That’s not what you should be asking yourself.
No, he shouldn’t. Any information he gave her had to be in aid of his greater goal. Tremain. And just like he’d been single-minded and driven in his rise from the streets, he had to be focused about this.
Slowly Gabriel sat forward, his forearms on his knees, holding his cup of cooling chocolate in his hands. “You know your father was a gambler?”
“We figured that one out after the repo men came to take everything away.”
“Big debts then?”
“Major ones. According to the coroner, gambling wasn’t the only thing he was addicted to. They found traces of cocaine in his system, too. Of course we only found this out after he died.” Her voice held a bitter edge. “Dad’s last little gift to us. But what’s this got to do with Alex?”
Gabriel watched her face. “Alex is a mathematical genius. And a card counter. Your father thought he could help him win.”
Shock crept over her finely carved features. “What do you mean, ‘help him win’? Did Dad take him to Vegas? But I didn’t—”
“Your father didn’t play in Vegas,” Gabriel interrupted gently. “He played in New York. In my neighborhood.”
She blinked. “But … I don’t understand. Mom said he went to Vegas every second weekend. And the bank—”
“It was an underground casino. The club I used to ride with did security for it.”
Her throat moved, her eyes wide, staring at him. “Why are you telling me all this?”
“Because that’s how I met Alex. I was a club prospect at the time, hanging around and helping out on the door. Your father sometimes took him inside, sometimes left him out on the sidewalk and I got to talking to him.”
Honor didn’t say anything for a long moment, looking abruptly away out over the lake. Then with a quick movement, she got to her feet. “I’m cold,” she said in a voice devoid of any expression. “I think it’s time to go.”
* * *
Honor couldn’t get a breath. She walked back to where Gabriel had left the bike, not caring if he’d followed her, barely even aware of where she was. She needed a minute to get away, get her thoughts together after the bombshell Gabriel had just dropped.
What she knew about her father was that he’d killed himself after his gambling debts had finally caught up with him. Debts he’d incurred from a casino in Vegas that were in all likelihood attempts to finance a burgeoning addiction to cocaine.
An addiction that he’d kept secret, along with those debts, right up until his death.
But it seemed that her father had even more secrets than anyone had guessed. He hadn’t been in Vegas after all, but New York. And he’d used Alex to count cards …
She’d been eight when her father had died. A shot to the temple from a pistol in his desk. Her mother had found him and the sight of her beloved husband in a pool of blood had sent her straight to the bottle. In the middle of a binge, she’d once told Honor her father had killed himself because Alex had left. A small part of her had always blamed her brother for that and yet it seemed there was more to that story, too.
Daniel St. James had taken his son into an underground casino to count cards. A boy of sixteen. Was that why he’d left?
Shock moved through her in a slow, cold wave, her hands trembling as she fumbled with her gloves.
The circumstances around her father’s death and the revelation of his gambling debts had shattered the family. But she’d never dreamed that there would be more.
Secrets. God, how she hated secrets.
The crunch of snow beneath heavy boots. “Are you okay?”
She looked up to meet Gabriel’s dark eyes, his gaze sharp and focused, making her feel exposed. Vulnerable.
“Yes,” she said, nearly dropping one of her gloves. “I’m fine.” A total lie.
“No, you’re not.” He reached out unexpectedly, taking her hands in his. And her breath caught at the touch.
“Don’t,” she said thickly, trying to pull away.
But he only held her tighter, his large warm hands wrapped around hers. “Your fingers are freezing. Putting them into gloves like that is a mistake. Give them a minute to warm up.”
A fizzing, tingling sensation was moving over her skin, up her arm, down through her body. Like she was touching an electric fence. Great, this was all she needed. In addition to the shock, she now had to cope with her physical response to him.
She took a breath, keeping her gaze on his hands holding hers. His fingers were long and blunt, white scars crisscrossing them. There were other scars on the backs of his hands, long cuts and round circles. For some reason, despite the crap he’d just dumped on her, all she could think about were those scars and the faint, tantalizing roughness of his fingers against her skin. The hands of a workingman, not a desk jockey.
He’d had a difficult childhood, too, or so he’d told her. And the “club” must refer to the motorcycle gang he’d been part of. Had he gotten those scars at that time?
Why the hell are you thinking about him? When he’s basically blown apart everything you knew about your family?
God, she had to handle this, not go to pieces. She wasn’t her mother, helpless and weeping on the couch, consoling herself with drink. Nor was she her father, who’d chosen suicide rather than face the reality of his actions.
No, she had to stay in control and think things through logically, like she did at work. More information was clearly needed.
Honor pulled her hands away and he let her go this time. “Tell me what you know about Alex,” she said harshly. “All of it.”
The look on his face was cool, impersonal and for some reason, that helped. Sympathy would have undone her. “There’s not much more to tell. One night I found Alex sitting on the sidewalk outside the casino with blood all over his face. He wouldn’t tell me what happened, but he asked if he could come back to my place because he didn’t want to go home. So I let him.”
“Did he say why? Did he say anything about coming back?”
“No. He never mentioned his family at all.”
“What about my father? How did he get involved with this?”
“I don’t know. I just saw him go in about once a week and sometimes he’d be there on the weekends, too. Like I said, the club did security and we weren’t allowed inside so I don’t know what went on.”
“But what about the casino?”
“What about it? The Lucky Seven is just about an institution. A place for rich assholes to buy whatever the hell they want, not just for gambling.”
“Drugs?”
Gabriel’s gaze was steady. “Anything, Honor.”
The cold settled down inside her and stayed there. What had been missing from her father’s life that he’d put at risk his high-powered job and his family purely to chase a high? Why hadn’t he been stronger? Why hadn’t he resisted? And why, for the love of all that was holy, had he brought Alex into it?
She didn’t remember much about Daniel St. James, only that he’d always seemed to prefer his son to her and that Alex had idolized him. Yet he’d let something happen to Alex at that casino and from what Gabriel had just told her, it had been something awful. Then he’d killed himself.
She looked away, feeling even colder. There would never be any answers to those questions because the only person who could answer them was dead. And as for Alex …
“He doesn’t want to talk to me, does he?” she asked quietly, staring at the snow.
Gabriel didn’t ask who she meant; he knew. “No.”
A brief silence fell.
“I’m sorry,” Gabriel said at last.
Damn him. She hated how he seemed to be able to read her so easily. “Another apology, Mr. Woolf? What is the world coming to?”
“If it’s any consolation, I made Alex contact your mom after your father died. To at least let her know he was alive.”
“No, that’s not any consolation.” How could it be when he’d refused to come back even then?
Honor took a deep breath, anger beginning to burn through the shock. An anger she’d thought she’d long put behind her. “I think I’ve had enough revelations for one day. Can we go now, please?”
As soon as they got back, Gabriel dropped her off near their cottage and went to park the bike. She didn’t bother to change, merely slipping out of the jacket once she was inside, then picking up her phone and dialing her mother’s cell.
“Darling,” Elizabeth St. James said warmly. “How’s Vermont?”
“Cold.” She hesitated. “Mom, what do you know about Daniel?” He would never be “Dad” to her, not after the way he’d left her.
There was a silence at the other end of the phone.
“What do you mean?” her mother asked eventually.
“I mean the gambling. What do you know about it?”
“Do we have to talk about this now?”
“Please, Mom.”
Her mother sighed. “I don’t know much of anything. I thought he was having an affair, with all those conference trips to Vegas.” Another pause. “What’s all this about, Honor? Why are you asking me this now?”
Honor stared out the window at the snow-covered trees and icy lake beyond. Her mother hadn’t read the coroner’s report and refused to believe her late husband had been taking drugs. But the gambling debts hadn’t been so easily dismissed. Had she known he’d been visiting an underground casino rather than going to Vegas? And that he’d taken Alex with him? Good question. Because if Elizabeth didn’t know then Honor couldn’t tell her. Her mother was a fragile woman, both physically and emotionally, and her husband’s death had taken her years and the very finest rehab Guy’s money could buy to recover from.