Once Upon a Friendship

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GABRIELLE WAS UP two hours before she was due to meet Liam to head out for breakfast the following morning. Their rooms weren’t adjoined in the high-rise beach hotel where they were staying. She hadn’t spoken to him since they’d said goodnight outside the elevator the night before.

But she’d been thinking about him nonstop. She’d asked if he wanted a snack or a cup of coffee before they’d turned in. If he wanted to sit and chat for a while. She was a bit nervous doing so without Marie, but, after her talk with herself on the plane, she felt a little more confident that she’d stay on the right path.

And she could always text Marie if she decided she couldn’t trust herself.

Still, disappointment had flooded her when he’d shaken his head and said he just wanted to head to their rooms. The emptiness he had left behind kept her up much of a night that she should have spent resting.

She’d finally called Marie. Who’d strengthened her resolve to keep things on a friends-only basis with Liam. She’d told her to be ready in case Liam tried to change things.

Which sent Gabrielle into another tizzy. Was it possible Liam really did return her feelings? Was he finding her attractive, too? Looking at her in new ways?

At which point Marie had come down uncharacteristically hard on her. Reminding her that going into a tizzy was not the way to stay strong and follow through on her decisions.

And Gabrielle had asked, “If Liam were different, if he was a one-woman type of guy and could have made one of us happy, do you think he would have split us up?”

“No. If he was that type of guy, and one of us was the one for him, he’d have expressed that interest and the other one of us would have supported that choice.”

Gabrielle had thought so, too, but... “So, if things had been different and he chose me?”

“I’d have been fine with it, Gabi.”

“You’ve never had any of those kinds of feelings for him?”

“Never. I go for tall guys, you know that. Crazy, since I’m the short one. But there you have it.”

Gabi had had a sudden flash of Marie telling them what “Elliott” had said that first night she’d met him. And knew that the bodyguard had been spending some time in her shop over the past week, since the threatening letter had arrived, rather than just outside in his car. Marie had mentioned him in passing more than once.

Could it be that her friend was falling for someone? That maybe she’d finally met a man who could get past the barricade around her heart?

She’d been about to broach the subject, but Marie had wanted to know everything about Liam’s sister. About the surprise meeting.

Gabrielle hadn’t had a lot to tell her because the moment had lasted all of five minutes—just long enough for the two to meet and say hello so, Missy had explained, Tamara would calm down and get some sleep. Marie had had to go then. She’d only had a few hours to sleep before getting up to meet Grace downstairs, to bag and tag the baked goods the older woman made every morning before opening the shop. Certainly not enough time to deal with Gabrielle bringing up the tough subject of Marie’s love life.

Saturday morning, after showering and dressing in the light-colored linen pants and tailored button-down short-sleeve top she’d brought, Gabrielle slipped into a pair of low-heeled pumps, fluffed and sprayed her short black hair, put on some makeup, and delivered herself to her laptop. She’d spent part of the night going over files in the Connelly case, specifically the files Gwen Menard and her team had compiled on the five top-floor executives Walter Connelly had told them about—people with the security clearance to have run a Ponzi scheme with Connelly funds.

She was so focused that she jumped when Liam’s knock sounded on her door. She’d actually lost track of time. And lost the opportunity to stress anymore about the upcoming day.

Liam would get through it just fine. She’d advise him where his father’s papers were concerned. And then they’d head home. Back to Marie. Their apartment building. Normalcy. Back to Liam confiding in both of them. And Chinese takeout for three.

The thought was completely obliterated by the warm smile he gave her as she opened her door to him. But she gathered it back around her as quickly as she could, shrouding herself in determination as she locked her door and let him slide his arm through hers as they headed down the hall. If Marie had been there, he’d have joined his other arm with hers.

Like he had for college graduation pictures, her law school graduation, and when he’d taken them both to a charity event before the holidays.

Liam was facing what had to be the hardest time of his life. He needed her and Marie more now than ever. Marie wasn’t there to do her part.

So Gabrielle was going to have to do it for both of them.

CHAPTER TWELVE

LIAM DIDN’T UNDERSTAND how it was possible to feel so fiercely protective and to love someone so completely in such a short space of time, but by the time he and Gabrielle had finished breakfast with Tamara and her mother, he knew his little sister was going to have a place in his heart—and his life—forever.

She’d wanted to ride with them in the car he’d rented the night before for the short trip from the restaurant to her home—saying she could direct them if they got separated from Missy in traffic—and he was glad to have her there. Glad, too, that she’d chattered the whole way about the places they were passing—regaling him with her memories of having grown up in the Florida suburb—showing him a life that was at once completely different from his and relatively happy as well.

“She’s a great kid,” he said to Gabrielle as they stood together in the third bedroom—which served as a sewing room, with Walter’s desk and a filing cabinet on one end—in the small beach cottage his father had bought for his mistress and their daughter. Tamara had gone to help her mother get iced tea for them.

“She adores you.” The warm look in Gabi’s eyes stopped him for a moment. So he looked past her.