Once Upon a Friendship

“I don’t remember the couple of times a month.” The teenager turned to look at him again. And smiled that sweet vulnerable smile that had him in the palm of her hand. “Mostly it was at least a week each month. Used to be even more than that, when I was in elementary school.”

It wasn’t as though Liam would have noticed his father’s absences. Certainly not when he was in college and working nights in Denver. And in later years, they’d both traveled so much, lived in separate homes, spoken only when they had pertinent information to pass along.

He wanted to ask what they did when his father was there. Something held him silent.

“Look at this.” Gabrielle pointed to a particular line on a transaction sheet. It held a code that identified the person who’d generated the sheet: George, not that Gabrielle had reason to know that. And not that it mattered. His father’s attorney filled out paperwork for him all the time.

Her body pressing more completely into his mattered more than anything at the moment.

He didn’t want anyone snatching that beautiful body away from him. Gabrielle’s attention was addictive.

And he had to get a grip on himself before he lost his place as family in her heart.

“Look, Liam,” she said, sounding a little irritated. He’d never realized how much he liked that tone. It told him she cared.

“I am looking.”

“Every one of these sheets deals with transactions we now know were fraudulent. They were sent to your father down here for signature, which clearly means that he wasn’t at work generating the business. And every single one of them was initiated by the same employee code.”

“It’s George’s code.”

It didn’t mean anything. Except that George had been covering his father’s ass while the old man lived his double life.

And maybe... “George knew what was going on,” he said as Gabrielle nodded.

He wanted to be glad that they were uncovering evidence. As more things came to light, they were getting closer to the truth. Closer to having the whole thing resolved and behind them.

But George?

And was Ray Buckus in on everything, too, as Gabrielle had said Gwen Menard suspected?

Was anyone trustworthy?

“Who’s George?” Tamara asked.

“Your father’s corporate attorney,” Gabi answered for him.

And he had his answer. He knew two people who were completely trustworthy: Marie and Gabrielle. But if he went after Gabrielle, tried to date her, he could likely lose Marie’s trust. And if things didn’t work out for him and Gabrielle in the long run—if he got the urge to move on that had hit him at some point in every relationship he’d ever had—then he’d lose Gabi, too.

Lose the only two people in the world he knew he could really trust.

A man would be a fool to jeopardize that.

Shaking his head, Liam chalked up his rush of emotion for the woman at his side to the emotional turmoil his father had wreaked the past weeks. And the complete change in his personal circumstances.

Obviously, whether Jenna was ready to come out with her new boyfriend or not, it was time for Liam to start dating again. Before he blew the best thing in his life.

His friendship with his business partners.

* * *

DINNER WAS WONDERFUL, if a bit uncomfortable. Gabrielle loved being around Tamara. The young woman was smart and way more astute for her age than Gabrielle had been. She was also kind.

And a bit bossy, too. Most particularly when it came to her mother.

Missy was a nice woman. Obviously in emotional crisis. But Gabrielle trusted her.

The discomfort came from the man sitting beside her. In jeans and a polo shirt he looked...as great as Liam always looked. She was just seeing him differently.