Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 138522 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 693(@200wpm)___ 554(@250wpm)___ 462(@300wpm)
“You’re close, then?”
“More so lately, since Reid met his wife. He’s changed. He’s the first one to tell you she changed him.”
“Softened him?”
“Yes. Big time. A lion that can rip your throat out and then purr like a kitten for that woman now.”
This description softens a bit of the hardness my divorce has created in me. It gives me hope. It makes me feel that real love exists. “You haven’t spoken about your mother.”
There’s a crackle in the air around him before he says, “She passed a few years back.”
“Were you close to her?”
“No. No, I wasn’t, but I should have been.”
“Why weren’t you?”
His jaw clenches and he cuts his stare, seeming to struggle with words, I never get to hear. Our food is set in front of us. We chat with the waitress and by the time she’s gone, my mother is texting me. “She’s about twenty miles out,” I say. “Just enough time to eat.” I stare down at the burger with a huge bun and cheese bubbling everywhere. “It looks amazing.”
“It is,” Gabe assures me, but the light in his eyes is captured by shadows that clearly relate to his mother. He doesn’t want to talk about her. “Try it.”
“If I can keep from wearing it,” I joke, picking it up.
“I’ll lick off anything you get in the wrong places,” he promises, a wicked gleam eating away at those shadows in his eyes.
“You,” I joke. “The things you say.”
“I never say anything I don’t mean.”
In other words, he should have been closer to his mother, but he wasn’t. He sees a flaw in himself there. “And yet you’ve never married. Why is that?”
His mood sombers again instantly. “The same reason I wasn’t close to my mother, Abbie. I’m not a good guy and I’m being unfair to you by pretending that I am.” He slides his plate aside. “I’m not the kind of guy you fall for.”
I slide my plate away. “You’re confusing me. You said—”
“I know what I said. I want you to fall for me anyway.”
“You’re not a good guy, but you want me to fall for you,” I repeat.
“I don’t just want you to fall for me. I’m going to make sure you do.”
“And then break my heart?”
“No. I’m pretty sure you’re my karma. You’re going to break mine.”
Chapter thirty-three
Gabe
Abbie leans closer. “What karma, Gabe? What have you done to deserve getting your heart broken?”
It’s a loaded question that I never meant to answer. I don’t know why I even told her karma was calling me. I give her one of my practiced smiles, the kind that covers up all the dirty deeds in my past and convinces everyone that I’m just like them. “Who doesn’t deserve a little romantic karma?” I motion to her plate. “Try the fries.” I dump ketchup on my plate.
She doesn’t try her fries. She studies me, her eyes probing, so damn probing that I can feel them piercing my armor when no one else can. “We don’t have much time,” I remind her.
“No, we don’t,” she says. “So I’ll let you off the hook with that smile and a fry.” She grabs one and dips it into the ketchup on my plate. “But I’m going to ask you again. Your can of worms. You opened it. The kind you open but don’t shut. You wanted to open it. I get to keep it open.” She takes a bite of a fry. “And they’re good. I like them.” She studies me a moment. “And you, Gabe. I like you. Bad karma and all.” She says that but she doesn’t know why I have that bad karma and despite that can of worms I opened, she will never know why.
I grab my burger and decide to fight that bad karma. I’ll make up for my sins with this woman and all the animals in her life and now mine.
“Tell me about your legal career,” I say, changing the subject, needing to know who this woman is beyond her ex-husband.
She laughs incredulously. “What legal career? That’s the problem. I need to fix that and I’m ready to be back working in the field, but with all that’s going on with my mother, I doubt that’s happening anytime soon.”
“Come to work for our firm.”
She straightens. “No. Gabe, I’m not mixing business and personal any more than we already have.” She softens. “But thank you. Your firm is elite and respected. I’d be honored to work there.”
“Then take the job. I won’t be your supervisor.”
“And I’ll be the employee hired by the boss because he’s fucking her.” She shakes her head. “No. No, I can’t be that.”
“You have to make your own name and way. I’ve been around you. I see your spark and your fight, not to mention your passion and intelligence. I’m snagging you before someone else does.”