Chapter Twenty-One
What the fuck was wrong with that woman? She came bursting into the room, took one look at him, and hightailed it out of here, obviously hell-bent on thinking the worst of the situation. She’d been so horrified to see him wiping lipstick off his face, she hadn’t waited around for an explanation.
Lynn hadn’t kissed him, not like that. She’d just done her usual kiss-on-each-cheek and Elle had opened the door before he’d had the chance to wipe off the smudge of her damned lipstick he could still feel mucking up his face.
By the time Gabe hit the street, Elle was long gone and not answering her phone. He got to his car in record time and practically flew to her house, but the lights were off and obviously no one was home.
Shit, what if she was in trouble? Spokane wasn’t exactly the crappiest place in the world, but bad things did happen from time to time. A woman walking alone at night could be more than enough to get the predators sniffing around. Especially if she was as pretty as Elle.
Goddamn it. If she hadn’t run off like that, they wouldn’t be in this situation to begin with. He dialed without looking and held the phone to his ear. After three rings, Nathan picked up. “What’s going on?”
No point in going into how many ways the night had gone from fantastic to fucked up. “There was a misunderstanding and Elle took off. I can’t find her.”
“You sure she didn’t go home?”
“I just checked her house, and her phone is going straight to voice mail. Last I saw her, she was practically running away from the club.” From him. Again. Christ, this was becoming a habit he could do without. He’d thought they were beyond the snap judgments and her hoity-toity attitude. Apparently it was something they’d never get past. “Where would she go?”
“Her brother is deployed right now, so my guess would be either Roxanne’s or her parents’.”
Gabe thought fast. Elle would be a mess. Between the sex and the date itself, he didn’t see her being able to face her parents, especially not this late at night. “Do you have her friend’s number?”
“Let me see.” There was the faint sound of his brother tapping through his phone and then Nathan was back. He rattled off the number. “Look, man, there’s a good chance that if she’s there she doesn’t want to see you. I mean, if I’m reading the situation right.”
“You are.” Damn it, taking her to the club was a mistake. Gabe should have known business would intrude on their night, but he’d wanted to show her how his half lived. How it wasn’t as terrifying and foreign as she believed. There’s no way he could have anticipated Lynn showing up—or Elle jumping to the worst possible conclusion.
Look where that got him. “Thanks, Nathan.”
“No problem. Fill me in tomorrow.”
“Will do.” Gabe hung up and barely waited for his screen to clear before he typed in the number. A female voice answered. “This is Roxanne.”
He placed her as the same woman Elle had been out to dinner with the night he’d given her the flowers. She’d been on his side before, maybe she would this time too. “Roxanne, this is Gabe. I’m loo—” The phone clicked and went dead.
What the? Gabe shook it, frowning. No way she just hung up on him. Who did that? Gritting his teeth, he dialed again. This time it barely rang once. “What the hell do you want?”
Obviously she’d talked to Elle. That was good. It meant Elle was on the phone before she turned hers off. Which meant it was far less likely that she’d been hurt or attacked.
“Do you know where Elle is?”
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
Relief nearly sent Gabe off the road. She was okay. Pissed as hell, but okay. “Is she with you? Is she okay?”
“What are you talking about? Lord, I swear, men these days are idiots. Look, she doesn’t want anything to do with you so just leave her the hell alone. Okay? Okay.” Click.
Gabe forced his foot off the pedal and considered trying to track down where this Roxanne chick lived. No, he couldn’t do that. Elle was probably freaked enough without him showing up to shake some sense into her like some crazed stalker.
Even if that was exactly how he felt right now.
Flipping a U-turn, he headed back north. There was nothing else to do tonight but try to outrace the demons in his head, every single one of the bastards demanding he give up and let her go. Elle thought she was too good for him. She always had. She’d had her fill of slumming it, and she was ready to get back to living the dream and waiting for a gentleman to come along and sweep her off her feet.
Well, fuck that. Didn’t she realize true gentlemen weren’t the type to sweep anyone anywhere? It was men like Gabe—the type of man she labeled Neanderthal and wrote off—who excelled at that sort of thing.
Well, he sure as hell wasn’t done.
Gabe scrolled through his phone and dialed Elle’s number again. This time it rang. “Hello.” Christ, she’d been crying. He could hear it in her voice.
“Elle.”
“What do you want?”
Okay, so he hadn’t been expecting her to be okay with him after she’d taken off, but the frostiness in her voice iced him out more efficiently than if she’d hung up on him.
“Babe—”
“No, you don’t get to call me that. Not anymore.”
Every word out of her mouth was a knife in his gut. “What the—”
But apparently she wasn’t going to let him finish. “I don’t want your explanation.” She hesitated. “I don’t want you.”
So she was just going to sit on her throne of judgment and look down on him? The idiot woman was so sure she was right, she didn’t want to hear anything he had to say. So be it. He’d never had to explain himself to country corn princesses before and he sure as hell wasn’t going to start now. He didn’t need this shit in his life.
Gabe should have kept his goddamn mouth shut, but it was too much on top of everything else. “Yeah? Because you didn’t say that earlier tonight.”
Elle made a sound that was half laugh, half sob. “You know what? Tonight you reaffirmed that I was right all along. So thank you for that. Next time I won’t make the same mistake. Good-bye, Gabe.” Her voice was so thick with tears, he could barely understand her. “Please don’t call me again.”
He kept the phone to his ear for a long time after she hung up. Gabe blinked, only now realizing that he’d been sitting at this stop sign ever since she picked up. He didn’t know what to do. His first instinct was to track her down, but she sounded like she’d already made her decision. It didn’t matter what he felt or how they’d connected or that things had been so great up until this shitstorm—Elle didn’t want anything to do with him. She couldn’t have made it clearer than if she spelled it out with her pink lipstick—the same fucking lipstick he couldn’t stop thinking about.
Gabe shook his head, trying to clear the buzzing in his brain. He needed to get out of here, at least for a few days. Clear his mind. Figure out what he wanted. Do anything other than sit at this stop sign and let the pit inside his stomach swallow him whole.
Mind set, he drove to his place. The empty house seemed to taunt him as he walked the halls to his room. Here, faced with the physical manifestation of his loneliness, he knew he’d made the right decision to leave. Gabe went into his room and tossed a few changes of clothes in a carry-on bag. He’d go take care of the L.A. club, since that was one problem that he could solve.
It would give them both a few days to cool off, and then Gabe would figure out where to go from there. Maybe if he could sit her down long enough, he could explain the entire situation. She’d have to see reason once she realized what she’d walked in on. Then again, Elle hadn’t exactly shown herself as willing to listen to reason. Maybe it was better that he cut his losses now.
It would be so easy to take off, tour his clubs, and do whatever it took to get that damn woman out of his system. If he kept busy, he could probably even ignore the barbs slicing their way through his chest.
…
Stupid. She was so damn stupid. Elle pulled the blanket more tightly around herself. God help her, but if Roxanne said “I told you so” she was going to lose her mind. “And then I took off.”
The brunette passed over a steaming cup of green tea, her green eyes sympathetic. “I’m sorry, honey.”
Words bubbled up, poison she couldn’t keep inside her any longer. “I feel like a whore.”
“Oh jeez. You are not. You’re a woman.”
“A woman like freaking Jezebel.”
Roxanne settled into the love seat and shook her head. “I hardly think Jezebel was this dramatic.”
Hurt lanced through her, the pain barely scratching the surface of her agony over Gabe. She’d changed when she was with him, had become someone…a person who stopped overthinking things—and now look what happened. “Whose side are you on?”
“Yours, sweetie. Always yours. But this is your crazy-ass mother talking. You know I hate it when I hear her words coming out of your mouth. You aren’t a whore, you’re human. Hard to believe you aren’t perfect, but such is life.”
More tears—she had an endless supply, it seemed—bubbled up. Elle tried and failed to hold back a sob. “I w-was happy w-with him.” That was the worst part—she’d liked the person she became when she was around Gabe. And he was lying to her the entire time. Unforgivable.
“I know.” Roxanne sipped her tea. “What are you going to do?”
The question of her life. Things used to be so simple—she wanted her career, her husband, a couple of kids, a good life. Now…now, Elle didn’t know what she wanted. “I’m not sure.”
“He’s going to keep calling. You realize that, right?”
“I’m not ready to talk to him.” She wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready. Every time she thought of Gabe, she saw the red lipstick on his cheek. Maybe not talking to him was better. It was certainly safer.
“Okay. I’ll field the phone calls for the time being.”
“Thank you.” She tried and failed to dredge up a smile. “Can I…Can I stay here until Monday?”
“Of course.”
Roxanne couldn’t be her protector forever. Eventually Elle had to go back into the real world and deal with this. She had no illusions about Gabe’s tenacity—he’d found her before, and he would again. The trick was to figure out what the hell she’d say to his face when he did. “Maybe I can just take a vacation or something. I’m sure Florida is really nice this time of year.”
“Honey, it’s hurricane season.”
There went that plan. Elle slouched deeper into the couch. “I could go visit Ian in Japan.”
“He’s only there for another few weeks.”
“Don’t remind me.” As much as she wanted to see her big brother, she really didn’t want to have to explain everything that happened with Gabe. He’d go ballistic if he found out about any of this. Yeah, better if he lived on in blissful ignorance. Which meant she’d need a good story to tell him before this was all over. Elle sighed. “Canada?”
“Three things.” Roxanne held up three fingers. “Bears, mountain lions, and badgers.”
A pathetic laugh escaped. “I don’t think badgers should be on the top three things to avoid in Canada.”
“Think what you want.” She shuddered. “Those things are terrifying.”
The absurdity of Roxanne being afraid of badgers of all things shook off some of her bad mood. Elle actually succeeded in smiling this time around. “I’m sure there’s a way around that. Just stick to the cities.”
“Let’s just take Canada off the list and call it good, okay?”
“Fine.” She sighed. “Guess I have to stay in town and figure this out, don’t I?”
“Hate to be the one to tell you this, but I’m pretty sure that Neanderthal of yours would chase you across the wilds of Canada.” Roxanne shuddered. “Then you’d be dealing with him and badgers. Let’s just not.”
“Good plan. Let’s definitely not. And he’s not my anything. He more than proved that tonight.” She could deal with this. Really, she could.
In the meantime, she was going to let Roxanne distract her with talking about anything but sex in storage closets and Gabe.
…
“I’m sick. Really sick.” Elle forced a cough.
“You are not.” Nathan didn’t sound the least bit sympathetic. “You’re avoiding coming into work.”
Well, crap. She swallowed hard. “I just…I can’t.”
“Elle, you don’t have to worry about running into him. He’s not even here. He’s in L.A.”
Of course he was. Gabe hadn’t even waited two days before he went running back to his other woman. Elle hadn’t thought she could hurt any more, but the shards in her heart twisted viciously. “Oh.”
Nathan sighed. “Come in. I’ll have coffee waiting for you.” He hung up before she could come up with another excuse.
Elle couldn’t bring herself to put forth her usual effort into getting ready for work. She pulled on a sundress and threw her hair into a ponytail and called it good. Really, who was there for her to impress? She didn’t care if Nathan saw her as less than perfect. Heck, he already knew the truth. She was a fool, willing to believe any lie as long as it sounded halfway convincing.
No. No more beating herself up. She made a mistake, she should have known better, but it was over now.
Nathan looked up as she walked into the gallery. “Forgive me if I sound like an ass, but you look like shit.”
“You’re not helping.” She paused in front of her favorite painting, but even it couldn’t ease the ache in her chest. Taking the coffee cup he offered, she sank into the chair behind her desk. She’d barely sat down when her phone rang. Elle nearly groaned out loud when she looked at the caller ID. Ian. Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to smile. “Hey, big brother.”
“You never called me back.”
Yeah, because she didn’t know what to say. “I was embarrassed about how our last conversation went.”
“Ellie, I was worried about you.”
“I’m sorry. Everything’s fine now. It was a momentary weakness.” And not one she planned on repeating, no matter how good Gabe made her feel when they were together.
“It didn’t sound like a momentary weakness. It sounded like some asshole broke your heart.”
“You know me, I pick winners.” She started to laugh, but stopped when the sound cracked unnaturally.
“Jason wasn’t your fault.”
“What’s that saying? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, and expecting different results.”
Ian took a deep breath. “You’re not insane and you’re not stupid. Jason was a piece of shit.”
Elle shook her head. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Honestly, though, I’m a lot better. We broke up, and I haven’t seen him since.”
“I didn’t even realize you were dating someone.”
She didn’t know if what she and Gabe had would count as dating, but she wasn’t going to tell Ian that they’d just been having sex. “Yeah, we haven’t talked much lately.” And he’d never understand.
“I’m sorry, Ellie. Really sorry.” There were voices in the background. Ian sighed. “I have to go. Drills, you know? I’ll call you soon. Love you.”
“Love you, too.” She hung up, not sure if she felt better or worse for having talked to him. She took a drink of coffee and sat back with a sigh. Time to get to work.
…
“What are you going to do?”
Gabe barely resisted the urge to throw his phone across the room. He swore to God, if his brother asked him that one more time he was going to do something they’d both regret. “I don’t know.” He’d spent the weekend putting out fires in L.A. The old G.M. hadn’t acted so tough once they sat down in a room together. It’d taken all of twenty minutes to get him to sign an agreement saying it had been a lawful termination, probably because he didn’t try to intimidate Gabe the way he had with Lynn. After that, there’d been half a dozen smaller problems waiting for him to deal with.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do. I guess I’m going to try to talk to her.” And hope it went better than last time. He kept picturing the horror on her face, which quickly melted into the exact same expression she’d worn the moment she turned on the light and realized he wasn’t Nathan. “Maybe this was a mistake.”
Something rustled on the line. “You’re being stupid.”
“I am not. She and I are too different.”
“Not true. Did you ever think that the reason you work so well together is because you’re so different?”
Of course he had. It was part of the reason he’d pursued her. He’d thought she was everything he ever wanted. Gabe wasn’t sure he’d been mistaken. “It’s not that simple.”
“Are you trying to convince me or yourself? Because you’re doing a piss-poor job of both. Just figure your shit out and win her back. Simple.”
“So simple that you let your mystery chick slip through your damn fingertips?”
Gabe had always thought the expression “you could hear a pin drop” was exaggerating. He was wrong. So wrong. The silence was almost physical between them, a wall he had no hope of climbing.
Nathan finally said, “I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that, and we’re going to move on. Figure your shit out, Gabe, because I’m tired of your anger coming out at me.”
The worst part of it was he was right. Gabe should have let it go. “I’m sorry.”
For a long second he actually thought Nathan would say it wasn’t okay. “I’m not worried about it.”
“You see how it is? This chick has me so twisted up, I can’t see straight anymore. It’s not natural.”
“Do you care about her?”
He didn’t even have to think about his answer. “Yeah. A lot.”
“Well, she cares about you, too. She tried to call in sick today and, when she finally showed up, she looked like shit warmed over.”
“I’m sure she’s fine.”
“Will you get over yourself? So she thought the worst of you, so what? You guys had only known each other two weeks—two really rocky weeks. And even after the multiple screwups, she gave you another chance. Don’t you think you need to get off your high horse and do the same for her?”
When he put it like that, he made Gabe feel like an idiot. “You’re a pain in my ass.”
“No. That’s the stick you have shoved up there. You need to stop pussyfooting around and figure out your big move.”
The worst part was that his brother might actually be right. Sure, Elle had run screaming into the night at the first indication that he might be less than Prince Charming, but hadn’t he done the same damn thing? A sobering thought if there ever was one. Which meant one of them had to be the bigger person, and put aside their pride. Gabe rubbed his jaw. Ah hell. If he didn’t try, he’d always wonder what could have happened.
Anything he did would have to be pretty damn big to get Elle back on his side—and in his bed. Gabe turned a slow circle, mind whirling. The normal “I’m an asshole and I’m sorry” gifts wouldn’t do anything. Chocolates, flowers, jewelry, none of it would make Elle stop long enough to listen to him. But there was one thing that would, something she wanted more than anything. He leaned against the desk. “I have an idea. It’s a Hail Mary, but it’s all I’ve got.”
In just two weeks, his entire world had been rocked. Elle had shown up, bringing a breath of fresh air he hadn’t even known he needed. Gabe didn’t want to go back to the emptiness his life had been before her—the free space between work was a time he avoided like the plague. With her, he actually looked forward to something other than his clubs and tattoo shop.
It was time to win back his woman.