COUNTERPOINT
An original romantic serialFrom Alina Adams the author of "When a Man Loves a Woman" (DELL 4/00), "Annie's Wild Ride" (AVON 8/98), "Inside Figure Skating" (METROBOOKS 11/00 & 9/99), "Thieves at Heart" (AVON 12/95) and "The Fictitious Marquis" (AVON 6/95)
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CHAPTER 31
She couldn't move.
Nicole Simonge had exited Gabriel's apartment ten minutes ago, and still, Victoria could not move. Her legs felt empty. Hollow. Bloodless. If she tried to budge them, they would collapse, unable to bear her weight. A fist was pressing on her lungs, fighting her every breath. Her eyes refused to focus. If she turned her head, they wouldn't follow. She squeezed her arms tightly, just to make sure that they still belonged to her.
She needed to get going. Gabriel's bail hearing was scheduled for half an hour. She promised she'd be there. And yet, taking the first step out of his apartment meant taking the first step to ripping her heart out.
It wasn't supposed to happen this way. Her and Robin. She'd taken such pains to maintain a distance between them. She thought she had it all under control. They were going to be friends. Just friends. When in the world had he managed to get to her so deeply, that the idea of spending a day without him could effectively root her to the spot?
She supposed that the obvious answer would be -- last night. Only Victoria knew it was more than that. Last night had only been a culmination of her feelings for Robin. She didn't feel this way because she and Robin had made love. She and Robin had made love, because of the way Victoria already felt about him.
He'd gotten to her. Somewhere between his speech about Hades and their bet at the Gala and his buying her a horse and coming to her apartment in the middle of the night and renting out the Ferry, he'd gotten to her. He'd made her care.
She would miss him. God, would she miss him. She'd miss the way his smile veered further up the right side of his face than it did his left. She'd miss the way his eyes lit up with enthusiasm whenever he thought of something new for them to do, or something new for her to try. She'd miss his sense of humor. And, God help her, she would miss his touch. She would miss the way his fingers felt as they enticed and caressed her body, and the way he tasted, and the way her breath caught in her throat and her stomach rolled over onto its side every time he looked at her.
Well, Victoria clenched her fists, leaving bruised crescents along her palms. This was certainly a productive train of thought.
She had to stop. Stop thinking about Robin and remember that Gabriel desperately needed her help. She was the only one capable of getting him out of jail, and, frankly, it was the least she owed him, considering the sacrifices he'd made for her over the years.
She hurried out from his apartment, shutting the door tightly behind her as if that could somehow undo the damage wreaked by an earlier entrance, and slid into her car, gunning the engine. She drove to the courthouse, rolling through two stop-signs and almost a red light on the way, trying to outrun the inevitable.
Less than an hour after Victoria first crawled under his desk, searching for the files that triggered all this mayhem in the first place, Douglas' lawyer kept his word and arranged for Gabriel to be released on bail by reminding the court that no admissible evidence yet existed to convict his client. It was hardly right for him to be locked in jail while the SFPD tripped over themselves attempting to dig any up. While the man whose billable-hour-rate Victoria was terrified to ask pontificated about the alleged evidence, Gabriel's eyes drifted sideways in a shot at meeting Victoria's. She avoided his gaze and stared straight ahead.
After Victoria drove Gabriel home, he stammered an attempt to thank her for what he presumed she'd already done for him. She cut him off with one hand, shaking her head brusquely. "I did what I had to. That's the best any of us can ever do."
"Still, sweetheart, I know I had no right asking you -- "
"You don't know anything, Gabriel." Victoria stretched across the passenger seat of her car and yanked shut his door, leaving him standing outside on the sidewalk. Only once she was convinced that he could no longer hear her, did Victoria finish her thought. "And I intend for it to stay that way."
Douglas' lawyer had kept his word.
Now it was time for Victoria to keep hers.
She jumped every time the phone rang.
The sick feeling in the pit of her stomach seeped through each pore of her body, infecting her muscles and sinews with a lethargic nausea that made moving an effort, like trying to awaken a leg that had fallen asleep. Only, in this case, the agonizing needles and pins were piercing her heart. She felt numb on the outside, to the point of paralysis. Yet inside, every thread felt wound so tightly that the slightest sound, the buzz of a fly, the hum of the fridge, the honk of a car, prompted Victoria's heart to hammer like mad and her skin to break out in goose-pimples.
She waited for Robin to call. He'd said he would, to find out how things went with Gabriel. He'd phone the office, and, when he learned she wasn't there, he would phone here. Victoria felt sure of it. She wished she could feel less sure. She wished she could believe what everyone insisted on telling her about Robin, that he was the type of man inclined to disappearing acts as soon as he got the only thing he wanted from a woman.
But, Victoria knew better.
Robin would call. The one time she prayed that the man she'd found herself involved with was a cad, she knew that he would call.
If she were in a different mood, Victoria probably would have appreciated the irony more. But, right now she was too overwrought to devote much time to pondering God's idea of a cosmic joke.
As soon as the phone rang, she knew that it was Robin.
Her first instinct was to just let it ring, to let the machine pick up, to hibernate, eyes closed, until the whole mess went away.
But, she couldn't do that. Nicole had said Victoria needed to eject Robin by ten o'clock the next morning. Or else. Which meant facing the music tonight. Or else.
She snatched up the phone, not giving her brain an opportunity to change its mind and cancel the order to her arm.
"H-Hello?" She sounded like a total stranger to herself. She wondered where the woman Robin had made love to last night went.
He cheered, "I talked to Douglas' secretary, she said you guys did it, you got the good doctor out on bail."
"Yes." She swallowed, fighting to sound upbeat. "For now."
"That's superb news. Really, I mean it. We should celebrate. I'm on my way over. Wear something gorgeous. No. I have a better idea. Don't wear anything at all."
He hung up without further perfunctoriness, and, what felt like a mere moment later -- or, at the very least, much earlier than she felt ready for it -- turned up on Victoria's doorstep, sweeping her into his arms the second she opened it and whirling her around for good measure. He kissed her, and Victoria let him, knowing that it was wrong, knowing that it would only make matters crueler, knowing that she should push him away, but unable to do any of it. She let him kiss her, and, with all her heart, with all her being, with all her might, Victoria kissed Robin good-bye.