.
I reach for him. Our fingertips almost touch—
And then I wake up, gasping, as morning sunlight streams through the windows. And as Harper, already dressed, with a cup of coffee leans against the door frame. “Rise and shine,” she says. “We’ve got a beast to tame.”