by Isabel North
“So your business problems are my fault? You’re overestimating his interest in me.”
“On the contrary, you are underestimating it. Any other day, I’d be delighted that he seems to have more than a passing interest in a woman. Any other day, him getting a dog would warm the cockles of my shriveled lawyerly heart, because it would signify he’s getting over that preposterous notion he has that his nature dooms him to be ever alone and all that shit. But today is not that day! This is the worst time for you and your dog to be in his life. There’s too much at risk.”
“I don’t know what you want from me, Bill.”
“Stop making him happy! I don’t know how to deal with a happy Gabe!”
“He’s always happy,” Nora said.
“He fooled you too, huh? Forget it.” Bill got to his feet. “Gabriel will do as he will do, as always. All I need to know is, what kind of impact am I supposed to be bracing us for here? Is it another beginning, or is it the end?”
He looked at Nora as if she had an answer. She shrugged helplessly.
“Right.” He rapped on the table once, and strode out.
Nora watched him go. I just want my dog.
She left the conference room and asked the first person she found to point her in the direction of Gabe’s office. She was so unnerved by Bill and the general ambiance that she nearly ran to him.
She managed to keep it down to a brisk jog.
His office was a mirror image of the conference room, running the full length of the building, but it faced west rather than east. At this time of day the sun poured in, firing everything a deep rose-gold.
Should have looked pretty, she thought. It didn’t. With all the black marble, hard edges, and reddish light, it kind of looked like he was sitting on the throne of Hell. Gabe was behind his desk, and the young man on the other side of it was waving his arms over his head. Yelling.
As she got nearer, Gabe stood and started yelling back.
Sunshine must have been asleep, because Nora could see her curled up on the bed Gabe had bought her, and she showed no sign whatsoever of being disturbed by the arguing.
Nora slowed her eager pace to a walk. She glanced behind her, wondering if she should make a break for the elevator. Without making a conscious decision she found herself turning to go, then Gabe saw her.
His head came up, his eyes locked on, and the expression of relief that flooded his face rooted her feet to the ground. It disappeared as quickly as it had arrived, and he crooked a finger at her. Come here, he mouthed.
Now she really wanted to run for the elevator.
Being a big dork who thought he was lovely, however, she didn’t. She arrived at his door in time to hear the young man hiss, “I will quit, do you hear me? I will quit, you bastard, and then where will you be? Huh?” before he pushed past, shoved Nora into the office, and slammed the door on her.
Nora’s heart pounded.
“Hi,” Gabe said.
Jesus. No wonder he was stressed out, working here.
“Hi.” She cleared her throat. “Had a good day?”
He shrugged. “Yeah. Good one.”
A damp nose pressed against the back of Nora’s hand, and she crouched to plant a smacking kiss on the top of Sunshine’s warm head. “Hello, sweetie. Ready to go home?”
“I said I’d take her home with me tonight.”
Nora stood. “I said no, and you hung up on me. I’m starting to miss my dog, Gabe. You’re taking advantage.” And not in the fun way. “This is me being firm.” Although, seeing that he didn’t seem to be at all fazed by screaming employees, she doubted it would register as firm.
He regarded her thoughtfully.
She had no idea what he was thinking.
“Well,” she said after an awkward silence. “We’ll get out of your hair so you can get back to the important stuff.” She gestured at his overflowing desk and muttered, “If you can find it.”
Gabe smiled. “You want to organize my desk, don’t you?”
Was there any point denying it? “Yes, I do. My God. You need an assistant or something.”
“That would be Daniel. You met him on the way in.”
The man had been fuming at Gabe like he wanted to stab him.
“Usually, we get along great. Every now and then?” Gabe flung his arms out. “Drama.”
“Your desk is probably driving him crazy. It’s a disgrace. How can you find anything there?”
“I can’t. Doesn’t matter. There’s nothing important on the desk, anyway. It’s all in here.” He tapped his head.
Of course. He was a genius with a genius brain. “Do you have a photographic memory?” she asked.
“Eidetic. And no. It’s exceptional, but it’s not eidetic.” His chest expanded in a slow, deep breath as he considered her through half-closed eyes. “Bill got to you.”
“What? No. Who?”
Gabe sat, angling his chair toward the giant computer that brooded over the mess on his desk. He rattled a few keystrokes with the grace of a concert pianist, and gazed at the screen. “Hmm.”
Nora fidgeted. “What, hmm?”
“Come here.”
At least this time she raised a brow before she complied. “What?”
He gestured her around the desk, then startled her when he reached out a long arm and tugged her onto his lap.
“Gabe!”
“Why must you always start squirming the minute I get you in my lap? You ever think maybe I want to be the one squirming for once? You hold still. I’m going to squirm.”
She laughed. “Let me up.”
“When I’m ready.” He flattened a hand on her stomach, holding her in place. “Let’s try this again. Bill got to you.”
Nora didn’t bother denying it, since he’d pulled up video footage of her and Bill sitting in the conference room. Wow. She looked very…demure. “You bug your own office?”
His hand glided over her stomach to stroke her hip, then he picked her up and set her on her feet. “Security cameras. But sure, if I didn’t have them, I’d bug my office. I want to know when people start crossing lines.” He smiled faintly. “Don’t look so worried. I didn’t mean you. What did he say?”
“I’m distracting you. And Sunshine is. We’re messing with your focus.” She circled back to the safe side of his desk and dug Sunshine’s pink leash out of her purse.
Gabe didn’t reply, and they had another one of those loaded moments that she had no idea how to interpret.
“Do you want to go to dinner tonight?” she asked impulsively.
He shook his head. “No.”
“You could come home with us. If you want. Or come by later.” Shut up. Stop it. What are you doing?
Again, he shook his head. “No, baby.”
He didn’t even offer an excuse. He just said no.
Twice.
The first time to food. The second time also to food, but the way she’d phrased it, it sounded like she’d been suggesting more than food.
And he’d still said no.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Gabe watched Nora leave his office. Any faster, and it would have been a dead sprint. As it was, Sunshine had trouble keeping up on her stiff legs.
Did he want to go out to dinner? No. He’d had a big lunch, but it wasn’t the reason he’d said no. Did he want to go over to her apartment?
He let out a shuddering breath.
He wanted to go over to her apartment, throw her on her bed, and finally know how it felt to make love to Nora Bowman.
The problem was, he knew she’d change his world. She’d been changing it from the moment he’d seen her on the street as he left the gym. He’d moved her out of his way and felt an electric snap of connection that sizzled along every nerve ending in his body and drove deep, all the way down to his bones. If he let himself have her, he’d lose control. Of everything.
And Gabe liked control.
He’d said no, seen the hurt in her eyes, and had to sit there and
watch her damn near run away from him.
He snatched his cell phone from where it was acting as a paperweight on a stack of quarterly projections, and dialed.
“Hi, Gabe,” Elle Finley said at the other end, sounding harried. “This isn’t a good time. I’m at work.”
“Won’t take long. I don’t want to talk to you, anyway.”
“Then why did you call me? Hold on.”
He listened as she had a soothing conversation with a shrill-voiced woman in the background. Elle was a nurse at a doctor’s clinic in Emerson, and she was used to dealing with fractious and demanding people on a daily basis.
It was why they got on so well.
“I’m back,” she said. “I can give you two minutes.”
“Tell Alex to get on his computer. I want to Skype.”
Elle laughed. “He’s working.”
In other words Alex was in his barn, bending metal and waving his welding equipment around. He wouldn’t be best pleased to be interrupted. In fact, anyone interrupting him while he was in the throes of creation would get the nearest tool thrown at them. Anyone except Elle, which was why Gabe was calling her.
“I need to talk to him,” he said.
“Can’t it wait? I’m at the clinic until six.”
Gabe rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Fuck it. I’m coming there. I’ll see you in a few hours.”
“Wait! Is this an emergency?”
Yes! “No,” he growled. “I just want to see his pretty face.”
“Uh-huh. Tell you what I’ll do. I’m going to call Jenny and ask her to run over. She’ll get Alex on the computer.”
“Works for me.”
“Unless I can help?”
“Thought you were too busy?”
“Mrs. Bressler can finish throwing up without me if you’re having a real emergency. Can I help?”
“Thanks, but no. It’s guy stuff.”
Jenny called Gabe minutes later. “Crazypants 911, what is your emergency?” she said as soon as he picked up.
“Are you driving?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“Are you hands-free?”
“Of course I’m hands-free. I am not a moron. Spill. What’s going on?”
“Nothing’s going on.”
Jenny snorted. “Then why am I about to face the beast in his lair?”
“Don’t even try to pretend you aren’t relishing the opportunity to piss him off.”
“I relish every opportunity to piss him off. I enjoy it. He stole my sister. Why do you need to talk to him so badly?”
“Why do I need to tell you?”
“Why won’t you tell me?” she countered.
“I don’t want to.”
“Is it personal?”
“It’s guy stuff!”
“I am gender-free. Neutral. Like Switzerland. Or a priest. You can tell me.”
“You are not gender-free, Jenny,” he said. “You’re not that cool. You’re a coward, and you’re scared of Derek Tate.” Before she could get stuck in to the blustering denial this comment set off, he powered on, “And there comes a time in a man’s life when he wants to talk to his buddy! About guy stuff.”
Since Jenny lived a ten-minute drive from Alex and was undaunted by his towering build and artistic temper, in next to no time she’d dragged him from his barn and sat him in front of his laptop. She blew Gabe a kiss through the webcam, ruffled Alex’s crazy hair in a move that looked awfully like smacking him upside the head, and left.
Alex scowled at him. “What? What is so important that you had to pull me away from my sculpture? It was the best I’ve ever done—”
His latest was always his best.
“—and you’ve ruined it. What could possibly be worth such a loss?”
“I’m in love,” Gabe said.
Alex blinked.
The tension that had locked Gabe’s shoulders into knots since he’d come to the staggering realization that he was, in fact, wildly and uncontrollably in love with Nora Bowman, started to ease. Bracing his arms behind his head, he said two words he couldn’t ever remember saying in his adult life, and he said it with a grin. “Help me.”
“Fuck.” Alex looked stunned.
“What’s freaking you out more right now? The fact that I’m in love, or the fact I’m asking you for help?”
“I don’t know. Both, I think. Who are you in love with?”
“Nora.”
“Who’s Nora?”
“My interior designer’s assistant. My sun. My moon. My everything.”
“I didn’t even know you were dating anyone.”
“Oh, we’re not dating. I don’t think dating is Nora’s thing.” She hadn’t enjoyed the restaurant. Which made her earlier offer of going out to dinner again all the more meaningful.
“If you’re not dating, what are you doing with her?”
“We hang out. I can’t stop thinking about her. I can’t keep away from her. She lets me borrow her dog.”
Alex held his gaze. “I want to help you. You helped me with Elle. Okay, you interfered, and it happened to work out. Still, I’m here for you, buddy. What do you need from me?”
“I don’t know what to do,” Gabe confessed.
“Don’t fuck it up.”
“Yeah, I know that. And I know myself. I’m going to fuck it up.”
“If you don’t know what to do, what do you want to do?”
What did he want to do? “That one’s easy.” Gabe said, and told him. In extreme and filthy detail.
By the time he’d finished, Alex’s scowl was carved as deep as Gabe had ever seen it. “I’m not going to be able to look your Nora in the eye when I meet her now.”
Your Nora. He liked the way it sounded.
Alex was typing something.
“Are you taking notes on what I want to do to Nora?” Gabe asked. “Should I warn Elle?”
He stiffened. “No.”
“You want me to email you a bullet-pointed list?”
“Like I need ideas from you.” Alex paused. “Yes. Email me.”
“Consider it done.”
“Back to you, Gabe. What’s holding you back from engaging in any of that depravity with which you just assaulted my ears? Why haven’t you done it already?”
“I don’t want to hurt her.”
“That’s stupid,” Alex said. “If everyone stretches beforehand, it shouldn’t hurt. Oh. Remember to stay hydrated, or you’ll cramp.”
“Very funny. I won’t hurt her physically. I know what I’m doing in bed. And on the floor. And in the shower. The car. Kitchen table. Back yard.” He waited while Alex made another note. “Emotionally, though? It’s inevitable. Sooner or later, I’ll hurt her.”
“’Course you will. And she’ll hurt you right back. And then you both get over it. It’s called a relationship.”
“Until someone walks away. Then it’s called heartbreak.” No. “I refuse to break Nora’s heart. I refuse.”
Alex clasped his hands on top of his head and pressed as if he’d been hit by a sudden headache. “For fuck’s sake. Is this about your inability to commit again?”
Gabe glared at him. “You don’t have to say it like it isn’t a big thing. It’s a big thing.”
“You don’t have a problem with commitment!” Alex bellowed.
“Yes, I do!”
“No, you don’t! You let your parents and your therapists and everyone else who ever got a chance to chime in on your stupid giant brain convince you that you can’t be trusted with normal people and normal things. With all the many, many, many women you’ve dated, it was a convenient excuse to break things off when you got bored. It’s not real. You don’t have a commitment issue. It’s a boredom issue.”
“I—”
“You don’t end relationships because you love the woman but can’t commit. You end them because you never loved them in the first place. You get bored. You end everything when you get bored of it. Newsflash: so does the rest of the world.
God. You just have a really, really low threshold.”
“I’m more complicated than that.”
“Gabe. We’ve been friends for fifteen years. I’m not the easiest guy to be friends with. You have hunted me down on five separate occasions to straighten me out. Once, you even had to come get me from Canada. You have an army of employees, who are the most loyal, rude, but loyal bunch, most of whom have also stuck with you for multiple years. You’ve had Bill even longer than you’ve had me.”
“I pay Bill an obscene salary.”
“Yeah, he’s practically a second father to you. No salary is big enough for that job. Finally, may I remind you, moron, that you’ve built a multi-million dollar empire? Takes a bit of commitment to do that.” He held up a thumb and forefinger a fraction apart. “Just a pinch.”
“It was a challenge. I like a challenge.”
“Exactly. You like challenges. Building a future with Nora is a challenge. You can overcome it.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Nora isn’t a challenge. She’s the easiest thing in the world. I could take everything I want from her, and she’d give it. I could take, and take, and take. She’d keep giving.” Damn it. He was turning himself on again. “When I’m with her, that’s all there is. Me and her, nothing else. She is…” He struggled with the effort to put it into words. “She’s…infinite.”
“I was talking about you. You’re the challenge. Take a chance with Nora, and it’ll be like building your empire from scratch. You built that despite your problems, because you fight every day. Build a future with Nora. Fight every day. Overcome your problems every day. Trust me, you’re not going to come up against a bigger challenge than yourself.”
Gabe finished the call and sat at his desk, staring blankly ahead. He was aware of his employees passing the glass-walled office, aware of time passing, and none of it mattered.
He sat there and began to rearrange all the pieces on his personal chessboard, pieces that had been set up for years, poised to play out the perfect endgame.
An endgame he no longer wanted.
You’re not going to come up against a bigger challenge than yourself.
It was time to tell Bill about Nebula.
