Once Upon a Friendship
That was what he called a good friend.
One he wasn’t the least bit attracted to. Which was how it should have been with Gabi, too. So they could all be together, family, forever.
They’d been laughing when they arrived upstairs. He couldn’t even remember now what about. He just rememb
ered her opening the door, calling out to Gabi and getting no answer.
Her frown concerned him, but he hadn’t been truly alarmed until they’d both searched the whole place and seen no sign of her. Marie was fairly certain she’d never come home from work.
He’d been certain she had gotten off the elevator at her floor. He’d watched her do it. Watched her walk away from him with a pang in his gut.
While Marie was taking a second look around, he was on the phone with Tanner, who knew nothing about Gabi leaving their apartment.
His next call was to the police, to report a missing person. A report they couldn’t take on an adult unless she’d been gone far more than a couple of hours.
Marie was the one who did the logical thing.
She texted Gabi.
And had a text back almost immediately. Gabi was at a spa nearby. She was sorry she hadn’t texted sooner.
She’d stopped in for a pedicure. Something she’d done in the past, when things upset her. A way she dealt with tension. Or figured out a tough case.
Odd that she hadn’t let them know. Especially now, with Tanner and security guards looking out for them. Or maybe not. Maybe all of the ‘watching over’ was what was getting to her.
Gabi was a private person. Used to be anonymous. Liking it that way.
Obviously she’d needed to be left completely alone.
She’d text him when she got back. He felt certain of that.
Thing was, he waited all night.
And never heard from her.
* * *
AFTER THE PEDICURE Gabi had driven straight home. She’d had no place to run. She never had. She was who she was. Who she would always be. Not in a way that would ever stop her from bettering herself, or get in the way of her success, but in the way she was meant to be.
Who she was born to be.
A too-serious woman who had to do what she thought was right.
A woman who cared deeply. Who was loyal to death.
Who’d been in love with a man for more than ten years and had never let herself admit it.
She was scared to death of being hurt, so she worked herself to death.
The thought of Liam actually going to jail was almost more than she could bear. Living without his kisses was something she could endure. But a world without Liam at all? Knowing that there was no way there’d ever be a knock on her door in the middle of the night?
Her reaction to the reality that had hit her at the FBI office the day before had finally opened her eyes to the truth.
She couldn’t stop herself from being in love with Liam Connelly.
No matter how much her head needed their little family to be just what it had always been, her heart needed something more.
Her resolve firmly in place Saturday morning—being honest with herself about the fact that she was in love with Liam—she was not clear yet on what that meant for her daily life, where the demands of professional ethics would collide with a woman’s need to do all she could to protect the man she loved. Where friendship stopped and pain began.