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I turn to her, and fuck, why does looking at this woman punch me in the chest, and grab me by the balls? I don’t fucking like redheads and yet all those red curls have me wishing her mouth was on my stomach again, and that hair was right there with it. Who the hell am I fooling? If that was all she made me fucking feel, I’d be good. I’d fuck her the hell out of my system.
“What’s going on, Gabe?” she demands because apparently, I’m fucking staring at her and saying nothing.
My father comes to my mind, and my instinct is that he might be the attorney involved in her legal battle. My father, who we just dethroned from the company. My father, who prefers revenge to family and might just use my fuck habits to fuck us. “Are you playing me?”
“What? What does that mean?”
“What is your agenda, Abbie?”
A knife of emotion stabs through her eyes; shock, embarrassment, pain and I want to react but I have to be sure I’m not setting our company up for a fall. “Answer me, Abbie,” I demand.
“I should never have gone home with you,” she whispers, her voice cracking as she reaches for the door.
I catch her arm and pull her around to face me. “I need to know if you—”
“Fucked you to fuck you? No, I didn’t, and don’t worry. I won’t do it again so you won’t have to question me again. And I can’t believe I actually thought we—that you—” She cuts her gaze. “Let me out of the car.” Her voice trembles.
I quake inside in response. I’ve hurt her. I’ve hurt the only woman that has managed to matter to me in decades. What the hell am I doing? “Abbie,” I plead softly. “Look at me.”
“Let me out of the car, Gabe. I need to help my mother.”
“And we will. We’ll help her together.”
She whirls on me. “Weare not doing anything.”
“You talked about your damn ex even when we were naked, Abbie. You—”
“I talked about him to protect you. Damn it, Gabe. Toprotectyou. I need to be inside helping.”
“We’ll go in in a minute. I’m going to help and so is my sister and brother-in-law.”
“So you can say the animals in need are part of me playing you?”
I take those words like a punch I deserve. “I’m not trying to be a dick.”
“And yet you are.”
“You’re right. I am, but damn it, Abbie, my father, and Jean Claude have a history and we just pushed him out of ourcompany. You showed up and—I can’t let you be a weapon used against my company.”
“I’m not. I wouldn’t. If you believe that—”
“I don’t,” I breathe out. “I don’t, but there’s more on the line than just me. This is my family, my employees—my life.”
“I’m not working for your father. I don’t evenknowyour father.” His eyes soften. “Your father would really come at you like that?”
“Yes. Yes, he would.”
She stuns me then by pressing her hand to my face. “Then I forgive you for being a dick.”
“What?”
“How can you not doubt me with the connection we share to Jean Claude? And how can you not doubt me when your own father can’t be trusted? You just met me.”
I’m officially blown away by this woman. My hand covers hers on my face and I pull it between us. “Spoken like someone who’s been burned by family,” I say, thinking of her less than favorable reference to her father.
“I understand why you just reacted like you did,” she confirms, offering nothing more, but I want more. A whole hell of a lot more, that she won’t give me now, but I can live with waiting.
“Let’s go save those animals.”
