Mine

She took a step back. “Listen . . .”

“Don’t do that. Don’t act like I’m going to hit you.” Tension pulled at the corners of his mouth and around his eyes. All the light and charm had seeped right out of him. “You know that’s not the case.”

But his words ripped into her with the force of a slap. It was as if he took every secret she’d ever shared and discounted it all before rolling it into a ball and throwing it back in her face.

“You were not handling the issue.” She regretted referring to Brandon like an item to be checked off on a list, but she couldn’t call it back. Not when she had so many other things she regretted right now.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” Color washed through Gabe’s face, red and angry. “We’ve known each other for weeks and you think you know what’s best for me better than I do?”

Each sentence struck her like a lash, leaving scars. But she stayed on her feet and fought through. “I thought I meant something to you.”

“So did I.” He didn’t move from his position looming in front of her, hands on his hips as he practically screamed the words.

She tried to swallow. Tried to find her breath but she couldn’t draw in enough air or force her body to work. “My job—”

“I don’t work for you.”

He wasn’t giving an inch. All signs of the caring man who held her at night and gently brushed his hands over her skin vanished. “I am the type of person who resolves problems.” When he started to talk she ran right over his words with a few of her own. “Don’t even think about throwing the fact I was fired in my face. You will regret it.”

He stared up at the ceiling for a few seconds, possibly trying to stem his rage, but when he looked down again all the signs of him being furious held in place. “I told you I didn’t want the test.”

She plowed through that fact as she pushed forward. She’d known that would be a problem. That’s why she hesitated and held back the envelope. Why she debated looking inside, but she had. As soon as he fell asleep last night, she snuck downstairs and found the paperwork right where they’d left it on the couch. She sca

Now it haunted her. Good news or not didn’t seem to matter to Gabe, and that’s the part she didn’t get. “We both know you couldn’t hide from it forever.”

“We talked about this.” Her knuckles turned white as he tightened his hold on his hips. “I was clear.”

His words floated through her brain. End of story. She couldn’t exactly claim confusion about his meaning. “Very.”

“But you decided. You took away my choice.”

“I thought . . .”

She eased away from him toward the couch. Standing behind it suddenly felt safer than standing in front of him unguarded. One glance at the open front door and she realized they were alone. Andy wouldn’t come rushing to her aid. Not on this.

Gabe leaned in. “You thought what?”

“I don’t know.” God, she didn’t. It all made sense to her at one point. This is what she’d done for her team. Rushed in and fixed the problem before they stepped into any more danger. The steps made sense to her. Now to put them into words. “I wanted to help, and I figured if I knew the answer I could prepare you.”

His eyes actually bulged. “That was your plan?”

Sugarcoating her thoughts now didn’t make much sense, so she grabbed on to the top of the couch cushion with all of her might and let the facts spill out. They would condemn her or not in Gabe’s eyes. She didn’t have any control over that. “If the news turned out to be bad, I pla

“You were going to let me wait, make me tell Brandon about the possible outcomes even though you would have known everything was fine?” She didn’t have time to answer. Didn’t even have an answer to that. Gabe stepped right in front of her. He nearly shook as his jaw clenched. “I’m not a fucking child.”

“Obviously.”

“I don’t need to be handled or for the woman I’m sleeping with to sneak around my house for evidence.” A nerve in his cheek visibly ticked. “That’s what happened, right? You took something of mine and his.”

“We both know how DNA tests work.” Hearing the details wouldn’t help, and she couldn’t take much more.

Her emotional shields kept rising and she tried to hold them down. She deserved some of his wrath. She just never expected his rage to catch her up and toss her around the way it did. If this was how deep the blows went when you fell in love, she’d stay single and uncommitted forever.

His exhale sounded like a harsh cough. “Do you really not understand what you’ve done?”

“Solved your problem. Brandon is yours.”

“He was always mine.” Gabe’s voice rose until it echoed through the house. “That’s the goddamn point. Who donated the sperm was not my concern.”

He kept saying that. She thought he probably even believed the words on some level, but she didn’t. When it came to Brandon, Gabe couldn’t hide his vulnerability. “Yes, it was. That’s why you balked at finding out the truth.”

“I was trying to spare Brandon.”

“At least be honest and admit that you hid from the truth for your sake as well as for Brandon’s.” Under all the guilt and the blame he kept heaping on her something else poked through. A hint of temper and it slid in before she could bite it back.

“You don’t get to be angry or disappointed in me right now.”

“Fine. But I’m the one who stepped up and tried to resolve this. Your solution today was to beat up your brother.” Gabe’s expression went blank but not before she knew she’d hit on the truth. Those threatening steps. The words. Gabe had been on the verge of breaking into a full knockdown fight. “You think I didn’t notice? I know you.”

He shook his head. “You don’t. If you did you never would have made this choice.”

The punch came. Not actual and not aimed at Rick. A verbal shot that hit her right in the stomach and had her fighting not to double over. “So, that’s it? I didn’t live by your rules, so I blew it.”

“Don’t make me the bad guy here.”

Then it hit her. That’s what this was about. Finding a bad guy. “You expected me to disappoint you. Maybe that’s why it was so easy to ask me to stay. Because you knew I’d screw up, then you could kick me out and go back to licking your wounds.”

Gabe shook his head. “You are pushing it.”

“Are you going to hit me, too?”

“For the last time, I would never hurt you.” He thumped a fist against his chest. “I am not your father.”

“And I’m not Rick.” The words ripped out of her in a hiss of anger.

“Hey.” Then Andy was there, stepping in the middle of everything with a pale face and hands that seemed to shake as he moved. “What’s going on in here?”

“Where’s Rick now?” Gabe asked his brother the question but kept his gaze locked on her.

“I dropped him at the cabin. Your guy is going to meet one of his employees who will give him a ride back. I’ll take his car.”

Something about what he said or the way he said it set her on edge. “Did you stay to make sure I don’t steal Gabe’s silverware?”

Andy’s eyes widened. “I see this is going well.”

She felt something crack inside of her. A tearing sensation echoed through her followed by an intense pain. Every muscle ached.

She had to get out of there. “You know what? It is.”

Gabe’s eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

“Better we find out this isn’t going to work now.” Her voice cracked so she stopped and started again. “If you want a woman who follows your orders and stays in line, I’m not her.”

“I never said that.”

She couldn’t hear him. Thoughts and arguments filled her head. She bounced back and forth from desperate to furious to drained. With her reserves depleted and her body inching toward falling over, she tried to get to the bottom line. “Okay, maybe I screwed up.”