Scowling, Charlotte shook her head. “He played her. He’s good at that. The poor woman already feels terrible.” That woman lived directly below the penthouse and had the keycard to use the same elevator. “Leave her be.”
One arm behind his head, Gabriel ground his teeth together. “I wanted to pulverize him until he didn’t have a single unbroken bone in his body.”
“I understand the urge.” She had the same one. “Now, forget about Richard. He isn’t worth the time or the energy.”
Gabriel wrapped his arm around her, his fingers on her bare hip. “It’ll take me a while to get to that point.”
“Want to spend that time being naked together?”
He took her up on her offer, but when it came time for him to leave her at her bedroom door, she held on to his hand. “Stay with me.”
“No.” A flat answer. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but if I see you afraid of me today—” He shook his head, then kissed her hard. “Go to sleep.”
She tried, but she tossed and turned for the next two hours, a jagged hole inside her formed of the knowledge that she couldn’t give Gabriel what he needed. When she heard movement, she got up and stepped out to find him seated with his back to the wall of her bedroom, his head in his hands.
“What are you doing here?”
“Making sure you’re safe. That fucking monster almost had you.”
He was breaking her heart. “No,” she said, “he didn’t.” Taking his hand, she tugged. “Come on. Since neither one of us is going to sleep, let’s go lie on the couch and watch movies.”
It was a rough night. Charlotte fell asleep in patches against him, and he dropped off now and then, but neither one of them could fully wind down. She was frustrated with herself, and he was still riding a wave of fury.
IT WAS A GOOD thing the next day was a Saturday when Gabriel’s high school team didn’t have a game. Grumpy and sleep-deprived, neither one of them was in the best of moods, and it didn’t help when she came downstairs after her shower to find Gabriel already on his laptop working.
Seated at the dining table, he’d grabbed a cup of coffee from the pot she’d put on to perk before her shower, but hadn’t bothered to get any food.
“Gabriel, it’s Saturday!” She threw up her hands. “Can you not forget about work for a single weekend?” He’d already brought work home every night this week.
A scowl over his bare shoulder. He was dressed only in sweatpants, his hair rumpled, and his jaw shadowed. “I’m just checking my e-mail.”
“Work e-mail.” Tightening the belt on her thin red robe, she began to crack eggs to make omelets. “None of it urgent if I’m guessing right—and even if it is, you pay people to take some of the load off. Delegate.”
He slammed the laptop shut and got up, shoving his chair back. “Jesus, Charlotte. You’ve always known how much I work.”
“And I’ve always thought you were heading for an early grave.” She began to whisk the eggs. “You didn’t belong to me before, so I couldn’t say anything, but now you do, so I am.”
“I’m as healthy as an ox.”
“You don’t rest, you don’t relax—”
“I feel very relaxed after we fuck.”
“Stop trying to make me back off by using words like fuck.” She poured the omelet into the pan, so angry that she didn’t even blush at getting the word past her lips. “I want to have a life with you. I don’t intend to have a life with your job as a silent partner.”
He growled at her, actually growled. “I am who I am, Charlotte.”
“So am I—doesn’t mean you haven’t helped me heal.” She put the omelet on a plate, shoved it onto the counter. “Eat.”
“I don’t need healing.” He ignored the omelet.
It just made her angrier. She found a fork, put it on the plate. “So you’re telling me I’m the only flawed one in this relationship?” After all, she was the one who couldn’t even sleep with the man she loved beyond life.
“Fuck.” He thrust a hand through his hair. “That’s not what I said.”
“It sure sounded like it.” When he continued to ignore the omelet, she picked it up and began to eat herself. “Go then, work,” she said after swallowing the first couple of bites. “I’m going to go out.”
“Where?” He came around to loom over her.
“Wherever the hell I want.” Charlotte slammed the plate with the half-eaten omelet on the counter.
Gabriel followed her upstairs to her bedroom when she stalked off. “Damn it, Charlotte, this discussion is not finished.”