His Unlikely Lover

by Natasha Anders

  “You didn’t hug, you cuddled and caressed and damned near crept into each other’s skins.” He looked and sounded completely pissed off and Bobbi felt her eyebrows lift into her hairline.

  “Gabe, it’s Chase, he’s like a brother to me,” she said.

  “I was like a brother to you,” he pointed out grimly. “And there’s not a hell of a lot of difference physically between Chase and me.”

  “You’re jealous,” she breathed, unable to believe it.

  “I’m not,” he denied. “I just don’t like sharing. Especially not with my brother.”

  “Hmm, but I don’t want Chase, I want you,” she whispered, stroking her hands over his triceps and down to his waist, where they found the bottom edge of his shirt and crept under it to the warm, muscular flesh beneath. She felt the taut muscles in his abdomen jump against her questing fingers.

  “Why?” His question astonished her and her hands stopped their exploration.

  “Why what?” she asked warily.

  “Why do you want me? Why not Chase, who happens to look exactly like me?” Bobbi hesitated, terrified of revealing too much. Gabe knowing that she wanted him physically was one thing but him discovering that she was in love with him was something entirely different. It would complicate an already stressful situation and add even more strain on their already overburdened friendship.

  “Because Chase isn’t you,” she said after a thoughtful pause. She could see that her answer didn’t satisfy him and went up on to her toes to kiss him, hoping that it would provide a distraction from his searching questions. It worked, Gabe moaned into her mouth and returned the kiss with a sweet intensity that blew her mind. He had never kissed her like this before. It was almost . . . worshipful and quite loving.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Bobbi’s entire body was humming when she floated her way home across the lawn in the early hours of the morning. Gabe had spent hours making gentle, almost reverential, love to her and that—combined with his display of jealousy earlier—had left her feeling cherished. And hopeful.

  She quashed that feeling; it would lead to expectations, which would lead to disappointment and eventually heartbreak. She kept leaving her heart wide open and it would be her downfall. When this thing ended, she would be left alone with her broken heart and unable to talk to anybody because nobody would know about it. It was a difficult position to be in. But nevertheless—while her body still buzzed with the aftereffects of Gabe’s expert ministrations—it was easy to fool herself into believing that what they had was real.

  She snuck into the house, knowing that the entire security staff knew about her nightly visitations to the Braddock house, but she trusted them to be discreet. Unless her actions put her or her family into direct physical danger, they wouldn’t utter a word. In fact she didn’t see a single one of them on her return walk home but counted on the fact that they knew exactly where she was. They were being tactful, and she thought it was kind of sweet.

  She fell into bed with Gabe’s scent still all over her, his taste in her mouth. She could still feel the hot, hard thrust of him inside her body and the scrape of his stubble in her neck and on her breasts. She fell asleep with a smile on her lips.

  Gabe was whistling cheerfully when he drifted down to breakfast that morning. He felt amazing, well rested and in a brilliant mood. He had been utterly sated by the time he had reluctantly let Bobbi leave his bed last night. He wished she had stayed longer though, he may have been unable to perform after their four bouts last night, but he’d still wanted to have her curl up next to him and fall asleep. He’d wanted to open his eyes and see her face in the morning light, but she had gently extricated herself and planted one last kiss on his mouth before creeping out of the room with her shoes clutched to her chest.

  Gabe grinned when he saw the housekeeper, Letty, who smiled in return.

  “Mr. Chase requested a buffet breakfast on the patio,” she informed him.

  “Thanks, Letty.” She nodded and went back to doing whatever it was she did to keep his home running smoothly. He appreciated the work she did and paid her handsomely but wasn’t one of those people who got too chatty with the household staff. Chase probably knew her entire life story, including how many children and grandchildren she had and their names. That’s just the way he was—warm and approachable for the most part, which was why Chase’s sudden unapproachability and unwillingness to talk was so disturbing. He was the complete opposite of Gabe—who tended to keep people at a distance until he got to know them. Only his inner circle ever saw Gabe joke and laugh and play.

  When Gabe got to the sunny patio, Chase was staring pensively at the gleaming swimming pool.

  “Morning.” Chase’s head jerked in surprise. He looked up, his expression so tormented for a moment that Gabe’s breath caught. The look lasted for only an instant before he shook himself and smiled.

  “Morning.”

  “You get a decent night’s sleep?” Gabe asked, as he sat down opposite his brother after helping himself to scrambled eggs, bacon, and toast.

  “Hmm . . . you know how it is after you’ve been on a long-haul flight. I was up at some ungodly hour again, feeling refreshed but frustrated.” Gabe suspected that it was more than that disturbing Chase’s sleep but before he could ask about it, Chase blindsided him with a question of his own.

  “Speaking of which, Bobbi left pretty late, didn’t she? Did you guys watch another movie after I went up to bed?” Chase was buttering a slice of toast and didn’t see Gabe’s expression freeze for a panicked instant. He glanced up before Gabe could reply and whatever he saw on Gabe’s face made his eyes widen in shock.

  “Oh God,” he breathed. “Oh my God, Gabe, are you out of your ever-loving mind?” Gabe swallowed and felt his face flush with heat.

  “It’s not what you think,” he said lamely.

  “You’re not having sex with Bobbi?” his brother asked, his voice absolutely crawling with disbelief. “With Bobbi, for Christ’s sake! What the hell are you thinking? Who else knows about this?”

  “Nobody,” Gabe admitted. “It’s nobody’s damned business.”

  “And how long has this been going on?”

  “Not long.” He couldn’t believe it had been only three nights and the more he had of her the more he craved. This need he had for her seemed to grow with every touch.

  “And what are your . . .” Chase shook his head and then snorted. “I can’t believe I’m asking this, but what are your intentions?”

  “My intentions?” Gabe asked, meeting his brother’s disapproving stare head on. “My intentions are to have breakfast and go to work.”

  “You know that’s not what I meant,” Chase growled.

  “That’s the only answer you’re getting though,” Gabe retorted, shoveling a forkful of eggs into his mouth and glaring at his brother defiantly.

  “This won’t end well,” Chase predicted. “How the hell could you allow this to happen?”

  “It’s none of your business.” Gabe hated how his brother automatically assumed that whatever was going on between Bobbi and Gabe would end, even though he knew it would as well.

  “I’m making it my business,” Chase responded. “You’re going to hurt her.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gabe said heatedly. “You’re making assumptions based on what? You don’t know what the paradigms of my relationship with Bobbi are.”

  “Yeah? So what are they? You guys are involved in some secret romance that will eventually lead to marriage and kids? Is that it? Because if that’s not it, then I’m going to have to kick your dumb arse!”

  “Look, we’re attracted to each other. That’s it. We’re working it out of our systems. It’s between us and nobody else needs to know about it.”

  “Bobbi isn’t the type of woman you work out of your system, Gabe.”

  “Why not? Because I happen to have known her longer than the women I’ve dated and slept with before? They were all dau
ghters, sisters, and friends too, you know? It’s hypocritical of you to insist I treat Bobbi differently. We have a mutual respect for each other and we’re indulging in an adult relationship with clear-cut boundaries that we’ve both agreed to.”

  “You’re so full of shit,” Chase lambasted him. “You never hid your relationships with those other women like they were dirty little secrets. If Bobbi is no different than any of them, why are you hiding this from everybody? Have you been out with her in public?”

  “We’re always out in public,” Gabe replied, knowing that it wasn’t what Chase had meant.

  “Oh cut the crap, Gabriel,” Chase derided. “You know that’s not what I meant. Bobbi doesn’t deserve to be treated like some second-class citizen, good enough for warming your bed but nothing else. You’re embarrassed to be seen with her, that’s what this is about.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Gabe said, feeling guilty as hell. Bobbi wasn’t the type of woman he was usually seen with. She didn’t have the dress sense, the gloss, or the elegance he enjoyed in a woman. Where would he take her for Christ’s sake? When she didn’t seem to own more than that one ugly dress?

  “You’re going to hurt her,” Chase repeated.

  “I’m not a cruel man, Chase,” Gabe said, annoyed by his brother’s self-righteous attitude.

  “No, you’re not,” Chase agreed, leaving Gabe waiting for the “but” to come. “You’re not cruel, you’re merely indifferent. Your previous lovers knew the score, when you got bored or they got bored, you both walked away. No ill feelings on either side. You were okay and they were okay. Everything was just . . . okay. So what happens when you grow bored with this relationship? When the novelty wears off and you feel the need to move on to the next woman? How do you cut Bobbi out of your life? Because that’s what you do, Gabe. It’s almost surgical—once you call it quits, you never mention them again. No pictures, no fond recollections—it’s as if they were never a part of your life. You’re a good guy, Gabe. The bloody best man I know and you treat women with the utmost respect when you’re with them, but you’ve never been in a relationship that lasted longer than a month or two. And this thing with Bobbi can’t really even qualify as a relationship, can it? Not when you’re skulking around pretending that it doesn’t even exist.”

  “That’s rich, coming from you, Chase! You’re not exactly Mr. Reliable when it comes to women,” Gabe retorted, feeling his temper bubbling to the surface.

  “I’m not the one who’s shagging my best friend, you idiot!” Chase’s own temper was always quicker to rise than Gabe’s, and Gabe could see it sparking in his eyes. “You’re going to hurt her but you’re too blinded by your own lust to see it.”

  “Bobbi knows the score.” He felt driven to make his brother understand that this wasn’t as bad as he seemed to think it was. “And one of the main reasons we decided to keep this quiet was because we feared reactions like yours. The less people who know, the less external pressure from family and friends, and when it ends, there’ll be no awkwardness from people who would feel compelled to take sides.”

  “Oh, so you’re doing it for all of us?” Chase asked sarcastically. “How big of you! What a relief to hear that you’re not just covering your own butt so that you don’t look like a complete dick when you dump Bobbi and move on to your next conquest.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about.” Gabe pushed his plate aside and shook his head in disgust. He was pissed off and hurt by his brother’s low opinion of him. “None. This thing between Bobbi and me sprang up out of nowhere; it’s not something I went looking for. It just happened and I’m trying to deal with it as best I can. So, I’d appreciate it if you’d butt out. This is between Bobbi and me.”

  Chase looked like he was about to respond but he clamped his lips together and said nothing. His eyes were stormy and he still looked royally pissed off, but he thankfully said nothing further. Gabe knew better than to think that his brother would let it go though and he already dreaded the next confrontation.

  Gabe’s day didn’t improve. Mike was being difficult and insisted on knowing every single detail about the Valentine’s Day Ball. Since Gabe didn’t know a single damned thing about the ball, trusting their assistants to get it done, his replies to the older man’s questions hadn’t satisfied Mike and had led to a heated debate about what each man believed leadership roles entailed. Accusing Mike of micromanaging hadn’t helped the escalating argument and the man had hung up in a huff, leaving Gabe frustrated and bad-tempered. He and Mike often disagreed, but this was a petty argument, which had escalated because of Mike’s misgivings about retiring and Gabe’s already foul temper after that morning’s argument with Chase.

  An hour later, while he was instructing Stephanie to set up a meeting with one of the GNT accounting executives about restructuring the company’s pricing packages, his cell phone rang. He glanced down and grimaced when he saw his mother’s photo on the screen.

  “I have to take this,” he told his assistant and the woman politely excused herself. Gabe watched her leave before picking up the call.

  “Hi, Mum,” he greeted.

  “Hello, darling,” his mother greeted warmly. “How are you?”

  “All good here, Mum.”

  “Wonderful.” His mother wasn’t one to waste time before getting to the point and that was the case now. “I’ve been concerned about your brother. When will he be back in town?”

  Great. Gabe winced. He didn’t want to lie to his mother, but Chase had put him in an impossible situation. If he came clean now, they’d both be in the crapper.

  “You might want to talk to Chase about that, Mum,” he said carefully and there was a long pause before his mother replied.

  “I asked you a straightforward question, Gabriel. Why can’t you give me a straightforward answer?” Full name. Fabulous. This wasn’t going to end well. Their mother knew that something was up.

  “I thought I did give you a straightforward answer,” he said.

  “No, you tried to divert me back to your brother.”

  “Mum . . .”

  “Where’s your brother, Gabriel?” she asked bluntly.

  “Mum . . .”

  “Don’t you ‘mum’ me, young man. Just answer the question.” Lucy Templeton-Braddock Colbert could be downright terrifying when she wanted to be.

  “At home,” he confessed miserably.

  “And why did neither of you see fit to inform me before now?” She sounded unsurprised, which meant that she had known beforehand but had decided to put him in the hot seat for the sheer hell of it.

  “You knew,” he accused.

  “Roberta told me.” Their mother had never called her Bobbi. “I called her earlier to ask her about her new boyfriend and she tried to distract me too, by saying that I must be happy to have Chase back in town. This time the distraction worked because I wasn’t aware that my own son was home.”

  “Mum, you should talk to Chase about . . .” He paused as his mother’s words sank in. “What new boyfriend?”

  “Don’t change the subject, Gabriel,” she said, but he barely heard her.

  “Mum, what boyfriend are you talking about?” he asked urgently, wondering if there were any rumors floating around about Bobbi and him.

  “The landscape architect she’s seeing, Kyle something. I heard about him from Suzie Claiborne,” his mother said dismissively before continuing on her original course of chastisement, but Gabe wasn’t listening anymore. He was wondering why the hell Jason’s mother seemed to think that Bobbi was seeing that Kyle guy.

  “Gabe, are you listening to me?” His mother’s voice had elevated shrilly and he shook himself and refocused on her tirade.

  “Sorry mum, I was distracted by . . . stuff.” He grimaced at the lame excuse but his mother wasn’t paying attention.

  “I said we’re coming around for dinner,” she said.

  “Mum, look . . .” He sighed. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you that Chase
is home but you have to prepare yourself. He looks . . . he doesn’t look great. He’s lost a lot of weight and he just seems exhausted. I think he knew that it would worry you, so try to lay off the guilt tripping, okay? I can take it but I don’t think he’s in a great place at the moment.” He and Chase may be at odds, but that didn’t mean that Gabe was going to hang his brother out to dry.

  His mother was quiet for a long while after he had spoken and a shuddering sigh on the other end of the line told him that she was crying.

  “I’m just happy he’s home,” she said, punctuating the sentiment with a wet sniff. “I won’t say anything about his appearance. Thank you for the warning.”

  “No problem,” he said. “Love you, Mum.”

  “I know, darling,” his mother said softly. “I love you too.”

  Gabe disconnected the call and then glared off into the middle distance, thinking about Bobbi’s boyfriend. What was that all about?

  “I hear you’re seeing that Kyle guy.” Gabe’s deep voice sent a shudder of longing down Bobbi’s spine before she registered his words.

  “Oh my God . . . ,” she groaned. “Not you too.”

  “No truth to the rumor then?” He asked in a strained voice.

  “That’s a stupid question,” she shot back. “When exactly was I supposed to squeeze in a budding romance with Kyle Foster when I’ve been spending my free time in dead-end shagfest with you?”

  There was a long silence at the other end of the line.

  “My mother, Frank, and Kim are coming round for dinner tonight,” he said after a while. “I think it’ll be a late night, so it’ll probably be best if you didn’t come around.”

  Wow. That hurt more than it should have. Under normal circumstances, he would have included Bobbi in what was essentially a family gathering. So this was what it would be like after they ended their thing. They would remain friends, of a sort, but he would start excluding Bobbi from more and more of the family meals and outings until they would simply have “drifted apart.” It wouldn’t be intentional but it would be the inexorable result of an impossible situation.