Need.
That word undoes me. He undoes me. I want to say as much but he’s suddenly driving into me, sensations rocketing through me, my hips lifting into his hips; fingers gripping his shirt. I suck in a breath, intending to speak but words don’t come. His thrust does. His cock drives into me and my legs wrap his hips. Over and over, he pumps, thrusts, drives, and grinds into me. Over and over, he kisses me, touches me, pleases me to the point that I can’t breathe. I can’t think. It’s intense. It’s fast. It’s insanity and the best insanity I have ever known.
I come fast, too fast, but he follows, both of us quaking with release. Both of us clinging to each other. We collapse with the ease of our orgasms, his face buried in my neck. My fingers tangled in his hair and I press my cheek to his, lips at his ear as I say, “And I need to be with you,” I confess.
He pulls back to look at me. “What does that mean?”
“It means I get it now. You need to know I trust you enough to take this risk. You need to know that before you trust me enough to confess what you believe to be your sins. So yes, Gabe. I’ll move in with you. I would be so very happy to move in with you.”
“You said—”
“That I was scared, and I am, but I get it now. You are, too. So let’s be scared together.”
He cups my face and stares down at me, searching my eyes, looking for truth and then saying, “Yes. Let’s be scared together.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Gabe…
I’m not going to make my intended confession to Abbie. Not now. Not this night.
I don’t want the moment I asked her to move in with me to become about the past or even my father. For now, for this night, I want to revel in her calling my home her home. I want to revel in all the nights we will sit on the couch as we do now, waiting on a takeout order while ignoring the cold pizza my sister left behind. I know I need to talk to her about KM. I know I need to get it over with but Dexter starts chasing his tail, and the mood is light.
“What happened with Jean Claude?” Abbie dares, though I can tell she’s hesitant to break the mood.
“He was a dick. He made an offer as you said. Reid got it up but if it’s too high it looks like you had a reason to get rid of Kenneth.”
“I want to take it.”
“I knew you would.”
The doorbell rings with our delivery and we shut down talk of Jean Claude. Neither of us bring up anything but Dexter, food, and Game of Thrones. I let Jean Claude wait until morning. She lets murder wait until morning.
And so, we eat Chinese food while Dexter gives us doggy eyes that can’t be resisted. We give him chicken. He farts his appreciation and we end up on the balcony in the cold, hiding from a farting serial killer dog. It’s pretty fucking perfect. Except for my secrets. Except for interviews with the police and the uncertainty of the investigation. Those things hang in the air like a fine mist laced with poison.
When we finally head to bed and lay under the covers in the darkness, Abbie whispers, “I don’t want anyone to take us from us.”
I stroke her hair. “The only ones that can take us from us is one of us, and we aren’t going to be foolish enough to allow that to happen.”
“I like that answer,” she says, relaxing into my side, fingers flexing on my chest. She is tiny and yet she is a force of nature.
She doesn’t speak again and I lay there for a good hour after she falls asleep, listening to her breathe, playing all the ways my confessions might go in my head. The one thing I go back to is the delivery. I can’t change what happened with Kendall. I don’t want to change what happened with Kendall, but I can change how my father affects Abbie. I can make sure that she doesn’t feel any more distress by way of my father’s manipulation. I slip out of the bed and I whisper for Dexter to stay at the foot of the bed. He’s a damn good dog who seems to understand just about anything I tell him. His previous owner must have passed away and then some asshole relative dumped him. Nothing else makes sense. He was loved. I can tell he was loved, and then the anger issues came from losing that love. I relate. That dog is my animal soulmate.
It’s midnight when I stand at the window in the living room in pajama bottoms and dial Blake. “If it was a wig,” I say without preamble, “it came on and off at some point. What about cameras catching that moment?”
“We tried. We don’t have that wig or the coat that was being worn going in and out of the building. Nor does that person show up anywhere on a camera we can hack within a two-mile radius.”
“Are there cameras you can’t hack?”
“Correction. Any camera within a two-mile radius. We hit them all.”
“Search my father’s house. Get inside. Do what you have to do and take him down if that’s what has to happen and if you can’t make that happen, I will.”
“We don’t know that your father did this.”
“He did a hell of a lot of other things, so ask me if I care, Blake. He needs to go down.”
“You know I don’t frame people, Gabe. That’s not how we operate.”
“I’ll fucking frame him if you won’t.”
“Are you sure you and Reid aren’t twins? Because I just had this conversation with him. Both of you are operating emotionally, which isn’t your way. Exactly why you both need to step back and give me some room to work. A little birdy tells me there’s something in the wind.”
“What something?”
“A way out of this. Go to bed and let me do my fucking job. More tomorrow.” He hangs up. Fucking asshole hangs up when I’m the one paying him. I shove my phone into my pocket and press my hands to the window. “Damn it,” I growl. “Damn his little birdie.”
“Gabe?”
I turn as Abbie draws near, wearing only my T-shirt and I notice every part of her, from her wild red mass of curls to her pink painted toes. And her companion: Dexter. He’s by her side, her private escort. I drag her to me and settle her against the window. “Miss me?”
“I heard, Gabe. I heard what you just said. I heard you talk about framing your father to save me.”
I inhale and look skyward before I level her in a stare, knowing everything I want to protect her from is charging at me, at her, at us. “My father is a bad man, Abbie.”
“You keep telling me that, but—”
“He may well be the one who did this, all of it.”
She pales. “What?”
“He took over your ex’s role in the development project when Kenneth died. He has the most to benefit from his death. Jean Claude—”
“You can’t trust Jean Claude. He’d turn this on your father as easily as he’d turn it on us. He did this.”
“No. Reid doesn’t believe he did it and he knows the man, and yes, well. My brother was involved with him through our father, and for far too long. Furthermore, he’s pissed about the police attention. If he did this, it would have looked like an accident.”
“Okay,” she accepts. “Why would your father do this when he’d benefit, when he’d become a suspect?”
“Because you were a more likely suspect. Why the hell do you think the killer wore a red wig?”
“This doesn’t feel right, Gabe. It’s not him. This is murder we’re talking about.”
“You don’t know my father. I didn’t want you to truly know what he’s capable of, but he has killed to get what he wants. He will kill to get what he wants.” I release her and walk several steps away before turning to face her. “Kenneth had a bank account in your name. Blake got rid of all records of that account.”
“I know nothing about this.”
“Of course, you don’t. You were never meant to know. My father helped Kenneth launder money through it.”
“I—I don’t even know what to say to that.”
“Say you get it. Say you understand that my father has to be dealt with.”
“I mean, yes. I get that Gabe.”
“Good. Step one: we need to be done with Jean Claude so he doesn’t
turn on us. We’ll sign the papers right away. I want you off his radar.”
“Before what?”
“I didn’t say before.”
“Before what?” she presses.
“Before I end this.”
“How?” she asks. “How are you going to end this?”
“I’ll turn his crap around on him.”
“Are you talking about framing your father?”
“I don’t have to frame him. I just have to do what you did to your ex. I just have to give Jean Claude proof that my father crossed him. And then he’s over.”
“He’ll kill him.”
“Or ruin him,” I say. “Whatever the case, it’s what my father deserves.”
She walks toward me, stops in front of me. “He’s your father.”
“Who do you think thought of using a red wig, Abbie? I guarantee you, it was him. He hates me. He wanted to hurt me. I’m why you’re in hell right now. My father killed your ex to punish you, therefore, punish me. That’s the shitty father I was born to. That’s what runs in my blood.”
“You don’t know that he did this and you aren’t like him!”
Suddenly, I’m done wondering if she will run and leave. It’s time she takes off the damn rose-colored glasses. It’s time we both take this bullet. “You don’t think I’m like him? Let’s talk about KM. Let’s talk about Kendall.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
Gabe…
“No,” Abbie orders, poking my chest. “No. Do not tell me your deep, dark secret as a way to push me away. If you already regret asking me to live with you, you have a get out of jail free pass. I’ll leave.”
“That’s not what this is. I want you here with me. Why the fuck do you think I want to make my father go away?”
“Go away? I don’t want to know what that means. And you don’t get to use me to justify making him go away.”
“Use you? That’s what you think I’m doing? Using you?”
“What I think, is that you need to go have another drink, Gabe, and get out of your own head.”
“You wanted to know about KM.”
“I wanted to know what affects you, yes. I will always want to know what affects you, but not like this. Not when you’re out for blood. You know what you want to do is wrong. That’s why you’re doing this. You want to become a monster in my mind like you are in yours. Then you can do bad, get rid of me, and wallow in your own hatred for yourself. In other words, you can go back to what you were doing before you met me.” Her eyes narrow on me. “You know what? I’m not going to let that happen.”
She steps around me and starts walking toward the bedroom. The very act of her putting distance between us cuts me with a knife of emotions that bleed and scream in every part of me. I don’t stop her, though. Instead, I turn and watch her walk away. “How is this you not letting this happen? You’re leaving?”
“No.” She twists around to look at me. “I’m going to bed. Our bed. Until you have the balls to tell me that you regret asking me to stay.” She doesn’t wait for a reply. She starts walking again and damn Dexter goes with her.
She’s staying.
For now.
She still doesn’t know about KM. That was the entire point of getting past this with her. Knowing she knows. Knowing she’ll stay here with me. I should never have asked her to move in with me before I told her. I was selfish. I was an asshole. The demons of the past are clawing at me, biting me. Eating me alive. I want to go after her and force her to listen, but that’s all her ex ever did to her: force her to do things his way. I want everything that could tear us apart gone, deleted, but I can’t just delete KM.
I scrub my jaw and turn to the window, but where it would normally bring me peace, it just explodes like empty space in my mind. This view is nothing. It’s not peace. It’s not calm. Abbie is my peace. She’s my only path to any version of happiness and damn it to hell, I came home to tell her about Kendall tonight, and not because I wanted to justify attacking my father. Not because I wanted Abbie to leave. Because I was afraid my father would take her from me. Because I wasn’t going to let that happen.
Because I’m not going to let that happen.
I’m walking before I even register the decision, pursuing Abbie, and yes, Dexter. They are my family now. Or I hope like hell they are. Dexter is the only real sure thing. He won’t give a shit what happened with Kendall, but this is a triangle. We’re supposed to be a fucking triangle. I want a triangle. I step into the bedroom to find Abbie and Dexter on the bed, side by side. Abbie laying down, the blankets pulled to her chest.
I close the space between me and the bed, and sit down, giving Abbie and Dexter my back. “Kendall was my fiancée,” I say.
Abbie jerks to a sitting position behind me and I move to sit next to her. “Don’t do this now,” Abbie orders. “Don’t do this when—”
“Abbie,” I say softly, drawing her hand into mine. “It’s not as simple as you think. I need to tell you about KM tonight.”
“Yesterday you weren’t ready to talk about this, Gabe. Now, the minute you invite me into your world, it’s like this is a way to push me away again. I don’t like it. You’re messing with my emotions. You’re messing with us, our future. Whatever that is.”
“Our future is up to you. I know what I want and that’s you, here.”
“I don’t know if I believe you.”
It’s then that I’m reminded that Abbie has trust issues, just like I do. That Abbie and I have more in common than I choose to remember, because I have my past buried, or I did, until I met her. Until the past has to be faced for us to move forward.
“You weren’t ready to talk about this, Gabe,” she repeats, her voice a raspy whisper. “You weren’t ready. I said I’d give you space and time. That was hard to do, but I did it. Now, this.”
“And it meant the world to me that you blindly trusted me because I know your ex made trust a challenge. I know this for reasons that run deep and personal. As for being ready to tell you, I will never be ready to tell you anything that I think might make you walk away, Abbie. Never.”
“Yet you want to tell me now? I’m very damn confused, Gabe.”
“Telling you about my past isn’t about pushing you away. It’s the opposite. I’m going to go after my father because he hurts people. Because he will hurt you if I give him the chance. When I do, he’ll come at us. He’ll tell you about KM because he knows. He’s the only one who knows. I need to tell you before he tells you.”
Understanding seeps into her eyes and she throws away the blanket and settles her feet on the floor, scooting closer to me, taking my hand. “Tell me,” she urges softly, “but whatever this is, it’s not the bullet you think it is. I promise you.”
“I’m not a gentle man.”
“Dexter and I disagree.”
Her and Dexter. My heart swells with happiness and regret, with fear. So damn much fear that I will love them and lose them. And yet, I have to press her to see all that I am before someone else does. “You do remember that I told a bookie where to find my sister’s stalker and he ended up in the hospital, right?”
“You were protecting her. I get that.”
“You didn’t even ask me if I talked to the police,” I point out.
“I know you did.”
“How, Abbie?”
“Because I know. Did you?”
“Yes. Reid and I did, Reese did. Cat did. But the police had limitations, too many limitations.” I study her, search for doubt, but there is none. That’s going to change. I turn away from her and I could hesitate, but I don’t. I’ve made the decision to tell her this story. I’m not going to choke on it. “Kendall and I met while working at the same law firm.”
“For your father?”
“No. I wanted to find my own way. I interned and planned to work at another firm. We were both up and coming, focused on our careers, with a plan for marriage and family. I loved her, Abbie. Or I thought I did. I believed I did.” I c
ut my stare and inhale, drawing in a hard-earned breath. “And then—” I let the words trail off and I must revel in the silence too long because Abbie prods me.
“And then?”
“And then, suddenly, she was pregnant. It wasn’t our plan but I was happy. I wanted a family. I wanted the two kids and two dogs and a damn cat. I embraced the fuck out of it. I took care of her while she threw up. I was there for the first sonogram. I was there for every fucking thing until I wasn’t.” My voice radiates with anger I didn’t know I still felt, but talking about this cuts me, fresh blood seeping into the story of my life.
“What happened?” she prods.
And then what—
This is where the real story begins.
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
Gabe…
I don’t hesitate to continue. I’ve committed. I’m telling this story my way before my father tells it his way.
“The baby wasn’t mine. It was my best friend, Mike’s baby.”
The blood drains from Abbie’s face. She swallows hard. “How did you find out?”
“Mike worked with us at my father’s firm. They were working late and they thought that I’d left for a meeting. I hadn’t. I went looking for Kendall to tell her it was cancelled and to take her to dinner. Instead, I overheard them talking. Mike had apparently made some bad financial decisions while she’d managed to forget to take a few pills and get pregnant. They knew it wasn’t mine, because it was timed during a trip I’d taken with a client out of the country. A two-month-long trip to Japan. I listened as they decided that she’d go through with marrying me, even convince me to elope. Then she’d take a chunk of my money in a dirty divorce. They’d then raise the kid on my money.”
“Oh God. This all makes sense now. That’s why you—that’s why—”
“Yes. That’s why I got snipped. So no other woman could use my damn babymakers as a weapon against me.”
“I would never—”
“I know that, Abbie, but I didn’t plan on meeting you. I didn’t plan on wanting a woman beyond a fast fuck ever again.” I don’t give her time to ask questions. I go on. “And I know you know I’m not done yet. You know that’s not where the story ends.”
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