Betrayals (Cainsville Book 4) (36 page)

Damning an admission? That she was a friend? That he valued her friendship? There were greeting cards for that, for God’s sake, and he couldn’t even say the words? How the hell did he ever expect to say
more?

Sweat beaded on his forehead.

I feel as if I’ve taken huge leaps, and I haven’t even caught up to where a normal person would start. Ricky would have been able to say he valued her friendship after a few coffee dates.

Say something. Say anything. Goddamn it, just—

“I appreciate everything,” he blurted. “That’s what I’m saying. I know I’m not always the easiest person. I know I’ve made things difficult for you. I know you’ve … you’ve …”
Words, Gabriel. Words.
“You’ve stuck by me regardless of my mistakes. And I … I appreciate that.”

She hugged him again. No asking for permission this time, but it was a quick hug, too brief for him to complain if he’d wanted, which he certainly did not. Brief and fierce, and then she stood there, looking …

Not looking the way she had five minutes ago. Not glowing and bouncing. Not at all.

“I … I have to tell you something,” she said.

His heart slammed against his ribs, and he had to struggle for breath. Which was ridiculous. Overreacting. But he couldn’t help it. He saw that look on her face, and he knew, whatever she had to say, it was bad and it involved him, and he would not be happy about it. That’s what her expression said. All the possibilities
ricocheted through his head, all the things that could give her that look.

I’m sorry, Gabriel, but …

Ricky doesn’t want me hanging out with you so much.

I can’t work for you anymore.

I’m pregnant.

Admittedly, they all seemed unlikely, particularly the last, but he had considered them, at one time or another. It was like preparing to defend a client in court—what was the worst the opposing side would say and how would he counter it? These were the three possibilities he’d agonized over the most. The last was not in itself an issue, but rather he feared it would push Olivia and Ricky together in a way that closed any opportunity for him.

“Gabriel?”

“Go on,” he said.

She crossed her arms and rubbed them. “I’m sorry. It’s … it’s something I probably should have told you before. I just …” She looked up, not quite meeting his gaze. “With the Gwynn thing, I was afraid you’d react badly.”

“Which I did.”

“This isn’t the same. It’s not how you’ll react. It’s … it’s how you’ll feel.”

“It’s about me, then.”

She nodded.

“Just me?”

Another nod.

He tried not to exhale in relief, and looked across the kitchen. “Would you like a coffee? I believe there are ingredients for a mocha in the refrigerator—Veronica said she’d pick them up at the shop. There are cookies, too. From Rose.”

Olivia stared at him, and he replayed his words, searching for some way they could be misconstrued.

“It may be late for coffee,” he said. “But I believe Veronica also bought decaffeinated.”

“I … have something important to tell you, Gabriel.”

“Yes, and I thought we’d take coffee and go outside to discuss it.”

“It’s
really
important.”

He could see that. However, as it only concerned him, he couldn’t imagine it was nearly as monumental as she seemed to think. But he supposed, if she was upset, she might not want coffee.

“All right,” he said. “What is it?”

“It’s about …”

She took a deep breath. He waved her into the next room. “Let’s sit.”

She nodded and followed him to the living room. They sat and … nothing. She perched on the edge of the sofa, hands in her lap.

“I don’t know how to tell you this,” she said.

“Go on,” he said, trying not to sound impatient, while well aware that night was falling, which meant it would soon be too chilly to sit outside. He remembered taking a meeting in a client’s garden once, and she’d had a wood-burning stove out there. He would suggest that for Olivia, to extend the use of her garden.

It took a moment to realize Olivia was talking again, and given the apparent gravity of the situation, he should listen.

“—because I don’t want you to find out another way, like what happened with Tristan and Gwynn. Others know—fae, that is, and Cŵn Annwn—and they’re going to tell you at some point.”

“All right.” It would probably be rude to stop her while he turned on the coffee machine to warm up. He should have done that before they left the kitchen.

“It’s … it’s about your …”

He had to resist the urge to tell her to just blurt it out.

“Your father …” she said. “Did your mother ever hint at who …?”

“No.”

“Okay, well, I know who … I know who he is.”

“All right.”

She looked at him as if he might not have heard right. Clearly his reaction was not what she’d expected. Discovering her own parentage had been life-changing. Devastating, at least in the beginning, and even now she dealt with the ramifications daily. Yet he’d never wasted a moment wondering about the identity of his father. Rose had broached the subject once—did it bother him, not knowing? His honest reply had been no.

As long as the man didn’t actually expect contact with Gabriel, he supposed it would be helpful to fill in his missing medical history, but otherwise he had no interest. Unless his father would want money. In that case he’d rather not know. However,
knowing
would in no way obligate him to help.

“Gabriel?”

“Go on.”

“I said I know who your father is.”

He softened his voice. “I realize you consider this momentous news, Olivia. But to me? It is merely filling in a blank that I never cared was empty.”

She exhaled. “Okay. But … it’s … it’s not just some random guy your mother slept with. I mean, it is, but …”

“I know him?”

She nodded, her gaze fixed on him. He quickly compiled the evidence.

“Patrick,” he said finally.

Olivia went still. “You knew?”

He shook his head. “Given what you’ve said, that simply seemed the most obvious answer. I’ll presume I’m correct, then. It would explain why Seanna became so upset when I had contact with him as a child.”

“She forbade you to speak to him. Not surprising, given she’d have been barely eighteen when he seduced her.”

“Knowing Seanna, I rather doubt that’s exactly how it happened.”

“But she was so young.”

“Seanna was never young, Olivia. If you think a teenage pregnancy sent her life into a downward spiral, I can assure you, that isn’t what happened. Rose says the drugs came much earlier. I was a minor inconvenience rather than a life-changing event.”

“I’m sorry.”

He gave her a brief smile. “There’s no need to be.”

“I still am. I’m sorry for what you went through with her, and I’m sorry Patrick did nothing about it. That’s why I didn’t want to tell you. To let you know your father had been there when …”

“Ah. Is that why you’ve been angry with him?”

“Of course,” she said, as if the answer was obvious. He’d noticed her relationship with Patrick had changed a few months ago. She’d seemed fine with him, and then she wasn’t.

“He’s fae,” Gabriel said softly. “I don’t think we can expect him to take a normal parental role.”

“I don’t care. He should have done something.”

Her voice was fierce, and if this was secondhand outrage he was getting now, he could only imagine what Patrick must have gotten. The full brunt of her fury. For him.

I love her.

That was hardly a revelation. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t take the risk of trying to further their relationship. Yet he had never said the words even in his mind, because even there they blew a
cannonball through a fortress he’d spent a lifetime erecting. To care about someone was quite enough, and even that was difficult to admit. Only a few minutes ago, he’d been unable to say he valued her friendship.

To say he loved her was like teetering on the edge of a pit, every fiber in him wanting to scramble back from the edge, saying
no, no, no.
To love her meant that if he didn’t win her, if he never got a chance to prove …

His breath seized at the thought, and that pit seemed to rear up, ready to swallow him whole.

Now you know how I felt.

He flinched at Gwynn’s voice, and then everything in him truly did rebel, scrambling away as fast as it could. Whatever he felt, it would never lead there. Never, ever—

“Gabriel?”

He snapped back to see Olivia watching him, her face drawn with worry. He found the barest smile for her. “Sorry. I was just … processing. I appreciate that you were concerned. That …”

He cleared his throat and forced the words out as fast as he could. “That means a lot to me. But my own feelings on the matter …? Patrick is fae. He made some effort, and while it would not come near your standard for proper parenting, it exceeds my own experience.” He said the last with a tiny smile, but the flash of pain on her face made him wish he hadn’t gone there.

She loves me, too, in her way.

“Coffee?” he said.

She smiled. “Yes, I’m finally done, and we may have coffee.”

W
e
took our coffees into the garden, where we sat on the bench and drank, and Gabriel mentioned the possibility of a backyard stove or fire pit, and we discussed that—types I’d seen at garden parties, and which would work best here.

“Then you
will
buy one?” he said.

“As soon as you use the fireplace at the office.”

“Would you settle for a fire in my wastebasket?”

I mock-glowered at him. “No. Get yours going, and I’ll buy more comfortable seating, too.” I shifted and made a face. “Soon. Please.”

We sipped our coffees and talked about lawn furniture. There was still part of me that worried he was in shock about Patrick. He’d handled the revelation as if I’d been telling him the weather forecast, and really, it wasn’t as if he planned to be out of doors anyway.

When Gabriel’s phone rang, I recognized the ring tone, having set it up myself. “The office? It’s Saturday night”

“Lydia planned to work this evening in return for a half day off next week.” He answered the phone, and I heard uncharacteristic rapid-fire speech from the other end.

Gabriel glanced at me and hit a button. “Olivia’s here. I’m putting you on speaker.”

“—don’t need to put me on speaker, Gabriel,” Lydia said. “You need to get over here. Now.”

I rose, but Gabriel held out a hand, stopping me.

“You said there’s a girl—”

“—in your office. Completely panicked and refusing to speak to anyone except you or someone named Gwynn.”

I took the phone and started for the gate. “It’s me. We’re on our way, but we’re in Cainsville and the car is a half mile away. Can you put her on the phone? Tell her it’s Olivia, and Gabriel is right here.”

“I would, but she’s out cold.”

“What?”

“I think it’s drugs. She was talking about someone named Gwynn and seemed to get him confused with Gabriel. She mentioned you, but she said she really needed Gabriel. Then she was speaking in another language. Then back to English, about hounds and pepper, and it made absolutely no sense, Liv. I couldn’t even get her to calm down enough to let me phone Gabriel until she passed out.”

“We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

We found the lamia on the chaise lounge in Gabriel’s office. Lydia apologized for that, but it was the only horizontal surface.

“You should go,” I said to Lydia. “We’ve got this.”

She shook her head. “I can—”

“You’ve done enough,” Gabriel said. “We appreciate you staying with her.”

“You know what this is about, then,” she said.

When Gabriel didn’t answer, I said, “Yes, we do.”

“And it would be better if I left?”

“Yes, it would.”

I walked her to her desk, where she got her jacket and laptop bag. “Thank you. For handling this.”

She busied herself putting on her jacket. “I know things have changed, Liv. Not just because you’re here, and Gabriel no longer practically lives in this office. Which is wonderful to see, but …” She looked at me. “I’m not demanding to know more, but I think it would help if I did.”

“Gabriel doesn’t want—”

“He’s always been very careful to keep me out of anything that could land me in a jail cell.” She smiled. “He’d hate the bother of replacing me. I understand he thinks it’s unsafe for me to know more, but I’m asking.”

At a noise from Gabriel’s office, I turned.

“Go on,” she said. “Just consider it. Please.”

I said goodbye and hurried back to the office, where Gabriel had taken off his jacket and pulled a chair over to the chaise lounge. He sat there, watching the lamia, making no move to wake her.

The girl looked about sixteen with curly black hair, a thin face, and a thin body. No makeup. Dressed in a battered leather jacket, jeans, and combat boots. Not hunting, then. Just being a regular girl—regular fae.

I shook her gently, but she didn’t move. When I pressed my fingers to her neck, I could feel a pulse.
Barely
feel a pulse.

“She’s hurt,” I said. “I don’t see an injury, but help me get her out of this jacket.”

He did, and at first I still saw nothing. Then, when I started turning away, I caught a splash of red on her white T-shirt. I looked back and it vanished.

“Olivia?” Gabriel said.

His expression told me he hadn’t seen what I did. “I’m going to pull up her shirt.”

He turned away. I tugged up her tee, but saw only unblemished skin and a beige bra. Then I caught it again: the blood. I stayed at that angle, looking out of the corner of my eye. The girl’s torso flickered, and stab wounds appeared on her chest, blood everywhere. When I looked back, her glamour rippled, as if she was growing too weak to sustain it, blood and scales glistening on her skin.

“Gabriel?”

“Hmm?”

“Look at her out of the corner of your eye.” When he hesitated, I said, “She’s wearing a bra. Please look.”

He turned, just enough to do as I asked. Then he blinked, and that small reaction told me I wasn’t imagining things.