Perfect Fit (18 page)

She turned away from the mirror and walked across the room to get her purse off the bed. Chances were that Gabe was used to more sophisticated women, but then she shrugged, reminding herself that the two of them were not actually going out on a real date. It was merely two friends sharing dinner. There was a difference. A big difference.

Then, why do I feel like butterflies are flying around in my stomach
? she asked herself when she walked out of her bedroom.
And why does the thought that Gabe’s coming to pick me up and may want to come inside for a short while after he brings me home bother me?

She sighed deeply.
Mainly because this is all new to you,
her mind responded promptly.
You’re embarking on a new phase in your life and trying to learn to trust again.

“Yes, a new phase in my life,” Sage said aloud to herself. “And remember that this is a friendship dinner and nothing more.”

No sooner had she said the last word than the doorbell rang, and Sage suddenly forgot everything.

Taking a deep, calming breath, Sage slowly opened the door. Gabe stood just on the other side, looking so incredibly handsome that for a moment Sage felt her lips glue themselves together. She was totally speechless. She had seen him dressed in a suit many times, but never had she seen him wear a pair of tailored pleated slacks,
a collarless shirt and sports coat. And everything was black. All black. She knew of no other brother who could wear the color better. She dragged her gaze up the full length of him, from the expensive-looking pair of shoes on his feet to the neatly trimmed hair on his head.

She then returned her gaze to his face and met his eyes. They were eyes that weren’t staring at her but at her dress. She cleared her throat. “Hi, you’re early.”

His gaze met hers with a dark, piercing look, one that almost left her breathless. “Am I?”

She nodded slowly. “Yes, but since you’re less than ten minutes early, you’re forgiven.”

He leaned against the doorjamb. A trace of humor shone in his eyes. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

She smiled. “You’re welcome. Come on in while I get my coat.”

She walked off, and Gabe stood unmoving for a moment when he saw how the back of her dress was designed. Her entire back was bare down to her waist.
Amazing,
he thought, entering the apartment and closing the door behind him. He quickly glanced around the living room, checking out the décor as he tried to get his mind off of her outfit, like that was actually possible.

Why are you here, Blackwell?
a silent voice inside of him asked, not for the first time. His life had been going just like he wanted, so why was he allowing Sage Dunbar to become an addiction?

When she came out of a room with her coat thrown over her arm, he quickly cleared his mind and crossed the room to her. “Do you think this coat will be enough to keep you warm tonight?” he asked huskily as he helped her to slip her arms through the sleeves of the thick wool coat.

She looked up at him. “Yes, I think so. Besides, it’s only cold outside, and we will be eating inside, won’t we?” she asked, grinning.

Gabe took a deep breath and inhaled Sage’s scent. It was a fragrance that he’d never smelled before but definitely liked. Being close to her was nearly driving him insane. “Yes, we will.” He checked his watch. “I guess we’d better go.”

Sage nodded as he led her to the door. “You haven’t said where we’re going.”

He smiled down at her as they stepped into the hall, then closed and locked the door behind them. “It’s a surprise.”

And it was a surprise … in addition to being the most exquisite place Sage had ever had the privilege of dining. It was a quaint restaurant nestled in the mountains and adjacent to Chester Creek. A thirty-minute drive from her apartment, it had been a pleasant scenic route that bisected the city from east to west. Although the snow had stopped falling earlier, unmelted snow still covered the length of the creek.

“Tell me about Sage Dunbar.”

Sage lifted her head from studying the intricate design of her tablecloth and met Gabe’s gaze over the candlelight in the middle of their table. They had just completed their meal and were basking in just how delicious everything had been. “And what is it that you want to know?”

Gabe smiled as he met her gaze and took a slow sip of his wine. “Everything you haven’t told me already.”

Sage nodded, and a thoughtful expression appeared on her face. How much should she tell
him? How far could she trust him? Then making a decision, she said, “My full name is Sage Simone Dunbar, and I attended public schools in Charlotte. When I decided on a college, I knew I wanted to attend Florida A and M University in Tallahassee, Florida.”

Gabe lifted a brow. “That was a long way from home, wasn’t it?”

Sage chuckled. “Yes, but that was the point. I was the only child and wanted freedom away from my parents’ ever-watchful eyes. I thought Florida would be far enough to serve that purpose.”

“Was it?”

Sage grinned as she took a sip of her own wine. “Yes. I did a lot of growing up while living away from home. I saw a lot and did a lot, and I always had fun. On the flip side of that, I never forgot why I was there and what was expected of me, so I ended up making decent grades and graduating with honors. So in essence, my parents had nothing to worry about and felt it had been money well invested.”

“Did you return home to Charlotte after college?”

Sage nodded again. “Yes. I decided I’d been away from my family long enough and was ready to move back. The Denmark Group interviewed me in my last year of college, and I got the job. I’ve been working there ever since.”

“And how did your fiancé fit into things?”

The unexpectedness of Gabe’s question caught Sage completely off guard. She nervously licked her bottom lip as she glanced up at him. A deep heat settled in her stomach when instead of looking at her, his full attention was plastered to her mouth.

She inhaled deeply, deciding to be completely honest with him. He was an easy person to talk to, just like Malcolm, and for some reason, she felt comfortable trusting him to a certain degree. “I met Erol in college during my sophomore year. But we didn’t start dating until my junior year. I wasn’t ready to talk marriage after graduation, although he was. We compromised and agreed to live together until I felt I was ready to take the plunge.” She smiled slowly. “It took almost three years for me to decide I was ready.”

Gabe shifted his attention from her lips to meet her gaze. “And how long did it take you to decide to end your engagement?”

Sage gazed at him thoughtfully, remembering the day she had discovered all the money missing from her bank accounts. “Only a few seconds.”

Gabe released a low whistle. “He must have done something pretty damn awful.”

Sage swirled her wine around in her glass. “I think so. When I returned from my trip to Anchorage that time I met you, I found out he had taken all the money out of our bank accounts for some sort of an investment opportunity. Needless to say, he didn’t discuss it with me beforehand, and to make matters worse, he lost every penny he invested.”

“Had he done anything that impulsive before?”

Sage shook her head. “No. But I felt I couldn’t trust him again.”

Gabe nodded. “Yes, I can see why. Trust is an important thing between two people. Once it’s been violated, it can never be restored.”

She continued to hold his gaze and noted, “Sounds like you’re talking from experience, Gabe.”

He leaned back in his chair. “I am. I dated a
woman for almost a year and had given her anything and everything I thought she could possibly want. The night before I was going to ask her to marry me, she came to me and told me that she wanted to end things because she was involved with someone else.”

Sage breathed in sharply. “Just like that?” Gabe nodded as he glanced down at the liquid in his wineglass. “Yes, just like that.” He decided there was no need to tell Sage that the person Lindsey had gotten involved with was an ex-boyfriend who, although she had claimed otherwise numerous times, she had never completely gotten over, an ex-boyfriend she had ultimately dumped Gabe for, breaking his heart. “Was it hard for you to trust again?” He smiled at her. “Yes. After the breakup I poured myself into my work, becoming a workaholic, spending twelve hours or more at the office each day. Work literally became my life, and I refused to get involved with another woman for a full year or more. The only good thing that came of that time is that Chris thought he should be right there with me, working all those long hours.”

Gabe’s smile widened. “However, he didn’t feel obligated to give up the women, which proved he had a hell of a lot more energy than I could imagine. He worked as many hours as I did, and pretty soon with the two of us at it, our company had more projects and more money than we knew what to do with. It was only when my mother stepped in and claimed we were working ourselves to death and began worrying about us did we slow down.”

He took a sip of his coffee. “I think not wanting to trust again right after someone you care about has betrayed that trust is understandable. But at
some point you have to let go and believe that there are people who
can
be trusted. Everyone isn’t as untrustworthy as the individual who let you down.”

A surge of sadness rose up inside of Sage, not only for herself, but for Gabe as well. What he’d shared with her had been both profound and deep. “So, what else is there I need to know about Gabe Blackwell other than the fact that he’s no angel?” Sage asked, smiling, trying to bring back a lighter tone to their conversation.

Gabe returned her smile. “I went to the University of Michigan and earned a degree in structural engineering and then went after an MBA at the same school. You know the story of Christopher and how he got added to the family, and other than that there’s not a whole lot to tell. I like working hard, yet I also enjoy having a good time.”

She nodded slowly and smiled. “That sounds like a winner to me.”

Moments later the waiter placed a huge slice of chocolate cake in front of them. It was so large they decided to share it.

“Umm,” Gabe said after tasting his first bite. “I thought no one made chocolate cake as well as my mom. Now I’m going to rethink that idea, not that I’ll ever tell her that. But then, she has my father singing her praises enough that she probably doesn’t care what I think,” he said, laughing.

Sage smiled. “Your parents have been married a long time?”

Gabe nodded after taking another bite of cake. “Yes, for thirty-four years. They had two years alone together before I came along. They tried to have another child, a couple more in fact, but from what I was told, she miscarried each time. I
guess it was meant for me to be the only one. In a way, I wish there had been others. I had it rough as an only child with all the attention. It was a blessing when Chris came along and all my mother’s attention was shifted to him.”

Sage’s smile widened as she rested her chin on her bent hands. “It sounds like your parents have had a long and wonderful marriage.”

Gabe chuckled. “Yeah, they have.” After taking another slice of cake, he glanced over at her. “But then, so have your parents, haven’t they? Didn’t you say they’d been married over thirty years?”

Sage frowned. “Yes, and I thought their marriage was happy, but I recently found out differently.”

Hearing the hurt and anger in her voice, Gabe put his fork down. “You think they might be getting a divorce?”

Sage shook her head. “No. My mother loves my father. He’s her whole life. They started dating back in their high school days. With my father it’s a different story. He tried to convince me he loves my mother, but I don’t believe him.”

Gabe’s eyebrows drew together. “And why don’t you believe him?”

Sage met his curious and confused gaze. She hadn’t told another soul about her father’s indiscretion; but she felt she needed to tell someone, and for some unexplainable reason, she wanted to tell Gabe.

“Recently, a few months before I moved out here, I saw my father with another woman.”

There was a pause at the table. “Are you sure you didn’t misread things, Sage?”

She shook her head. “You don’t know how much I wanted to believe that I did. But the evidence
was all there. I confronted him about it the next day, and he admitted it. He said it had been a one-night stand and that he loved my mother. How can a man love one woman yet betray her trust that way? As far as I’m concerned, what he did was just as bad as what Erol did, even worse because Dad broke his marriage vows.”

Pain filled her eyes when she added, “I found out about my father the same day that I found out what Erol had done, so talk about getting hit with a double whammy in one day …”

Gabe reached out and gently took her hand in his. It felt soft and delicate. “I’m sorry.”

Sage inhaled a deep, soothing breath. “So am I. My father and I were close, extremely close, and now we barely talk and in a way I prefer it that way. My mother doesn’t know anything about it, and since I do, I feel like I’m a party to his deceit. I hate him for putting me in such a position. I feel so disloyal to my mother.”

Gabe’s hold on her hand tightened. No wonder he had sensed her mistrust of men in general. “Isn’t your mother curious as to why you and your father’s relationship is now strained?”

“Yes, but she thinks it’s because I feel he’s taking sides with what happened between me and Erol. My father considers Erol like a son, so of course he wants us to work out our problems and get back together. In fact, my family as well as Erol’s feel what happened between us is something we can work out since we were together for so long. But like I told you earlier, that won’t happen.”

Gabe picked up his fork to eat another bite of cake as he pondered Sage’s words. Moments later when the cake was all gone, he asked, “Did you enjoy yourself tonight?”

She smiled appreciatively at him. “Yes. Everything was simply wonderful, Gabe. Thanks for bringing me here.”

“It was my pleasure.”

Their gazes locked.