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Then it hit me. He had said my name. Gabriel had said my name in a way I had never heard it spoken before. It was pleasing to my ears and made me feel things I knew I shouldn’t have been feeling.
I turned away from my reflection and focused on the door. This was all normal physical attraction. I was not blind. Gabriel was an attractive male. It was normal for a woman to feel flustered around him.
Dammit.
Whatever was going on I needed to push it down. I still had the issue of my mother to handle.
By the time I got back home it was well after seven and I was praying my mother had passed out on my couch. I clutched the take out in my hand and slowly turned the key in the knob.
“Mom?” I walked into the apartment and heard nothing back. “I brought take out.”
I set the bag down on the kitchen island and walked into the living room. No one was there.
“Mom?” I walked to my room. “Look, I’m sorry I got on your case. But you know it’s because I care about you and I don’t want you to end up in a ditch somewh—shit!”
My room had been flipped upside down. The mattress had been turned over, my drawers had been rummaged through and clothes had been taken out the drawer.
I quickly ran to my night stand praying that she hadn’t found it. But my heart sank when I saw the small box I kept my money in gone.
“Shit, shit, shit!” I roared. I slammed my hand against the hardwood.
My mother had taken all my savings. Every last penny I had saved for Italy was gone.
“Dammit!” I kicked my bed repeatedly feeling the sting behind my eyes grow more intense by the second. I didn’t know what I was going to do. That had taken me years to save up. The nanny job paid well but on top of rent there were my car payments, general living expenses, not to mention my mother’s last rehab treatment I was still paying off. It all added up.
Italy had been merely a dream. But with each cent I saved I grew closer to making that dream a reality. My mother torched that dream to ash in an instant.
I looked up to the ceiling trying to keep the tears at bay but the feelings had my heart in an iron grip.
This was what my mother did. She came into your life and destroyed everything then left without a trace. I often wondered why I still hung on. Why did I still try to help her?
‘She was beyond saving’. That’s what many people had told me but I never listened.
I wiped away the stray tear that had fallen from my eyes and got up.
I walked back into the kitchen, grabbed my phone and dialed one number. He answered on the first ring.
“Do you have an answer for me?”
“I’ll do it.”
I felt like I was making a deal with the devil. But I didn’t care. Feeling desperate and defeated will make you do crazy things.
THE DOTTED LINE
Gabriel
“So how does this all work?” She was nervous. I could tell in the way her eyes refused to fully meet mine.
I pushed the contract across the table toward her.
We were situated in the dining room. Michael was spending the day with his mother. Brianna and I were completely alone.
“Read it.”
She let out a shaky breath and opened the file.
I had Franco draw up something concrete for her to sign after she had called. To be honest, I had my doubts that she would actually say yes to my plan.
