I stared at my brother and I knew he was right on all accounts. None of this was on her.
I took a deep breath and did my best to get myself under control. I gave all my brothers a short, clipped nod to let them know I was okay, and they could quit restraining me. When they stepped aside, I looked over to see Denise looking like she wanted to make a break for it, Shane looking like she was going to start crying any second now (and then God help us all), and Justice looking like a woman ready to engage in a battle to the death. Her face was blotchy, and her eyes were red, but she was standing tall and her eyes were shooting fatal daggers at me.
Before I could say anything, Justice’s voice was like the crack of a whip across the room. “Get out of my house, Gabriel.” I was about to take Mason’s advice and concede, but then she added, “And don’t come back.”
I was standing in front of her before anyone could stop me. I looked down into her blazing gaze. “I’m going to leave to give you time to calm the fuck down,” I relented. “But you’re out of your fucking mind if you think I’m not coming back. This is not over, Justice. You’re my wife. Don’t you get that? My fucking wife.”
Her hands were fists at her side, and she let out a hollow laugh. “I’m an idiot, that’s what I am, Gabriel. A bonafide idiot and have been for six years.” She shook her head at me. “But not anymore,” she sing-songed.
Shane stepped in between us, knowing that I would automatically make room for her. “Gabriel, let’s just…give Justice some space. I’m sure having us all here is rather…uncomfortable,” she said, her voice soft and delicate.
I looked at my sister and I knew I couldn’t refuse her. She was right. And even if she wasn’t, I wasn’t going to upset her. Mason would kill me.
I glanced over at Justice. “This isn’t over, Justice. You can go ahead with your plans to divorce me, but only because I was a dick in Las Vegas, and you deserve the kind of wedding you’ve always dreamed of.”
She looked at me and it was a miracle I hadn’t dropped to my knees. “The wedding I’ve always dreamed of included a man who I planned on loving for the rest of my life, Gabriel. And that man isn’t you.”
Chapter 17
Justice~
It’s been two days since I’ve last seen or heard from Gabriel or any of the Buchanans, not that I had expected to hear from any of them, save for Gabriel. But now that it’s been a couple of days and I’m not all jacked up with feelings of resentment, I cringe at the memory of how I behaved in front of all of them.
After my spectacular declaration that Gabriel wasn’t going to be the man I was going to love forever, his brothers had rushed over and, literally, had dragged him away as I stood standing there, a complete emotional mess.
Denise Buchanan had reached out and placed her hand on my back, apologizing before she followed the men. Shane had stood before me, regarding me, studying me, before she had wrapped her arms around me and held on.
I didn’t know what it was about her, but I found myself hugging her back, and just crying in her arms. Once I was able to gain some measure of control over my emotions, she had stepped back, and looking me in the eye, said, “He hurt you. I get that. I understand that more than you know, Justice.” She gave me a small, patient smile. “But I also know that he will spend the rest of his life making up for it. He loves you. He’s always loved you. And…and even though you didn’t know that, the rest of us did. So…I’m not saying you should just roll over and forgive him, I’m just saying use these few days he’s going to give you to really understand what you want and what you’re feeling. Don’t divorce him out of spite. If you’re going to divorce him, do it because you really can’t see yourself ever being happy with him.” Her words had just brought on more tears, and before I could comment, she stopped at the doorway, looked back at me, and added, “Ask yourself if it’s worth the fight, Justice.” She gave me another small smile. “Because I can guarantee you that you’re going to be in for the fight of your life if you decide to move forward and leave Gabriel. That man is not going to let you go. Ever.”
I hadn’t commented, and I had stood where I was standing until I heard the front door open and close. It was only then that I had dropped onto my bed and cried myself to sleep.
I had looked like a punching bag the next day at work, but I blamed it on allergies, and thank God, it was allergy season, because everyone bought it. Even Dr. Daughtry kept his pervy ways to a minimum. I hadn’t put my wedding rings back on, and I felt kind of sleazy leaving them off, because whether I liked it or not, I was married. I just didn’t know what I was going to do, and I didn’t want to have to explain how I was married one week and then divorced the next.
Balancing some invoices, I answered my phone without looking at the screen. “Hello?”
“Lunch at noon and I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer,” Beatrice demanded in lieu of a greeting.
“Well, hello to you, too, Beatrice,” I teased. “How are you this fine day?”
She laughed into the phone. “I’ll be great once we’re sitting down for lunch,” she teased back.
“You know I only have a half hour lunchtime,” I reminded her. Dr. Daughtry gave us the option of taking an hour lunch or half hour lunch, and while 30 minutes might not seem like a big deal, it was at the end of the workday.
“I’ll order ahead, and we can eat at Sparks,” she said, fixing that dilemma.
“It’s a deal,” I conceded. I missed Beatrice. We hadn’t hung out since our night in the city when I met Nathanial, who was turning out to be a cool guy. We friended each other on social media and he often sent me funny GIFs texts and jokes.
“Okay,” she squealed. “I’ll see you at noon.”
I went back to work and did my best to drown out the world around me. Lunch would be rough because I couldn’t hide Gabriel from Beatrice any longer. I’ve been navigating this thing with Gabriel all by myself for the past six years and I was doing a jacked-up job of it. I needed a friend and some advice and the only other people who knew about us were his family and I already knew which side they were on.
Noon finally came, and I was walking into Sparks, looking for Beatrice. I finally spotted her in a corner table and made my way over. I dropped into the seat across from her. “Hey, Girly.”
Beatrice smiled her megawatt smile at me. “Hey,” she said as she gestured towards the food sitting in front of me. “I got you a Cobb Salad with a turkey sandwich.”
I removed my purse and placed it in the seat next to me. “Thanks, Bea.”
“Okay, so what’s going on, lady?” she asked, diving straight into the deep end. “I’ve hardly spoken to you since the night you met Nathanial and the last-minute Las Vegas trip.”
I launched in on how Nathanial and I agreed to be friends until or unless life changes for us in the meantime and bid my time before going into the details about my trip.
“I swear,” she huffed. “All the nice guys are taken or unemotionally available. And you want to know why they’re unemotionally available? Because they’re good guys, and if they break up with someone, they’re genuinely torn up about it.”
I laughed. She wasn’t necessarily wrong. “I don’t know, Beatrice,” I replied. “I think Nathanial and I are destined to be friends only.”
She cocked her head and her voice was so soft and compassionate when she said, “Awe, come on, Just. It could work.”
Okay. Here we go.
I shook my head at her. “I’m going to tell you something, but before I do, please don’t get mad at me and I promise to go into further details tonight after work. Right now, there’s not enough time.”
Her eyes rounded and her lips curve. “Oh, my God! You totally did him, didn’t you? You totally did the deed and aren’t a virgin anymore, huh? Oh, oh, oh…did he go to Vegas with you? Is that why it was a last-minute trip?”
I rolled my eyes at her enthusiasm over my losing my virginity. “Will you hush up?” I chastised. “The entire place doesn’t
need to hear about who I’m sleeping with or not sleeping with.”
She finished the bite of nachos she had grabbed before saying, “I’ll hush up as soon as you spill the details, ma’am.”
I took a deep breath and went for broke. “I didn’t sleep with Nathanial and he wasn’t the reason I went to Las Vegas, Beatrice.”
“Well, then, what the hell, Justice?”
“I didn’t sleep with Nathanial because I…uhm, I’ve been sleeping with Gabriel Buchanan since we were 16 years old. And I went to Las Vegas to try to screw him out of my system with some random stranger I’d never have to see again.”
Beatrice started choking on her drink of tea so badly, I had to stand up, walk around and start patting her on the back to help get her under control. “Are you okay?”
She wheezed and coughed and sputtered, “Wh…w…wha…what?”
I sat back down in my seat and grimaced. Was I a bad friend that I had kept this from her for so long? “I’m sorry, Bea-”
Beatrice leaned forward. “Gabriel Buchanan as in The Gabriel Buchanan? As in Buchanan Industries Buchanans? That fucking Gabriel Buchanan?”
I let out a sigh. “Yeah,” I confessed. “That’s the one.”
Her beautiful blue eyes bugged clean out of her head. “Holy shit, Justice!” she whispered yelled. “You’re doing the deed with Gabriel Buchanan and you’ve been doing it since high school?”
My shoulders lost all forms of life and I slunk into my seat. “Yeah,” I confirmed lamely.
“I don’t understand,” she went on. “If I were sleeping with a man who looks like that, I’d have taken out a billboard announcing it to the fucking world.”
Little did she know. “There’s more,” I prepared her.
“I swear to God, Justice, if you tell me you’re screwing Michael Buchanan too, I’m going to faint,” she declared.
I threw a baby tomato at her. “Eewww…no!” I exclaimed, laughing. “I am not sleeping with…them.”
She leaned back in her seat and breathed out a dramatic sigh. “Jesus,” she shook her head. “I was about to lose my mind there for a sec.” Beatrice cocked a brow and gave me the most mischievous grin. “Okay, so spill, sister.”
“I promise to spill tonight after work,” I said, knowing we were short on time. “But…there’s also something else.”
Her eyes bugged again. “Something, beyond the fact that you’ve been sleeping with Gabriel Buchanan and have managed to keep it a secret for six goddamn years? I mean, seriously, Justice. The CIA should recruit your ass.”
I rolled my eyes at her. “So, you know how I went to Vegas to screw him out of my system?” She nodded. “Well, he found me and…he found me, and we sort of…”
“Oh, my all that is holy and right in this world,” she breathed. “You married Gabriel Buchanan in Las Vegas, didn’t you?”
I dropped my head on the table right next to my salad, not caring if I was going to be covered in salad dressing later, and mumbled, “Yep.”
“Well, I’ll be a sonofabitch,” she replied. The rest of lunch was eaten in silence.
Chapter 18
Gabriel~
I spent the last two days trying to prove I wasn’t a total loser and starting my rotation at BI. Mason and Aiden had spent a month rotating through the departments, getting to know people and their purpose here at BI. This hands-on personal touch was required by Mason, and I, personally, thought it was a great idea.
However, the first week I had cut out early to follow Justice to Las Vegas, and most of this week I had been cutting out early because of the commute. Well, deciding to take Mason’s advice and give Justice some space, I was able to put in the hours I should have and was really making a dent in meeting our employees and getting grounded in our client accounts.
I was making a lot of progress, but Justice was still there, in the back of my mind, making me fucking crazy. That scene at her apartment had been an ugly one. I’d never lost control like that before, but finally telling her I loved her, only to have her throw it back in my face, as a lie, had been enough to push me over the edge.
But I wasn’t a completely self-absorbed dick. I knew this was my fault. I knew her insecurities and refusal to see the truth was all my fault. I knew this. I just didn’t know how to undo six years of neglect. And I was all for Michael’s plan, but the more serious she sounded about divorcing me, the more panicked I became.
The phone on my desk rang, and so, I placed Justice in the back of my mind the way I needed to. I picked up the receiver without checking to see who it was. “Hello?”
“Hey,” came Shane’s voice over the line and I immediately smiled.
“Hey, Sis. What’s up?” I asked, leaning back in my chair.
“Well, I know you’re busy-”
“I’m never too busy for you, Shane. Mason won’t allow it,” I chuckled.
Shane laughed just like I knew she would. “I need to send a proof to marketing, but-”
“I’ll be right there.” I hung up, not letting her finish, and headed for Shane’s floor. She had an entire floor assigned for her division of BI. When she had agreed to take The Morgan Corporation on a smaller scale and make it a go, Mason had renovated so that the entire floor below us housed Shane’s subsidiary. The only stipulation Mason had made was that she was to keep her subsidiary named The Morgan Company. It was his little perverse way of still sticking it to Branson Morgan and his family for the attack on Shane four years ago. And, even though Shane wasn’t the vindictive type, she knew how torn up Mason had been over not being able to protect her, so she gave him this one, little consolation.
I finally made my way down to Shane’s floor, but I was not about to pass Dibtab’s office and not peek my head in. I gave it a quick knock and then opened the door, peeking my head in. Denise was standing over her corner conference table looking over some things. “Hey, Sexy Momma,” I said, announcing my arrival.
She didn’t bother looking up from what she was studying. “Hey, Trouble,” she greeted.
I laughed. “That’s Michael,” I corrected her. “I’m the good one.”
Denise snorted, still not looking at me. “There’s not a good one amongst you four,” she said wryly.
“That’s a lie,” I retorted. “Aiden’s good.”
That’s when she finally looked over at me, my head still peeking in through the door, and smiled. “Yes, he is,” she said, all teenage starry-eyed.
“You guys make me sick,” I countered, changing my mind about Aiden being a good guy. Couldn’t she see I was a wreck over the state of my marriage? Rude, I swear.
She laughed. “You love me, and you know it,” she sassed.
I smiled and shut the door. I did love the wench, and she did know it. Aiden had gone at her hard when he first met her, but I’m glad he did. Denise was a class act and my favorite Buchanan next to Shane.
When I finally made my way to Shane’s office, I didn’t bother knocking. She was expecting me so I knew I wasn’t going to walk into anything I couldn’t un-see. That honor goes to Aiden when he walked in on Shane blowing Mason a couple of years ago. We all thought it was funny as fuck, but Aiden had been mortified. He said Shane was too precious to be on her knees, to which Mason replied that Shane was a motherfucking goddess when she was on her knees.
Good times.
When I walked in, I saw that she wasn’t alone, and my heart warmed at the pair standing in her office. “Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Logan.”
Maggie Logan smiled. “Gabriel, how many times do we have to tell you boys to call us Adam and Maggie?”
I shrugged a shoulder and gave her a sheepish smile. “I’m working on it,” I told her. “Maybe if you guys came down more often, I’d get better at calling you Maggie and Adam.” Shane’s foster parents laughed, and Shane’s smile lit up the room.
Shane grew up in foster care her entire life until she was 15 and the Logan’s took her in. She fostered out of their home and had gone on in life sort of doubtin
g their devotion to her. Once Mason made her believe in real love and belonging, she reconnected with the Logans and let them be the parents they always wanted to be to her. They still fostered children, but BI paid all their bills and each child they fostered left home at 18 with a big, fat check and a better hope for the future.
“Adam and Maggie stopped by to surprise me for lunch,” Shane said, joining in on the conversation. “I’d take this proof myself, but it’ll be late-”
I waved my hand at her. “Say no more, Sis,” I interrupted. “I’ll walk it over. Go on and have a good lunch.”
Shane let out a deep breath. “I really need to get an assistant,” she muttered.
I wisely kept my mouth shut. Mason’s been bugging her to get an assistant for the past year, but Shane was still struggling with being a Buchanan. It’s been over four years, but she still acted like she was working her way up to prove herself. She said she didn’t feel comfortable having an assistant. She wasn’t comfortable with ordering someone around.
What Shane didn’t realize was that she wouldn’t be ordering anyone around. Anyone lucky enough to work for her or be around her would just want to help her. She brought that out in people.
I didn’t spare the Logans a glance when I aired my dirty laundry. They were Shane’s family, therefore, making them my family. “Sooooooooooooooo, how about this?” I blurted out. “How about after I get my marriage back on track, and Justice doesn’t leave me, she can be your assistant?”
“Oh, my,” Maggie rushed out, as Adam exclaimed, “You got married, Gabriel?”
I turned to them and didn’t want them thinking we had excluded them in any way. “I’ve been dating Justice Hillman for six years, but I was a dick and so she ran off to Las Vegas to drink me away,” I explained with no shame whatsoever. “But I followed her like the certified stalker I am, and we got married in Las Vegas. No Elvis, though.” They both blinked their eyes at me, dumbstruck, no doubt. “But don’t worry,” I continued, “if she does divorce me, we’ll be getting remarried and you guys will definitely be invited to that.”
If You Could Only Feel (Buchanan Brothers Series Book 3) Page 9
