That night, I couldn't sleep.
Gabrielle lay curled against me, her head on my chest, her breathing slow and even. She'd fallen asleep quickly—the pregnancy was draining her energy, the doctors said, and her body was still recovering from the trauma. She needed rest.
But I lay awake in the darkness, my hand stroking absently through her hair, my mind turning over everything that waited for us in New York.
Lisa. The friend who'd filed a missing persons report, who'd spent weeks believing Gaby was dead. She'd be angry. Suspicious. Would want explanations I wasn't sure we could give.
Her father. The cold, calculating man who'd treated his daughter like an asset rather than a person. I'd read the files on Thomas Blanchard—the securities fraud, the fallen reputation, the desperate social climbing. I knew how he'd made her feel. Small. Insufficient. Never enough.
Part of me wanted to destroy him. Wanted to use every tool at my disposal to grind him into dust for the years of damage he'd inflicted on her. But that wasn't my choice to make. However, she wanted to handle her father; I would support her. Even if that meant letting him live.
And then there was the city itself. Manhattan, where I'd first seen her. Where I'd stalked her, learned her, becameobsessed with her. The streets she'd walked, the apartment I'd had surveilled, the coffee shop where our eyes had met for the first time.
Would she look at those places and remember who she'd been? Would she resent me for taking her from a life that, however unhappy, had been hers?
She stirred against me, mumbling something unintelligible. I pressed a kiss to the top of her head and pulled her closer.
"I've got you," I whispered. "I'm not letting go."
She settled, her arm tightening around my waist, her body relaxing back into sleep.
I lay there until dawn began to lighten the sky, holding her, preparing myself for whatever New York would bring.
***
The jet was ready by noon.
Gaby emerged from the bedroom dressed for travel—comfortable clothes, her hair loose around her shoulders, the haunted look finally gone from her eyes. She looked beautiful. Healthy. Like the woman I'd fallen in love with, but stronger now. Tempered by fire.
"Ready?" I asked.
"Ready." She took my hand. "Let's go home."
Home. She'd said it casually, like it was obvious. Like wherever we were going, we were going together, and that made it home.
I lifted her hand to my lips and kissed her knuckles. "Let's go home."
The car took us to the private airfield where the Gulfstream waited. The same jet that had carried her from New York all those weeks ago—unconscious, drugged, a captive being transported to her prison.
Now she walked up the stairs willingly, her hand in mine, her head held high.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
We settled into the leather seats, and the flight attendant brought Gaby tea and crackers for the nausea that still plagued her in the mornings. I watched her nibble on a cracker, her gaze fixed on the window as the jet began to taxi.
"What are you thinking?" I asked.
"About the last time I was on this plane." She turned to look at me, her expression unreadable. "I was so scared. I woke up and didn't know where I was, didn't know what was happening. And there you were—this terrifying stranger telling me I belonged to you now."
"I remember."
"I hated you." She said it matter-of-factly, without malice. "More than I'd ever hated anyone in my life."
"I know."
"And now..." She reached over and took my hand. "Now I can't imagine my life without you. Isn't that strange?"
"It's a miracle." I brought her hand to my lips again. "One I don't deserve."
