CHAPTER NINETEEN
She’d made a mistake, Nora thought. She’d made a whole chain of mistakes.
She’d let herself get dazzled by Gabe Sterling’s larger-than-life personality, his charm, and his unreal good looks.
Dazzled, she’d let herself get too attached.
Attached, she’d let herself start daydreaming. Now here she was, sitting on the floor in her apartment with Sunshine snoozing beside her, while she doodled hearts and flowers in her Filofax.
The one saving grace was, those hearts and flowers weren’t wreathing around the words Mrs. Nora Sterling, or she’d have to call Anna to come over and give her a bitch slap, get her head back in the real world.
It was bad enough that the doodles were around the margins of her sexual odyssey list. There was plenty of room. It wasn’t as if she’d racked up any check marks.
The list now ran to three pages, and two and a half of them had been inspired by Gabe.
It wasn’t only the sexual odyssey list that was lacking in the check mark department. It was all of her lists.
She flipped back and forth through the planner. She’d gotten the job, she’d gotten the dog, and then she’d gone and fallen in love with Gabe Sterling, and everything else…
Wait.
She was in love with him?
Was she crazy?
Yes. Crazy in love with him.
Nora slammed her Filofax shut, threw it to the floor, and dropped her head into her hands. She groaned, stretched out flat, and stared up at the ceiling.
She was in love with him.
Now she thought of it, she’d been in love with him since he’d held her the day she cried with utter relief that she wasn’t the one bearing Vince’s multiple babies.
She curled an arm over her eyes, cutting out the sun.
It was all right. She could fix this. She’d fallen in love. She’d fall back out. She had to. There was no point in staying in it all alone, after all.
He’d said no to her.
He was more interested in her dog than he was in her.
Nora got that. Sunshine was awesome, and Nora wasn’t jealous or anything. She hadn’t been shoved sideways again while another female took her place, because she’d never had that place with Gabe. But oh, it felt like it.
She wasn’t going to freak out. She’d bet people fell in love with Gabe all the time. Probably he knew it and had a whole lot of experience in…oh shit.
He did know.
He knew, and that was why he’d turned her down so gently, wasn’t it?
Nora started to hyperventilate. Maybe she was going to freak out after all. It was healthy. It was a good idea. Yes. She should freak out all she wanted. Let it roll through her. Because she didn’t want to wake up tomorrow and have Anna fire her for getting drunk and spray-painting cocksucker on the front of Gabe’s building.
Which she wouldn’t do. He hadn’t betrayed her. He’d been himself, and he’d never made any promises. Implicit or explicit. In fact, he’d said to her face that they had no sparks. Then he’d called her buddy and slapped her on the ass. She’d thought at the time he might have been playing a game.
Guess not.
Nora’s breathing returned to normal. She had a crush. Big deal. It happened, and she’d get over it. She’d get over him.
She’d get back to the important stuff, the stuff she should have been focusing on all along.
Even though it was the last thing she wanted to do, she dragged herself up off the floor and called Anna, finally agreeing to join her for Saturday morning spin class. There, she let the gym rep talk her into a membership, and she fully intended to use it.
She took her book and Sunshine to the park on Sunday and spent the afternoon reading, so she’d be able to contribute at book club.
On the Monday she went shopping during her lunch break and bought a new pair of heels that looked amazing with her skinny jeans.
On the Tuesday, she declined to accompany Anna to Gabe’s warehouse when she went to close the project and return the key.
And then on the Wednesday, Nora found herself back at the Tower of Doom, as she not-so-fondly thought of his office building. Was it original? No. But it was appropriate.
Gabe had indeed hired Anna to redecorate his five other West Coast properties. He wanted her to start straight away, with his penthouse apartment.
“For once, can’t you do the grunt work?” Nora had complained when Anna told her.
“No,” Anna had said. “I’m the talent. You’re the grunt. This is what I pay you for. You should be thrilled, by the way. I can pay you properly now, instead of paying you that embarrassing nominal salary neither of us wanted to face.”
“Yay.”
“Unless you’re happy working for a teenage babysitter’s wages, in which case, why rock the boat?”
“No, thank you. Pay me what I’m worth.”
Anna had looked at her with sympathy. “No one could pay that much, No-No.” She’d seen Nora’s quivering lip, and rushed on, “We’ll go with the raise I had in mind. Good? Good. Now, get gone.”
“Ugh. Do I have to?”
“Same as last time. Measure up, take photos. You know the drill.”
It wouldn’t be the same as last time, however. Last time, she’d walked in on him naked.
Nora had grabbed the camera and the new laser distance measure Anna could now afford, had stuffed them in her tote and driven across town to the Tower of Doom, where she now stood.
Before today, Nora hadn’t considered herself the sort of person who was sensitive to rejection. She had robust self-esteem. She was a grown-up. She knew life came with speed bumps, the odd ditch, a hidden patch of black ice every now and then. You had to adjust, and keep driving forward. She’d heard the word no many times.
None of them, however, had carried the weight of the no she’d heard last time she was here. She hadn’t even known what she’d been asking him for, until he’d turned her down.
Kindly.
Putting a positive slant on it, this was a great opportunity. She got to grow, got to toughen up.
Yeah, she thought, marching in with a white-knuckled grip on the strap of her tote bag. Great opportunity. Today was her lucky day.
“Afternoon, Ms. Bowman,” the security guard at the main desk said.
“Hello.”
“Here to see Mr. Sterling? I’ll buzz Daniel.”
“No!”
He flinched.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to shout. No need to buzz Daniel, thanks. I’m not going to his office today. Apartment.”
“Ah.” The guard grinned.
“I’m here to measure some stuff and take photos.”
He held up his hands, eyes wide. “Your business.”
“I’m the interior designer’s assistant.”
“Still your business,” he said.
Fine. Let him think she was going to have an assignation with Gabe, to measure his nine and a half inches and take dirty pictures. Nora stalked after the guard and waited with a tight smile as he put his key into the elevator and hit the penthouse button.
“Do I need one of those to get down?” she called through the closing doors, but he was already walking away.
She didn’t know how these things worked. She didn’t think anywhere in Beacon Falls had a penthouse. They had top floors. She chewed her lip. What was she supposed to do when she wanted to get down? Were their stairs?
The elevator doors opened onto a still and silent hallway. The floors and walls were veiny cream marble, and there was only one direction she could go. Toward the door at the end of the short passage.
Nora stood at the door. She didn’t have an elevator key, and she didn’t have a key for the apartment, either.
Shit.
Was he here? Was that why she didn’t need a key?
Her palms dampened, and before she allowed her nerves to make her body do anything else unwanted, like turn and run for the elevator, she banged smartly on the door.
No response. She tried the handle. It turned.
Relieved that she hadn’t made more of an idiot of herself by dragging the guard up to open an unlocked door for her, she eased in, and flinched when the lights automatically blazed on.
“Oh my God.” A hand to her mouth, she turned in a full circle. “This is awful.”
It was—she supposed—incredibly chic. For a pharaoh, or a Roman emperor. Who lived in space. As a home, a place to come back to and relax after a long day of playing with your squillions, it seemed…like it was going to suck the last dregs of your soul out through your nostrils.
No wonder Gabe had never been bothered by the construction chaos of the warehouse. No wonder he’d been elated with Anna’s deliberately unfinished design and her fusion of organic and industrial, which spotlighted the exposed brickwork and pipes, the wood and the space.
As in the hallway outside, the floor and the walls of this apartment were marble, pale cream and high gloss. Nora looked up, and cowered. The freaking ceiling was marble. Was that safe? If a section came loose, it could kill a person. Threat to her life aside, it made her damn claustrophobic.
Random jagged sections of black marble were interspersed among the cream slabs. These were also high gloss, and flecked with mica that caught the light and sliced at the eyes. Nora saw herself reflected in all the surfaces, a blurred ghost. Shuddering, she turned away.
The furniture was sparse and spindly. The chairs at the glass dining table in the sunken area by the windows—no blinds or drapery whatsoever to soften the lines—were chrome sticks with black leather straps slung between the frames.
She hoped they were chairs, and not millionaire penthouse BDSM sex devices.
The only piece of furniture that looked like it was, in fact, furniture and not a piece of avant-garde art or a sex thing, was the couch. It was dark brown, beat-up, and she’d bet good money that whoever designed this hellish apartment had had a fit when Gabe had insisted on including it.
Before she did a walkthrough, Nora called out, “Hello?” In case he was here, lounging around naked or anything. Give him a chance to at least put on some pants.
Her voice fell flat. Wow. They’d even killed the acoustics.
“Mr. Sterling, are you here?” she shouted, and then felt like an idiot. After her I love him! revelation, it seemed weird to get all formal again.
Casual. She was going to stay cool, stay casual.
And she was going to get this done quickly.
Anna had kept her busy most of the day, and it was past five. While Nora was under no illusion that Gabe’s work day finished at five, every passing second brought the possibility of his return closer.
Dumping her tote on the glass coffee table by the couch, Nora took out the measure and the camera, and got to work.
After a while the eerie stillness got to her and she started to hum loudly. She didn’t hear the door open. He didn’t make any sound but she knew, suddenly, that Gabe was there. She swung to face him.
He was wearing a suit.
Oh, come on. This wasn’t painful enough to start with, he had to be wearing a suit? Even worse, he was wearing his glasses, like a sexy nerd.
The suit was dark charcoal gray, the shirt was deep navy—she’d noticed he never wore white—and as she watched, he shrugged out of the jacket. She didn’t know what she expected next, but the lean against the doorjamb surprised her. It wasn’t a calculated hey, look at me, Mr. Sexy Man propping up the whole building with my manly shoulders lean. It was a tired slump. His ankles were crossed, one hand went into his pocket, and his eyes were steady on her.
They stared at each other for a full, silent minute. He didn’t blink once.
“Hi,” she said.
He grunted a reply, and straightened.
“Hell of a place you’ve got here. Homey.” That came out way more sarcastic than she’d intended.
Gabe continued to stare at her, and Nora felt an odd disconnect. She was looking at a stranger.
“Uh, I was measuring up. You know that, because I sent Daniel an email.” Not him. “But you’re not supposed to be here. So. I’ll get out of your hair, come back another time.”
Gabe tipped his head in agreement and moved from the doorway to drop his jacket on the couch. With a thump, he dropped too.
Darting around to gather her things, Nora glanced up at the noise. His forearms rested along his thighs, and his head hung low. He seemed exhausted. His body swayed then righted, and she wondered if he’d fallen asleep for a second.
Nora hesitated at the door. He wasn’t asleep. His hands were clasped over the back of his neck and his tendons stood out. In an abrupt movement, he took off his glasses and tossed them at the coffee table. They clipped the edge and bounced to the floor. He didn’t seem to notice.
Leaving her tote by the door, she walked back to the couch. “Gabe,” she said, a hair above a whisper.
He didn’t respond. Had he fallen asleep?
She inched closer. “Gabe?”
Nothing.
Time to go.
His hand shot out and latched around her wrist. She froze, but he didn’t do anything other than graze the edge of her wrist restlessly with a thumb.
Nora opened her mouth, and he drew her to him. Releasing her hand, he gripped her hips instead. He pulled her between his legs, and rested his forehead against her midriff.
The heat of his sigh sank through all three layers she was wearing, and branded her core.
He still didn’t say anything. He sat, and held her. Nora lifted a hand and stroked the side of his neck. Gabe drew her closer. She felt a light press on her stomach.
Was that…? Had he kissed her?
Her hand spasmed on his neck, and his tightened around her hips. Holding her gaze, he slowly stood. He didn’t let her step away, and her body curved into his as if it had been designed to fit there.
This close he looked terrible. He had lines of tension around his eyes and bracketing his mouth. His skin was pale, as if he’d been locked in an office for a week, and it was clear that he was wearing his glasses not as a fashion choice but because his eyes were dry; they looked red and sore.
Nora made a sympathetic noise and before she could catch herself, she reached up to cup his cheek. He closed his eyes, turning into her touch, then made her gasp when he gathered her up. His arms locked tight around her.
He’d held her like this before, giving her comfort when she was crying over Vince. Her heart slammed in her chest and picked up speed. She couldn’t stop it. He was exhausted and it was her turn to be steady and give him comfort, only her stupid body was panicking at his closeness. She felt his mouth at her neck, and his lips rested on the thudding pulse. He had to feel it. But he didn’t do anything else. He held her.
Nora’s pulse calmed to a slow, sweet beat and she relaxed the death grip she hadn’t realized she had on his belt loops. She slid her arms around his broad back to stroke a soothing hand up and down. Up and down. Gabe mumbled something, shifting against her. She patted his back. He shook a little, then leaned away to yawn.
The spell was broken. The peacefulness that had held her as securely as he had vanished, and Nora flooded with awkwardness. She stepped away and he let her go, thumping back to the couch. This time he twisted as he sat, and ended up sprawled flat, eyes half-closed.
Bending down, she scooped up his glasses from the floor, folded them, and set them on the table.
“Are you okay?” she asked, and immediately wished she hadn’t spoken.
His lashes swept down and his eyes closed all the way. He took in a deep breath that expanded his chest and stretched his shirt tight. He let it out in a half-sigh, half-moan. “Tired,” he muttered.
“Get some sleep. I’m going to leave.”
He lifted a hand as if it weighed a ton, but didn’t reply until she reached the door. “Nora.”
She glanced back.
“I’m coming to see you, honey.” His words were slurred with exhaustion. “Soon.”