New Adult Romance Box Set

by Emme Rollins, Julia Kent, Anna Antonia, Helena Newbury, Aubrey Rose

  Gabriel closed his eyes. His face looked haggard, exhausted beyond the moment. “It’s not what you think. I swear it isn’t.”

  “Sure it isn’t, Gabriel. I mean you’re not the kind of man who would lie to me and tell me you can’t see me for lunch because you’re absolutely swamped with work, are you?” I rocked my head back in emphasis. “Oh, wait a minute. You did just that with me today, didn’t you? That wasn’t a smart move at all, Gabriel. Not at all. But then again, you’ve had plenty of practice moving on from one girl to the other. Don’t worry—I’m a quick learner. This won’t be the messy kind of breakup you’re used to.”

  Terror possessed his features. He scooted his chair closer to mine. “Emma, baby, don’t.”

  My violent cheeriness couldn’t be stopped. “Be quiet! Really. You don’t get say that to me anymore because you’re a liar.”

  “Gabriel, darling, I would move back a bit. She looks like she’s apt to resort to violence and I’m sure that’s the last thing you’d like.”

  Hearing Embry speak to him in such sugary-sweet tones made me want to slam her face against the table and hope she choked a huge shard of broken glass on the way down. The viciousness of my emotions scared me, but not nearly enough.

  “Embry, shut-up!” Gabriel snapped before I could, intense dislike for the cool blond staining his beautiful, dishonest face. “I shouldn’t have tried to reason with you. If you think for a moment that you’ve won—you’ve got another thing coming.”

  Nice try. You weren’t so hateful when she had her hand on your cheek, were you?

  Gabriel tried again, voice low and insistent. “Emma, baby, I know this looks terrible, but I need you to listen to me.”

  I pointed my finger at his face. “That’s where you’re wrong. I don’t actually have to do that.”

  “Emma, please.”

  “No! You don’t get to talk especially since everything that is coming out of your mouth is either a lie or an obvious grab at buying time. I’m afraid, Mr. Gordon, you don’t have a bank account big enough to buy your way out of this—at least not with me.”

  “Emma—”

  “No.” I grabbed a breadstick and took a leisurely bite. “Embry texted me and invited me to pop in if I didn’t believe that you, the man I finally let myself trust above all others, was actually having lunch with her. Behind my back and after you lied to me.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “I’m sorry that I had to do that.”

  “Really? I’m afraid I don’t believe that.” I turned my attention to Embry. “You planned this. Why don’t tell us both why you really wanted me here?”

  “Should I tell her, darling?”

  The use of the word grated as I’m sure it intended to. Fuck it. I wasn’t going to keep my mouth shut and let her keep pricking me with her damned diamond tipped claws.

  I tossed my breadstick on the table. “Let’s clear something up right now—Gabriel’s not mine anymore so you can call him darling all day long. It’s no sweat off my back, understand?”

  “Crystal.”

  “No, goddamnit!” Gabriel wrapped his hand around my wrist. “I’m not going to let you do this! I’m not skirting beyond your back with this woman, Emma.” His tortured whisper would’ve normally been enough to break me.

  Not anymore.

  I ignored Gabriel. I fixated my attention on the viperous bitch across the table, daring her to do her worst. “You’ve set it in motion, Embry. Let me see how it’s all supposed to end.”

  “Let’s go. Now!” Gabriel made to stand up and forcibly pull me up with him.

  “If you even try to make me leave, I will scream this whole restaurant down. You don’t need the publicity or the gossip, Gabriel.”

  “Fuck the publicity and the gossip. We’re going now.”

  Embry set her champagne flute down. “Gabriel, she’s bound to find out sooner or later. Dragging her out of here won’t do anything to delay it now.”

  I yanked my arm from him. “I’m to find out more than this? Lovely.”

  Embry observed me for a bit. “You’re not quite what I expected, Emma. I’m compelled to inform you this isn’t exactly personal. Just necessary.”

  “Of course, it is.”

  She addressed the seething man sitting so close to me that I felt the trembling in his hard thigh.

  “Gabriel, you surprise me. I’ve never seen you so out of control, so vulnerable. I’m afraid it makes me sick with jealousy. I’d give anything to have you look at me the way you look at her.”

  “Give it time,” I interjected. “I’m sure it won’t take much.”

  “Emma!” Gabriel hissed in censure. “Say that again and I’ll drag you out of here—by your hair if need be.”

  “Try it and see how well your face fares.”

  “I wouldn’t touch his face if I were you. It’s one of the things I love about him.” Embry cleared her throat delicately. “I’m not going to draw the suspense out any further, Emma. I want Gabriel back and I want you to let him go.”

  “Impossible!” Gabriel snapped coldly. “Embry, you and I were done months ago. You know that.”

  “Yes, but only a day after you found her. That’s rather cruel, even for you.”

  Tunnel vision erased Gabriel. I could only see Embry. “Explain.”

  “I’d been Gabriel’s for two years, Emma. It was quite serious, you know.”

  “How serious?”

  “Gabriel was going to be my husband.”

  Oh, God!

  “You were engaged to her?” I asked him, accusation dripping off each careful syllable. “Engaged?”

  “No.” Gabriel’s gaze begged me to believe him. I looked away.

  “But you were going to ask me. I saw the ring, Gabriel.”

  Embry didn’t have the look of a liar. I still had to ask. “Is this true?”

  Please say no. Please say no. Please, please, please.

  Murder boiled in his crystalline stare for the woman seated across from us. “Yes.”

  The room turned black for a split-second. My breath came out in an agonized rush. “You were going to marry her.”

  “Yes, he was. I was going to be Mrs. Gabriel Gordon. I was going to be his wife and the mother of his children. Everything I ever wanted was right there. And then you ruined it, Emma. All of my dreams came to an end the day he saw you in his building.”

  Shocked and more than a little sick, I turned to the man I had let myself love but could no longer recognize. “You mean the day of the fundraiser…” I thought of how we ran into her just four nights before. To think he’d been that seriously involved with Embry, but if he’d had why didn’t she say anything?

  Why didn’t she raise hell like so many others would’ve?

  What the fuck is going on between them?

  Gabriel clenched his jaw and gave a short shake of his head. “No. Not that day.”

  Pain pierced my brain. A brutal headache brewed, minutes away from fully unleashing agony onto my poor body. “Then I don’t understand…”

  Embry’s brittle smile betrayed the human heart beating beneath the polished shell. “No, Emma. It wasn’t that day. It was a month before. The first day your company moved into Obelisk Pointe. You have no idea how much I would give to go back and buy Med-Tech out, to make sure Gabriel never set eyes on you again.”

  Information moved too quickly. I couldn’t make sense of it. I suspected the pieces were there, but I couldn’t see the whole picture to bring order yet. “How do you know he saw me?”

  “Gabriel didn’t tell me why he was leaving me—just that he was. I figured it out after my security showed me the pictures of you.” A bittersweet smile played about the corners of her pink mouth. “Yes, even then I knew who you were and what you meant to him.”

  I didn’t have enough words to even begin to address that. “You were having Gabriel followed?”

  “Of course. Just as he’s had you followed.” She read my stunned expression with unerring accuracy
. “I can see you didn’t expect that, never dreamed of it. That’s what people like us do with the ones we love. We cage them up, Emma, knowing the moment we let up is the moment they’ll fly. And we’ll do anything to keep that from happening.”

  I didn’t think her capable of dark poetry. Just as I didn’t think Gabriel capable of doing something so monstrous either. His words from the night before rose up to haunt me.

  “Gabriel is a fucking monster. He’s a sick bastard that doesn’t deserve you, but he’s such a bastard that he’ll do whatever it takes to keep you. You really don’t want to know him, Emma. You shouldn’t. So go. Please.”

  “Why do you think I sent those clothes for you to wear? Gabriel’s security detail would’ve called him the minute they saw you leave the building otherwise. You never would’ve been able to make it to this room without him finding out. And I couldn’t have that happen. You had to see for yourself.”

  I can’t believe I was so stupid to fall for this. Keeping things discreet? Don’t ruin or embarrass his image by being seen?

  “You had me picked up and brought here as an added precaution. You used what I didn’t know against me.”

  Embry looked completely unapologetic.

  “Is it true? Were you having me followed?” My eyes were clear even as the pain boiled over. I wasn’t going to show him how devastated and wounded I was. That much I was sure of. Perhaps the only thing.

  Gabriel’s shuttered expression answered me long before he did. “Yes.”

  I blew out a cleansing breath, doing everything in my power to not take the glass centerpiece and smash it against his head. “The alarm system. They got in my apartment because they already had a key. It’s not just an alarm system, is it? You’re spying on me.”

  “No, Emma. It is just an alarm system.”

  “Why are you having me followed? Because I wouldn’t work for you? Because you thought I’d cheat on you? Because you couldn’t trust me? Why, Gabriel?”

  “I wanted to keep you safe.” He stared at Embry significantly before turning back to him.

  “Safe from what? From her?” I shook my head wildly, flinching back from his touch. Gabriel’s hand hovered in the air. “No, you didn’t want to keep me safe. You wanted to be able to control me.”

  He didn’t deny it.

  “What else do I need to know?”

  “Emma—”

  “I’m not asking you. I’m asking her.” The rage continued to build steadily inside. I was quickly becoming a force separate and apart from the girl I’d always known myself to be.

  I was becoming monstrous, out of control.

  Just like the girls that screamed and slapped Gabriel when he broke their hearts. No! I am not going to be like them. I am not going to need him that badly. I won’t…I can’t…

  Embry watched me silently. I prodded her, false cheer making my tone thick and syrupy. “Don’t be shy now, Embry! We’ve gotten this far, no need to keep me waiting. I’m all ears and I’m all yours.”

  “I know you hate me now, Emma. By the end, you’ll hate me more. I am sorry for that. Truly I am.”

  “Forgive me, Embry, but I’m having a difficult believing you.”

  “Very well then. I arranged for all of this because Gabriel left me for you, Emma, and it’s not fair. I stood by him, keeping in the shadows, keeping his secrets safe just so he could toss me out like garbage? No. If you think you’re strong enough to keep him, then you’ll need to know everything.”

  “Secrets. Why not?”

  Pity darkened her jade gaze. “Can I tell her, Gabriel? Do you think she’d still want you afterwards? I did, but would she? Something tells me no.”

  My fingers grew cold. “Does it have to do with how Gabriel built up his company?” Imaginations of dirty business dealings and corporate espionage spun madly.

  Her burst of laughter brought color back to my cheeks.

  “I haven’t the faintest idea. I imagine there’s a skeleton or two rattling in that particular closest. After all, he’s a billionaire. They don’t get to the top by being soft, do they?”

  If it wasn’t about his business, then that meant it was about his personal life.

  Gabriel’s silence, brittle as it was, held a level of expectancy. He could’ve dragged me out of the room anytime he’d wanted. My fury wouldn’t have been strong enough to sway him. The fact that he hadn’t meant some part of him wanted me to know.

  What could be so bad, Gabriel?

  “Frankly, I’m surprised by how much you’ve gotten away with today, Emma. You speak to Gabriel as if you’re his equal. No one speaks to him the way you do.”

  I bristled. “Meaning I don’t have the right because I’m not rich like you two.”

  “Your fixation on the disparity between your portfolios proves just how laughable the idea is that you could ever match Gabriel.” Embry leaned closer. “Do you have any idea who the man sitting next to you really is?”

  Gabriel fisted his hands. They suddenly looked quite large and dangerous to me. It wasn’t just my fear I sensed. It was his.

  Which meant things were about to get worse. Much, much worse.

  “Tell me.”

  Her gaze cut to Gabriel’s. “It can end now and she’ll never have to know. Tell me what to do and I’ll do it. Please…you know that I’d want nothing more in the world.”

  The pleading in her voice made me feel sick inside. It was the tone of someone accustomed to using it with Gabriel. I nearly bolted from the room after hearing it.

  Gabriel’s fists relaxed. A haunted smile flashed, unnaturally beautiful because of its resignation to a fate he had no control over. It was the melancholy smile of a man who no longer had to run. “No, Embry. Whatever happens will happen. I love Emma and I’m not walking away from her.”

  Joy exploded inside my heart even as devastation reached up to drag it back down into the pit of my self-created hell. Gabriel loved me? This enigmatic, glorious man loved me?

  “And if she doesn’t want you? Will you try to keep her still?”

  Gabriel looked over at me. His pained stare shifted, becoming hard and ruthless. “Yes.”

  “Then you understand how I feel about you.”

  Her statement surprised us both. Embry raised her flute in salute and drained the contents with one gulp. She carefully set her glass down and squared her shoulders.

  “Emma, Gabriel is lying to you. He’s not the sweet, boyish man who’s all full of smiles and lives to make you happy. Oh yes, I’ve seen that too. My security team is very, very good.”

  Knowing our relationship had been documented for Embry’s dissemination made me ill. I should’ve slapped her for that alone. Instead, I listened and fixated on every word that poured out of her patrician mouth.

  “That person who brings you flowers and pretends to enjoy going to the zoo is manufactured. He isn’t real. He’s much, much darker than the adorable harmless man you think you know.”

  “Stop dancing around it and tell me straight.”

  “Very well. Gabriel is a sadist in the truest sense of the word.”

  “You don’t know me, Embry. Don’t attempt to boil me down to one word.”

  “But it is the word, isn’t it? You like to inflict pain on your lovers, Gabriel. You need to dominate your lovers sexually, make them do whatever you want…hurting them, loving them, keeping them off-balance…it’s what you’re so good at, Gabriel. Why else do we keep crawling back to you?”

  I couldn’t feel my extremities. A headache cracked my skull. My heartbeat pounded so loudly I could barely hear Embry or the questions she flung. I thought back to the man I’d known these past five days, the one who’d courted me exactly how she described.

  So very sweetly, like I was precious and beloved. Like what we had was real.

  It’s been a lie. Gabriel has lied to me all this time.

  I remembered his words from the night before.

  “I’ve been a grinning fool, going out of my way to be wh
at you like because you’ll never be able to handle the real me.”

  It was there all along.

  He was trying to tell me this and I had no real clue.

  My thoughts scattered. Gabriel had come on so strong from day one. He’d pushed his way into my life unapologetically. He’d left no room for me to run. I’d thought Gabriel eccentric and refreshingly honest.

  He’s not a sadist! He would never hurt me…he’s not that kind of man.

  Disquiet chilled me. Hadn’t I also seen the darkness lurking behind his sunny smile? Hadn’t I made the acquaintance of someone else last night, someone vicious and completely used to being obeyed?

  Is this why Gabriel won’t make love to me? Is it because he needs his sex a certain way? A way that I don’t know how to give him?

  Both of them looked at me. Words failed me.

  “You know what I’m saying is true. I can see it in your eyes. Gabriel’s tried to hide this from you, but it’s still come out in a hundred little ways. His mood swings, his sudden need to keep you right with him at all times. He’s used sex to manipulate you, keeping you drugged on pleasure so you won’t see the cracks happening right in front of you.”

  “No, he hasn’t.”

  “What?”

  I pressed my lips into a hard line, furious with myself for letting that bit slip.

  Embry’s gaze widened marginally. “Gabriel hasn’t touched you.” Relief washed over her face. “He hasn’t touched you! That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?” She swung towards him. “You haven’t touched her for a reason. I’m that reason, aren’t I?”

  Gabriel callousness even made me flinch in sympathy. “Don’t pretend to understand what I do or don’t do with Emma. The reason we haven’t made love yet has nothing to do with you. I’m done with you, Embry. I don’t know how to make it any clearer.”

  “You’re afraid to touch her, Gabriel.”

  “How do you know that?” I whispered, sickened by her insight and more so at the thought he hadn’t been afraid to share himself with her.

  “Because I know he’s been suppressing his nature with you. Your opinion of Gabriel means the world to him. Frankly, I don’t know why.” She delivered the snub effortlessly.