11. Chapter 11
Chapter eleven
Gabe
S he’s not leaving.
I hold onto her arm, us between the couch and the coffee table, her in my T-shirt, which is the most she’s putting on anytime in the next twelve hours. Longer if I have my way. “You’re not leaving,” I say softly. “Which is a thought I keep having because you keep trying to run from me.”
Her beautiful green eyes flash. “I’m not trying to run. I’m trying to protect you.”
“You came to me because you wanted to protect yourself, your mother, and the animals at that facility. And you just tried to leave because I tried to help, not because you were trying to protect me.”
She blinks. “Okay. That might be true at the moment, but overall, I am trying to protect you.”
“You have a problem with me donating to the shelter.”
“You’re right. I did. I do.”
“Why? It’s to help the animals.”
“I don’t want us to be that, Gabe.”
I narrow my eyes on her. “I can guess what that means, but you tell me in your own words.”
“I don’t want your money. I’m not here for your money.”
“Were you there for your ex’s money? And I don’t mean that as an insult. I mean, at some point, he was fucking around. You might have justified staying for the money because leaving a marriage is hard.”
“And you know this how?”
“My mother,” I say, not sure why I opened that box of demons. “I know because of my mother, but back to you. We're talking about you."
“I didn't stay for his money,” she says, her voice lifting with the intensity. “But of course, his attorney accused me of that.”
“Is that why you walked away from the money completely? They guilted you into it?”
“I didn’t want to be the bitter, cheated-on wife who took his money to pay him back and look where that got me? He’s threatening the shelter.”
“And I can help.”
“I’m not letting you pay thousands of dollars in fines because of me. And that's how much we're talking about. Thousands, Gabe.”
“Okay. It's thousands. I'm not blinking because I assume that those thousands of dollars in fines mean thousands less you have to feed the animals, right?”
“Yes, but—”
“There is no but to this. I want to help. If I’d heard about this and you weren’t involved, I’d have helped.”
“Gabe,” she breathes out.
I mold her to me, kissing her soundly on the lips before I say, “I want to help.”
“I don’t want us to be this,” she repeats.
“We are whatever we decide we are together. Your ex doesn’t get to decide for us. And he wants to intimidate you by hurting the animals. Fuck him. Fuck him to hell where I hope he burns.” I kiss her again. “Let’s eat. I want to hear about the shelter. I want to go to the shelter. When can we go?”
“You want to go to the shelter?”
“Gabbie gave birth," I say. "I’ve never seen newborn pups. Take me to meet Gabbie and her babies.”
Surprise and a hint of warmth light her eyes. “Now? Tonight?”
“No,” I say, sitting us down on the couch again. “I’m not letting you out of here until sunrise with me by your side. Now we eat our pizza and go fuck our brains out in my bed.”
“Sunrise?” she asks. “You want me to stay?”
“Yes, Abbie. I want you to stay and you damn sure better want to stay.”
“I can’t go to my mom’s place in the morning in today’s clothes,” she counters. “She saw me yesterday."
"We can go by your place in the morning." I lean in close, my gaze lowering to her mouth, which I really want on about every part of my body right now, before my gaze collides with hers. “Do you want to stay the night? Yes or no?”
She inhales, her lashes lowering, those full lips I’m presently obsessing over parting as she says, “Yes,” and then meets my stare, “I do want to stay with you, Gabe.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” I lean in and kiss her. “Let’s eat. You’re going to need your energy and so am I.”
She laughs. “Is that right?”
“Yes. It is.” I wink. “Now, I need something to keep my mind off your nipples under my T-shirt. Tell me about the shelter.”
Her cheeks heat and she laughs. “My God. You’ll say anything.”
“And I’ll do about anything, too.” I wiggle a brow at her and open the pizza box. “I’ll let you think about that one while we eat.”
“I don’t want to think about that one too hard,” she teases and grabs a fresh slice of pizza. “The shelter is a special place. We just had Santa days for the holidays. Kids could meet the dogs and cats and take photos. We had a big charity day as well with donations for the animals. It was really successful.”
“Define successful?”
“Enough to feed the animals for a full month.”
“How many animals are there?”
“A hundred at any given time. We’re no-kill, so we usually stay at full capacity. We can’t take in a lot of new animals, so we’ve been working hard to expand our foster volunteers, but that can be a lot to manage.”
“And you help with all of this?”
“I do.”
“Isn't that a big job? Aren’t you an attorney outside of the shelter?”
“I am. Well, I was. I quit my job a few years back. I then started working for the shelter for free, as well as helping with a variety of charity operations my ex wanted me to help with, free of charge, to make him look good. In essence, I put my career on hold.”
“And now?”
“I saved enough money in the past five years so that I’m fine, but I’ve just sent out my resume, and I’m going to re-launch my career. I’m actually excited about it. I worked for Neal and Newman Brothers as staff counsel before I resigned.”
“Were you good?”
“Yes, I was,” she says firmly. “They want me back, but one of the executives is too close to my ex for that to feel like a good career move. Plus, I’d like to focus on a broader caseload, rather than one massive monster of a company with the same kind of repeat problems. I want to work for a firm.”
“Did you send us a resume?”
She sips from her water and then sets her bottle down. “Actually, yes, before I realized I was going to need to hire your brother, I did, but we’ll pretend I didn’t.”
“No, we won’t,” I say. “No one else gets you. You’ll come to work for us.”
“Gabe, don’t.”
“I’m not letting you go someplace else and compete with me. Come win with me and our team. We’re damn good and—”
“You’re doing it again. I don’t want to be your kept woman. I don’t want that to be us.”
“That’s it,” I say, taking the pizza from her hands and setting it on the plate before I stand up and take her with me. “You don’t get to judge us by you and your ex. You don’t. If you do—”
“If I do what?”
“There’s a price.”
She frowns. “What price? And why do I feel like I’m not going to like the answer.”
“You don’t know me well enough yet or you’d know just how much you’re not going to like my answer.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. I just know that you can’t take care of me. I need to take care of me. I don’t want money for a job I don’t earn and—”
I pick her up and she yelps as I throw her over my shoulder and start walking toward my bedroom. “Time for that price you must pay,” I say.
“What does that even mean? Put me down. The T-shirt is falling to my neck.”
I squeeze her naked backside that her T-shirt falling has exposed and she grabs my pants. “Gabe.”
“That’s right, sweetheart. Gabe and no one else.” I walk up the stairs leading to my bedroom where I plan to give her plenty of reasons to forget her ex and to remember me.