Life Shocks Romances Contemporary Romance Box Set

by Jade Kerrion

  Valeria pressed her lips together as she watched Gabriel lean down to pick Marlena up and swing her into the air. The swing turned into an aerial backflip, and the sound of her daughter’s happy laughter rang out. Next to them, Diego hopped impatiently. “My turn! Swing me upside down, Dad.”

  “He loves them,” she whispered.

  “Does he love you?” Cherish asked.

  “I don’t see how it matters anymore.” Valeria swallowed through the lump clogging her throat. If he had signed the papers, which he surely must have, the divorce was a done deal. “I should go catch up with them.” Spend our last day as a family together.

  Cherish patted Valeria’s arm and released it.

  Valeria hurried through the crowd and flashed a bright and forced smile as she rejoined her family. “Now, where should we go next?”

  ~*~

  By the time they left the school fair, the afternoon had given way to a golden dusk. The sky was a smear of red and orange, pockmarked by silhouettes of scattered clouds. “Shall we go out to dinner?” Gabriel asked as they loaded the children into the car.

  “Dinner! Dinner!” Marlena squealed. Her feet kicked against the back of the driver’s seat.

  “I want pizza!” Diego announced.

  Valeria looked at Gabriel. “Shall we do Pepe’s?”

  “Sure.”

  Valeria drove to the local pizza joint not far from their home, acutely aware of the awkward and deepening silence in the car. As dusk faded, so did the sounds of whining and exhausted children in the backseat of the car. Gabriel glanced over his shoulder as Valeria pulled into the parking lot outside Pepe’s. “They’re asleep,” he said, his voice hushed.

  “We should just go home,” she said.

  “Yeah.” His voice was listless.

  She glanced at him. He leaned his head against the headrest, baring his throat in a gesture that made him seem vulnerable. No doubt he was too tired to care. Even in the darkness, she should see the lines of strain on his face and the weary, hopeless set of his eyes.

  “You must really want pizza,” she tried for levity.

  He shook his head. “Just wanted to go out as a family one last time.” He reached under the seat and took out the envelope. “Maybe we should just do this here. If you hate the memories, it’s easier to replace a car than a house. Your divorce papers. Signed.”

  With a lump in her throat, Valeria removed the papers from the envelope. Her hands trembled as she flipped through the documents. “These aren’t my divorce papers.”

  He did not look at her. A tree on the other side of the parking lot seemed far more fascinating to him. “I talked to your lawyer and got him to draft a fresh set. Bigger alimony—you’ll need it through the transition. The house is also yours, free and clear. Everything in it. I’ve arranged to have the mortgage balance transferred into a personal loan in my name. The house is officially paid off, so you don’t have to worry about it, other than insurance and taxes, and the alimony should more than cover it. There’s a deed in the package as well, transferring the house to you.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “There’s more for the children, including trust funds I’ve set up for college or whatever they choose to do later in life. There are a couple of smaller things in there, including cost of living adjustments, but I’ve just about covered the big things. You should read the settlement over carefully. I asked Brandon to block off time for you in case you want to talk to him about it—if you want to call him now, he’s expecting to hear from you—but it’s a solid agreement. Take it from a divorce lawyer; I should know.” A rueful smile flickered across his face. “It’s a new set of papers, so you’ll have to sign it again, but I’ve already signed it.” He pulled a pen from his shirt pocket and held it out to her.

  She took the pen from him, flicked on the light in the car, and by its dim glow, read through the divorce settlement while her soon-to-be-ex-husband stared out the other window, utterly silent.

  Ten minutes later, when she set the papers down, she realized one thing. He had given her and the children practically everything. She stared at the empty place for her signature. Her hand tightened, white-knuckled, on the pen. Slowly, she set it down and looked up at him. “Why didn’t you to go Napa Valley for the partners’ retreat?”

  ~*~

  Gabriel’s head snapped up. He had been lost in his own thoughts and unprepared for conversation, but Valeria’s voice shattered the solitude he had been using as a shield. He glanced at the divorce papers that lay between them and quickly looked away before he could see if she had signed them.

  He wasn’t ready yet to face up to the fact that his marriage was over.

  “Why didn’t you go to Napa Valley?” she asked the question again.

  “What was the point?” He turned his face to the window. “I did it for us, and you didn’t want to go, so what was the point in me going?” Suddenly, he wanted to talk. God knew it was probably his last chance to tell her everything that was in his heart and on his mind. “The partnership in the firm—it was just part of the plan, a milestone we’d both talked about achieving. You did your part, I thought I did mine, but then the finish line changed, and I still don’t know why.” He expelled his breath in a sigh. “I don’t know where the finish line is anymore. I thought perhaps we could still find it together, but I guess it doesn’t matter now.”

  “It doesn’t explain this.” She tapped the papers between them.

  “I figured something out when I saw the first set of papers you had Brandon put together. You may not love me, but you don’t hate me either.” He breathed in, but the motion failed to sooth the raw pain inside. “And if I try, I can live with that. I want to give you what you want; God knows you’ve given me everything all these years. I don’t want to hurt you or the kids, so—” He looked up at her and tried for a smile, knowing that it wavered on his lips. “So let’s do this gracefully, and we’ll all find a way to cope.”

  ~*~

  She stared at Gabriel. He held her gaze for a moment and then looked away, returning his attention to whatever it was that was so captivating outside his window.

  He was trying to cope. She could see it in his uneven breaths, in his hands that closed into fists and then relaxed in time with his heartbeat.

  She swallowed hard and strove for an even tone. “The night I left the note for you, I was furious you’d chosen your work over me.”

  He did not turn to look at her. “I was at the ER.”

  Valeria blinked. “What?”

  “My client had been shot. Lily Herald.”

  Lily had been Gabriel’s client? The news about how Raphael Falconer, a junior pastor at a mega church, had attempted to murder his ex-wife had been the mainstay of the media channels for weeks. “I didn’t know.” Valeria’s voice trembled. “Why didn’t we talk about this earlier? When you first read that anniversary card, why didn’t you come in to talk to me right away?”

  “I couldn’t. I was too upset.”

  “Over Lily?”

  “No.” Gabriel caught himself, frowned, and shook his head. “Partially, perhaps,” he conceded. “I’d just seen a divorce go wrong in the worst possible way, and then I read your card. I couldn’t talk to you, then.”

  “But it would have told me you cared! I would have known that I mattered…that our marriage mattered to you.”

  “You matter to me.”

  “So why didn’t you fight for—?”

  “I don’t want to fight!” The words came out in a vehement whisper. Gabriel caught himself and ground his teeth. “I don’t want to fight,” he repeated, his voice anguished. “I saw my parents argue and fight. Every time, I saw my father hit her until she bled. That temper…that anger…it’s in me too. And that letter—” His hands clenched into fists before he deliberately opened them. “When I read it, I knew I couldn’t go near you. If I did, we would argue. We would fight. I…I couldn’t. I couldn’t trust myself, and I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  �
��Oh, God, Gabriel.” She covered his trembling hands with hers. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you ever tell me?”

  “What was I supposed to say?” His voice took on a sarcastic edge. “‘You’re the most generous-hearted and loving woman I’ve ever met. Oh, by the way, my father used to hit my mother whenever he lost his temper, which was several times a week. My mother, who was kind and gentle, eventually stopped loving me because I was my father’s son. So, knowing that, knowing what stock I come from, will you please marry me anyway?’” Gabriel shook his head. “How could I tell you the truth? You were the most amazing thing that ever happened to me, and I couldn’t lose you. I thought I could just work on being a better person than my father.”

  “You are.”

  Gabriel shrugged, dismissing her words. Valeria bit back the objection. Of course, considering how their marriage stood on the brink of failure, Gabriel had no reason to take her words as anything other than mere platitudes. “Why didn’t we talk earlier?” she asked.

  “We did. We had lunch at the café.”

  “That wasn’t a talk. You were taking apart the situation with the methodical precision of a lawyer. You were zeroing in on a solution.”

  “Of course. That’s why people talk.” Gabriel sounded matter-of-fact. His brow furrowed as if he had imagined it should have been obvious to Valeria too.

  Valeria choked back a laugh that bordered on a sob. “That’s not why women talk. You and I…we don’t talk about anything meaningful anymore. We haven’t for years.”

  Gabriel ground his teeth. “All I handle at work is one divorce after another. I don’t want to talk about how someone else’s marriage is falling apart.” He looked at her, his eyes betraying his anguish. “And I don’t have anything else to talk about.”

  She stared at him as realization sank in. “How long have you hated your job?”

  His throat worked as he swallowed hard. “It pays the bills, and I like my colleagues.”

  “Is that the best you can say about your job?” she asked.

  “It’s what we wanted, isn’t it?”

  “Not if it makes you miserable.”

  “I’m not miserable, I’m—”

  “Too tired to be miserable,” she cut in.

  He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. The work will keep me busy, and help take my mind off…everything else. I’ll be fine, as long as you and the kids are fine too.”

  Valeria swallowed hard. Had she ever met a man as strong, as kind, and as gracious as the one she had married? The unequivocal answer was “no.”

  In her search for a second chance at love, could she let the love who was already sitting across from her go?

  How could she have doubted for a moment that he loved her even if he didn’t always express it in ways she understood?

  How could she have been so blind, so stupid? She had almost lost the man who loved her more than anything.

  She reached for the divorce settlement. The sound of tearing paper ripped through the silence between them.

  Gabriel turned to look at her, his eyes wide, disbelieving.

  She crumpled the torn halves into a ball and tossed them at his feet. “You missed out one part—where you tell me how much you love and want me?”

  “I thought it should have been obvious. Besides, telling you that while handing over your divorce papers seemed grossly inappropriate.”

  “Like entrapment?” she asked softly. Now that she knew without a doubt that he loved her, she wanted nothing more than to be trapped by his love.

  Gabriel’s gaze flicked to the ball of crumpled paper. She touched his chin and turned his face back to her. She leaned forward, her lips parted in a half-smile, trusting him, as she had for so long, to meet her halfway. The kiss, initially tentative and hesitant, deepened until Gabriel was all that she could see, hear, touch, taste, and feel. He had been her first lover, and God willing, her only lover.

  After a long moment, he eased away, breathing hard. He kissed her on the tip of her nose and then her forehead with such tenderness that her eyes stung with tears.

  “We can make this work. Let’s see a marriage counselor,” she told him.

  He hesitated briefly, and then nodded. “Communication 101?”

  She smiled. “Exactly.”

  “What made you change your mind?” he asked quietly, his voice unsteady.

  She rested her head against his chest where she could hear the steady rhythm of his heartbeat. “It cost you everything to let me go, but you did it anyway because you thought it was the only thing I wanted. It’s not true. The only thing I really wanted was to know that you loved me as much as I loved you.” Her lips tugged into a contented smile. “And now I know.”

  EPILOGUE

  Training and practice allowed Gabriel Cruz to keep his face impassive as the jury filed into the room and took their seats. Inside, his heart pounded in spite of the deep and even breaths he forced himself to take. Thousands of hours of work, of research and preparation, boiled down to this single moment in time.

  The judge presiding over the hearings looked at the jury. “Do you have the verdict?”

  An elderly woman rose to her feet. “We do, your honor.”

  “How do you find the defendant?”

  Gabriel, who occupied the district attorney’s seat, glanced over his shoulder at the slender woman who sat behind him in the audience. Lily Herald’s face was pale, her expression pinched. Her fingers had worked the fringed edges of her black scarf into nasty little knots. She looked up and offered him a tremulous smile.

  The elderly woman, the foreman of the jury, spoke in clear and ringing tones. “Your honor, on the charge of attempted homicide in the first degree, we find the defendant guilty as charged.”

  Lily released an explosive breath. She burst into tears and hunched over, burying her face in her hands. The older man seated beside her, her father, drew her close and stroked gentle hands down her back, supporting her and calming her as the judge pronounced his sentence. The wardens removed the convicted criminal, Lily’s ex-husband, and the case was closed.

  The pivotal moment passed without excessive fanfare, but it was life changing nevertheless.

  Gabriel stood up and walked over to Lily. With a heart-wrenching sob, Lily turned to him. Her shoulders heaved as she buried her face against him. They had traveled a strange path together, first as divorce attorney and client, and then as district attorney and victim. He did not move until Lily pulled away from him. Her smile was wan as she tried to dry the tears she had spilled on him. “I’m so sorry about your suit.”

  “No worries.”

  Lily looked around the almost empty courtroom. “I missed…what did the judge say?”

  “Life imprisonment. His parole eligibility is fixed at twenty-five years. It was the heaviest penalty the judge could impose. You won, Lily.”

  “No, you did,” she said. “Thank you. I’m grateful, so grateful. I owe you so much more than I can ever repay.” Her smile was steadier. “I’ve claimed so much of your life these past few months. You should go.” She looked over his shoulder. “And I think your wife is waiting for you.”

  Gabriel glanced back. Valeria stood by the door. She smiled when his gaze rested on her. Even at that distance, he could see the diamonds that glittered on her hand—a celebration of their life and love together.

  In contrast, Lily’s hands were mercifully unadorned. She had paid dearly, much too dearly, for her divorce.

  Gabriel escorted Lily back to her parents and her two-year-old daughter, who were also waiting at the back of the courtroom. Silently, with his arm around Valeria, he watched Lily leave her old life and begin her new life, surrounded and supported by the love of her family.

  “She’s going to be okay,” Valeria said softly.

  Gabriel nodded. “She’s strong—a great deal stronger than she ever gave herself credit for. I’m glad I put that bastard away.” He shook his head and exhaled a sigh. “When did you get here?”
>
  “About an hour ago. I came as soon as Peter’s mock trial ended.”

  “I’m sorry I missed it.”

  Valeria dismissed the apology with a wave of her hand. “You had other important stuff to do.”

  “How did his trial go?”

  “Oh, it was awesome. He ended up fining one of the big oil companies twenty billion dollars.”

  Gabriel winced. “Really?”

  “A month.”

  He laughed. “I guess our gas prices are going up.”

  “It’s way past time to switch to solar, as Peter says.” Valeria leaned against Gabriel. “I’m sure you know his trial has only reinforced his desire to become a judge.”

  “Has anyone told him yet that he has to become a lawyer first?”

  “Yes, his parents broke the bad news to him last night. He asked me to ask you if you’d be his mentor.”

  “Me?”

  “He wants to know what classes to take.”

  “In middle school?”

  “He’s very determined to make it.”

  Gabriel chuckled. “With that much resolve, he likely will. I barely remember what classes I took in college, never mind middle school, but a chat every now and again would probably keep him focused.”

  “And inspired.”

  A smile crept up on him. Focus and inspiration. The former was his strength; the latter Valeria’s—and they were not the opposing forces he had once imagined them to be. He and Valeria had finally found room for both forces to connect in their relationship, instead of chalking them up to irresolvable personality differences.

  Leaning against him, she smiled up at him. “You did the right thing, you know, leaving private practice to join the district attorney’s office. You were magnificent. You love your career again; I can see it in your eyes.”

  Neither he nor Valeria had any illusions about the lifestyle changes imposed by the vast salary differential between a partner in a private law firm and a district attorney, but they had made that decision together as equal partners in their marriage. His grip tightened around her waist. “Thank you for supporting a change in the grand plan of our life.”