No Chance

by Christy Reece

  Dressed this way, she reminded him of one of those beautiful movie stars from the past. Anything Skylar wore, she wore with glamour and style. It was just part of who she was. And the part he wanted nothing to do with.

  She cast a worried look around. “Do you think my father will be at my apartment?”

  “Doubtful. Noah told him you were coming home, but two hours later than our arrival time. That’ll give you an opportunity to freshen up. And prepare.”

  He did his damnedest to ignore the gratitude in her expressive face. Those kinds of looks were unguarded and real and made him want to touch her. He had done nothing more than press his fingers to her elbow since they’d left Florida.

  Taking one more glance around, Gabe put his hand on the door handle. He turned back to issue final instructions. “Cole will go in front of us. Keep your eyes straight ahead. No looking around. Okay?”

  Skye nodded, and Gabe opened the door. At Cole’s hand signal of an all-clear, Gabe took Skye’s hand and helped her out of the car.

  Pleased to see her staring straight ahead, Gabe made a sweeping glance of the perimeter as he walked beside her to the giant glass double doors. Cole went ahead of them and said something to the doorman, who took a quick glance at Skye and Gabe and then looked down, pretending he hadn’t seen anything at all. Good.

  When Skye made an abrupt stop in the middle of the large foyer, Gabe halted. Hand on his gun, his eyes searched for a threat. “What’s wrong?”

  As she turned to face him, her expression was an interesting blend of defensiveness and concern. “I live on the top floor … the pent house.”

  Aw, hell. Of course she did.

  Gabe clenched his jaw and said, “That’s fine. Get on the elevator.”

  “We can take the stairs.”

  Torn between gratitude for her concern and anger at his damned weakness, Gabe shook his head. “Get on the elevator. I’ll be fine.”

  Cole gave him a nod and pressed the button for the top floor. Gabe knew he could have let Skye travel up with Cole and taken the stairs. He trusted Cole with Skye’s life. But for some stupid, idiotic, asinine reason, he couldn’t let her out of his sight right now. Stupid, since in a very short while, he’d be leaving for good. And, unless he saw her on a magazine cover or on television, he planned never to see her again. But for now, he had to be by her side. Fuck his diseased brain that allowed the suffocating fear.

  The elevator doors closed and his heart started the familiar pounding. Gritting his teeth, he concentrated on breathing slow, shallow breaths. He could do this … he could do this.

  After what seemed like an eternity but was probably only a couple of minutes, the bell rang announcing their arrival at her pent house. Resisting the urge to run out of the cage as soon as it opened, he touched Skylar’s elbow, indicating she should go first.

  The elevator door opened to the oversized foyer of her pent house. Every mental image he’d ever had about what her kind of wealth would look like was confirmed, but not in the way he expected. Her apartment was large, airy, and obviously filled with expensive furnishings. But it was also comfortable-looking. As much as he hated being indoors for any length of time, Gabe was surprised to feel almost relieved to be inside her apartment.

  Skylights above gave an open-air feeling. The furnishings were scattered around almost sparsely. Large green plants sat in different areas, giving the place not only color, but a sense of being outdoors. A large leather sofa in the living room invited an afternoon nap. And the fireplace in front of it made it even more inviting. The colors she’d chosen were warm, eclectic, and soothing.

  Feeling unusually tense and uncertain about her home, Skylar watched Gabe as he stalked through each room. Those intelligent but wary blue eyes held an intense curiosity. When he looked back at her, her heart leaped to see a hint of approval. She told herself she didn’t care if he liked her apartment or not. She liked it and that was all that mattered. Skylar also knew she was lying.

  Cole made a sweeping glance around, much as Gabe had. Apparently satisfied, he turned to Gabe. “I’ll go check in at the hotel.”

  Gabe nodded. “I’ll give you a call when I get there. Let’s plan on a quick review around seven A.M. Then we’ll head out to see the boyfriend.”

  “Do you want me to go with you?” Skylar asked.

  Both Gabe and Cole turned their eyes to her and said “No” in unison.

  “Why not?”

  Gabe growled an answer. “You don’t need to be involved.”

  Cole was nice enough to add, “If he sees you, he might mention it to others. Not something LCR would want. Besides, having two big bruisers like Gabe and me show up will get answers faster.”

  She believed him. If she didn’t know they were two of the good guys, she’d be terrified if they showed up at her door. Her heart lifted at the thought of Calvin getting the hell scared out of him. Couldn’t happen to a more deserving person.

  Cole gave her a slight nod and headed to the door. The instant she heard it close, she tensed. Every time she and Gabe were alone, they seemed to end up arguing. Since she needed to save all of her energy for the upcoming confrontation with her father, she sincerely hoped to avoid another argument.

  “Why don’t you take a shower and relax?”

  Skylar shot him a surprised glance at the gruff concern in his voice. Of course, after the last few days, she probably looked like hell. And Gabe probably wanted to avoid talking with her. When they’d been together those few short weeks, they’d never argued or had a disagreement. Another stark reminder of the difference between then and now.

  She shook her head and headed toward the bar in the living room. “Would you like a drink?”

  “Yeah. Fine. What ever you’re having.”

  Skylar opened the door to her wine cooler and stared at the bottles intently, as if it was of utmost importance to choose the correct one.

  “If you want me to, I’ll call your father and put off seeing him until you can get some rest.”

  She hid a grimace as she turned back to look at him. She must look worse than she thought. “No, I need to get it over with … we both do.”

  She chose a bottle of merlot, opened it, and poured two glasses. Taking a breath, she turned and handed him a glass, not looking at him directly. Sometimes it was just so hard to look at him at all, knowing what had happened, what could have been. If she weren’t so worried about Kendra, she knew she’d be a puddle of an emotional mess. Her father had a lot to answer for.

  A buzzer sounded, alerting her she had a visitor.

  Gabe huffed out a disgusted breath. As he stalked to the speaker, he said, “The doorman was told to turn everyone away, with the exception of your father. Looks like he couldn’t wait to get here.”

  Before he pressed the button to talk to the doorman, he glanced back at her. “You want me to tell him to wait until you’ve had your bath?”

  She almost smiled. Few people would have had the guts to tell Jeremiah James to do anything. Which was probably one of the reasons her father hadn’t liked him. Gabe’s protectiveness had an arrogant edge. One of the many reasons she’d fallen in love with him. Skylar squelched that thought. It had been eight years. That love was gone. And that Gabe no longer existed. She needed to remember that.

  Aware that he was waiting for her answer, Skylar shook her head. “Let him come up. I’d like to get it over with so you can concentrate on finding Kendra.”

  Gabe barked into the speaker, “Let the bastard up.”

  Skylar winced. Her father would have heard that. Fireworks were about to erupt.

  Gabe tried to keep the concern off his face as he waited with Skye for Jeremiah James to come through the door. She looked like death. This was probably not the best time to be having this meeting with her father. After the trauma of the last few days, she needed peace and quiet and someone to take care of her. But though her skin was milk white from exhaustion, he recognized the stubborn tilt to her chin. One he’d beco
me very acquainted with over the last few days. The young, naïve Skye he’d married had grown into a strong, determined woman.

  Since she was set on seeing this through right now, the best he could do was stand beside her and not go with his natural instinct, which was to beat the hell out of her father.

  The elevator doors opened and there stood Jeremiah James. Gabe fully expected arrogance, denial, even anger. That wasn’t what he got.

  “Skylar!” Jeremiah ran for his daughter and scooped her up in his arms. As he whirled her around, Gabe heard choked sobs coming from the man many considered one of the coldest, most ruthless men in the world.

  “I’m fine, Dad. Really. Put me down.”

  Skye’s eyes were filled with tears as she flashed a somewhat helpless look at Gabe.

  He pulled himself from his deep freeze of surprise and gently but firmly pulled Skye away from her father.

  Jeremiah stood still for several seconds, as if trying to control the mass of emotions inside him. Finally, after releasing a harsh breath, he said, “Thank God you’re okay. Oh, baby, they hurt you, didn’t they?” His hand trembled as he touched the bruises on her cheek.

  “Not bad. Not like it could have been.” She shot a look at Gabe. “Thanks to Gabe.”

  Jeremiah glanced over at him and suddenly seemed to remember he was in deep shit. A flash of guilt on the older man’s face was quickly followed by arrogance. Ah yes, that’s the look Gabe expected.

  “I suppose you want an explanation about some things,” James said.

  Skye shook her head and whispered, “How could you, Dad?”

  “I did it for you, baby.”

  “Don’t give me that. You almost destroyed two lives. Don’t tell me it was for my own good.”

  “It wouldn’t have lasted, sweetie. I thought he was only after your money … and besides, you’re too different and—” He shot a look at Gabe. “No offense, but you’re just not like us.”

  Gabe snorted. “Offense? Hell, James, you just paid me a compliment.”

  “Oh for heaven’s sake, Dad. Gabe didn’t even know who I was … much less anything about my finances. I told you he didn’t. And if it hadn’t lasted, at least it would have been our choice to end it—not yours.”

  Jeremiah reached out his hand and Skye jerked away. He flinched and said, “I’m sorry, baby. I never wanted to hurt you.” His eyes swimming with tears, he looked at Gabe. “Even though I don’t think it would have worked out, if I had known what would happen, I never would have done it.”

  Gabe had been holding his tongue with difficulty. Between the two of them, Skye deserved getting her wrath out. She’d been the one most betrayed. But James’s words and the tortured look on his face had Gabe asking, “What do you mean? What happened?”

  Skye waved a hand. “It’s not important.”

  “We almost lost her,” her father said.

  Gabe stiffened. “You almost lost her … how?”

  “Dad, stop it. It’s not—”

  Jeremiah’s head shook vigorously. “You almost died, Skylar. And it would have been my fault.”

  “What the hell is he talking about, Skye?”

  “It’s nothing. Really.”

  Tears poured down James’s face as he recounted the event. “She went out looking for you. After the divers gave up … she went out again, by herself. Rented a boat and dove on her own.” He swallowed hard and added, “Over and over again, looking for your body.”

  Jeremiah drew in a shuddering breath. “When I found out, we went after her.” He looked at his daughter, who had wrapped her arms around herself and turned away from both of them. “We saw her dive into the water. By the time we got to her, she’d gone deep. The divers went in after her and she fought them, tried to get away.” He swallowed hard. “She almost drowned. She was so exhausted from diving, the rescuers said if we hadn’t found her when we did, she would have died on that last dive.”

  A shaking began inside Gabe. Fury at her father. Fury at Skye for her careless disregard for her own welfare. And yes, fury at himself for allowing this to happen in the first place. One fake phone call and he’d given up on them. And Skye had almost died.

  A soft hand pulled him from the brink. He looked down at Skye, who, unbelievably, looked almost apologetic. “It’s not your fault, Gabe.”

  Yes it was, but that was between him and Skye. Jeremiah James had interfered too much already. Damned if he’d say anything in front of him.

  “Can you forgive me, Skylar?” Jeremiah asked.

  She ignored his question and said, “The phone call Gabe got, breaking it off. It was Lisa, wasn’t it?”

  When she didn’t answer his question, James flinched and nodded.

  “Did everyone know? I mean, everyone in the family?”

  Jeremiah chewed on his lip, obviously wanting to protect as many of Skye’s relatives as possible.

  “You might as well tell me. If you don’t, I’ll go to every one of them and make them confess.”

  “Your mother, Lisa, and I were the only ones in the family who knew.”

  “So when Mom called and asked me to come see her before I went back to the island … that’s when all of this took place?”

  At Jeremiah’s nod, she continued, “How did you get all those people at the resort to go along with this?”

  Gabe swallowed a humorless laugh. Even after all these years, she still didn’t realize what money could buy?

  “We’d been going there for years on vacation, Skylar. I helped pay for some new facilities, a college education here and there …” He broke off, obviously realizing the more he said, the worse it sounded.

  “How did you know it would work? That I would believe Gabe had committed suicide?”

  His shoulders hunched defensively. “You told me enough for me to realize that he had some problems. I made some calls. Found out what he’d been through. Figured that’d be the most believable story.” He glared at Gabe. “If you had just done what I asked you to do, none of that would have been necessary.”

  Gabe ignored Skye’s gasp as he grabbed James’s collar. “You bastard, don’t blame me for your lack of ethics.”

  “I was protecting my daughter.”

  A soft, delicate hand on his arm, pulling him away, was the only thing that kept Gabe from slugging the self-righteous son of a bitch.

  Skye’s voice trembled. “Both of you … please calm down.” She turned back to her father. “You suddenly appeared when we were looking for Gabe … I thought it was because you had come to meet him. But you were there even before I arrived, weren’t you?”

  James nodded. “They told me as soon as you got there.”

  “How did you know Gabe wouldn’t try to contact me?”

  Gabe crossed his arms and waited, wondering if James would tell the truth. The flash of guilt on his face was telling. But would he tell all?

  “I had people watching you night and day. They knew what Maddox looked like. They were to keep him from you at all costs.”

  Skye shot Gabe a questioning look.

  Gabe nodded. He hadn’t told her this before. Had wanted to see what James’s reaction would be. “I came to New York twice to see you. Got my ass kicked twice, too.”

  A humiliating thing to admit. He’d been skinny and untrained. Clueless on how to defend himself. The bastards could have done more damage than they did; the mortification was almost worse than the bruises. However, the experience had actually had a positive effect. Gabe had not only dedicated himself to getting into peak condition, but had gotten himself trained. And no one had ever kicked his ass again.

  James shook his head in denial. “I never told them to hurt you, Maddox. Just to keep you away.”

  Gabe swallowed a snort. Goliaths like that were rarely into negotiating with words. Their type of persuasion was usually handled with their fists. And he’d worn the bruises for weeks.

  As humiliating and hurtful as those experiences had been, that wasn’t the reason he’d
given up on seeing Skye. He’d been stupidly planning another trip to New York when he’d received what he thought was proof positive that Skye truly wanted to pretend they’d never married.

  Gabe took a breath. Whether James planned to be truthful about everything or not no longer mattered. Everything needed to be exposed.

  “You want to tell her about the letter or shall I?”

  “Letter? You mean the suicide notes I thought you left?” Skye said.

  His eyes not straying from the older man’s face, Gabe shook his head.

  James shrugged defensively. “It was the only way I knew to get him to stop trying to see you for good.”

  “What did you do, Dad?”

  “I …” He shot an angry, helpless look at Gabe. “I’m sure you remember it better than I do.”

  Yeah. Almost verbatim.

  Though hurting Skye more than she’d already been hurt was the last thing he wanted, he forced himself to continue. “I received a letter, supposedly from you. It was filled with certain facts that only you would have known.”

  “What kind of facts?”

  Her voice was weak and shaky, telling him she was on the edge. Gabe summarized instead of repeating the words he remembered all too clearly. “You said it had been fun, but as far as you were concerned, it wasn’t real. Our love, the marriage. Nothing. You made reference to my background, lack of education, my brother’s death.” He took a breath. Even knowing it hadn’t come from her, he couldn’t deny the sting. “And the fact that even my stepmother couldn’t love me. Why should you?”

  “Oh God, Gabe,” she gasped. “No, I would never …” Her eyes wide with horror, she shook her head and glared at her father. “I told you those things because I was trying to make sense of everything … justify why Gabe had committed suicide. And you used them against me. Daddy, you used them against me? How could you?”

  Exhaustion and shock were beginning to take its toll. Other than the green and brown bruises, she had no color in her face at all. Her eyes, usually a bright, sky blue, were glazed with tears and looked almost dull gray.