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“Hope,” he began, carefully, trying to temper his tone to gentle. “Who the fuck was that?” Fuck. Why the fuck had he saidfuck? Okay, maybe he wasn’t all that good at gentle. He inhaled a breath and tried again. “Can you tell me who that was and what just happened out there? Please.”
Her deep-brown eyes were shining. Despair was so vivid in her gaze, he wondered how he’d ever missed it. Had she suffered all this time and he’d never seen it? Was he so blinded by his own lingering grief and anger? Or had she hidden it so well under her many layers she made sure no one saw it?
Whatever the case, Hope wasn’t talking. She just looked up at him with all those secrets swimming in her eyes, threatening to spill over. He had to tap in, had to find a way to get her to open up to him, to share this one last part of herself with him.
This was the missing piece. He knew it.
“Okay then, twenty questions it is.” He stood, walked to his desk, and turned to look at her.
She sat mutely, hands folded in her lap, head bowed, looking like she was preparing for an execution.
Shit, she was threatening his resolve with her naked vulnerability, but if he wanted to protect her, really protect her, he needed to know.
“The fucker out there. You know him?”
Nod.
“From college?”
Another nod.
“He hurt you.” Not a question.
No nod. Nothing.
The tick in his jaw picked up again. “He hurt you,” he repeated, still not counting it as a question. It was clearly fact, and he curled his hands into fists as the truth became clearer.
His gut clenched tight at his next question, fearing he already knew the answer and not sure how he was going to handle it.
“Did he hurt you physically?” Because one thing was non-negotiable. If that asshole laid so much as one fucking finger on Hope, he was going back out there to finish what she started.
But Hope was quick to shake her head. No? He hadn’t touched her. He should have felt relief. Instead, inexplicably, his dread kicked up a notch.
Shoving his hands into his pockets, he did a quick pace of his office, thinking back over the last twenty minutes. What was he missing? He’d heard the crash, told Nala to watch the bar, went over, saw Hope standing with Sean at her side, tension pouring off both of them, facing a visibly drunken stranger in front of them. The usual noise and movement of a typical Friday night at the bar buzzing around them. And—then it hit him.
“Where was Ivy?” She’d been there earlier. He’d seen her dancing with Sean, clinking glasses with Hope and Carter who’d been at her table, but when Gabe had arrived at the scene, Ivy hadn’t been there.
On the couch, Hope’s entire body stiffened.
“Does Ivy know that guy?” he asked slowly. “Does she know what happened?”
Suddenly, Hope sprung to her feet. “Forget Ivy!” she yelled. Scrubbing a hand down her face, she took a deep breath, looked him in the eye, and said, “Leave her out of this, Gabe. Let it go. Let all of it go. Please, I beg you.”
He shook his head and took a step toward her. “That son-of-a-bitch came at you, guns blazing tonight, Hope. He threatened you, insulted you. I’m not going to fucking let it go. So start talking before I get Ivy in here to tell me what she knows.”
Hope gave him a pained, pleading look, and he almost broke under the agony he saw in her eyes.
Fuck it. Causing her more pain wasn’t worth it. He just wanted to hold her. They’d figure out the rest later. He moved toward her, but she suddenly started circling his office at a caged tiger’s pace.
“His name is Adam Reed, and I went to college with him. Everything Adam said to you about me tonight was true.” She stopped pacing to stand a good two feet away from him.
Far enough that he couldn’t touch her.
She looked radiant, her blonde hair like a halo around her, her skin luminescent under the soft glow of his desk lamp. Her drawn and hollow eyes only added to her ethereal beauty. In that moment, she looked otherworldly. So far removed from the villain Adam had claimed her to be.
“He said you ruined his life. That your father and brother bailed you out after you got caught cheating, while he and his friends took the fall. He called you a liar.”
Silently, he willed her to defend herself. To tell him that Adam was the liar. But she only looked up at him, eyes glistening, her expression stricken. It was a long moment before she spoke.
