Even so, Valeria thought she heard a twinge of bitterness in his voice. “You wanted something different.”
“I still do,” he confessed. “But I thought I’d give this a try and see how it works for a while. Short-term job commitments are no big deal. If it doesn’t work out, no harm, no foul.”
Unlike a long-term commitment, like a marriage, Valeria thought. “How much of a chance will you give the foundation?”
“I don’t know. Haven’t thought that far ahead, but I’ll know it when it’s time to move on.” He pressed against his stomach. “I’ll feel it here. The unease. The restlessness. The soul just knows.”
He could not have described her symptoms any more perfectly. I guess I know too. Perhaps I’ve always known.
Chapter 5
An appointment reminder popped up on Gabriel’s computer screen, yanking him away from his contemplation of the Horton case. Damn it. He ground his teeth as he considered his options, and realized that he had none. He could only hope that James hadn’t already left his office to meet for lunch.
He reached for his phone to call his friend. Thankfully, James Warren picked up the call immediately. “Hey, I’m just heading out. I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“Glad I caught you, then,” Gabriel said. “I’m buried in work, and I need the hour back. Can we push lunch out to next month?”
“What? You can’t even spare an hour for your best friend since high school. What the hell, man.”
“I’m sorry. I just…” He ground his teeth.
James’s tone changed. “Is something wrong?”
Gabriel released his breath in a shuddering sigh. “Yes…No…I don’t know.”
“D. All of the above?”
James’s wisecrack won a chuckle from Gabriel. “Probably.”
“Spill it. You’ve lost your cool, and even I can hear it over the phone.”
“Val and I…we’re just going through some rough times.”
“Since when?”
“Depends on who you ask. A few days for me. Probably a few months—” Years? “—longer for her.”
“And she didn’t say anything?”
“She did, finally.”
“What did she say?”
“She wants a divorce.”
James was silent for several long moments. “Hell of a bombshell. How could you not have seen it coming?”
“I don’t know. Everything seemed fine. I know I work a lot and I’m not home much, but it’s work a lot or don’t get paid. There’s nothing physically lacking in our lives, nothing lacking in our children’s lives; I mean, that’s why I have a job, right? If there’s an honest-to-God choice to be made in this situation, I’m just not seeing it.”
“Is she having an affair?” James asked.
A sharp pain stabbed through Gabriel’s chest. “I…don’t know. I don’t think so, but then again, I’m never around. How would I know?”
“So what did you tell her?”
“Nothing. I’m still trying to figure out what’s wrong and what I can change. Time’s part of it. I think she resents the fact that I work so much and that I never talk about my job.”
“What’s there to say? ‘Good evening, dear. I helped break up three more marriages today. Is that pot roast I smell in the oven?’”
Gabriel grimaced at James’s humor. The exact nature of his work, he realized, was part of the problem. Leaving aside client confidentiality issues, there was nothing inspiring or uplifting about the kind of work he did every day as a divorce lawyer.
James continued. “And Val’s best friend, what’s her name—Charity?”
“Cherish Petersen?”
“Yeah, that one. Married four times?”
“Three, I think.”
“Worst gossip this side of the Rockies. If I were in your shoes, I wouldn’t have said much to Val either, just because of her friendship with Cherish.”
“Val can keep a secret,” Gabriel said bitterly. “God knows how long she’s kept her unhappiness a secret from me.”
“That’s why you’re bailing on lunch. You’re trying to get work done so you can get home early.”
“Right.”
“So why are you still on the phone with me, dude? Get back to work.” James hung up without saying goodbye.
Gabriel expelled his breath in a sigh, the sound laced with an undercurrent of laughter. James got it. Valeria didn’t. Gabriel’s mistake was assuming that, for all these years, she had gotten it. Apparently, the grand plan for their lives was no longer the grand plan.
He only wished she had told him sooner.
Gabriel glanced at his watch before stepping in from the garage into the house. Six p.m. It was the earliest he had ever made it home, and had required leaving the office at the ungodly hour of 5 p.m., walking past wide-eyed associates and paralegals, and taking a massive pile of work with him, to be completed later at home when the children and Valeria were asleep.
An excited babble of chatter and laughter from the dining room drifted out to him. He inhaled deeply, resisted the need to roll his head to alleviate the tension in his neck, and braced himself to see Valeria. Fixing a smile on his face, he strode down the hallway and into the dining room.
Three pairs of eyes flashed toward him.
“Daddy!” Marlena squealed and hurled herself from her chair to hug him.
Diego was two seconds behind her. “We didn’t know you were coming for dinner, Dad,” he said after disentangling himself from his hug.
“I managed to get off early today,” Gabriel said. He glanced at Valeria. She said nothing as she stared, unsmiling, at him. The warmth of her reception was like a blast of Arctic winds. Their eyes locked; hers revealed nothing.
Despair raked at him. How can I save our marriage if I don’t know what exactly to fix, let alone how?
Valeria broke the standoff. “I’ll get you a plate.”
“No, stay. I need to put my stuff away anyway. I’ll get it,” he said. He took his bag and files to his office, and then returned to the kitchen to fill a plate with rice, black beans, and roast chicken, before taking his seat at the dining room table.
“Did you see my drawing on the fridge, Daddy?” Marlena asked.
“I did. I liked the way you colored the gardens.”
She preened, fluffing up like a miniature peacock. “My teacher says my money art is awesome.”
“Money?” He looked at Valeria.
“Monet,” she mouthed.
Marlena’s art did look like something an extremely young Monet might have started out with. “I think it’s beautiful.” Gabriel took a bite of his dinner. The aroma of spices, perfectly balanced, filled his nostrils, and he smiled. Valeria’s roast chicken was always better fresh than reheated, which was what he usually had when he got in from work, frequently after 10 p.m.
“Are you coming to the school fair, Dad?” Diego asked.
“Yes, I am,” Gabriel said.
Diego’s eyes brightened. He straightened in his seat. “You’re going to check out my robotics project, aren’t you?”
“I helped with that,” Marlena interjected.
Diego nodded. “She helped me draw the plans and put the big pieces together. I did all the little bits on my own. Do you want to see the plans?”
“Sure.”
“Awesome. I’ll go get them.” Diego darted away from his half-eaten meal and dashed upstairs, while Marlena started a conversation about her best friend, Jenny.
The lively banter continued through dinner, a flood of information catching him up on the stories he hadn’t known and the antics he had missed. Valeria was quiet, but the children were doing such a fantastic job of keeping the conversation going that her silence was not obvious. For the most part, she kept her gaze on her plate or shuttling between her children. When their eyes met, it was for the briefest of seconds—the moment of contact too fleeting for him to decipher anything except the fact that an ocean of tension lay between them.
When dinner was over, he offered to clean up, but Marlena interrupted. “But I want a story. I want to play before bedtime.”
Valeria glanced at him. “They have about an hour before they have to go to bed. I’m sure they’d like to spend it with you, if you can spare the time.” Her tone was neutral, but he sensed her cool distance. Everything in him wanted to grab her immediately and beg her to tell him how to fix everything that had gone wrong between them, but she was right. The children came first.
The deep-seated anxiety over Valeria gnawed at him, plucking away at his peace of mind and his focus in spite of his best efforts to engage with his children. He was relived when he finally tucked his children in bed and turned off the light. He shut their bedroom doors, and for a moment, leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.
Stress was like a living animal, its claws digging into his shoulders. Fear was a hard lump in the pit of his stomach.
For the first time in his life, he didn’t have a plan. He didn’t know what to do, and it terrified him.
Valeria curled, her bare feet tucked beneath her, on the chaise lounge in the living room. The adjustable spotlights had been turned to a low setting. The near darkness suited her; at that moment, shadows were more conducive to her frame of mind. She drew in a deep breath and sipped from her glass of sangria.
Gabriel had obviously come home early to talk her out of a divorce. She knew all the arguments he could marshal. Divorces were costly for families, typically resulting in a lower standard of living for all involved since the money had to support two households instead of one. Divorces were rough on children, who were frequently the silent, most damaged victims of a failed marriage. A divorce would be tough for her; it would be difficult for someone like her, who had been out of the workforce for over a decade, to regain her professional footing.
Her grip tightened on her glass. Cherish’s words rang through her mind. Be strong. Don’t cave. Don’t listen to him. He’s a divorce lawyer, for God’s sake. He knows exactly what to say to make a divorce happen. He probably also knows exactly what to say to stop one from taking place. Don’t let him stop you from getting what you want.
She heard his step on the stairs and had time to brace herself. He walked past the living room without looking in. Obviously, he was heading to his study.
Wasn’t he even going to talk to her? For a moment, her anxiety over the impending confrontation with Gabriel gave way to the vague sense that he had insulted her. Perhaps she had overestimated how badly he wanted to stay in the marriage. After all, if they divorced and she claimed primary custody of the children, he could return to the free lifestyle of a single man. It probably suited him better—no need to worry about returning home in time to see the children before bedtime, no inconvenient school fairs cramping his weekend getaways.
Moments later, his steps echoed along the corridor, and he stopped outside the living room. The light in the hallway behind him cast his tall, muscular frame into a silhouette.
She wasn’t mentally or emotionally prepared for the rush of warmth and comfort she drew just from seeing him standing there. Valeria pressed her lips together. The ache in her chest could not possibly still be love.
“Val.” The familiarity of her name on his lips and the kindness in his voice caused tears to sting her eyes. If only she could know for certain if the emotions in his voice were real. “Would you like a glass of wine?”
She raised her glass of sangria to him.
He nodded. Instead of returning to the kitchen bar to get a glass for himself, he walked down the two steps into the living room. “How are you doing?”
Cherish’s voice rang through her mind. Don’t respond by saying any more than he’s asking for. Don’t go deep. It’s a lawyer’s tactic. Conversations are used to probe for weakness. Valeria swallowed hard. “I’m fine.”
Gabriel glanced away for a split second. He seemed unaware of the flicker of vulnerability in his otherwise cool, professional façade.
He opened his mouth to speak, but she cut him off. “Did you hear back from any judges?”
“Not yet.”
“Did you reach out to them?” Valeria heard the snap of frustration in her voice, but the words and the tone could not be recalled.
Surprisingly, Gabriel did not react. “I have time set up to meet with some people.”
Time. Didn’t he care that Peter Brown was almost out of time? Valeria swallowed the bitter awareness that if Gabriel didn’t care enough to attend his own anniversary dinner, he wouldn’t extend himself for a little boy he knew nothing about. Still, she had asked for his help, and she had hoped—stupidly—that he would come through for her, if not for Peter. “Couldn’t you just send an e-mail?”
He shook his head. “Not how things work in the legal circles. I’ll get a better response face to face.”
That’s why he’s here, home early, talking to me. He’s trying to get a better response. She set her glass down on the side table. The sharp crack of glass against wood jolted through the silence between them.
A better response for what? He could not possibly have known that she had gone to see Brandon Smith. As far as Gabriel knew, their marriage was still on track for a family vacation, not a divorce.
Valeria swallowed hard and resisted the urge to squirm uncomfortably beneath his gaze. Why was he staring at her as if he couldn’t take his eyes off her, as if he had something to say but couldn’t find the words?
Gabriel forced himself to keep his hands relaxed when the tension and frustration would have had him curling them into fists. Silence fell like a shroud between him and Valeria. Each time it did, the distance between them seemed to grow.
He wanted to tell her about his conversation with Peter’s insurance company, but it was too premature, even though a positive outcome seemed likely. After Valeria had told him about the Browns’ battle with the insurance company, Gabriel had called them and offered to represent them pro bono. He had then sent a letter to the insurance company, identifying himself as a lawyer retained by the family, and articulated Peter’s case. Not too subtly, he had threatened the company with a lawsuit unless the company reconsidered its stance on Peter’s so-called preexisting medical condition.
The insurance company was scrambling for a response. He knew as much from the appointments the company’s legal counsel had attempted to set up with him. He had made it clear, though, that he was interested only in a settlement or a solution, and the insurance company had a week to deliver it; a young child dying of cancer didn’t have enough time for lawyers to muck around with their legal reindeer games.
The company’s lawyers had called back and finalized an appointment for the following Friday. If he guessed right, he would have good news for Peter’s family—as much as any news could be considered good in light of a child’s illness.
Valeria didn’t get it. She wouldn’t have, although he wished she did. Instead, she focused on granting wishes—like visits to Disney World or playacting the day away as a make-believe judge—when in the real world, real things mattered, like who was responsible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical bills. A failed wish would not have left Peter’s family any worse off; massive debt, however, could have shattered the family.
Gabriel had once believed that he and Valeria had everything in common, including disadvantaged backgrounds and a burning desire to do better for themselves and for their family. He had once believed that he and Valeria were united in purpose, but he was no longer certain how much common ground they shared, apart from the two children who shared their genes.
If he needed a reminder of how different he and Valeria were, he could have found no better example than in their approach to the priorities of the dying child’s family.
Here she was, worrying about how to hassle a judge into indulging a child’s one-day role-play, while he focused instead on the hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt the child’s sickness was costing his family.
Priorities. He
sighed.
His priority was to work, to secure that promotion to partner, to secure his family’s future, including trust funds for the children, retirement accounts for Valeria and for him, a hefty rainy day fund for emergencies, and more than enough money to enjoy a life of luxury every day. He stifled a sigh and pressed his thumb against a tender spot at the side of his head, pulsing shafts of pain through his temple. “I brought back a lot of work. I should get started.”
She nodded. She did not even look at him.
Gabriel’s breath caught. Did she know how alone, how vulnerable she looked on that couch, her arms wrapped across the front of her chest to ward off the chill of the night?
To hell with work. I love her. How can I even think about walking away at a time like this?
Aching for her as much as for himself, he leaned down. With gentle hands, he tipped her face up and breathed a featherlight kiss on her lips.
The physical contact jolted her. Her eyes flared wide, but the comfort of his warmth, his scent, and his strength drew her back into a time when she had known him well and known that he loved her. She wanted the Gabriel of her past. She wanted the uncomplicated love they had enjoyed before his job became more important than she was to him.
Valeria closed her eyes to surround herself with memories. She exhaled with a whimper as she pressed her body against his. Her hands fisted in his shirt, pulling him close, before her fingers expertly worked at the buttons.
He deepened the kiss, their tongues tangling, breaths mingling, as she slid his shirt back and away from his body. His skin was warm, as if heated by her fingertips gliding across his muscled torso down to his trousers. He sucked in his breath as she unbuckled his belt and eased his pants down his legs. He kicked them aside, tugged her dress over her head, and then drew her back down to the chaise lounge.
His hands caressed her, stroking her in all the places she craved his touch most. The familiarity was soothing. She knew what would happen next—the slow but unrelenting rise to unbearable pleasure, the maddening gentleness that underscored each teasing nip, each tantalizing caress with his hands and his tongue.
Desired: A Love Letters Novel Page 6
