A Murderous Game (12 page)

He rubbed a hand over his jaw.
After the way he'd treated her, there was a good possibility she wouldn't agree
to work with him now. She might even ask Norwell not to take Billings off the project

Gage frowned. He didn't like Billings. The guy was
smart enough, but he reminded Gage of a worm, and after meeting with him, Gage
was more convinced than ever Abby would do a better job.

Well, let her buck. Business was
business. He'd insist Norwell put her on the account and find a way to make
things up to her. In time, she might even forgive him enough to consider
letting him into her personal life.

Getting up, he went to his desk to
pack up for the night. An old memory began to play through his head. He
concentrated until he could bring it into focus, then he smiled. He'd be taking
a little trip to the shore tomorrow after all, but it wouldn't be the Keys.

~~~

Keeping her spirits up on the tide
of her divorce had become increasingly difficult when the rest of her life was
floating in a toilet just waiting for the flush.

An afternoon of shopping had
provided a brief distraction. Dinner with Rachael had been, as it usually had
been lately, both entertaining and frustrating. Her dear friend was convinced
if she could hook Abby up with the right man, all would be well in the world.
Odd, considering every time a man showed a genuine interest in Rachel, she cut
him off with the precision of a surgeon wielding a very sharp knife.

With summer approaching it was
beginning to stay light longer. Abby crossed the street and continued walking
down Walnut. By the time she got home it would just be getting dark. She could
have taken a cab, but she'd opted for walking a lot lately. She enjoyed it, and
these days she snatched whatever pleasures she could get.

Just the thought of gritting her
teeth through another week of Harold's deliberate taunts churned up visions of
snake pits and medieval dungeons. The guy just loved rubbing salt into her open
wound. Why did he have to be so immature about everything? Abby scoffed at
herself.
And fantasizing about pushing him into a pit of vipers isn't just a
touch pubescent?

Maybe she'd have a glass of wine
when she got home and watch a movie, something funny—Woody Allen or John
Cleese
. They always made her laugh. Tomorrow was Sunday and
she could sleep late, so maybe she'd have her own little comedy marathon and
drink the whole damn bottle.

Why are you thinking that way?
Everyone hits a few bumps in the road. You've been wallowing a little too deep
in the self-pity trough.
If she didn't stop, she was going to get
thoroughly sick of herself.

By the time she turned onto
Delancey
, Abby had made a few resolutions. The first being,
going forward she would stop killing people. They never stayed dead anyway.
From now on she would deal with her frustration in a more productive manner.
Kneeing Billings
in the balls and watching him squirm the next time he made a lewd comment came
to mind. As satisfying as that might be, she probably needed to rethink what
constituted productive behaviors.

Second, and infinitely more
difficult, would be to eliminate Gage Faraday from her thoughts once and for
all.

She drew a shaky breath. She'd been
trying to accomplish that one for over a week with little success. If she kept
busy, she could force him out for a while, but he always found a way to creep
back in. Her guard would slip and she'd imagine his face—smiling, teasing—and
she'd feel a warm glow suffuse her until reality encroached and reminded her
he'd condemned her as a scheming liar.

She really wanted to dislike him.
Her heart just wouldn't let her. Hardly a night passed when she didn't dream of
him. It would be fine if her dreams portrayed him as the coldhearted, ruthless
man he'd become. But no, her psyche had to conjure up a warm, passionate lover
who not only treated her like some precious jewel but eliminated every notion
she'd ever had about being incapable of the big bang.

Nearing her townhouse, she reached
into her bag for the keys. Starting tonight she would no longer dwell on the
negatives in her life. She would lighten up and stop being so hard on herself.

Her life wasn't so terrible. She'd
gotten her long awaited divorce. She still had the same goals and a firm
determination to reach them. Everything would work out the way she wanted, the
way she'd planned. She put the key into the deadbolt.

"Good evening, green
eyes."

Startled, she whipped around and
came face-to-face with the one person who had the power to shred her plans as
if they were nothing more than a block of mozzarella.

~~~

A leap of surprised joy seemed to
flare in her eyes then burn out as quickly as a shooting star. The measured
cool Abby leveled on him now made Gage wonder if he'd only imagined the brief
spark.

"What are you doing
here?" Her cool reproach was nothing less than he deserved. She had a
right to be bitter, and he owed her every second of the begging he'd have to do
to earn her forgiveness.

He glanced down at the bouquet of
long stemmed pink roses he held in one hand. In the other his fingers curled
around the white box he'd had to sign away a couple of weekends of baking under
a scorching sun to get.

Abby's gaze followed his. Her lips
parted momentarily, and he thought her expression softened. But in the next
instant her mouth closed into a taut line again.

He hung his head and let out a
weary breath. In the brief time he'd had with her he'd discovered she had a
good sense of humor. He'd also been pretty sure that she liked him as a person.
At least she had before he'd screwed up.

Hoping he hadn't misjudged on
either count, he held up the flowers. "There's an old Chinese proverb that
says, 'He who offers candy and flowers while groveling greatly increases
likelihood of forgiveness'."

Her lips lifted slightly into an
almost smile. He inched the flowers toward her. She reached out and took them
and then slowly raised the bouquet to her nose and sniffed. "I've never
heard that one." She took another, deeper whiff, watching him over the
roses as if leery of his intentions.

"Probably
because I just made it up."

She did smile then.

Gage angled his head to try and
catch her gaze which had centered around the middle of his chest. "Please
forgive me for being such a stupid ass." He reached out with his free hand
and lifted her chin. "I was wrong.
So
very wrong, and I'm
sorry."

Her glance shifted toward the
street. "You found out I'm divorced?"

He inched her head higher, trying
to get her to look at him. "Yes. I also discovered how you knew about that
old Mustang and Kelly Samuels." When she still avoided him, he added,
"You've changed, green eyes."

"I guess the truth is out
then. No more secrets." She smiled rather sadly but still wouldn't look at
him. "I'm glad. It's good. You know, face your demons and all that."
She stretched her neck first to one side, then the other as if working out a
kink. She showed an inordinate interest in the cars driving down the street.

"You've got every right to be
angry with me." He wished he could just pull her into his arms and hold
her. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm probably even more pissed off
at me right now than you are." That got him a definite smile and sparked a
glow of hope. "I'd really appreciate a chance to make things up to you.
Why don't you invite me inside? You can get us both a drink. If you don't want
to do that, I'll get us both a drink and then you can sit back while I get on
my knees to beg, plead, and otherwise demean myself in an attempt to win your
mercy. He hedged his bet. "Besides, I've got a business matter I need to
talk to you about."

Abby turned around and unlocked the
door. He'd broken through. She was going to give him another chance. He wasn't
out of the muck yet, but he felt a hell of a lot better than he had yesterday,
an hour ago, even three minutes ago.

Gage followed her inside. He knew
in his bones she'd forgive him. He didn't know how he knew—but he knew. And it
didn't even appear she was going to make him beg. Lord, she was a sweetheart.
He turned to secure the deadbolt, grinning like a fool. Deserving or not, he
was one lucky bastard. Then from behind him she said, "I've always dreamed
of being one of those women who could bring a man to his knees."

~~~

Abby thought her heart might beat
right out of her chest as she crossed the living room toward the kitchen. She
heard the front door close and then the turn of the deadbolt. She had no idea
what to expect or why she'd agreed to let him in.

"I've always wanted to be one
of those women who could bring a man to his knees," she quipped, still in
defense mode.

She didn't want to be hurt again,
and she hadn't let go of all her anger toward Gage. But he'd apologized, and
he'd seemed sincere. He'd brought her flowers, too. What harm could it do to
hear him out?

Reaching into the cupboard she took
down two glasses, every nerve in her body aware that he'd followed her into the
kitchen and stood only a few feet behind her. She pulled the cabernet she had
planned to share with Woody Allen and John
Cleese
from the wine rack.

"What would you like to
drink?" she asked, as if they were a couple of old friends just hanging
out on a Saturday night.

"What have you got?"

She held up the bottle of wine.
"
Cabernet,
or I might have a couple of bottles of
warm beer under the sink cabinet."

He gave her a wry grin. "The
cab will be fine."

She nodded, inserting the wine key
into the cork and giving it several turns. She didn't have to see to know he
was watching her. She felt it. Her body seemed to vibrate with awareness of
him. It had always been like that, even when she was a teenager. There would be
times she had gone somewhere and she would sense him. When she looked around
he'd be there. Maybe she was psychic.

Her fingers felt clumsy and when she
tried to remove the cork, it broke off at the lip. She reinserted the key and
gave a few more turns. Gage leaned against the side of the counter watching
her. Lord, the man made her nervous. She smiled to cover her uneasiness.

"Would you like some help with
that?"

"No, I can get it." She
didn't need him to open her wine. She'd been doing fine managing her life and
opening her own wine bottles long before he'd dropped back into it. She was quite
independent in fact, and—she gave a tug and the cork popped out.

"There." She held the key
with the chewed up cork in the air. Gage gave her a lopsided grin. Abby poured
the wine and cursed her susceptibility to him. 

"So."
She handed him a glass. "You said you had a business matter you wanted to
discuss?"

Considering Norwell Group would be
handling all the marketing for
Riv
One, there might
be occasions when Billings
wasn't around, and she could be asked to pinch hit. It only made sense Gage
would want to ensure what had happened between them didn't hurt the project.

"Yes, I'll get to that."
He paused until she looked at him. "Before I knew you were married to
Richard Carpenter, you and I had been getting along very well. We liked each
other, or so I thought." He seemed to search her face, as if looking for
confirmation she'd felt the same. She'd felt a lot more, but she'd chew her
tongue up into bite-size pieces and swallow them before that admission passed
her lips, especially when she still didn't know what he wanted from her.

"I asked my Chief of Security
to investigate your husband." He frowned. "Ex-husband, because of the
defamatory comments he made about GFI at the press conference."

Abby took a sip of wine. He hadn't
said anything she hadn't already figured out on her own.

"So you can imagine my
surprise when my Chief of Security showed me a picture of your ex at a charity
event with his wife. The same woman I had put my trust in to represent
Riv
One."

She remembered the photo, and she
remembered that night. Dick had been drinking heavily. He had disappeared
shortly after the press shot and when it came time to leave was nowhere to be
found. She'd had to call a cab to take her home. Two days later she had found
the black silk stockings under the back seat of his Mercedes. They hadn't been
hers.

Abby looked away so Gage couldn't
glimpse anything in her expression. Dick's unfaithfulness still had the power
to hurt.

"If I trust someone and they
abuse that trust, I consider it unacceptable. If it happens, I cut the person
off completely." Gage looked at her, held her gaze. "I trusted you,
Abby. Even though we'd only been working together a couple of days, we already
had a bond."

Abby tensed. She set her glass on
the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. "Look, Gage, I had my
reasons. Maybe they weren't the—"

He held up a hand. "Please let
me finish." He waited for some sign from her and she nodded. "I
trusted you," he repeated, "and you had probably begun to trust
me." He pushed away from the counter and took a step forward, then
another. A faint warning sounded in her head. Danger, danger, run Abby
Carpenter, but her feet had become cemented to the floor.

As if in one of her fantasies, Gage
drifted toward her. When they were only inches apart, he reached out and ran
his hands up her arms.

"I broke that trust." His
voice had gone deep, and very soft. She didn't want to look into his eyes for
fear of what she'd see there, or worse, what she'd imagine.

"I was, as you tried to tell
me, so very wrong." His hands continued to stroke up and down, flames
licking in their wake. "The things I said when you came to my office last
week were cruel. They were meant to be hurtful. I felt betrayed and I wanted to
punish you. Calling Norwell and having him assign Billings to work the account was one way to
do that. It was wrong and I'm sorry." He rested his fingers on her
shoulders, and she recognized regret in the smoldering depths of his steadfast
gaze.