are married. He is married.
Or was? It has to be was.
My eyes go big when I read the caption, though. Gabriel Lord and wife Phoebe.
“Lexi. How did you get into my apartment today?” My voice is light, floating like a ghost. I feel cold and hot all at once.
She turns to me and stares. “Shane let me in. He said you gave him a key.”
Chapter Seventeen
Gabriel
I pace back and forth in the suite, staring at my phone as if I can somehow will it to ding with a text or call from Miranda. I call the shots. I get what I want. And I pay people—generously—to make it happen. Even so… there are some things you can’t fucking control.
This is one of them.
“Come on, dammit,” I mutter, gripping the phone so hard my fingers hurt. “Where are you?”
Finally, I can’t take it anymore. I’m going to find her. I grab my wallet and keys and head for the door, and as I do, my phone rings. I scowl at it.
Shane, not Miranda.
“Yeah?”
“Where are you?”
“Suite. Just going to get my car and go to Miranda’s.”
He sighs. The kind of sigh that makes a guy wanna shake another guy by the collar. The kind of sigh that tells me he knows something I don’t. He’d better spill it.
“Shane.” There’s warning in my tone, as I’m trying to keep myself calm. “What is it?”
“Fucking news, man,” he says. He covers the phone, talks to someone, his voice clipped and hard like it gets when he’s commanding people to get shit done.
“What about the news?”
“They did a fucking exposé about your marriage to Phoebe.”
Jesus. I run a hand through my hair.
“You mean former marriage to Phoebe, don’t you?”
He blows out a breath on the other line. “That’s not how they framed it. She’s decided she’s going to sue you, says you’re still married.”
I grit my teeth. “We were married in France, and that marriage is no longer valid.” Six months to the day after taking vows to the woman I thought I loved, I found out the marriage was invalid. She’d been married three times before she was “married” to me. She was a goddamn con artist who only married me for my money. She would’ve been perfect for Lexi’s Tom.”
“Tell me about it,” he says. “I know that. You know that. But the news definitely didn’t cast it in that light, and Lexi said—”
“Lexi? You talked to Lexi?”
“Yeah. I called her cell to see if I could get in touch with Miranda.”
Jesus.
“And?”
“Lexi says… well, she says Miranda doesn’t want to talk to you.”
“She said it? Just like that?”
“Dude, you don’t wanna know what she actually said. Made this whole ‘daddy’ thing you like a lot more appealing to me, because if that little Lexi girl were mine, I’d have—”
“What did she say?”
He speaks in a high-pitched falsetto, mimicking Lexi. “The Montague sisters are done with your philandering ways. Lose this number, lose her key, and if Gabriel Lord ever comes near my sister again, we’re calling the police.”
Shit. This is worse than I thought. I feel as if someone’s dumped a bucket of ice water over my head.
“Gabe? You still there, man?”
I nod, swallow hard, and get my shit together. “I’m here. What the hell is she talking about, a key?”
“Well…”
His voice trails off.
“Shane.”
“Well, her sister got here, and Miranda wasn’t home yet, so I… let her in.”
“Let her in? Where? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Into Miranda’s apartment.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? How did you get a key?”
“Had one made, remember? You told me to get a copy in case of an emergency.”
Yeah, I’ve crossed some fucking lines. And with Shane’s natural tendencies to overstep, he made it easy for me. I groan, running a hand through my hair, and shake my head.
“I’m going to her. There’s no way around it. I have to talk to her, confess to everything, and make it right again.”
“You do that.”
“You don’t sound too confident,” I mutter, opening the door to the suite and heading to the elevator.
“Well, I… I dunno, man. Lexi sounded like she was ready to castrate me, never mind you.” He pauses. “Though honest to God, the way she got all worked up and angry was so fucking hot, I seriously—”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?”
“Okay, okay,” he mutters. “Sorry, boss. I’ll have your car brought around right away.”
Jesus, I’ve fucked this up. I need to make it right again. I call her again, but of course it goes straight