Once Upon a Friendship

by Tara Taylor Quinn

  And there was that black suit again. And more makeup than he was used to seeing on her. Makeup that had mostly worn off by the time she’d come to get him from jail that afternoon.

  Her back to him now, she faced the screen the entire time the video played.

  When it finished he didn’t say a word. He was too moved to trust himself not to say something he’d later regret.

  One thing Liam had learned at a young age was that there were times to hold your tongue.

  Gabi was typing again. The name of a rag internet news source. He was familiar with it. And would rather work for his father than write for them.

  She clicked, quickly clicked again and a bold black headline filled his screen: What Man Wouldn’t Die for a Hot Attorney Like This?

  Gabi thought the hideous scumbag had made up a lascivious, insulting, disgusting story.

  In Liam’s mind the lowlife reporter managed to hit right on the truth.

  “I’m sorry.” She was still looking at the screen.

  She was sorry? Did that mean she wasn’t on to him? Hadn’t noticed that he’d fallen for her?

  Could he still salvage this?

  “I’m not sorry,” he said, complete seriousness behind every word. “You stood up for me, Gabi. You are not responsible for the fact that one man’s brain took him straight to a dirt pile. What you said is completely true. My father and I are not only not close, he never even let me associate closely enough with him at work to have the ability to be instrumental to a scheme like this. You aren’t to blame for this reporter’s cheesy attempt to get a lot of press.”

  “I should have said ‘no comment.’”

  Possibly. But he was glad she hadn’t. However, Liam quickly determined that now wasn’t a good time to tell her how completely wonderful her defense of him made him feel.

  Because in the end, the way he felt wasn’t wonderful at all. Not when it meant risking Threefold and the family they’d grown into.

  * * *

  FEELING THE WEIGHT of her failure on her shoulders, and in the heat in her cheeks, Gabrielle closed the window on the incriminating article and sat there. They had to move on to the big news of the day—the reputable news sources—but ethics required her to turn around to him first.

  “I fully understand if you’d like to seek other representation, Liam. It won’t hurt my feelings, and it won’t affect our friendship.” She looked him straight in the eye as she spoke. “This was my mistake. I let you down.”

  “Stop.” He looked as though he was going to come closer, but didn’t. “I told you, this is not your fault. I need you, Gabi. I trust you. And right now you and Marie are the only people in this world I can say that about.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Positive.”

  The glow his words—his look—gave her made up for a lot of the angst she’d been carrying around all day.

  And instilled a new commitment within her to give Liam the absolute best representation he could hope to have.

  It also nudged the growing need to have the right to take care of him, in every way, forever. The feelings had to stop. Because if she couldn’t get this under control, if she continued to feel jealous just thinking about him with another woman, she was going to end up making all of them uncomfortable.

  Putting a breach in their friendship that surely wouldn’t survive as they all eventually married and had families of their own.

  Most particularly if she was jealous of the mother of his children...

  He was watching her. She had to focus. To concentrate. And do what she knew she could do well.

  “Okay, so let’s see what the media has done with you today and move on,” she told him, instilling her voice with the confidence she gave to all of her clients.

  With sure strokes, she typed in the URL for a national news source before looking at the local news, which they already knew had full coverage. “If you’re not up here, we’re ahead of the game,” she said as she typed. Pushed Enter. And waited.

  Watching the local coverage would be much easier for him when he knew that the scope of the broadcast was limited.

  The headlining story, complete with a picture that covered the top left quarter of the screen, had to do with the newest twist in an ongoing global political battle. She scrolled right by it and down to the bolded list of links that represented the current news. Liam wouldn’t be there. Hopefully Walter wouldn’t be, either. They could get to the local stuff and formulate a plan.

  Namely, her plan to get Walter to drop the trespassing charges.

  She scanned quickly and then came back up the list from the bottom to the top.

  Behind her, Liam hadn’t moved. Didn’t even seem to be breathing.

  And then she saw what he’d obviously already seen, the second item, under breaking news: A Twist to the Breaking Connelly Investments Case. Beneath that, Son Liam and Attorney Girlfriend Go to Lengths to Direct Press Away from Father.

  With a feeling of dread like lead in her stomach, she clicked on the link, hoping the story would be short and indicative of the fact that there was no real news to report where Walter was concerned.

  It took a second for the link to load. A picture was coming up.

  Gabrielle turned to look at Liam. As if he’d been waiting for her to come get him, he leaned in closer, their cheeks side-by-side as they watched the photo slowly load.

  “It’s probably just a stock photo of your father,” she told him, but she knew, even without seeing, that was wishful thinking.

  “It’s going to be me in cuffs,” he told her. He sounded as if he thought things could be worse. “Wouldn’t you know it, the one time I show up at Connelly with smudges on my suit is the one day the press notices me...”

  She turned her face, needing to see the smile she knew he’d be wearing, and their gazes met. The press had just called her his girlfriend.

  She hadn’t allowed herself to entertain the thought. Knew she couldn’t now.

  “How do you do it?” she asked him.

  Their mouths were so close she could see the small lines in his lips as he said, “Do what?”

  “Stay so upbeat all the time. No matter what someone says or does to you, even if they knock you down, you come up with a smile. Or some positive way to spin it.”

  “I didn’t know I did.”

  “It’s what drew me to you from the first time we met,” she told him. “You’d just been kicked in the teeth by your father when Marie and I knocked on your door. And you were all about having us help you make your bed since you’d never done it before. You were excited to sleep in a dumpy room with not a single luxury—unless you counted the running water and flushing toilet in the bathroom—just because you could.”

  He was still watching her, not the screen, so she continued to hold on, too.

  “What would you have had me do?” She watched his lips move.

  “Exactly what you did.” She almost smiled, but couldn’t quite. “It’s just that I was...”

  “Horrified?”

  “Something like that. I see danger everywhere, pitfalls and risks. Life has always been a minefield to me. Then I spend time with you and I see flower beds.”

  “My father raised me to expect the best out of any situation. I think I probably segued a bit from his initial intent, but I learned early, probably from Mom and growing up with her sick, that the best way to get through anything tough was to look for the good. In every moment. It’s not like I stand around looking for it. I think she showed me how to find it naturally. Like she showed me how to brush my teeth and use the right silverware,” he told her slowly, his gaze seeming to devour her face.

  “I would have liked to have met her.” She licked her lips gone terribly dry.

  “You met me instead.”


  Yes. Yes, she had. He moved an inch. She didn’t. That was why his lips touched hers. Because he’d expected her to back up and she hadn’t. It was accidental. And the shock held her still.

  Until his lips moved on hers. And she responded.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  IT TOOK LIAM less than five seconds to know he’d made the most major error of his life. Jerking back from Gabrielle, he became a six-foot-tall mass of panic.

  What had he done? How did he undo it?

  For every way in, there had to be a way out.

  He came up blank. So he turned to the computer screen.

  And saw the picture.

  Emotions exploded like a burst dam, coursing through his system with a force that threatened to drown him.

  Anger. Excitement. Fear. First and foremost, fear.

  There in front of them, staring out at them...was a picture of him and Gabi.

  His most private shame that day was right there for the world to see. Him and Gabi as a couple.

  Why he’d made such a serious error in judgment, why he’d so inappropriately crossed the line, breaking the trust that he and Gabi and Marie had established in each other so many years before, he had no idea.

  But the fates were mocking him, calling him on it, right then and there. For all the world to see.

  Obviously taken with a telephoto lens, the photo depicted the two of them sitting together, alone, leaning in toward one another, eyes meeting, at a little café table. The background showed a large window, and outside, darkness.

  “That was taken at the coffee shop.” Gabrielle’s voice sounded choked as she spoke beside him. The photo made it look as if they were a couple, intimate. Splashed on the national news.

  Liam had no idea what she was thinking. He couldn’t look at her to find out. But he knew her well enough to know that she’d see all of this in the worst light possible.

  Knowing too that once there, she’d set to finding a way to protect them from the harm. Because that was what Gabi did. She looked for the dangers and then either prevented them or tended to them...

  “He, or she, must have been out front. The background is the side window...” He focused on the picture. Not on the kiss he’d just instigated.

  Not on the fact that she’d responded.

  On the fact that a kiss had never rocked him so deeply...

  “It was the night the letter came to the shop,” she said. “That’s when we were sitting at that table, just the two of us. After Tanner and the police left, and then Marie went with Burton, we were the only ones in the shop...”

  He wasn’t surprised she’d gone straight to analyzing. He’d moved as far away from her as he could while still having a good view of the screen. They’d both continued to stare only at it.

  If they ignored the fact that they’d just kissed, would the fact disappear into the ether as though it was just another of the dreams that had been haunting him the past several nights?

  “We have to find out who took the picture,” Liam said.

  “My guess is it’s the same person who sent the letter. I’m thinking he sent the letter to set us up. To bring us both down there. With the hopes of getting a good shot of the two of us together.”

  “Why would anyone want a shot of the two of us together?” The surprise brought on by her statement had him staring at her before he knew he’d broken his vow not to look at her again. “We weren’t branded a couple until you spoke to that reporter this morning...”

  Gabi’s brow furrowed, and for the first time since he’d known her she looked lost. Completely and truly lost.

  Had his kiss done that to her?

  The idea shouldn’t please him.

  But it did.

  * * *

  DIZZY WITH CONFUSION, Gabrielle attempted to swallow to counteract the dryness in her throat. She looked back at the computer, attempting to find a rational explanation for the way her mind had spun a scenario that didn’t exist.

  Her life was based on reason. Understanding allowed the ability to affect. To change. To make better...

  “You’re right,” she said when she could trust herself to sound professional. “The photographer wasn’t looking for us in particular, he was watching you and I just happened to be there. It fits. The news of your father’s arrest had hit, but there was no mention of the grand jury indictment yet at that point. He was betting one would be coming, that it would be big news, and he was going to be ready when it hit. I’ll bet he took hundreds of photos so he’d have an arsenal to choose from when the time was right.”

  She was back on her game. Her mind was working. She just had to focus on the job. The one thing in her life she could count on. Her security. And her greatest satisfaction. Her source of happiness...

  And pray that Liam let go of her jumping to such an inane conclusion. Lest he figure out that she was also inanely rattled around him.

  Lest either one of them be forced to mention the kiss that they needed to forget ever happened.

  Liam pointed to the screen, farther down in the article, and she realized he’d been reading.

  His finger was on her quote from that morning and she started to lose grounding again. Shaking inside, cold and feeling pressure in her chest, she knew her worst nightmare from that morning had come true.

  She’d embarrassed Liam on a national level. Made his situation worse by feeding the media fodder the American public would gobble up.

  He scrolled down. And the picture of him being arrested came into view.

  The news was sensationalistic. The national source’s handling of it was not. Only the facts were being told. But the implications couldn’t be missed.

  As soon as Walter Connelly had been arrested, his son and his longtime best friend, attorney Gabrielle Miller, had hit the streets with their separate little dramas. One had to ask, according to the story, why the couple who’d never been together in the media before both hit on the same day. Could it be that they were trying to detract media attention from the FBI investigation?

  Trying to protect Walter Connelly by having his alleged sins be less public?

  The article intimated that the couple, in light of the newly exposed picture of them taken the week before, were clearly an item. The pieces were all coming together: Liam Connelly’s broken engagement. His father’s arrest. And then the exposure of his longtime affair with Gabrielle.

  Both Connellys were of the same cloth—men who appeared honest and trustworthy but led secret and not so honest lives.

  The implication was that Walter Connelly was already assumed guilty. Before he’d even been indicted.

  The press was busy judging the family’s way of handling being found out, not questioning if a man with as many philanthropic endeavors as Walter had would have committed such a crime. They’d already been judged.

  Other pictures were there. One of Liam and Elliott by the door in the back of the apartment complex and several of Walter—stock photos and a couple of more recent ones.

  There was a paragraph about the twelve-year-old’s egging of Walter’s gate, exemplifying that not only investors had been hurt by the Connelly scheme, but also their families and their children.

  The American public was encouraged to stay tuned and find out what other secrets would be exposed in the course of the investigation.

  Gabrielle wanted to throw up.

  * * *

  LIAM WANTED TIME to himself. He’d kissed his best friend. Lies about his life were all over the news. And his father was about to be indicted on charges that could put him in prison for the rest of his natural life.

  Liam couldn’t let the night end this way, though. No telling what Gabi, with her worrying and X-ray vision when it came to danger, would do with that kiss undiscussed between them. By morning it
could have grown into a mountain that would keep them from ever seeing each other again.

  And that was his worst nightmare.

  She closed the internet browser. “The first thing we have to do is get your father to drop the trespassing charges,” she said, proceeding in a very calm, determined fashion to lay out her plan to get his father to capitulate.

  “It’s a good plan,” he told her, settling his butt on the corner of his desk. A couple of feet of heavy wood between them wasn’t much, but it was better than standing close enough to feel the heat coming off her body.

  Or smell the scent of her skin.

  “You know my father well,” he told her, not displeased by that fact, either.

  “Comes from more than ten years of watching you deal with him,” she said. She chuckled, but there was no mirth on her face. Nor was there when she looked at him.

  “You’re good at sizing up your adversary and cutting to the quick,” he told her. Because he didn’t want her to size him up and cut him off, he had to deal with this.

  Had to make things right between them.

  “Then we have to figure out how we’re going to handle your publicity, Liam. Do you want me to make a formal statement? Do you want to stick with the ‘no comment at this time’ routine? How do you want me to play this?”

  She wasn’t quitting him. He switched gears a bit. To give himself time to figure out what to do with her. For her. For them.

  To figure out how to not only preserve their friendship—his and Marie’s and Gabi’s—but to prevent any more of the rash and inappropriate feelings and actions emanating from him without his will.

  “What do you suggest?”

  “In my opinion, the less said, the less anyone has to twist or use against you.”

  Then she probably wasn’t going to like what he’d deemed his good news, either.

  “I could break up with you—publicly speaking, of course,” he said. It had worked for Jenna. Got them apart in the eyes of her father without making her look bad. Making her the victim and him the bad guy.

  That, at least, would take off the pressure of having the press make this nightmare any worse. Or shine a light on reality in their fantasy. A light that Gabi might actually begin to see.