“Why?” The garage door closed behind us, and he opened the inside door. An alarm sounded.
“Because my mother loved it here and because…” He punched in the code, silencing the alarm.
“Because what?” I asked as he lowered his head.
“I wanted to reclaim it, to erase the memories that haunt it and replace them with ones of you.”
My inhale plunged into my chest. “When did you buy it?” My voice was barely a whisper.
“Two years ago.”
Before I had returned to his life, before he even thought we had a second chance.
With a sigh, he moved through the kitchen. It was like something from a magazine, and I couldn’t help gaping at it as he flicked the lights on. Gray cabinets with a blue tint lined the walls, some with glass doors. An island took up the center, five stools against it. Windows lined the seating area, the ocean barely visible in the dark beyond.
Gabe strolled into the attached living room that stretched the length of the bottom floor. Windows formed the wall, long panes of glass that looked out onto a deck and beyond to the shore. He turned on two dim lights that let me see the sheet-draped furniture. A house that no one had used in far too long, like a museum of memories waiting for someone to bring it back to life. And that someone for Gabe was me. I could barely stand, let alone follow him. I stood in the threshold as he walked to a window and stared out.
He touched the glass, his fingers tracing an invisible fracture, and he didn’t have to tell me this was the pane his father had pushed him through. How many times had I traced the scar on his chest?
“My mother suffered from depression. It came in waves, the worst when my father’s mood would trigger it and far worse when his anger came out in force. When she was well, she was the light in my world. Just like you were. Her smile would take the sting away; her kisses removed the pain. She loved this house and would sit on the beach, staring at the waves while Liv and I played. Our days were filled with joy until they weren’t.”
He tucked his hands into his pockets, his shoulders drooping, and I wondered at the weight they had carried for so long.
“The older I got, the more I noticed and the longer her lows lingered. My father’s aggression toward me, his verbal assaults on Liv, caused her to sink lower. There were days she wouldn’t get out of bed. It was like he had stolen the light from her, and no matter how hard Liv and I tried, we couldn’t bring it back. And the further she sank, the worse he became. He would blame us.” His hand raised, and he rubbed his cheek as if the sting of a hand still lingered. Head leaning on the glass, he shuddered before saying, “I found her that day. My father was on a business trip, and she hadn’t come down when I’d come home from school. Liv was home from college but had spent the day with her friends. I was used to cooking my dinner and fending for myself, but something made me check on her. Like this voice in my head that told me something was off.”
I moved closer to him, my body rigid with emotion.
“She was on the bathroom floor, bottles of her medications spilled across the floor with a shattered glass of wine.”
My chest fractured for him, tears spilling.
“Suicide, they ruled it, but that wasn’t how I ruled it. He had driven her to it. Ignoring her mental state, not seeing what his abuse of us was doing to her, never stopping to consider he was sending her to her grave. His money, his company, his ambition were the only things he ever cared about. And as I watched her casket lower into her grave, I vowed to avenge her death.”
I sucked in a breath, knowing what was coming because I had seen the result in the complicated infrastructure of businesses he and his sister had acquired. In the unraveling of the financial stability of his father’s company.
“Years of strategizing, of investing our inheritance from our mother, of making bets that paid off led me to Jacksonville. It was the next step in my plan. He balked at my suggestion of moving to Florida. There was no reason other than the distance from him, but I made excuses, convincing him the experience would be beneficial to the company. That earning my stripes at various investment firms would give me the knowledge I needed. Staying under the radar of the press and building a resume that would make me worthy of the CFO position and eventually the company.”
Lifting his head, he kept his gaze out the window, but I moved closer, waiting for the answers I’d sought for six years, fearful of what I would hear.
“When we met, I had two years left before he expected me to return to New York and take the CFO position and three years more before my plans of revenge would be complete. Five years. That was all that stood between me and victory.” A jagged sigh scraped from his throat. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you, Tori. But the day I walked into that room, and you lifted your eyes to me, I knew you were the one. I tried to deny it, but you were too special. Years of avoiding relationships, of keeping emotion from any interaction with women, knowing I had a goal, fell apart that day.” He scraped his hand through his hair. “Liv and I made a pact that nothing would come between our revenge, including love. She broke it off with her college sweetheart the year she graduated. It was her statement to me that she was serious about our task. And I took that vow seriously until you.”
The pounding of blood as it rushed through my veins was so loud it threatened to drown his words out.
“I couldn’t stop myself from falling for you, and I knew you were the one I wanted to marry. The one I would give it all up for. And I almost did. Almost convinced myself I could leave it all behind, break my word to Liv and my vow to my mother. But I couldn’t.” He let out a defeated sigh. “My father set up a trust for me and Liv when we were young. By the time you and I met, it was worth billions. But there were conditions. We couldn’t marry until we reached the age of thirty-two. Liv had to earn the COO position, and I had to earn the CFO position. My father’s intent was always to have me take over as CEO, but he wanted me to work for it.”
“You left me for money?”
He swiveled to me, his features so twisted in agony, it almost caused my knees to go out.
“No. I had intended to delay our wedding, to tell you the truth, and have us marry when I met the conditions. But then you were so excited, and I wanted you to remain that way. Making you wait five years seemed an impossible hurdle, and I wanted to be selfish and not wait that long.”
“Then why?”
His throat bobbed, and he dropped his eyes from mine. “There was another condition to Liv’s trust that I didn’t know about. She couldn’t touch her money until I met my conditions, and if I broke them not only would I lose my trust, but she would lose hers.”
I brought my hand to my mouth, hating the man who had done that to them. The obvious favoritism that must have badgered Liv her entire life, the weight that condition placed on Gabe.
“I was ready to give it all up,” he said, and my eyes grew large as that uncontrolled pounding returned. “To sell the companieswe’d acquired and be content to live off that money. To have Liv hate me for the rest of our lives for robbing her of her inheritance. To let my mother’s memory down, to break my promise to her and Liv.” He turned from me, looking back out at the shore.
