Once Upon a Friendship
“But Gabi... I’m falling in love with her.”
In spite of how tightly Marie’s lips were pursed, he could still see them tremble.
“She can’t know,” he said.
She nodded.
“With a possible arrest in my near future, I’m afraid I’m going to do something crazy.”
He needed her to speak. She just sat there, tapping her hand on the desk.
“And then she’ll get hurt.”
Marie’s hand stilled.
“I need her,” Liam said. “I need you both, but her more at the moment because I need her representation.” He wanted to think that his new feelings for Gabrielle, after all this time, at this exact time, were because of the case.
Marie wasn’t moving at all. And then she said, “I think, if we’re going to try to salvage something here, we need to be completely honest.”
“I’m afraid I’m going to do something stupid. I can’t walk away. And I’m going to do something stupid. If ever there were a time I needed you, Marie, it’s now. It’s not fair to you. I don’t really even know what I’m asking, but please...don’t let Gabi get hurt. Watch me like a hawk. And if you get worried, come to me. Let me know. I’ll listen to you. I swear it...”
He sounded like an idiot. A flaming idiot.
“I think that what you’re feeling has been a long time coming,” she said. “Maybe the reason you’ve never been able to settle on another woman for any length of time was because, all along, in some place inside you, it was Gabi. I don’t think it’s the court case or needing Gabi as an attorney that’s brought your feelings to life. I think it’s moving into our world, leaving the persona of Liam Connelly behind, leaving appearance and responsibilities to the Connelly name behind, and just being yourself, Liam, that has done it.”
He couldn’t listen to that. Couldn’t accept it...
“You know I’m right.”
“No.” He softened his tone. “No, I don’t. But if you were, where would that leave us?”
“I don’t know.” Tears filled her eyes—something he was more used to seeing from her but was no less painful to him. “I’ve been worried for weeks,” she told him. “But I’ll tell you this. If this thing between you is as strong as it seems to be, there’s not going to be anything you two will be able to do to fight it. Not forever. At some point, sometime, it will get the better of you.”
“And then what?”
Marie shrugged. “Then we try to love each other through it, I guess.”
It was a typical Marie answer. One he’d wanted.
But that night, it didn’t give him much comfort.
* * *
SMILING AT A woman she’d never met but felt as though she’d known for years, Gabrielle took the cup of hot tea Greta handed her and set it on the small table between the armchair she was sitting in and the one next to it.
Both were in front of a massive cherry desk in an office larger than any she’d ever seen before. Funny—she’d known Liam all these years, felt as if he was more family to her than her own mother and brothers, but she’d never been in his house before.
“Thank you, Greta, that will be all.” Walter Connelly dismissed the older woman as though she were a stranger to him.
He’d ordered Gabrielle off his property.
She’d refused to go.
He’d threatened her with a call to the police. She’d told him she’d welcome the opportunity to tell them everything she knew.
He’d shown her to a room with a couch and chairs but no books or television and made her wait there alone for half an hour.
And when he’d finally appeared and shown her to his office, he’d demanded that she wait for tea to be served. While he’d slowly sipped on a shot of something amber colored.