Chapter 46

Gabe

A week had passed since Valentine’s and the snow hadn’t stopped. I kicked up the powder outside my car door and locked it. I’d spent my ‘long weekend’ with Allegra, mornings and nights in bed, afternoons curled up together, watching movies and kidding around.

It was the best time of my life. Fuck parties and clubs, hell, it was better than the rush of fighting fires.

Her love was… I didn’t have a word to describe that perfection. Just being with her. In her presence. Getting to know her likes and dislikes. Finding so many things in common. Who would have known she had a love of Jane Austen and Tommy Boy? Life with Allegra was fucking nirvana. Except Kurt Cobain was on her dislike list.

I hurried up the stairs to my apartment and unlocked the front door. I walked in, slammed it shut and dumped the keys on the counter. I’d come home to give Allegra some space, and to pick up a few clothes.

She wouldn’t say it, but I got the distinct impression she wanted me to stay with her as much as I wanted to be there. Even though her apartment was smaller, it didn’t matter. All that mattered was the company.

My phone rang and I took it out of my pocket and checked the caller ID. Faith.

Suddenly, getting clothes didn’t matter that much. Shit, the only day I’d been apart from the woman of my dreams was to give blood at the clinic Faith had chosen to do the paternity test.

I swallowed and watched her name flash on the screen. No sense delaying this shit.

“Yeah?”

“Gabe, baby, how are you doing?”

“Cut the crap.” She’d told both our fathers about my insistence on the test and my dad had already called to cut me off. I’d conveniently forgotten to answer my phone.

“Ouch, I would be offended, but I know you’re nervous.” Faith’s voice quavered then and hope grew in my chest.

I paced back and forth, burning a path through the floorboards of my apartment.

Creak, creak, creak.

Tell me the truth, you traitorous bitch.

“Speak, woman, what do you have to tell me?”

“It’s not your baby.” She choked on the sentence, then coughed, hacking out her demise on the other end of the line. “It’s not your baby. You’re not the father. Are you happy now?”

I punched the air in triumph, but frowned a second later. Yeah, I was fucking over the moon about this, but kinda bummed at the same time. Allegra and I had a clear path to the future, no complications… but the baby? I’d grown accustomed to the idea of having a son.

“Gabe, I just wanted you to know—”

“Save it, girl, there’s nothing you could say to make me respect you again. You’re a liar. You knew that he might not be my son, that he probably wasn’t, but you still tried to tie me down for your own selfish gains.” I sat down on the edge of the stained, beige sofa, then jumped up again.

This changed so many things.

Allegra and I were on track and this could only make it better. And my father…

“So that’s it? You’re done with me? You’re done with the family? And for what, dammit? Some whore who—”

I hung up on her. I refused to spend another second listening to her negativity.

I walked through to the kitchen and poured myself a glass of water, then downed it. I couldn’t stop shaking; my arms were pumped from this adrenaline. Allegra would be over the damn moon.

She’d probably say ‘I told you so’ and I’d damn well let her.

I couldn’t wait to get back to her apartment, wrap her in my arms and do unspeakable things to her again. Shit that made her toes curl and her pussy gush with moisture.

I had to tell her now. I dialed her number and listened to the rings. One, two, three and nothing. She didn’t answer her damn phone.

“Seriously, Allegra?” I asked, then chuckled. Not even non-communication could get me down right now.

I tried calling again but got the same result. That was weird. I’d left her at home and she had her cell. Maybe Kelly had come over or something. I scratched the base of my neck and shifted my weight from one foot to the other.

I had to talk to my father.

I didn’t need his money, but I did need him to understand that Faith was to blame. That I’d been right all along. He’d been wrong for once in his perfect fucking life.

Donovan Moreno wasn’t infallible.

I dialed again, this time to my father. His phone rang the standard number of times before he answered. Always two rings before I got through to Dad. Had to be a business strategy, a technique he’d picked up in a Bill Gates seminar.

“Donovan Moreno.”

The same tone and greeting too, even though he’d seen it was me dialing.

“Hi, Dad, it’s Gabe.” I ran my knuckles along the countertop, brushing against the coolness. Hopefully, it would seep into my fucking soul and stop me from losing it on the elder Moreno.

“What do you want? I’m in the middle of something.”

“Did you hear from Faith?”

“No. I did not hear from Faith. I told you, I’m busy.” My father gave an exasperated sigh. He hated talking to me now as much as he had when I was a kid. Maybe this was a waste of time.

“Faith called me with the results of the paternity test. I’m not the father.”

Donovan was silent for a long time. “I see.”

“So you understand why I won’t be marrying her then.” I looked out of my window at the blanket of white, the slush surrounding the dumpster pushed up against the wall of the building opposite.

“I told you, boy, I’m in the middle of something.” He hung up, cutting through the final word.

“Boy?” I asked, crunching the phone in my fist. “Boy?!”

Why couldn’t he accept what I had to say? Fuck it, I’d spent a lifetime, a literal damn lifetime trying to live up to the imaginary child he’d wanted instead of me. The perfect, good-looking, football-playing, MBA graduating, financier he’d yearned for each night in the downy comfort of his lonely bed. Probably jerking himself off to today’s issue of The Wall Street Journal.

He was in the middle of something? Well, so was I.

I shoved my cell into my pocket and stormed to the door, rage channeling through my chest and replacing the joy I’d felt. He would listen to me. And if he didn’t want to speak to me on the phone, that left one option.

Dad was in a meeting, probably not at the house, but I’d go there and wait for him to return. Or I’d track him the fuck down and interrupt him.

The man had to take me seriously.

I paused briefly, thinking it over. Was this scene even worth my time? Would I get any closure from it? Maybe not, but it sure as hell would make me feel better. I snatched my keys from the side table and stormed downstairs, slamming the front door behind me.

Fuck it, he might not be worth the time, but getting rid of this constant sense of inadequacy was. I had to prove I was better than his image of me. My father had pushed me around, crossed the line too many times to count.

This wasn’t for Donovan Moreno. This was for Allegra.

And this was for me.