Gabrielle was sure she blushed about ten shades of red.
“I’m smart about no longer wanting things I know I can’t have.”
“Like love,” she said.
He nodded. “Like love.”
Gabrielle sighed. She was surprised at how easy it was to understand where Thomas and the rest of the Corwin men were coming from.
And that scared her.
Because unless she could prove the curse was nothing but coincidence, circumstance, she’d have a fascinating true-life paranormal book…but she and Derek wouldn’t stand a chance.
SHARON FELT LIKE AN ASS. Dressed in running wear, shorts and a T-shirt, her hair pulled back in a ponytail and dark sunglasses covering her eyes, she waited outside the building where Gabrielle had said Tony lived. But feeling stupid and giving up were two different things. Someone was torturing her, and she intended to find out if her ex-boyfriend was that person. The first part of her plan was to discover what Tony’s life was like now. To see if he’d changed, or if he was the same self-centered bastard she’d known in college.
Back then she’d been in love and blind to his faults. His expensive tastes—designer sunglasses, finer restaurant choices and a budget too high for a college student should have been her first clue something was wrong. But at nineteen, she hadn’t cared to look too closely.
Now her eyes were open and her patience was abundant. She’d been sitting by a bench near a tree for the better part of the afternoon and still there was no sign of Tony.
As the hands of her watch neared 4:00 p.m., her patience was finally rewarded. A man resembling Tony rounded the corner and headed for the building entrance. He wore a uniformed T-shirt with a logo on the breast, sunglasses and khaki pants. He wasn’t the immaculately groomed man she’d known, but then a lot had changed.
She supposed prison had not only humbled him but changed his circumstances since his release. Unless he was resorting to blackmail again to fund his expensive taste. Sharon hadn’t paid him yet, but had other women? If he’d held on to Sharon’s photos, surely he’d kept some of the others. Those victims hadn’t wanted to come forward the first time around. They’d feared Tony’s retaliation later on. Once Tony had pled guilty, those women had had no need to take the risk. What about now?
As he strode closer to the front entrance, a woman exited the doorway, caught sight of him and waved. From behind him, a young boy ran toward him and Tony caught him in a hug. Sharon narrowed her gaze, watching him closely. Gabrielle had said he lived with his sister. Sharon and Tony had met and dated in college. She’d never met his sister and wouldn’t recognize her now. And Gabrielle hadn’t mentioned his sister having a child.
Sharon edged closer. Near enough to see and maybe hear, but she kept her head down so Tony wouldn’t notice her.
“How was your day?” the woman asked him.
He lowered the little boy back to the floor. “It was fine. Yours?”
His voice was deeper but essentially the same. Sharon shivered despite the heat of the summer sun.
“My day’s been busy.” She pointed to the toddler and laughed. “Tell Daddy what we did today.”
Daddy?
A wife? A child? A life?
Sharon licked her suddenly dry lips.
Could Tony really have straightened out his life this much? Or could his wife and child, the sense of normalcy, be a cover? And if he wasn’t her blackmailer, then who was?
GABRIELLE LEFT HOLLY with her uncle and headed back to her room at the inn, feeling surprisingly glum. She had thought that the more she explored the history of the curse, the simpler it would be to explain it away. The easier it would be to convince Derek nothing bad would happen if he fell in love with her all over again.
On the surface, it should be simple. She had Mother Nature to blame for the destruction of Derek’s grandfather’s life. It was horrible, but it could happen to anyone. In the next generation, Hank, Thomas and Edward, the matter came down to plain bad luck and human jealousy. It didn’t matter that in Gabrielle’s mind, those kinds of things happened. That was life.
To the Corwin men, though, those things could all be traced back to the curse. Thomas seemed intelligent and logical. Derek was the same. Yet both men deeply believed. She was beginning to wonder if anything could change their minds.
Frustrated, she went back to the inn. But before she even let herself into her room, she realized something was wrong. Her door, which she’d locked before leaving, was ajar. A glance at the door frame told her it had been wedged open.
She nudged the door open the rest of the way with her foot. “Hello?” she called out.
Nobody answered.
She didn’t see anyone in the small room. She quickly checked out the area. The bathroom door was open. Even the shower curtain was pulled back, so she could be sure nobody lurked there.
Heart pounding, she stepped inside. At a glance, she didn’t see anything missing, but how could she really know? Until she packed, she couldn’t be certain. The only jewelry she’d brought with her was on her body. Her watch, favorite ring, the diamond earrings she loved and the bracelet that her mother had given her.