Gabe groaned and rubbed his face with his hands. “Please, as soon as I touched her, I knew it wasn’t you. I was trying to throw her out when you got here. Didn’t you hear me? You walked in before I could get her to leave. I swear, nothing happened! You have to believe me. You know I’m not a cheater, Pepper. I would never do that. I’m not that kind of guy at all.”
“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” I was still not completely convinced. How could he have not known? Even in the dark. Sophie and I were nothing alike. Different heights, different voices, different perfume. It should have been obvious to Gabe.
He reared back at my statement. “Are you comparing me to that slimy ex-boyfriend of yours, Jonathan Church?”
“If the shoe fits!” I said with tears in my eyes.
Mills rose to her feet. “Pep, you don’t mean that,” she said as she tried to calm me down. “Gabe, she doesn’t mean that.”
“I do mean it! I’ve had enough of backstabbing cheaters in my life!”
Gabe stared at me, completely shell shocked. Then, he shook his head and his face went back to neutral. He calmly walked behind his desk and shuffled a stack of papers as if nothing had happened at all. “I think you should go, Pepper. I have a lot of work to catch up on. I don’t have time for this conversation.”
I didn’t say anything else. I knew I’d crossed a line but I wasn’t willing to say I was sorry yet. I wanted him to hurt like I was hurting in that moment.
I dropped my fists as the fight drained out of me. I let Mills lead me out of Gabe’s office and by the time we were halfway back to the car, my mind had shifted gears and I suddenly couldn’t stop thinking about part of what Sophie had said. I needed to get to a TV and see if what she’d said was true. If Evangeline had really done what she’d threatened to do, and told the world I wasn’t her and Doug Anderson’s daughter.
Before I could ask Mills if she knew what had happened, my phone rang. It was my father.
“Hey, Da—Doug,” I tried to sound cheerful but it wasn’t working.
“Pepper, where are you?”
“I’m leaving Sea Lab. Mills is with me. What’s going on?”
He didn’t answer me right away. “Well, I didn’t know if you’d been watching the television or not. It looks like Evangeline made good on her threat. She’s definitely telling it all and some of it isn’t even true. I’m sorry, Pepper Ann. This isn’t what I wanted for you.”
“I heard already, Daddy. It’s okay.” I wiped tears away from my eyes. “I really don’t want to talk about that right now. I took Mills to the clinic this morning and she’s got pictures of the baby. Are you going to be home? We’re heading over there now.”
“No! Don’t come home right now. I’ve got the police on the way but it’s a madhouse outside the gates. Why don’t you wait a couple of hours? The police should get things cleared up by tonight. But, if you girls want to get a hotel room for the night and lay low, that might be best.”
“No, I know where we can go. Gabe’s boat is out of the city and no one will find us there. I’ll bring Mills back after dark and go in through the garage so they won’t even see us.”
“Can’t you stay with Gabe at his house? Or maybe go to Aven’s?”
“Uhm, no. I can’t go to Gabe’s right now and Aven isn’t home. She’s gone to see her boyfriend and I think Fallon is with his Dad somewhere.” I looked at Mills—she nodded in agreement. “It’s okay, Dad. Nobody ever goes to the marina except a few folks and they don’t bother me. I don’t think they even know who I am.”
“Even so, don’t go out in public right now. I’m going to call Gabe and tell him what’s happening.”
“No, Daddy. Gabe’s not—I mean, why bother him? We can handle it.”
“Nonsense. I’ll be in touch. Go straight there girls.”
There was no sense in arguing with him when he got like this. When he zeroed in on something—he had laser focus. That’s the way it was and I was too mentally tired to argue.
We got to the car as quickly as we could and drove to the marina. “Is he going to be okay with us going to his boat after your fight back there?”
“I hope so.”
“You know you were an ass, right?”
I looked over at Mills. I was a little shocked by her blunt words, but I had to admit, she had a point. “Yes, I do.”
We paused for a moment before I asked, “Still want to meet up with Evangeline?”
“Hell, no! I don’t want to talk to her or see her. She can read about the baby in the National Enquirer, as far as I’m concerned. That was totally wrong of her to do that. I’m so sorry, Pepper. I swear to you—I didn’t know about this at all. She didn’t tell me she was doing anything like this. You know I’d have told her off.”
“I know.” I climbed in the car and hugged her. She looked so young and trusting. I hated that all this was happening on her big day. “I’m such a jerk. Here it is, your special day and I’m screwing it all up.”
“Well, these things happen. I’m sure you didn’t wake up, saying ‘How can I mess up Mills’ day?’” She gave me a rueful smile.
“No, I didn’t and we’ll be fine when we get to the boat. Oh, crap! Will the water make you sicker? I didn’t even think about that. God! I have to be the worst sister on the planet.”
“Stop that. Let’s just get there and I’ll see how it goes. It’s so funny. I spent the morning throwing up but now I’m starving to death. Do you have anything to eat out there?”
“Yes, actually! I can cook something and I have a yummy salad already made up that you can munch on.” I put the car in gear and pointed it toward the marina.
After about ten minutes, Mills chimed in again. “You know your boyfriend is the nicest guy on the planet. I know I don’t know him all that well, but I can tell you Gabe would never, in a million years, cheat on you. You need to apologize to him, Pepper. The sooner the better.”
“I know. I don’t know why I got so nuts. That Sophie woman just brings out this primal rage. I promise I’ll talk to him. Soon, I swear.”
“Good.” She was quiet again, tapping away on her phone. “Oh, God.”
“What?” I snapped my attention to her for a moment. “What is it?”
“It’s Mom…” She slid one of her ear buds in. “I found the interview that girl was talking about.”
“Play it so I can hear it. I might as well know the worst.” I turned my attention back to the road and ignored the thumping beat of my heart that was frantically trying to leap out of my chest. This was not going to be pretty.
Mills hit a few more buttons and Evangeline’s voice piped out from the speakers: “Well, Oprah, it’s true. We did adopt Pepper but she needed us. You see, her mother had made some life choices and she needed to make some changes. I told her she needed to think about the baby and not just herself. Well, Doug and I managed to talk her into it—giving up the baby, I mean.” The audience applauded and I could picture dozens of women cheering on Evangeline for her brave and inspiring story. It turned my stomach to even imagine it. I groaned and gestured over at Mills to make it stop. I couldn’t digest another word.
“Ugh, just turn her off. That’s not even the same story she told me. She said I was her cousin’s daughter. She basically bought me in exchange for that woman’s college tuition. I might as well have been put on the black market or something.”
We drove in silence for a few minutes. I set aside the anger towards my mother, consciously deciding to no longer give her my energy. Somewhere along the route, my mind shifted back to thinking about Gabe. I mentally replayed the scene up in his office and wondered how in the world I was ever going to make things right again. Or, if that was even what I wanted.
I decided it was, and hoped Gabe would call me but my phone stayed silent. In all fairness, somewhere inside my heart I knew I should be the one calling him, but I couldn’t make myself take the phone out of my pocket. Not yet.
Besides, he wasn’t a hundred percen
t in the clear. A lot of what had transpired lay at his feet.
I was relieved when we reached the marina so I could put my energy into taking care of Mills and stop worrying about what would happen with Gabe. There were too many coulda, woulda, shoulda pieces to that puzzle right now.
“Here’s the boat.” I put the car in park and locked it up. We walked towards the dock. I hoped there wasn’t a sign hanging on it that said, “Pepper, please get out!” Gabe was too much of a gentleman to do that, wasn’t he?
“Ma’am?” I heard a voice calling to me. “Ma’am, I have a package for you.”
“A package?” I followed the harbor master to his office. I called to Mills, “Go ahead! I’ll be right there.” She waved back at me and walked towards the boat.
He handed it to me with a smile. “This came this afternoon.”
“For Mr. Gregory?”
“No, for you, Miss Anderson. It’s from Mr. Gregory, though. By the way, don’t worry about anyone bothering you here. Mr. Gregory called and warned me about those news folks. They might come around, but I’ll keep them out. I won’t let anyone know you’re here and if I see anything unusual, I’ll call the police. I promise you that.”
“My dad is supposed to stop by—and maybe Gabe, so those two can come in.”
“Sure, you got it. No worries, Miss.”
I accepted the package and walked to the boat. I shook it curiously and began carefully removing the paper as I walked. “Mills! Come look what I have!”
“What is it? Who sent you a package?”
“Looks like Gabe. I’m sure it’s from earlier today. Way before we got into it.”
“Obviously. No man in their right mind would buy you presents after your little performance back there,” Mills commented.
“Whatever,” I said as I tore the gold wrapping off. It was from one of my favorite jewelers and I opened the velvet box to find a dainty, gold anklet inside. The chain was a string of dolphins, swimming nose to tail. It was perfect! I held it in my hands and my heart broke.
“That’s beautiful, Pepper. I love it!” Mills gasped as I displayed the beautiful gift.
My eyes clouded with tears as I held up my ankle so Mills could help secure the delicate chain around it. I’d been so wrong. It was all clear now. Of course Gabe hadn’t been cheating. He loved me. And no matter how scary it was, I loved him, too. I didn’t know where he’d be, so I decided to send him a text to see if he felt like talking or not.
I wrote and rewrote it about four times before I decided to finally send it off.
Gabe, I’m sorry I accused you of cheating. I was wrong. Please forgive me.
I held the phone for a minute and just stared at it. He obviously wasn’t in a hurry about texting me back so I turned the phone on mute and put it in my pocket. I had to think about something else for now so I put on some music and opened the stainless steel door to the refrigerator. I found some fresh ingredients and listened to Mills as she shared her ideas about baby names.
I tried to be in the moment with Mills as she chattered excitedly, but I couldn’t help but think about Gabe and Evangeline and Sophie. How had everything come undone so quickly?
“Pepper! You aren’t listening to me!” Mills whined as I set down a plate of fruit in front of her.
“I’m sorry, honey. What did you say?”
“I said, don’t be too down. I’m sure my story will eclipse yours soon. I’m stealing Evangeline’s thunder.” With a proud smile, she put her phone down on the table in front of her and picked up her fork.
“What? What are you talking about?”
She swallowed a bite of the fruit salad I’d prepared for her. “I just tweeted it out to the whole world.”
“Tweeted what out, Mills?”
She picked up her phone and read it. “’You should see my baby bump. So happy right now!’ It’s been RT’d about ten thousand—no, wait, fifteen thousand times. Aw…the whole world is happy for me.”
“What!” I gaped down at her still-smiling face. “Mills! Why would you do that? All you’re going to do is draw out even more crazies.”
“Exactly, and they’ll all want to talk about me, instead of Evangeline Anderson. Won’t she be pissed?”
I shook my head. I knew Mills was an adult and capable of making her own choices, and I had to admit, stealing Evangeline’s spotlight right as it was glowing brightest did bring an insane amount of joy. But still, I couldn’t help but wonder if Mills wasn’t playing with fire.
Chapter Nine — Gabe
I sat at my desk with my head in my hands. The blowout with Pepper was over, and although she’d been gone for fifteen minutes, her harsh words were still ringing in my ears. Before I could muster the strength to dive back into work, Charlie came upstairs to see if everything was okay. Great, now everyone would be talking about this. Sea Lab could be worse than a small town gossip mill.
“Thanks, Charlie, but everything’s fine. Just a misunderstanding.”
“Glad to hear it.” He fidgeted in the doorway. “Uh, there’s something I need to tell you, though, boss. Their sheriff’s department is here. They got a report about Miss Pepper Anderson. I think they want to come up and talk to you. Is that okay?”
“A report?” My thoughts were a blitzed mess, racing through my head at a speed matching my pounding heart. What now?
I cleared my throat and tried to keep my composure. “I can’t imagine why they’d want to talk to me, but okay. Send them up. No, I’ll come down there.” We walked out of the office and towards the elevator.
Mandy stopped me. “Sir, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know, I swear.”
I held a hand up to stop her apology. “Nothing to worry about, Mandy. There’s no way you could have known. We’ll talk more about that tomorrow. Right now, I have to go downstairs for a minute. Please hold my calls—take detailed messages and leave them on my desk. Nobody else goes in my office when I’m not there—not even Bobbie Jo. Okay?”
“Yes, sir! I’m on it!” She smiled and appeared visibly relieved that I wasn’t angry with her.
I stepped onto the elevator with Charlie. “Any idea what’s going on?” I asked.
Charlie wouldn’t meet my eyes. “I overheard one of them, but maybe I heard wrong…”
“What did they say?”
“It sounds like they’re here to arrest Miss Anderson. I don’t know why, though.”
“Arrest her? For what?” That was actually a stupid question. There was only one thing it could be. Sophie must have some real pull at the station to get the cops out here so quickly.
Before he could answer me, the doors opened and we stepped out into the lobby. I was surprised to see one of the detectives working the property damage case step forward. “Mr. Gregory,” he started, extending his hand to me.
I shook his hand and interjected before he could finish his thought. “Do you have some leads for me about the destruction of our property?” I asked, praying that was all this was in regards to.
“We actually do have two people in custody. We’ll set up a time to have your security chief come down for a line-up identification later today. However, that’s not why we’re here.”
“Really? What is it, then?”
“Mr. Gregory, we had a report of an assault earlier today. Do you know anything about that?”
I didn’t know how to respond. I didn’t want to lie, but I also couldn’t live with myself if Pepper went to jail over something Sophie had started. Granted, Pepper could have done a better job controlling herself, but she had a lot going on. Surely, it was understandable she’d snap under the circumstances. Not that a court would agree with that.
“The lobby seems pretty empty right now. We can talk here, if you don’t mind. The situation began when a former employee of the company, her name was Sophie Maguire, broke into my office and attacked me when I walked in. I was floored. She’d never been anything but professional with me in the past but honestly, guys, she was all over me. Come to fin
d out, Miss Maguire has some kind of fantasy going on in her head because she thinks the two of us are an item. But truthfully, Pepper and I have been exclusively dating for months. In fact, we live together.”
“Miss Maguire attacked you? In what way? If you don’t mind me asking.”
I glanced around. “She was trying to get me to sleep with her.”
The younger cop wrote furiously in his notebook. He was obviously the lackey.
“Geesh, you got them tracking you down and Joe here can’t get a date.”
“Hey, knock it off.” The detective shot the cop a stern look that read loud and clear.
I continued. “The whole thing was really a big misunderstanding, really. If anyone should be getting charged with assault it should be Miss Maguire, in my opinion.”
There. That should clear Pepper. Besides, if Sophie really did press charges, I could always threaten to press them against her.
The cop laughed. “So, let me get this straight. You know, for the record. Miss Maguire came on to you and that’s assault?”
“Miss Maguire stalked me, lied to my receptionist about who she was, waited for me and then stripped down in my office and waited for me. When I caught her, she didn’t want to leave. Pepper helped her out of the office.”
“The complainant, Miss Maguire, says Miss Anderson slapped her, assaulted her and caused her bodily harm.” The detective didn’t look convinced about my story but I wasn’t giving up, I had to keep Pepper safe.
“Listen, let’s not make this more than it is. It was a scuffle, yes, but Miss Maguire was definitely the instigator. I’ve known Sophie for a long time, but she’s changed. I honestly think she might be mentally unstable or something. I think she needs some help.” Before the officers could grill me further, my phone rang. I slid it out of my pocket. It was my mother. She never called and I felt compelled to take it. “Excuse me, officers. If there is anything else, we can set something up.”
Without waiting for their reply, I turned away and answered the phone. “Mom?”
“Gabe, Gabe? What’s going on?” I could hear loud crying and screaming in the background. “Sophie’s here and she says you two had a fight”
Destiny Undone: The Complete Series Box Set Page 32