Chapter 17 - The Morning After
I didn't tell him to stop.
The kiss was not gentle. It was a torrential, suffocating collision of months of suppressed rage, newfound power, and a raw, primal attraction that had been simmering beneath the surface since the moment his jacket had touched my soaked shoulders at the Astor Grand.
Gabriel pulled me against him, his hands sliding down to the small of my back, lifting me slightly off the floor as his lips crushed mine with a possessive, desperate hunger. I gasped into his mouth, my fingers tangling in the thick, dark hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer, needing to feel the solid, unyielding reality of him.
He carried me toward the four-poster bed, the storm outside raging against the glass, drowning out everything except the sound of our ragged breaths and the crackle of the dying hearth.
For that night, the contract ceased to exist.
There were no boardrooms, no revenge schemes, no headlines, and no ghosts. There was only Gabriel—fierce, reverent, and completely consuming—and the woman he had awakened from the ashes of betrayal.
***
The morning light broke through the velvet curtains in pale, silvery slants.
I woke up buried beneath heavy down comforters, Gabriel’s arm draped heavily across my waist, pinning me gently against his side. His breathing was deep, even, and peaceful—the face of the ruthless Ghost of Wall Street softened entirely by sleep.
I lay there for a long time, watching the rise and fall of his chest, a strange, terrifying warmth unfurling inside my ribs.
*I broke the rule,* I thought, a sudden spike of panic piercing through the serenity. *I fell.*
Carefully, so as not to wake him, I slipped out from beneath his arm, pulling Gabriel’s silk dressing gown around my shoulders, and walked silently across the suite toward the private adjoining sitting room.
On the mahogany writing desk sat Gabriel’s leather briefcase, slightly ajar.
A yellowed manila folder protruded from the side, labeled with hand-stamped red ink: *CONFIDENTIAL - ST. JUDE MEDICAL - ARCHIVE 2018.*
My brow furrowed.
2018? That was six years ago. Long before Damian. Long before Bellmere Events.
My fingers trembling, I pulled the folder from the bag and flipped it open.
Inside was a medical incident report from the emergency trauma wing of St. Jude Hospital, dated six years ago—the very hospital where I had worked nights as a volunteer orderly while doing medical billing.
Attached to the file was a photograph of an unidentified male patient, severely injured, his face bandaged after an attempted vehicular assassination that had nearly taken his life following his father’s death.
And beneath the photo was the handwritten log of the volunteer nurse who had sat by his bed for three days in the dark, holding his hand through septic shock, speaking to him in the silence so he wouldn't slip into a coma.
*Volunteer Name: Ava Collins.*
Beside the log was a single note, written in Gabriel’s sharp, masculine handwriting:
May you like
*Find her. Protect her. Whatever it takes.*
***