“I’m sorry,” she said suddenly and just like that, his own temper drained away. “I was just surprised, Gabe. You didn’t even tell me you were changing the plan.”
“Hey.” He took her arm, turned her around to face him. “Honestly, I didn’t think it would bug you so much. This isn’t about trust, Pam.”
“Isn’t it?” She pulled free of his grasp and took a step back. Holding on to the wrought-iron railing with one hand, she pushed her windblown hair out of her eyes with the other.
He threw both hands high in exasperation. How did this go sideways so fast? “We’re a team, Pam. Nothing has changed.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.” She shook her head. “Not anymore.”
“What the hell, Pam?” He shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “Where’s all the fury coming from? I don’t know your chef from a hole in the ground. Why wouldn’t I use one I already know? The guy’s insanely talented. And he already works for me.”
“Fine.” She waved a hand at him, effectively dismissing that argument. “But now I have to explain to my chef why he can’t be in on the ground floor of a new chocolate line.”
“He wouldn’t have been, anyway,” Gabe argued. “He was going to make samples. That’s as far as his involvement went. But if this goes well, then Jeff will get a promotion and I’ll have the satisfaction of hearing Ethan apologize and admit he was wrong for the first damn time ever.”
She didn’t look like she cared much.
“This is making zero sense,” Gabe said, his own frustration building. “And damned if I’m going to apologize for protecting my family even while I’m sneaking around behind their backs.”
“Hey,” she said quickly. “Nobody’s forcing you to do anything. You wanted to do this,” she reminded him. “I didn’t talk you into it. In fact, I told you that you didn’t have to do it at all.”
He stepped up closer, laid both hands on her shoulders and could practically feel her vibrating with anger. The woman was making him crazy. “Babe, I know that. This whole thing is on me. Which is why I’m doing it my way. You said you understood family loyalty.”
“I do.”
“Then you should get why I’m doing it like this.”
She considered that, then took a breath and huffed it out again. “I get it, Gabe. I just don’t know why you kept it from me.”
“I only finalized it today,” he argued. “Hell, I didn’t see you until a half hour ago. When was I going to tell you?”
“When you started thinking about changing the plan?”
There was more going on here than anger over a plan changing. Something else was bugging her. He just had no idea what it was. “What’s really going on here, Pam?”
Below, the ocean was dark, but the waves were topped with froth that stood out in the moonlight. Couples strolled the sand at the water’s edge and a few bonfires winked in the blackness of the beach.
“What do you mean?”
“This is about more than using a different chef,” he said, as suspicion slipped through his mind. He didn’t like the feeling. But what the hell else was he supposed to think when her reaction to all of this was so damn irrational?
Pam was the one he could count on. Talk to. She’d been his sounding board for months. Always supportive. Always ready to listen. If something had changed, he wanted to know what it was. “So tell me what’s happening.”
“There’s nothing to tell,” she said, then pulled her phone from her back pocket to check the time. “I’ve got to go. It’s my father’s birthday and the whole family’s gathering at their house.”
“You didn’t say anything before.”
“Well, I am now,” she murmured.
“But we’ve got dinner. Champagne.”
“Yeah, I don’t feel much like celebrating.”
She slipped out of his grasp and his hands felt empty, cold. “Damn it, Pam, tell me what’s going on with you.”
“It’s nothing.”
Before he could say anything else, she was walking back into the main room and snatching her purse up off the couch. The table, set for an intimate dinner, complete with candles, was ignored. “Pam.”