Katherine.
“What does she say?” Gabriel looked at his wife over the rims of his glasses.
“She says she’s coming to Harvard in January. I haven’t heard anything about that in the department. Have you?”
“I haven’t heard a formal announcement. What else does she say?”
Julia handed him the letter.
Gabriel perused its contents quickly.
He grimaced. “Jeremy.”
“Yes.”
He tossed the letter back onto the table.
“I’m not looking forward to that confrontation. He’s still angry I resigned.”
“Can you smooth things over with him?”
“I don’t know. We were friends for a while, and then we weren’t. We’ll see.” He pushed her hair behind her shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. The important thing is that we’ll be able to see Katherine and have her over for dinner. She doesn’t like Greg’s choice of restaurants.”
Julia folded her glasses and placed them on the kitchen table before climbing into Gabriel’s lap.
“I can’t imagine Katherine having a tawdry affair with an old, desiccated Oxford professor.”
Gabriel chuckled. “Neither can I. But Old Hut was considered handsome in his day. I’ve seen photographs.”
“But the two of them together. She had to know it was wrong—not only because of her career but because he was married.”
Gabriel tapped the end of her nose. “I think she loved him.”
“That doesn’t make it right.”
“What we did was wrong as well, if you remember.” He lowered his voice, his eyes focused on hers intently.
“Yes.” She placed her arms around his neck. “I suppose it’s easy to point fingers and forget one’s own failings.”
“If she felt one tenth the love I felt for you, well, I can understand how she was led astray. Now that I’m married, however, I feel sympathy for Mrs. Hutton. If someone were to try to lure you away—” He cursed.
“I love you more now than I did before we were married.” Julia wore a contemplative expression. “Marriage is the strangest thing. Almost without realizing it, I feel as if our lives and our hearts became knitted together. I don’t know how it happened.”
“Marriage is a sacrament.” Gabriel’s tone was solemn. “And of course, there’s the sex we’re no longer having.”
“The three weeks are almost up.”
Gabriel moved his mouth to her ear.
“You’d better inform your professors that you won’t be in class that day.”
She shivered at his nearness.
“I won’t?”
“Do you think I’ll let you leave the house after going without you for three weeks?” He nipped at her ear. “You’ll be lucky if I let you leave the bed.”
“I like the sound of that.” She rested her head on his shoulder. “I know that alongside our medical appointments, you were making inquiries about your family history. Have you found out anything?”
“I asked Carson to look into things. He was supposed to get a copy of the coroner’s report on my mother, and also health information about her parents and my father and his parents. But I haven’t heard anything.”
“No one is going to give your lawyer that kind of information.”
“Probably not,” said Gabriel grimly. “But he’s been known to hire private investigators that tend to be persuasive. They’ll find out what I need to know.”
“Persuasive?”
“In this case the information can probably be bought. Failing that, people can be made to talk.”
“Gabriel.” Julia’s tone was reproachful. “Have you ever bought information like that?”
“Yes.”
His swift, unblinking answer surprised her.
“Did you feel remorse?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Why?”
“Because I was doing it for you. That’s why.”
She pulled away from him. “I don’t understand. What kind of information did you get?”
He sighed. “It’s a long story. You’d best get comfortable.”
Julia resisted the urge to move and remained where she was, in his lap.
“I should mention that although I didn’t intend to tell you what happened, for the past few months it’s been nagging at me that I should.”
“Tell me what?”
“How I ensured that Simon and Natalie would never bother you again.”
Julia’s eyes widened as Gabriel began his story.
Chapter Fifty
April 2010
Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania
Gabriel’s cell phone rang. He reached over to pick it up so he could see who was calling. Julianne had called several times since he’d left her in Toronto. Although he listened to her voice messages in an effort to torture himself, he couldn’t risk answering and actually speaking with her.
July first. If I can just hold on until July first, she’ll be safe.
The display indicated that the number was blocked. Gabriel had a fair idea who was calling.
“Jack,” he rasped.
“Found the girl. Found her boyfriend. We need to meet.”
Gabriel rubbed at his eyes.
“Can’t you look after this? That’s what I’m paying you for.”
Jack cursed.
“Don’t trust you. Tom tells me you broke my niece’s heart. I should be tuning you up rather than doing a job for you.”
“This isn’t for me. It’s for her,” Gabriel snapped. “The girl tried to blackmail her. The boy fucking bit her and threatened to rape her. How is it in those scenarios, I’m the villain?”
“Melrose Diner, South Philly, tomorrow at nine A.M.”
Jack hung up.
“Fuck,” said Gabriel.
Jack Mitchell was a private investigator. At least, that was the occupation he put on his tax forms. He was an ex-Marine who also worked in private security, investigations, and enforcement.
Simply put, he helped rich individuals stay safe from all kinds of threats, including blackmail.
Jack was Tom Mitchell’s younger brother and the man that he turned to when his friend Richard Clark needed to pay off the drug dealers his son owed. Jack and a few of his contacts took the money Richard provided (money that was gained by mortgaging the family home in Selinsgrove) and persuaded the dealers to forget the name of Gabriel Emerson.
Jack could be very persuasive.
When Gabriel needed someone to persuade a certain couple to stay away from Julianne, he immediately thought of Jack. Contacting him wasn’t easy, but a few well-placed phone calls put them in touch.
Despite Jack’s initial resistance, when he saw the photographs of Julianne’s injuries at the hands of the senator’s son, he agreed to take the job. He followed Simon and the redhead he was banging as they cut a wide swath through Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. In a short period of time, Jack had a dossier thick enough to share with Emerson. And damning enough (he thought) to ensure that his niece would no longer have to worry about the rich boy and the redhead.
Jack would make suggestions about how to use the information to its greatest effect. And he hoped that he’d be able to call his shot at a few minutes alone with the rich kid. Someone needed to teach that motherfucker a lesson.
Jack slid a manila envelope across the table to Gabriel.
“Leverage to get them to turn over the stuff they have on Jules. I’ll have a conversation with them about what will happen if they don’t. Senator Talbot is making a bid for the White House. They’ll comply. End of story.”
“What am I looking at?” Gabriel flipped through a set of black-and-white photos, all of which featured the senator’s son involved in some kind of sex act. Some of the photos featured
him and two women. All of them turned Gabriel’s stomach.
“Debutantes, Capitol Hill brats, and an intern from the senator’s office.” Jack placed his index finger over the pale, shadowed face of a young woman.
Gabriel frowned in distaste. “College student?”
“High school.”
“Underage?”
Their eyes met.
“Seventeen.”
“Fuck,” Gabriel muttered. “The guy is a predator. Is the senator implicated?’
“His people are aware the kid is a problem. They’ve been tailing him.”
“But they haven’t done anything?”
“Nothing on radar. Don’t see how they can let this continue. The kid gave alcohol and drugs to a seventeen-year-old and then slept with her. It’s all on film.”
“Motherfucker.” Gabriel placed the photos back in the envelope and slid it across the table.
“Returning your fee.” Jack tucked the photos inside his leather jacket and then took a business-sized envelope from one of the pockets. He held it out.
Gabriel waved it aside.
Jack dropped the envelope next to Gabriel’s coffee mug.
“She ain’t your problem anymore.”
Gabriel leveled angry blue eyes on the man sitting across from him.
“She will always be my problem.”
Jack squinted.
“Man like you, spends thousands on white stuff that goes up his nose. Nearly gets himself and his father killed. Shit.” He shook his head. “I’m fucking delighted you aren’t with her anymore.”
“Then take the money.” Gabriel clenched his fist and inhaled deeply, resisting the urge to bounce Jack’s head off the table.
“Tom should have solved this problem. Way I look at it, he fell down on the job.”
“It isn’t the first time. If you’re so sympathetic to Julianne, why the hell didn’t you rescue her from her mother? You could have saved her the scar on the back of her head.”
Jack’s face grew very red. “She told you?”
“Of course.”
“Fuck.”
Gabriel glared. “I don’t expect you to understand, but for reasons I won’t delineate, we can’t be together. I’d still walk through Hell for her. And I’ll be damned if I’m going to let some motherfucker with a senator for a father embarrass and humiliate her. You don’t want the money of a cokehead who broke your niece’s heart? Fine. Do your job and do it right, or I’ll find someone who will.” Gabriel stuffed the envelope into his pocket and moved to stand.
Jack held out his hand to stop him.
“I’ll call you when it’s done.”
“Good. I expect you to keep this conversation between us.”
Jack looked up at him in surprise. “Don’t you want her to know?”
Gabriel’s expression tightened. “The important thing is that she’s safe. No blackmail, no blowback. They stay out of her life forever. And she gets to sleep peacefully at night.”
A long look passed between the two men before Gabriel strode out of the diner.
Chapter Fifty-one
October 2011
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Scheisse,” said Julia.
“Quite,” said Gabriel.
“I can’t believe you hired my uncle Jack.”
“He’s good at what he does. He’s gotten me out of scrapes before.”
A sudden realization came upon her. “Is that what you were arguing with him about back at my dad’s house?”
“He was angry I’d never told you.”
“He never mentioned anything.”
“He’s a man of few words.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” She looked at him reproachfully.
“My actions were justified, but not legal. I didn’t want you knowing anything about it if there was a chance Simon or Natalie decided to go to the police. Or the feds. Before we were married I told you I’d looked into them and was satisfied that they wouldn’t bother you again.”
“I didn’t think you threatened them.”
“Is it really so bad?” he whispered.
Julia met his gaze and saw thinly disguised disappointment in his eyes.
“I told you I hadn’t confessed everything from my past, Julianne. We agreed that was fine.”
“But my father was so angry with you. Didn’t you want him to know that you protected me?”
“The fewer people who knew about it, the better. I doubt he would have changed his opinion.”
“So while we were separated, you were working hard to make sure I was safe?” She blinked back tears. “Thank you.”
He hugged her tightly. “You’re welcome. You should know that when I recovered the photos and videos of you I destroyed them without looking at them.”
Julia’s shoulders sagged in relief. “But Uncle Jack saw them.”
“I think he took pains not to look. And they’re gone now.”
“Simon and Natalie probably kept copies.”
“Jack said he got everything that included you. And he has a few other things in case he needs to motivate Natalie or Simon in the future.”
“How did he get everything?”
“That’s not important. The important thing is that you don’t need to worry about them. They won’t bother you again.”
Julia hugged him, crying relieved tears on his shoulder.
Chapter Fifty-two
October 2011
Durham, North Carolina
What are you doing?” April padded into her kitchen on bare feet, clad only in her boyfriend’s dress shirt.
He was standing at the stove cooking bacon and eggs in a single pan.
“Making us breakfast.” He smiled at her and reached over to peck her lips. “How did you sleep?”
“Good.” She stretched her arms over her head, then giggled. “I sleep better with you than without you.”
“Me, too,” he admitted, more to himself than to her.
She grabbed a container of orange juice from the refrigerator and poured them each a glass.
“I sleep better with you, but I feel guilty.”
“Guilty?” Simon turned, holding the spatula in his hand. “Why?”
April ducked her head, focusing on her orange juice. “Because we’re sleeping together and we aren’t married.”
Simon froze.
Chastity was as foreign to him as Eastern Europe. He’d encountered it before, in Julia, but it had always been something annoying and stupid, something he’d wanted to destroy through either seduction or manipulation.
With April, he found himself feeling something entirely different. Something that might have been the twinges of remorse.
It was a new experience for him.
“Sex isn’t bad.”
“That’s a funny thing to say.” She tapped her finger against her juice glass. “You’ve taught me sex is very, very good. I love it and I love being with you.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“I was taught to wait. And I didn’t.”
Simon turned back to the stove, at a loss as to what to say. For a moment, he continued cooking breakfast, then turned off the burner and put the pan aside.
He wiped his hands on the seat of his boxer shorts and walked over to her.
“You were taught to wait because your parents didn’t want some asshole taking advantage of you.”
“Simon.” Her tone was scolding. “Don’t cuss.”
“Sorry. Your parents were trying to protect you.”
“It isn’t just my parents. It’s my church.”
“Well, they were trying to protect you, too. And that’s a good thing. But our situation is different.”
She lifted her head. “Is it?”
“Yes.” He put his arms around her.
“How is it different?” She sounded cautious. “Tell me.”
“I’m not just having fun here. I like having sex with you, but I also enjoy your company. I can let my guard down when I’m with you. I don’t have to be Senator Talbot’s son. I can just be myself.” He smiled somewhat hesitantly.
“That’s how I feel, too.” She snuggled into his chest. “But every time you leave, I feel bad.”
“That’s because we care about each other.”
“I wish we could stay like this forever,” she whispered, her arms tightening around his waist.
“Me, too,” he admitted. He was stunned to discover that his words were true. That even in the short time he’d known her, he’d come to care for her, deeply. Their relationship was easy and good and he couldn’t imagine ending it.
“I love you, Simon.”
Simon felt his heart jump into his throat.
He was not a stupid man. He knew what he had in his arms—a beautiful, gentle, amazing young woman. She didn’t have the baggage that he carried. She wasn’t jaded and intent on social climbing, like Natalie. And she wasn’t fearful and self-righteous, like Julia. Julia had always made him feel as if he were an animal, something unworthy to touch her.
April probably woke up that morning, decided she loved him, and simply told him. No deliberation, no head games, no social climbing through sexual means.
Without warning, Simon found his lips moving.
“I love you, too.”
April hugged him as tightly as she could, almost bouncing on the balls of her feet.
“This is great!” she shrieked. “I’m so happy.”
“So am I.” He smiled down at her youthful, uninhibited exuberance and kissed her.
Chapter Fifty-three
Cambridge, Massachusetts
As October came to an end, the date Gabriel was waiting for drew near. He’d been fantasizing about what he was going to do to Julianne once their required celibacy ended, planning their activities meticulously.
The afternoon before the date, Julia stood in the kitchen of their home and called him. The phone rang only twice before he answered.
Gabriel's Inferno Trilogy Page 134
