Once Upon a Friendship

They came. And they went.

Gabrielle was with him to stay. She wanted that far more than she wanted to know what his kiss tasted like.

She jumped when her phone finally rang, just before six. It was him. She was shaking as she pushed the button to answer.

“Sorry, I just got out of court. There was one hell of a scene and things ran over...”

She wanted to hear about it. As soon as she quit acting like a ninny and was back in he

r right mind.

“Gabi? You there?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So what did you find out? I assume that’s why you called.”

No, she’d been home, waiting to break the news in person. She’d called because she’d been consumed with visions of... “Call me when you get home and I’ll come up.”

“You found out something.”

“Just let me know when you’re home.”

“Gabi, don’t do this to me. If you know something, just tell me.”

She couldn’t. Not over the phone. Not while he was working. Because she was not only his attorney, she was also his friend.

“Seriously, Liam. I’m...working on something else right now, but I’m home. Call me when you get here and I’ll bring you the stuff I got today so you can go over it yourself.”

She held her breath. She hadn’t lied to him. She just hadn’t told him that his life was about to change forever.

Again.

That had to be why she’d been so emotional over him the past couple of hours. Because she knew his heart was going to split at the seams and she wished she could hold it together for him.

“Will do,” he said, sounding so much like his old chipper self that she almost reconsidered meeting him so he could have a night as his old self. Her news would be the same in the morning.

Except that he’d be back in court then. And she had a full day of hearings ahead of her on Tuesday.

“I feel like Chinese,” he said, and she could tell by his breathing that he was taking the stairs out of the courthouse rather than the elevator.

A dumb thing to do when one could be being followed.

If Tanner was a good guy, he’d be in that stairwell, too...

“I planned to stop on the way home. You and Marie want some?”

“Marie has a date tonight,” she told him. “Burton.”

A safe, completely boring guy who liked the theater as much as she did. Someone with whom she’d never fall in love. Or need to trust with her heart. Which, sadly, fit Marie, who trusted no man but Liam, and not even him when it came to women.

“How about you? You feel like Chinese?”

She didn’t feel like food at all. Or being alone with him, either. Especially not tonight. “Sure. The usual.”

She’d said the words before. More times than she could count. Tonight they sounded intimate. Because tonight Marie wasn’t included. And when she found out that Gabrielle had had dinner alone with Liam, in his apartment, her fears would grow again.

But aside from her bizarre reactions to Liam’s manhood lately, there’d been another major change in Gabrielle’s relationship with Liam. She was his legal counsel. And tonight she had news that she had to tell him without Marie present due to attorney-client privilege.