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)
“I’ve gone after people, Abbie.”
“Have you ever killed anyone?”
“No.”
“Have you ever broken the law to hurt someone?”
“No.”
“Revenge is dangerous. What you did wasn’t kind. It wasn’t forgiving but you have to forgive yourself. I do. I forgive you.”
I tangle my fingers into her hair and pull her close. “Abbie,” I breathe out. “Damn it, you need to really look at me. I don’t want you to see one thing now, and then later, when I can’t live without you, see something else. See me now. Be angry. Make me fight past that anger so that I know you see all of me.”
“I do and thank God for it. One of us has to. You see your father when you look in the mirror. I see you, the real you, the man who fights for those he loves. The man who saves animals and babies. A man who would have been an amazing father. And if it’s the last thing I do on this earth, you will see you the way I see you.”
Her words punch me in the gut. She sees the man I want to be. The man I had a chance to be but that man is long gone. That’s a problem for us both. “You have on rose-colored glasses and one day you’ll take them off, you will see the real me and that shock will drive you away, the way my mother woke up and warned us not to be like the man she’d once loved.”
Her hands come down on my face. “I don’t believe that you would do the things your father does. The things my ex-husband did.”
“My blood—”
“Is also your mothers and your mind is your own. Your actions are your own. You were young. Would you go to your father for revenge now that you are older, wiser, and you know him as the monster, not the man?”
“Never. I’d go to my mother who Reid and I should have idolized over my fucking father.”
“Your mother would be proud of you, Gabe, because you learned that lesson. Because you’re not your father. And knowing that you could have been, that one piece of your life could have sent you that direction, not this direction, matters. I have never wanted to be an ‘us’ more than I do with you and Dexter.” She presses her lips to mine and whispers. “You are already my best friend.”
I rotate her and lay her down on the bed, shifting to slide my leg between hers, my body angled to hers. “And you, Abbie, are my best friend.”
“Best friends don’t use rose-colored glasses, Gabe. They see perfection in the imperfect.”
Those words, radiate through me and spin ten emotions I don’t try to name. Instead, I kiss her because I want to, and because if I don’t, I’ll confess my love. And it’s too soon for love when, despite her denial, she still wears rose-colored glasses. I fear she just doesn’t know it yet.
Chapter eighty-seven
Gabe
Gabe
I lay awake holding Abbie, with Dexter at the foot of the bed, a surreal sense of rightness to the three of us together. Until these two came into my life, rightness meant alone. Rightness meant no one really knew me. No one at all. Not even Reid. Hell, the truth is that I always felt my father knew me better than anyone because of the past, and his role in Kendall and Mike’s undoing.
Did I blow my past into more than it had to be? Or did Abbie, downplay my sins because contrary to her vow not to, she’s falling in love with her best friend? Holy hell I want her to fall in love with me. I want and want and want some fucking more with this woman.
That thought was the last thought I had when I fell asleep and the first I have in the new day.
Exactly why I wake Abbie by kissing every part of her body I can possibly kiss, her soft sweet moans, the best damn way a man, this man, could wake up. I don’t fuck her. I make love to her and when we’re done, there’s a warmth between us that expands like a fire casting a glow across a cold room. We’re the fire that does more than cast me in warmth. We ignite fuel in me to take action. To shut my father down once and for all. To make everything bad in our lives right now good.
Still in a playful mood, Abbie mentions the shower and I proceed to carry her there, depositing her into the hot water, and then thanks to Dexter’s demands, leave her there alone. He needs to pee. Damn cute fucking dog. I throw on sweats and a T-shirt to take him out, avoiding the front of the building when the building staff warns me of reporters. A necessity that has me dialing Reid. “We got rid of him but we didn’t deal with him.”