Perfect Fit - Brenda Jackson [62]
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.
Held.
Sage inhaled slowly when she felt a shiver course through her. She couldn’t recall ever feeling this way before. At least not of this magnitude, nothing ever this intense. A part of her wondered if perhaps the reason she felt this way was because she had not been intimate with a man for almost six months, and she and Erol had shared a pretty healthy sex life. But another part of her decided that wasn’t the case at all. She could live the rest of her life celibate if she had to. She wasn’t the type of woman who routinely engaged in toe-curling lust on a regular basis. Not even on an irregular one. As she mulled over that, Gabe broke into her thoughts.
“You’re ready to leave?”
She released a long, slow breath. “Yes.”
Before exiting the restaurant, he helped her into her coat then donned his own. And as if it was the most natural thing for him to do, he placed an arm around her waist as they walked through the parking lot to his car.
It was only after he had her seated inside the warm coziness of the vehicle, with her seat belt snapped firmly in place, did a question, a very important question, suddenly pop into her mind.
How would their evening end?
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Sage felt tense and unraveled. Goose bumps were forming on her arm. She gave a sidelong glance to the man standing beside her in the elevator and wondered if he detected her nervousness. He had picked up on it in the car, she was sure of it, and she’d appreciated him keeping the conversation light and impersonal.
He had told her of his meeting the day before with Parnell Cabot, and already everything was being put in place to give Eden the dinner theater John Landmark wanted. Although her and Gabe’s business discussion had been brief, it had afforded her time to collect herself, her thoughts and to relax.
But now she was nervous again. There was this shimmering heat flowing between her and Gabe. She felt it and knew that he felt it as well. He would have to be a dead man not to feel it, and she knew that he was very much alive.
How did a dinner date between two people who wanted to just be friends end? Did they kiss good