to keep her away. And if that wasn’t painful enough, he looked at Abigail, his face soft and concerned. “Are you okay?”
Regan felt as if he’d slapped her with the trunk of a Christmas tree, the star lodging in her chest and puncturing her heart. She never expected him to put her above his family. Had hoped maybe one day to be on equal footing with them. But never in a million years would she have imagined him to be purposefully cruel about reminding her where exactly she stood in his life.
Message read loud and clear.
“If you’ll excuse me,” she said, stepping around the precious family discussion. She got two steps before Gabe was in front of her, shoving a stack of papers at her.
“Mind explaining this first?”
CHAPTER 15
“What is this?” Regan asked, cautiously eyeing him and the papers.
Gabe didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. The pain in his gut made it impossible to breathe, let alone speak.
The last thing he wanted to do was stand there with his family as witnesses and hurt the one person in the room who wasn’t expecting anything from him. But he was out of options. And Regan was going to need one hell of a story to get herself out of this one.
Still, seeing her body tremble, her eyes dart toward the dressing room door, no doubt worried that Holly would come out, tore at him.
“She’s with ChiChi.”
Her face lost all color. Shit. Gabe hadn’t meant to make it sound like this was some big DeLuca plot, where they were going to gang up on her when she was alone and scare her into leaving town. Then again, that’s what this was. But ChiChi wasn’t in on it.
“I see.” Her voice cracked.
Nobody else could tell how close Regan was to tears, or how scared she was, but Gabe could. It was the way she refused to blink those big eyes, which had turned a cloudy blue, and how her hands had all but disappeared under the cuffs of her sweater. Regan was doing what she’d done her whole life, holding it together.
A part of him, the part that felt alive for the first time since his parents died, wanted to forget the whole thing and go back to two hours ago, when all he could think about was her naked in his bed, sleeping in his arms. The other part of him that was the head of his family, the protector of his siblings, the fucking hero of the day, pushed the bank statement into her hand.
Regan looked down and froze. “I don’t understand. How did you get this?”
Not: What is this?
Or even: I’m sorry.
But: How did you get this?
Gabe took a step back, away from Regan, away from his family, away from the pain rushing at him.
“Does it matter?” Frustration tightened his fists, so he rubbed at the back of his neck to keep from punching the told-you-so smirk off Marc’s face. When that didn’t work, he turned his back to his family and faced the woman who had just ripped out his chest. “I believed you. Believed that you weren’t responsible for any of this. I defended you to my family. And you lied.”
“It’s not what you think.” Her voice barely filled the space.
“Really? Because it looks like you opened an account in Holly’s name, transferred all of my sister’s money there, only to reroute it somewhere else. Jesus, Regan, you put it in Holly’s name. What kind of mother does that?”
“Don’t you ever discount me as a mother. Everything I have ever done has been for Holly. Everything.” She looked at the papers and back to him. “You want to know what this is?” She slapped the papers against his chest. And suddenly he didn’t want to know.
Her eyes told him everything. He’d messed up. Big time.
His brothers had come at him, proof of betrayal in hand, emotions on high. He’d listened and then reacted. Not because he thought she was guilty—deep down he knew Regan would never take money she didn’t earn—but because she scared the shit out of him. He didn’t know what to do with a woman who didn’t need him, didn’t want him fixing her life.
So he did what any moron would do: he created a problem. Only this time he wasn’t so sure he could fix his way out of it.
“This is what happens when a nineteen-year-old is pregnant and alone. I had no way to take care of Holly. No one would hire me. Then Richard