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 35
She missed him.
She hadn't expected to.
She'd expected to be relieved that such a persistent nuisance was, at long last, out of her life, and that she could finally go back to focusing on the important things.
And yet, the gnawing fact remained: Nicole missed Gabriel.
She was surprised she had the time. After only a few months of abstinence, Nicole had practically forgotten how time-consuming keeping up with Robin could be. Especially when, at the end of the night -- or, depending how you looked at it, the beginning of the morning -- he'd roll over and go to sleep, pillow pressed tightly over his head to keep out both the offending sun and dawning street noise, while Nicole had to drag herself back to the dump of a motel she was -- God-only-knew-why-but-maybe-it-had-something-to-do-with- the-fact-that-Robin-hadn't-offered-her-an-alternative -- living in, and check to see that Eve was at least still breathing.
She'd considered forcing Robin to hire her a nanny for the kid, but, in spite of Nicole's certainty that it was only a matter of time before everything between her and her husband was back to normal, she still balked at the notion of accepting any traceable support from Robin. A niggling little voice of cold practicality lived in her head, and it refused to let her take cash from Robin, lest he later claim it to be an agreed-upon divorce settlement.
As a result, while, at night, Nicole Simonge lived the life of the ultra-rich -- or, at the very least, the Euro-trash -- complete with clothes from the racks of America's most prestigious boutiques and gourmet food with enough cholesterol to arrest a charging rhino in its tracks and alcohol so ample it seemed to flow from cleverly hidden spigots in the walls, during the painfully piercing light of day, she found herself plunked, rather harshly, back into the exact squalor she'd been working so hard all these years to escape.
It was during those dreadful squalor hours, that Nicole would have expected to miss Gabriel Scott the most.
After all, the good doctor had, rather charmingly, managed to keep Nicole distracted, so that, even if she couldn't avoid seeing the water-stains in the walls and hear her neighbor's TV blaring at all hours and note that there was never any hot water to be begged out of the shower, when Gabriel was around, Nicole could, at least, not mind it all so much.
But, for no reason that Nicole could put her finger on, the hours during which she missed Gabriel the most, were at night.
It didn't make any sense. Nicole lived for the night, and the parties, and the clubs, and Robin. She was certain the only reason she even found her mind wandering, again and again, to Dr. Gabriel Scott when she was in Robin's intoxicating presence, was because of that nauseating Victoria Morgan connection.
Damn that bitch. This was all her fault.
It was her fault that Nicole could be on some dance-floor with Robin, her body pressed so tightly against his, a needle would have trouble sliding between them, every fiber of her being willing him, prodding him, begging him to notice what she was doing, to react to her attentions, to, at the very least, stop his constant eye-sweep of the place -- like a damn, lighthouse beacon -- on the prowl for fresh prey... and, all of a sudden, in the middle of it all, Nicole would feel her mind pulling back, and, like a smell that comes out of nowhere to dominate every sense, she would think of Gabriel, and that spooky way he had of looking right at her when she talked, as if Nicole and what she was saying was the only worthwhile endeavor in the world. In the beginning, Gabriel's intensity freaked Nicole out, made her think of some police-interrogation and glaring lights shined in her face. She wasn't certain when or how Gabriel's light gradually grew softer and cooler, until it reminded her of the sun, just before it hit the noon-point.
Whenever she went out with Robin, Nicole never saw the sun.
Not that, after being out all night, she particularly wanted to. All Nicole wanted when she got back to her dump of a motel in the morning, was to pull shut the drapes, and get some sleep. It was very hard to sleep, with Eve coughing three feet from her ear. The kid sounded like a barking sea-lion, and had been for at least a day or so.
Nicole went across the street to an all-night drugstore, and bought a bottle of cough syrup. She gave Eve exactly as much as the directions on the label recommended, and, after an hour, when that didn't do any good, she poured her another dose. Eve fought her about taking it. She pursed her lips, and shook her head, and whined until Nicole wanted to slap her. Instead, she simply waited for the kid to go into another coughing fit, and jammed the spoon into her mouth, then. It still didn't do any good.
The longer the day got, and the more tired Nicole got, the louder Eve's cough got. Nicole could have sworn she was trying to drive her bonkers on purpose, just like when Eve was a baby, and she'd screamed and screamed and screamed, until the neighbors in their Monte Carlo rat's-nest of an apartment began pounding their fists on the walls and threatening to call in the police, and all Nicole could think of to do was just cover her ears, and curl up in a corner, trying not to cry herself.
Eve was probably faking the whole thing, Nicole decided, when, despite another dose of medicine she was still hacking her brains out by early afternoon. Nicole was about to tell her to cut it out, Nicole wasn't giving her anymore sympathy or anything, she needed her sleep; when her daughter sat straight up in bed, and retched a bark out of her chest no one outside of a Hollywood devil movie could fake. Her face turned first crimson, then ghost-pale, and she had to gasp for air between every subsequent word, fingers curling into tiny fists, as if that could somehow help the process of sucking in even the sliver of a wheeze. "Nicole..."
"What?"
"I can't breathe...."