Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
OLIVIA
A ll day, I sat with the knowledge the housekeeper had dropped on me. All my past judgments and doubts weighed heavy on my shoulders, pulling me down.
I didn’t get a line of work done. I only stared down at the pages in front of me, looking at but not really seeing any of the numbers in the neat rows and columns before my eyes.
And even when Gabriel finally came home and picked me up, ready to take me out on our usual night out on the town, I still couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the guilty funk I’d been languishing in.
It wasn’t until we were in the car, driving across town to dinner, that I was able to find the courage to turn to him in the silence of the car.
“Mrs. Tarolli explained what happened to your father,” I said, finally finding the words. “She told me what your uncle did.”
I watched as, one by one, the muscles in his body started to stiffen. His spine and neck and arms all went ramrod straight. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.
“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said a moment later through taut lips.
But I shook my head.
“I’m glad she did,” I said. “Because I don’t think you ever would have, and I needed to know.”
“It wasn’t her business.” His expression radiated anger as his eyes fixed on the road.
“Of course it was,” I replied. “It happened in a house that’s as much hers as yours.”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said tersely.
“I know.” I nodded, hoping he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “And you don’t have to—but I do.”
He turned away from the traffic for just a fraction of a second to look me in the eye. “What could you possibly have to say about that?”
“Just one thing,” I told him. “That I’m sorry.”
Immediately, he shook his head. “I don’t need your pity.”
“This isn’t about pity, Gabriel,” I told him. “This is about me judging you unfairly. After we made our deal, I just assumed everything the news said about you was true. I took the fact that you were threatening to kill my brother as proof that you’d murdered your uncle.”
A bark of humorless laughter echoed through the confines of the car.
“But I did kill my uncle,” he said. “I gave the order that made it happen.”
True.
“But not for personal gain,” I countered. “Not because you wanted to be the head of the family. You did it to give your father the justice he deserved.”
Even as the weight began to ease off my shoulders, I could see Gabriel’s beginning to tense up.
“Don’t tell me what you think I want to hear,” he said.
“I’m not. I’m just telling you what I feel inside,” I told him honestly. “I made a mistake when I judged you so harshly. That’s on me…and I’m sorry for it.”
For a long moment, he didn’t say a word. His eyes didn’t flicker away from the bright red tail lights burning in front of us. He didn’t even blink.
Then, suddenly, as we came to the next intersection, he turned the car hard to the right. I was forced to prop my hands against the dash as the car lunged violently into a dark alley. The headlights illuminated trash cans and cardboard boxes as he slammed the brakes at the end.
Shaking, I struggled to catch my breath as I glanced around the narrow space with wide eyes. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”
Gabriel didn’t answer me. Instead, he turned in his seat to face me head-on.
“Why are you telling me all this?”
I wasn’t sure what to say. I’d never had anyone confront me over an apology before.
“Because I mean it.” It was the truth, after all.
But apparently, it wasn’t the answer that he was after.
Reaching out, he cupped his palm around the back of my neck, holding me fast and making it so I couldn’t turn away from his gaze even if I wanted to.
But I didn’t want to.
In that moment, I realized that I could sit here, staring into his eyes until the end of time, and be perfectly content.
“Telling me you’re sorry won’t change anything.” His voice was so intense, so desperate, that it almost hurt to hear him speak. “It won’t make me forgive your brother his debt.”
“I know,” I said with a nod.
At this point, I understood all that. While I wasn’t happy about it, I’d come to terms with the fact that I was nothing more than a pawn in this ridiculous game between Gabriel and Theo. My moves and my influence were limited.
All I could do was follow Mrs. Tarolli’s example and love them both regardless.
“Then why bother saying it all?” Gabriel’s grip on me tightened as he pulled me in closer.
Still unsure why a simple ‘I’m sorry’ had riled him up so much, I shrugged. “Because I care about you,” I said. “And that’s what people who care about each other do. They admit when they’re wrong and try to make amends.”
“Say that again,” he commanded.
“I was wrong and?—“
“Not that part,” he cut me off. “The first thing you said.”
My eyes flashed side to side momentarily as I tried to figure out what he was asking for. “That I care about you?”
“Is that true?”
“Of course, it’s true,” I said, still not understanding why that was so significant or why he’d had to turn off the road to ask me. “I wouldn’t have said it if I didn’t mean it.”
“But why?” he demanded.
I couldn’t hold back the smile that spread across my face. “Because you’re a good man.”
“No, I’m not.” There was no give in his voice. Not a single ounce of softness.
“Yes, you are—just in your own way,” I said. “You’re the only person who has ever stood up for me. The only one who’s ever listened to what I say. You respect my ideas and opinions. You’ve never pushed me away. You’ve never told me I wasn’t good enough. All you’ve ever done is treat me like an equal.”
He shook his head.
“You’re not my equal,” he said. “You’re a thousand times better than me in every way. And the fact that you can care about a criminal like me proves it.”
A rush of blood flooded my cheeks, causing them to heat up along with the rest of me.
“You’re not a monster, Gabriel. Not to me anyway.”
Apparently, that was the right thing to say because he pulled me in closer and kissed me hard and long.
So long that when I finally pulled back to take a breath, my hair had pulled loose its tie, and my lips were swollen.
“We’re going to miss our dinner reservation,” I told him as he pulled me out of my seat and onto his lap.
“That’s fine,” he said, already hitting the button that reclined the driver’s seat all the way back. “The only thing I’m interested in eating is right here.”
“ Gabriel !”
“What?” he asked, pushing the hem of my dress above my waist.
“We’re in the car.”
“I know.”
“On a public street.”
“It’s an alley,” he corrected me as he wrapped his hands around my thighs, sliding my knees up the leather seat and closer to his waiting mouth. “An empty one.”
“But anyone could walk by and see.”
“Not through these tinted windows, they can’t.”
“But—Oh! Oh! ”
There was no more argument after that.
There was only the magic that always seemed to follow when we were alone together.