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)
Available weekly by e-mail from http://www.AlinaAdams.com
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CHAPTER 38
Backpedaling madly, Nicole stuttered, "What I mean is, Eve -- Eve likes you. A lot. I'd prefer it if you took care of her."
"Fine. Bring her by the clinic."
"Gabriel -- "
"What?"
"I had -- " Why was he making her feel as if Nicole was the one obligated to apologize, when, clearly, he was the one to blame. "I have every right to be mad at you."
"I know you do."
"Then why are you acting like I'm the one who committed the crime against you?"
Gabriel took a deep breath. He looked into the bedroom where Eve was sleeping, sliding the door closed another fraction of an inch, lest she be disturbed. He said, "I don't think I deserved being so unceremoniously ejected from your life. I may not have told you that I was Victoria's brother. But, I never did anything to hurt you, deliberately. I thought we were friends."
"You lied to me."
"I may not have told you everything, but, I never lied. That time in the parking garage, I didn't know who you were. And later, I didn't care. Because I grew to care about you. You. Nicole Simonge. Not Robin's wife. Nicole. And I thought you cared about me. Gabriel. What difference did it make whose brother I was?"
"I went on and on to you, about how much I wanted Robin back."
"Yes. So? How does my being Victoria's brother, derail your objective in any way? Even if I told Victoria about you -- which, by the way, I didn't; since it's none of her business -- even if I told Victoria about you, how would that Have harmed you? Your wanting Robin back isn't exactly the secret plan for invading Normandy. I mean, Victoria pretty much always knew where you stood on the issue."
"I trusted you."
"I know. I'm sorry about that. But, Nicole, I trusted you, too. I trusted you to be my friend."
And, she'd been a great one, too. Why, only a few weeks ago, she'd sent him to jail. Nicole winced inwardly.
She said, "Thank you for coming to help Eve. I don't know what I would have done, otherwise."
"Not a problem," Gabriel said. "I like Eve."
"She likes you, too. And -- and she misses you."
"Do you miss me, Nicole?"
The question only required a one word answer. Whichever way Nicole decided to go with it, the question still only required a one word answer.
Nicole said, "I don't know if I should be friends with Victoria Morgan's brother."
"Is that so? Well, I know I shouldn't be friends with Robin Cooper's wife. And yet, here I am. What a rebel."
"Victoria will be furious, if she finds out."
"And my sister's mental health is of utmost importance to you? Since when, exactly?"
"Why are you doing this, Gabriel? Why are you willing to take the risk? Being friends with me can only cause problems for you."
"Because," Gabriel said simply, and frankly, and unabashedly. "You're worth it."
Since running out on him in the boardroom, Victoria hadn't seen Robin for over a week. She had, however, been unable to avoid hearing about him. Cooper Shipping was worse than a small town where gossip was concerned, and, it seemed to Victoria like, every room she entered, someone was buzzing -- heads discreetly averted, mouth politely covered with one hand, eyes glowing with malicious, vicarious delight -- about something Robin had recently done.
The day after she'd pleaded so sincerely with him to take care of himself, Robin had willfully steered his sailboat straight into an oncoming storm. The Coast Guard was suiting up to send a search party out after him, when a soaking wet Robin, the sleeve of his jacket ripped to the elbow, a bleeding scratch under one eye, came sailing breezily into port, announcing he'd turned off his radio, because the static gave him a headache.
Two days later, it was the fire department getting ready to rescue him, when Robin, attending a party on Knob Hill, climbed out of a fourth story window and scampered up from the ledge onto the roof. He balanced on the edge, arms outstretched like a tightrope walker, for close to an hour. He said he was merely looking for an unobstructed view of the Golden Gate Bridge.
All together, in the two weeks since she'd spoken to him last, Victoria had heard of Robin unveiling self-destructive stunts ranging from the ridiculous -- diving underneath a swimming pool cover to prove that he could too hold his breath long enough to surface on the other end; to the truly dangerous -- taking his private airplane up to fifteen thousand feet, and putting it in a free-fall nosedive for ten thousand of them. But, in Victoria's mind, the most truly self-destructive thing Robin did after she broke up with him, was return to Nicole.
Not that Victoria believed that Robin's wife was as big of a danger to him as drowning, or plummeting down four stories or ten thousand feet.
Well, actually, yes, that was exactly what Victoria believed.
Because being with Nicole seemed to bring out the absolutely worst side of Robin. The side that regarded the tattoo on his shoulder as not merely a work of art, but, a lifestyle choice.
Hades. Bringer of chaos.
To everyone's life.
But, mostly, his own.
Because, in the end, Robin only injured himself.
He'd been alone in the plane when he set it plunging, alone on board ship when he engaged the storm, alone on the roof. The man was obviously in the midst of some terribly painful, terribly cruel war against himself.
And the woman he was married to, the one who was supposed to care about him and love him and want to protect him, wasn't doing a damn thing about it.
No. That wasn't true. Nicole wasn't doing nothing. Nicole was encouraging him.
She's stood by, cheering him on with the other guests, when he swam under the pool cover. She'd giggled and bragged, "Oh, that's just Robin being Robin," when he climbed out on the roof. And, at parties after both the boat and the plane incident, she'd gone on and on about how bold Robin was, how fearless, how exciting, how downright dashing and chic, and how big of a turn-on it all was. At no point, did the words 'damn fool' come up.
And that's what was driving Victoria crazy.
The man was killing himself in front of their eyes, and everyone he knew, thought it was 'cool.'
Well, all right, maybe Douglas didn't think it was exactly cool. He did seem as worried about Robin as Victoria was. But, it was pretty hard to tell, since he never said a word on the subject, and Victoria's only clue to his state of mind was the way he tensed his jaw, all but sucking in his lips through his teeth, whenever water-cooler gossip about his son's most recent activities wafted past Douglas' always attuned ears.
Victoria had considered talking to Douglas about Robin. She'd considered begging him to intervene, to do something, to stop him before Robin went too far. But, the words stuck in her throat like a belligerent, dry, dust-bunny.
It wasn't her place to interfere. Victoria had no status in Robin's life. Except, maybe, as the woman who'd driven him to his latest jeopardy. And she doubted that Douglas appreciated her doing so. He'd said nothing out loud. He'd been utterly professional, albeit unusually curt, with her ever since news of her breakup with Robin went public. But, Victoria, nevertheless, thought she spied disapproval and anger in his eyes. She didn't blame him. From where Douglas was standing, it looked like Victoria had toyed with his son, then callously discarded him without a second thought.
If only Douglas could know that, these days, Victoria's whole life was one big, rotten, stinking, second thought.
But, Douglas couldn't know. The same way Gabriel couldn't know. The same way Robin couldn't know.
Had Victoria mentioned recently, how much she really, really hated Nicole Simonge?
She was dwelling on just that, when the phone rang in Victoria's apartment. She was alone, as she usually was these days, trying to stifle the constant clamor in her mind by throwing enough facts and figures and charts and graphs and projections at it to induce a numbing white-noise hum.
It wasn't working.
It never worked.
She picked up the telephone expecting Gabriel, or a stray telemarketer, or her secretary, or even Douglas.