All the Pretty Girls - J. T. Ellison [118]
“Gabrielle, it’s all right. Everything will be okay. Sarà tutto il di destra, cara. Non si preoccupi.”
Gabrielle raised her head and glared at Quinn.
“Non, it ees not going to be all right. You have no idea. None. There ees no way Signor Buckley has done these things. I know.” She began crying harder and a torrent of Italian flowed from her mouth. “Sto facendo l’amore con il Signor Buckley per parecchi mesi. Siamo nell’amore. Non significo danno a voi. È il mio amante. È il vostro difetto, Signora Buckley. Non è di destra voi non lo ama come.”
Gabrielle stood straighter, and Taylor recognized immediately the stance. A woman in love. Not like Quinn Buckley, resigned but proud. This young girl was madly in love with her employer, and had seen fit to let her employer’s wife know it.
Taylor looked at Quinn. She seemed to have shrunk three inches, her arms wrapped even tighter around her slim frame.
“Quinn, what did she just say?” Taylor asked, a note of concern in her voice. Woman to woman. That might be the trick.
Quinn was still in a visual standoff with her young nanny. She finally took a breath and began to speak, her eyes never leaving Gabrielle.
“She says that she and Jake are having an affair. That they are in love. That it’s my fault, that I don’t love him enough. Is that about right, Gabrielle? I don’t love my husband enough, so you felt the need to step in and love him for me? Get out of my house, voi poco squaldrina. VOI SORCA!”
Gabrielle’s eyes widened, and Taylor realized Quinn must have called her some sort of terrible name in Italian. The girl cried out, whipped her long hair about her body and ran from the room.
Quinn collapsed in a heap on an antique chair that didn’t look like it could hold her weight. She looked so small, so fragile, that Taylor couldn’t resist reaching out, giving Quinn what she hoped was a comforting touch on the shoulder. Quinn stiffened. Taylor removed her hand.
“I’m sorry, Quinn. Sorry that things have to be like this for you. Are you sure there’s nothing else you want to tell us?” Taylor’s voice was low, coaxing, as if Quinn were a startled cat she was trying to get out from under a couch. Quinn didn’t move for a moment, then sighed heavily. All the fight went out of her.
“Let’s go back in the library. I’ll help you any way that I can.”
The three filed back into the library. Taylor and Baldwin resumed their positions on the couch, watching Quinn wander around the room. They didn’t interrupt when she finally started to speak.
“Jake and I have been having problems for some time now. It’s been a couple of years, actually. We had a fight, a horrible, terrible fight on a Sunday evening two months ago. Jake was getting ready for another business trip—you know he travels constantly for his job. I wanted him to stay home, to pick me over Health Partners just once. That’s when he admitted he’d been cheating on me. He’d taken up with some intern that he’d met, a marketing company he works with. The affair was brief, only a couple of days, but it was like he’d decided then and there that he didn’t want to be with me anymore. I didn’t know what to do. What woman is ever prepared to go through the realization that her husband doesn’t love her anymore? I did the only thing I knew to do. I had separation papers drawn up. I showed them to him last Monday night. That’s why I wasn’t answering the phone when Whitney called. I was telling my husband that he can kiss me, his kids, his house and my money goodbye. He stormed out of here, and I haven’t seen him since.”
Baldwin tapped his fingers on the arm of the couch. “He was having an affair with an intern? Do you know if this was here in town or out on the road?”
“I’d like to think Jake had the common sense to keep his philandering at a distance.” She stopped for a moment, thinking. “Of