20. Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Gabe
T he minute Abbie and I walk inside the doors of the shelter, there are cages, people, and animals everywhere. There is also water on the floor, even here in the lobby. Not a lot, but enough to tell me this problem is a massive one. I’m just trying to get a grip on how bad things are when Abbie intervenes. “This way,” she says, snagging my hand and tugging me forward. She does so with the ease of someone who knows we’re together. And I fucking love it, which is another one of those astounding moments with this woman for me. I want her to act like we’re a couple. I want her to want to be with me, when normally, I just want a woman who knows we’re fucking. Nothing more. Nothing less. But this time, it’s more. I could lecture myself as to why that’s a bad idea, but why? It’s happened. It’s not going to un-happen. She happened.
“Mom!” Abbie shouts as we enter the office, racing toward one of several exam rooms as her mother comes running out of one of them, looking frazzled.
“What is it? What happened now?” her mother exclaims.
“A good thing,” Abbie exclaims, her hands adorably animated as she adds, “Gabe knows Grayson Bennett, you know, the billionaire who owns half the city? He landed us a ranch in the Hamptons and transportation to get the animals there.”
Her mother blanches. “What? Are you sure?” Her attention goes to me. “Really?”
“The trucks are on the way now,” I offer. “Grayson and his fiancée are even coming here to help.”
Her mother stares at me like I’ve just spoken another language and then wraps her arms around me, giving me a big hug. “Thank you. Thank you so much.” She pulls back. “Really, I do appreciate this, but I do need to say something to you.”
My brow furrows. “O—kay.”
“The help you give us won’t get you out of trouble if you hurt my daughter. She doesn’t need another man who plays the nice guy right up until the moment when he lures her to a place of no return.”
She’s just told me more about Abbie’s history than Abbie herself has told me, in just those two sentences. “Mother!” Abbie admonishes. “Stop it.”
“I mean it,” her mother says, focused on me, ignoring her daughter. “I watched her go through five years of misery with her asshole ex. I’m not watching it again.”
“I’m not going to hurt her,” I promise. “She might just be the one who hurts me. She keeps trying to get rid of me.”
Her mother smiles. “Then I guess you need to work harder.”
My lips curve. “I guess I do.”
“Oh Jesus, mother,” Abbie groans. “And you too, Gabe. I’m here. Stop talking like I’m not.”
I grab her and pull her to me, kissing her soundly on the lips. “I’m quite aware of your present location.”
Her mother laughs while Abbie gives me an incredulous look.
“Wait,” her mother says, pulling us back into the present problems. “What about the staff we need to care for the animals? Can they stay at the ranch?”
“Grayson and I didn’t talk about this, but he’s a smart man. He knows they need care. I’ll donate the room and board for whatever staff you need to be there and I’m more than willing to go help myself.”
“Gabe—” Abbie begins and I shut her down. “It’s a tax write-off, Abbie, of which I need my share of this year, considering it’s almost over.”
“Abbie, huh?” her mother comments. “I haven’t heard anyone call her that in decades.”
“So I hear,” I reply, as a yipping sound comes from one of the rooms followed by more yipping.
“Puppies!” Abbie exclaims. “Are the puppies here?!”
“They are,” her mother says. “Back room.”
Abbie grabs my hand again. “Come. We have babies to attend to.”
Babies.
Fuck.
Why did her saying that just make me get hard? I don’t want babies. I have never wanted babies. I will never want babies and for reasons I intend to tell no one.
Abbie leads me to a back room and before I know it, we are both on the floor next to a bed with a mama pup and her babies. I watch Abbie fuss over the sweet little things and I swear everything this woman does undoes me. “Do you have a dog of your own?” I ask.
“No,” she replies, and there’s a tightness to her voice and expression that says more than the words, but she offers nothing more. She simply refocuses on the pup in her hand.
“Why not?” I press and she sets the little ball of cuteness down.
“Kenneth doesn’t like dogs.”
My brow furrows and I don’t like where my mind goes. “Wait. Are you telling me that you married a guy who doesn’t like dogs, despite your inherent love of animals? Why would you do that?”
Her gaze sharpens and she stands up. I’m there with her in a heartbeat.
“Why do you think I married him, Gabe?”
“Easy, sweetheart. I’m just asking a question.”
“No. There was an accusation again in your voice, in your eyes. Your eyes tell a story even if you think they don’t.”
My eyes tell a story. Fuck. Is my past that damn present? Of course, it is. KM. Kendall. Fucking Kendall is now between us because of her damn ex.
“You’re right,” I say. “There’s a story behind all of us and behind how we react to things. If mine is showing—”
“It is,” she bites out. “Big-time showing, Gabe.”
I shackle her waist and pull her to me. “And no one else even knows I have a story. You are only seeing it because you rock my world like no one else.”
She’s stiff in my arms, her hand barely resting on my chest. “I don’t think I like how it feels to rock your world.”
I lean in and brush my lips over hers. “I do,” I murmur. “Too much. That’s the problem.”
The tension in her hands eases, her body slowly softening against mine. “Stop judging me by your past because if I judged you by mine, we wouldn’t be together right now.”
“Duly noted and understood,” I say, easing back to look at her. “I’m sorry.”
“Who wanted your money, Gabe?”
I cut my stare and try like hell to block out the demons clawing a path through my damn heart. Her hand touches my jaw. “It’s okay. Tell me when you’re ready, if you’re ever ready.”
I catch her hand and look at her. “The past is the past. You’re the present. You’re what matters.”
Her gaze searches mine, probing, intense, and I have this sense she’s trying to climb inside me and see all those demons clawing away at me, but finally, she says, “He pretended to like dogs.”
He lied.
She’s been lied to.
I’ve been lied to.
“Whatever you get from me,” I vow, “good or bad, will be honest. That’s a promise.”
She swallows hard. “Says everyone who lies.”
“I’d be insulted by that if I didn’t understand it so well. I hate that you do.”
“I wasn’t trying to insult you.”
“You didn’t,” I assure her. “I’ll earn your trust. I’m up for the hard work.”
Now she cuts her gaze, her lashes lowering as she does, blocking out whatever emotion I’ve stirred that she doesn’t want to feel. I slide a finger under her chin and pull her gaze back to mine. “What are you thinking?”
“I don’t know if I can ever trust anyone again. I don’t know if I even want to try.”
“Another something we have in common,” I say. “Another something I wish you didn’t understand as well as you do. Another something that should make us both walk away, but I’m not, Abbie. And I don’t want you to either. Don’t walk away. Don’t let him get in the way.”
“Don’t be an asshole,” she says. “Translation. Don’t let her, whoever she is, get in the way.”
But she can get in the way , I think, because Abbie’s damn ex knows about her. And my father knows everything about her, which is information I have no doubt he’ll use. My father knows that KM is Kendall, a woman who’s my buried past. A woman who was the devil I destroyed.
An act that was brutal, even if deserved, and I’m not sure Abbie can handle just how vicious I was, and am, when I have to be. And I had to be, but I doubt that’s how she’ll see it. Bottom line: I’m the devil who wants her.