Keeping Secrets in Seattle - By Brooke Moss Page 0,78
There was nothing more peculiar than experiencing horrible pain and total elation at the same time.
He looked away. “I called it off yesterday.”
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
“When I heard about you and Landon going to Vegas…” Gabe began pacing. “Vi, I’m in love with you. I always have been.”
I covered my mouth and stood frozen in place. I’d been waiting nine years to hear those words. The hair on my arms stood up, and a tornado took flight in my gut.
Gabe laced his fingers and rested his hands on the top of his head as he moved. “After you left for Vegas, I checked my credit card statement. She’d bought over twelve hundred dollars’ worth of shoes in the last week alone and hadn’t told me. When I stopped by Mizithra’s to speak to her about it, they told me that she’d quit a month ago.”
“You’re kidding.” I bit my lip. I wish being right felt better than this. But it didn’t feel good, it felt horrible.
His forehead wrinkled. “I’d seen her leave for work dozens of times. But she’d been faking it. She’d been faking everything. You were right. Her parents aren’t wealthy. They live in the suburbs of Portland, in a modest house, and her dad’s—”
“A garbage man,” I finished for him. My fingers twitched at my sides, longing to reach for Gabe. My pulse pounded in my ears, and I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from pulling him close to me and pressing my mouth to his. We could be together now. My secret was out, and we were both free now. It was everything I’d been dreaming about…
His eyes clouded over. “I almost married a woman who’s been lying to me from the beginning, and the woman I’ve been in love with since I was a kid has been lying to me for almost a decade.”
The heartbeat in my ears stopped, and my shoulders dropped down an inch. “Excuse me?”
“I don’t know who to trust,” he said in a gravelly voice. “You…Alicia…Cam…your mom…everyone I know is a liar.”
Anger replaced joy, and I pointed my finger in Gabe’s face. “You’re lumping me in a category with Cameron Hakes?”
“He’s been walking free for almost ten years, Vi.” The muscles in Gabe’s neck flexed. “Who knows how many other women might have been hurt because you lied about what happened?”
His words were a punch to the gut. “You’re blaming this on me?”
“Of course not. But I can’t believe your mom and Curtis would let him walk after hurting you.” He shifted his weight between his feet and shook his head. “It’s asinine. Why would a parent let their daughter’s rapist go free?”
I shivered as adrenaline coursed through my body. “My mom went through something similar. She—”
“I don’t give a shit what Leandra went through!”
I backed away. Every vein in his neck was visible under his tawny skin.
“What about what you went through? You were just a kid! The thought of his hands on you…the idea of you yelling for help and having nobody answer.”
“You need to calm down.” I took him by the arm. “Look at me.”
Anger radiated from the pools of blue that were his eyes. “You don’t understand. I never stopped loving you. All these years, I thought you’d cheated on me. It never occurred to me that Cam was capable of something like this. I want to kill him,” he said through clenched teeth. His muscles hardened under his jacket sleeve. “I can’t even think straight. I could kill him.”
My gut twisted nervously. His whole body had gone rigid with anger, sweat piquing on his hairline. “You don’t have to worry about it,” I told him. “The wedding is off. You never have to see him again.”
Gabe shook off my touch. “Cam’s flying here next week. We were supposed to spend some time together before the wedding. He was coming early to see his dad, and so we could hang out since he missed the bachelor party.”
“Just call him…tell him the wedding isn’t happening.” I was sick to my stomach and wrapped my arms around my middle. “You have to tell him that the wedding isn’t happening. Not to come.”
His eyes were wide and bugging out. “I’m going to put Cam in the ground.”
I put my palms on either side of Gabe’s face and made him look at me. “It’s over now, Gabe. It’s been nine years. I’m okay now. We’re okay.”