by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose
Still as time passed, I found my eyes drawn more and more to his slouched figure. We had several classes together which meant the opportunities to examine him were endless. Every time I caught myself studying the long, lean line of Gabriel’s back, I burned with the insane pull all those girls must’ve felt for knowing that glorious, dangerous angel.
The worst part of it was I couldn’t judge their fascination anymore. Not after what I had seen.
The quick flash of seeing Gabriel with Brandy Peterson had branded itself into my mind. I couldn’t forget it no matter how hard I tried. The images would crash into me at the worst times—while I worked on a challenging Calculus problem, as I cleaned tables at my part-time job, when I was in the shower…
I’d seen enough to know Gabriel hadn’t just used Brandy as a receptacle for his lust. He had been making love to her in a way I didn’t understand, but recognized nonetheless. It was then that I understood just how dangerous Gabriel Gordon could be to a girl.
My panic would’ve escalated if I’d had any clue that I was about to personally find out.
Maybe it was because pickings were slim or maybe Gabriel had noticed my gaze one time too many, but I entered his line of sight one week after walking in on him.
Fixated on Gabriel when I should’ve been listening to a discussion about Macbeth, my curiosity finally became my undoing. Gabriel lifted up his head, hair deliciously tousled from his nap, and locked his undivided attention onto me. My cheeks reddened and my mouth parted in shock. Pleasure flooded his gaze. He had smiled and mouthed “Pay attention, Emma.”
It hadn’t mattered that I whipped my head back around and pretended I hadn’t been caught doing exactly what I had been doing. Gabriel didn’t let me slink away unscathed. He began waiting for me in the mornings by the student parking lot. I’d get out of my old red Beetle to see him standing next to his late model Mercedes silver convertible one spot over.
“Hello, Emma,” he’d murmur while looking half-asleep with a beautiful smile fixed to his ridiculously handsome face.
“Go away.”
“Now why would I want to do that? I like being here with you.”
“I don’t like it.”
“You will. I promise.”
His arrogance rubbed me the wrong way. His gentleness seduced. I was constantly pulled and pushed away because of it. I knew what he was, what he was capable of, but a large part of me began bending. I started to look forward to seeing him everyday even if I didn’t enjoy the attention his presence brought me.
The stares followed us everywhere. It seemed like the whole school was waiting for my inevitable fall. Gabriel’s words had been especially sharp to those whispering bystanders.
“Take a fucking picture, assholes. It’ll last longer.”
He waited for me at my locker after class and slid beside me at lunch. I felt the stares of his friends most intently then. They were like a pack of jackals, eyes cruel and mouths parted in a mimicry of friendliness. The malicious glee pointed at my direction burned a hole through my hard-wrought shell.
“Don’t pay attention to them.”
“Who? Your friends?”
“Those are not my friends. More like assholes or leeches. All of us are, Emma. That’s why you shouldn’t pay attention.”
“Even you?”
“Except me.”
I’d fallen silent but it didn’t matter. He seemed content to do all the speaking. Sometimes he’d managed to coax a sentence or two out of me, but then I’d clamp down. Gabriel’s gaze would dim afterwards and I’d feel the pain of wounding him.
But I couldn’t relent. I had known how the story was bound to end. I didn’t want any part in helping to make it a tragedy. I did not want to be the scorned Fury screeching in the hallway, sobbing because Gabriel didn’t love me how I loved him. I was not going to be a fool by falling into the trap of reading more into him than what he actually delivered.
It wasn’t going to happen.
What was going to happen was I would keep my perfect GPA. I’d earn my numerous scholarships and get the hell out of a town where economically disadvantaged people like me tended to stay. I had no time for fallen angels who whispered my name ever-so-gently and made me yearn for the possibility of something different.
I wasn’t going to indulge the fantasies that popped up more and more during my waking hours either. And I wasn’t even going to consider the explicit ones populating my dreams. No way.
So of course Gabriel had managed to steal my first kiss.
After a month of my noncompliance, he’d confronted me outside during Prom. He’d been swaying, more than a little tipsy, and demanded to know why I wouldn’t dance with him. We exchanged words, but the ones I especially remembered from him were “Why won’t you look at me, Emma? Don’t you know the only one I’ve ever really wanted the past four years is you? What can I do to get you to like me back? I’ll do anything you want…be anything you want…just say you’ll be mine, Emma.”
I vividly remember my legs going weak, but I couldn’t let him see how much his words affected me. I lifted my chin, proud of myself for seeming so composed. I didn’t believe him and said so using very explicit language.
Gabriel suddenly rushed me. He pressed my body against the brick wall and caged me within his expensively attired arms. No tuxedo rental for him.
“I’m not lying,” he swore right before pressing his soft lips against mine.
I could’ve screamed. I could’ve bit him. I didn’t do either of those things because I really didn’t want to.
His mouth was perfect. He was perfect. Anything I could’ve imagined, daydreamed about collapsed as the pale imitation it was. Nothing could’ve prepared me for the drugging sensation of having him kiss me. I melted against Gabriel, reaching out blindly to entangle my fingers in his golden hair.
He was drunk when our kiss started. I was drunk when it ended.
“Come with me,” he’d said.
“Yes,” I’d answered.
We spent the rest of the night together. Alone in his parent’s mansion, tucked away in his enormous curtained bed, I lost my virginity and heart to Gabriel. It was as perfect as anything I could’ve ever tried to wish for. Gabriel had been tender with me, taking things as slow as I needed. Filled with him, I girlishly imagined he had flown me to a heaven where our many, many differences didn’t matter and where I could be his forever.
Afterwards, his beautiful eyes had welled with tears as he looked down at me. “Thank you, Emma, for making my dreams come true.”
I was smitten.
We made love over and over again. I couldn’t get enough of Gabriel and I didn’t want the night to ever end. We laughed together, finding each other’s tickle spots with ease. He fed me strawberries and cream. I let him lick champagne off my back. When we weren’t physically filled with each other, we whispered some of our secrets.
I didn’t want to be stuck broke and powerless forever. He didn’t want to be alone.
Eventually he fell asleep, holding me tight as if he never wanted to let me go. Lying there in Gabriel’s arms, I suffered a love so exquisite in its pain I knew that would be the moment to define me forever after.
I’d never, ever be the same.
Staring at the canopied ceiling, I let the tears roll unchecked. They dripped onto the pillow while the beautiful holder of my heart slept undisturbed. I became convinced it was symbolic of how things were fated to be. I then thought of the exquisite pleasure he’d given me and the box of condoms we’d run through. Considering he’d kept them in his nightstand, apparently I had lots of girls to thank for his practice. I wondered who would thank me in the future as she lay in the spot I vacated.
Eventually I slipped out of his bed, got dressed, and walked the four miles back home. My mother took one look at me and knew. She didn’t yell or lecture me as I’d expected. She simply opened her arms and let me fall into them. I had no tears left, only a soul-wounding scar of regret that things couldn’t be different.<
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“It’ll be okay, baby. I promise.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell her she couldn’t make this okay. Everything in the world but this.
Gabriel came over to my house that afternoon, shocking me with his smiling presence on my well-worn porch. With a lovely bouquet of roses in hand, he asked me out.
I turned him down.
In just a few short hours, I’d patched myself together, refocusing my attention back on my goals—college, dream job, financial independence. I couldn’t be his girlfriend the way either of us wanted. I wasn't self-destructive enough to try to heal or tame him. And I knew that was exactly what I would try to do. Eventually Gabriel would’ve tired of me and then where would that leave me?
Left behind just like the score of other girls who had loved and lost Gabriel Gordon.
We didn’t speak another word to each other for the rest of the year. I’d catch his gaze across campus, brooding and wounded until he hid it away with a lazy-eyed stare and miniature smile dripping with contempt.
For him or me remained a mystery. I could only guess it was a bit of both.
Gabriel didn’t pursue anyone else that year. I wish I could say I wasn’t arrogant enough to think it had anything to do with me. He withdrew from his brilliant circle and unleashed his acerbic tongue on anyone who dared ask him why. His temperament became volcanic, something he no longer tried to rein back.
Once Gabriel came to class with a scabbed lip and blackened eye. Rumors flew that he’d been seen fighting outside a club. He no longer slept, just sat there with arms crossed and stared at the board with blind intensity. My heart ached but I refused to look at him any closer than I would anyone else.
Graduation came and our class went our separate ways. Still, Gabriel was never too far from my thoughts. I wondered if he’d be lonely forever and suffered when I thought of the woman who’d clear him of that pain.
Still I got my wish—I received a full scholarship to a small but respected university. I was leaving town, off to fulfill my dreams. I had no business crying about it.
Never mind that I actually did that nightly for three months.
Gabriel went to Yale for one year before dropping out when his father died of a heart attack. Change swept through Gordon Industries like an inferno.
Fast-forward seven years.
He became Gabriel Gordon, the man plastered on every finance magazine, newscast, and blog. The years hadn't changed him, despite taking over his father's company and expanding it into a multinational corporation with offices on nearly every continent. Sparkling smile, lazy-lidded gaze, Gabriel redefined the definition of sexy.
And infuriating.
Gabriel may have been a captain of industry, but a chance encounter in the elevator showed me he was still an ill-tempered, arrogant man who showed far too much interest in the shape of my mouth and nape of my neck. The month before our encounter I wished my company could just move right back into our old building, but the likelihood of that happening was on par with the familiar phrase involving pigs and their aerodynamic abilities.
Every day afterwards brought Gabriel further into my life, making a mess of the orderly world I had created as Emma Adams, Junior Financial Analyst. Lunches became dinners, and dinners quickly became much more. Gabriel bedeviled me, teased me, and more often than not, made me want to throw things at his head. Still, just as in high school, I couldn't help but see the pain behind his lazy grin and the shadows in his crystalline gaze.
When Gabriel told me he loved me for the first time, I should have been the happiest woman in the world. Instead, I saw it as proof that some men can't be saved. They'd lie to get out of anything, including being caught having lunch with an ex. They’d lie to hide who they really were.
They’d lie just to lie.
I was wrong about him...about what I thought this relationship had really been about. I’d been a naïve fool, someone who thought she knew it all, knew her life, and thought she knew the man she loved.
Lunch with an ex…I wished it was just about that.
I needed to be wrong about Gabriel. God, I hoped I was wrong.
Why did I let it get this far? Especially when I knew that loving him would be as dangerous as cutting out my heart and letting him keep it in his pocket?
Because Gabriel was my biggest regret and my greatest love.
I could no sooner stop loving him than I could stop breathing.
Damnit! I’m so freakin’ insane to be here, to still want him.
“Emma…baby…are you still there?”
I sighed and answered, “Yeah.”
“Let me in…please.”
There was no hope for it. I stood up and unlocked the door.
Chapter Two
Friday, Five Days Earlier
Obelisk Pointe Building
“Hold the elevator please!”
Oh damn it. My luck wasn’t really going to be this bad, was it? No, no, no…yes, it was. The petite woman in front of me reached out and kept the doors from closing. Two men entered, both tall, but only one of them known to me.
“I’ve rescheduled your interview with the Times to this afternoon at three.”
“Good. Anything else?”
“You have a charity dinner tonight starting at 8:30.”
“Which one is this again? The Senior Center or the Humane Society?”
“Senior Center.”
I took a small step back, doing my best to remain unnoticed as I slid closer to the corner. Gabriel Gordon overpowered the small space, making it impossible to ignore him. Dressed in a tailored grey suit, he looked entirely too beautiful to be real. I only caught a glimpse of his tie, but it was as pale a blue as the color surrounding his pupils. The strip of white at his neck brought out the myriad shades of gold in his beautiful hair. If I leaned a bit closer, I’d be able to indulge my nose’s desire to take another whiff of his deliciously scented cologne.
Damn, but he was still a gorgeous man who wrecked havoc on any female within eyesight—including me.
Oh, not fair. Not fair.
Gabriel’s voice was just as deep and husky as it’d been in high school. Hearing it brought back to life countless memories I’d rather not have relived at the moment. I noticed the woman who’d kept the doors from closing surreptitiously peeking up at him from beneath her lashes.
I’d seen that look often enough to know Gabriel had just scored another infatuated heart to add to his collection. And I still had twenty-eight floors left to go. Gabriel had fifty-four which meant I’d have to pass him to leave.
Shit.
Come on, Emma! Stop being a little chicken. He’s so deep in conversation with his assistant he probably won’t even recognize you!
True. I had lightened my dark hair with generous blond highlights and had switched from glasses to contacts. I’d also grown a few inches too, vertically and horizontally, no longer possessing the willowy frame of my youth. I was the last person in the world he’d be looking for and our accidental proximity wouldn’t do anything to change that. So basically I needed to calm down.
Right. Calm down when Gabriel Gordon, the only man I regretted loving and leaving, stood only a few feet away.
Good luck with that.
The elevator soon rolled to an elegant stop. “Excuse me,” came out of Samaritan Girl’s mouth. She sounded breathy and excited.
Gabriel instantly stepped aside. His smile lit the dim elevator like a thousand watt bulb. “Of course. Thank you again for holding the doors.”
“Anytime!”
“What’s your name, dear?” he asked gently when she remained by his arm.
“Samantha.”
Samantha the Samaritan’s lingering seemed to irritate his assistant. I wondered how much of his precious time was wasted watching his employer flirt with anything in a skirt. How I pitied him!
This was exactly why I wanted to pitch a fit when I learned my company was moving into Obelisk Point. Everyone else was excited by the g
lass curtain walls, observation decks, plazas, lightening-fast elevators, multi-level gym, helipad, and swimming pools.
Yes, swimming pools.
Not me. I wanted to stay where I was and not have to do a daily commute to Gabriel Gordon’s magnificent building. Never mind that it actually shaved about 15 minutes off my drive. Nope, that wasn’t enough inducement for me. I simply didn’t want to relive my high school years again, but here I was doing just that.
Lovely. Really. It’s not like I have to get back to work. No, I can stand here all day long while you two chat each other up.
Irritated, I looked at my watch. I wished they’d hurry it along and not because I was feeling uncomfortable. And I definitely was not feeling the pinpricks of jealousy. No way.
Really.
Okay. It was obvious I lied. I did feel jealous. I felt more than jealous. I felt dangerously possessive, an emotion I had no right to feel, especially considering how things ended between us. So I stewed in my corner, recognizing my pettiness and yet unable to do anything but grit my teeth.
My pride won’t let me run so hurry and go. Please. Just do this somewhere else where I can pretend it isn’t still affecting me.
“I don’t want to hold you up any further. Thank you again for your kindness, Samantha.”
The long-suffering assistant immediately began speaking to Gabriel afterwards, leaving the woman no choice but to walk out the elevator with a smile and a glassy-eyed stare.
Geez, nothing ever really changes, does it?
I swallowed my rude snort. Or at least I thought I did.
Gabriel looked over his shoulder, heaven blue gaze mildly curious before widening in electric shock.
“Emma?”
I cleared my throat and did my best to pretend that this wasn’t the absolute worst thing to happen to me since I left him standing on my porch seven years before.
“Hello, Gabriel.”
He turned fully towards me and beamed with pleasure. The smile he’d given Samantha the Samaritan instantly paled in comparison. Gabriel’s simple movement of lips and teeth created a blindingly beautiful greeting. It slayed my irritation over being caught, leaving me in a low-grade panic.