Red blooms on her cheeks, and I’m kicking myself for embarrassing her.
“Hey, forget I said that.”
She shakes her head. “No. You’re right. No father should want that for his daughter, but my dad isn’t exactly all about what’s best for me. He’s more worried about having someone to groom to take over his company, someone to go golfing and hunting with—and spoiler, that someone isn’t me. Not just because I have more work than I can handle already with my own company, but because I’m not a good ol’ boy, and that’s the only kind of person my father relates to. Not his wife—who divorced him when she caught him banging his secretary, how cliché—and definitely not his daughter.”
“Ouch. Fuck. That sucks.”
She shrugs it off like she’s used to being disappointed by her old man. “It is what it is. I just keep hoping that someday, he’ll look at me and say, ‘Scarlett, I’m proud of you. You’ve done a hell of a job. Don’t be a stranger at Christmas. It’s not a holiday without family.’”
Roux nudges her hand, and Scarlett doesn’t miss a beat petting my baby girl.
“So you need to get your mind off shit, and you came to me?” I’m not sure why I put it that way, but I need confirmation for a reason I can’t explain. Like she didn’t tap the wrong contact and send a message to me by accident.
Her gray eyes get big. “Yeah, you. You were the first person on my mind.”
I’m not used to bold honesty when it comes to women in my life. Most of them are lying to me and themselves too often to even know what the truth is.
But Scarlett ... she’s different, and it doesn’t have a damn thing to do with privilege or money. It’s justher.
“I don’t mind.”
The corners of her mouth tug upward, and I catch a flash of dimples.Fucking hell, when’s the last time I met a woman with dimples?
“Oh. Well, good. Also, my friends call me Scar. Or you know, since I’ve learned like six ways to kill someone in my last two self-defense classes, you could give me a fighter name. LikeBlack Widowor something badass. I’d be cool with that too.”
I must make her nervous, because she’s talking fast and bouncing from subject to subject. I grasp onto the important part, though. “Self-defense classes?”
“Yeah, I started last Friday. My financial advisor pulled rank and told me I shouldn’t take any more chances after the crazy trolls we have commenting on my social media. But I probably wouldn’t have agreed if I hadn’t beenaccidentallykidnapped recently.”
Guilt rushes in, and I dip my head. “You’ll never know how sorry I am that happened. Bump is ... well, he’s special. He was trying to help, and you got caught up in something that shouldn’t have touched you.”
Her hand darts out and slides into mine with a squeeze. I lift my gaze to hers and drown in those clear gray eyes.
“I appreciate the apology, but I think we can let it go. Besides, if he hadn’t done it, I would never have met you, Gabriel. And that would be a big problem, at least from my perspective.”
I was right before.I’m so totally fucked.
Forty-Four
Scarlett
“Myfriends call me Legend. Or Gabe. No one calls me Gabriel.”
“Well, I’ll let you call me Black Widow if I can call you Gabriel.”
He squeezes my hand before reaching up with his free one. He stops short of my face, and I desperately wish he wouldn’t.
“You’re more ladybug than black widow, sweetheart.”
“Ladybug.” I pretend to think about the name, but I’m mostly hyperventilating that his fingers are inches from my skin. “Not quite as badass, but I suppose it could work.”
“Now, who do we have here?”
A man’s voice comes from the doorway, and Gabriel pulls his hand from mine. The other hovering near my face drops to his side as his expression turns to stone.
“Rolo. Running into you twice in a week doesn’t feel like a coincidence.”
The man, tall with short black hair and tanned skin lined from what looks like years of hard living, wears a department-store-quality suit rather than gym clothes, which instantly trips my curiosity. That, and the fact that Gabriel doesn’t seem happy to see him.