Page 85 of His to Love
I was just barely around the corner from his office before tears fell on my face.
“Gabriella,” Malik called as I reached the bottom of the stairs.
He walked toward me once I paused. Then he slid his hands into the pockets of his dress pants. He casually leaned against the banister. “Your father and I have been working for two years on my slow takeover of his organization. We’ve done everything possible to keep this quiet from his enemies and anyone who can’t be fully trusted. The fact that you’ve now spilled his greatest secret to the FBI is detrimental in ways you can’t begin to comprehend.”
“I get it.” I brushed tears off my cheeks and looked away. “But I’ve already apologized and it wasn’t done maliciously.”
Sadness flashed in his eyes when he said, “It is bad enough for a man to lose his wife, but this is simply something he doesn’t need to be dealing with right now. Perhaps in time, he’ll grow to be less angry with you, but for now, you need to understand he’s just lost the only person he’s ever cared about.”
I flinched and looked away. “I get that, Malik, I do. But you realize that you’ve just said my father has only loved one person…and this whole time he’s had a daughter who’s wanted nothing but that from him. I might not understand the pain of losing a spouse, but I do understand the pain of losing a love you so desperately want.”
I walked away, leaving him with more sadness in his eyes, but with my point also made.
When I reached the top of the stairs, I looked down to the main floor and a small ache gripped my chest. Malik was still standing there, his eyes on me, but his gaze and thoughts were clearly far away. With a small nod of his head, he pushed off the railing and walked away, leaving me feeling as small as a mouse.
When I was done in the bedroom, my limbs weighted with grief, I went to the entryway simply dressed in jeans and a black short-sleeved shirt. I had no idea how my father managed to get all my clothes from the hotel, but when I woke up in my childhood room that morning, everything was hanging nice and neat in my closet. I hadn’t even heard anyone enter my room, much less spend the time organizing three suitcases full of clothes and bath accessories.
I fished through my purse, searching for my phone. Ignoring the several missed calls and text messages from Tyson, I quickly slid through my contacts and pressed “call” when I found Eleanor’s name.
Tears were already falling down my cheeks, my voice barely audible, when she answered.
“Gabriella?” she asked when I didn’t answer the first time she said my name.
A choked sob ripped from my throat and I gripped the phone tighter. “Eleanor,” I said, my grief and sadness apparent.
She gasped, and I closed my eyes, practically able to see the wretched expression on her face. “Oh no.” Several moments passed while I listened to her cry. “When?”
“Last night.”
My eyes snapped up and I saw my father come into the entryway. Claude hurried past my father and opened the front door. I followed reluctantly as Eleanor said, “I’ll be there by tonight. Just let me pack and get a flight.”
“I need you,” I whispered, feeling selfish for admitting it to her.
Her kind voice replied, “And I’ll be there for you. By tonight.”
I nodded at her promise and ended the phone call, slipping my phone back into my purse.
“Aunt Eleanor,” I muttered to my father once we were seated in the back of his town car. “I didn’t know if anyone had called her yet, but she’s on her way.”
His gaze stayed fixed on the window, unwilling to spare me a glance. “Thank you for calling her,” he finally said.
We spent the rest of the short drive to the funeral home in silence, lost in our own thoughts, our own memories of a woman who loved hugely but quietly.
For the next several hours, my father and I sat next to each other at the funeral home, going through all of my mother’s final wishes to make sure everything for her viewing and funeral would be done according to her specifics. The fact that my mom had even planned her own funeral made me dig my nails into the palms of my hands so I wouldn’t lose it. My father was stone cold the entire time, a block of ice issuing demands and not taking no for an answer.
By the time we returned to the house, I barely mustered up the energy to walk up the stairs and collapse onto my bed. Just as my eyes closed, the heaviness of the day pulling me toward sleep, my phone began buzzing in my purse. Half asleep, I dug it out of my purse and cried when I saw a text message from Tyson along with several more missed calls.
Blackbird: We need to talk.
My fingers flew across the keypad.
Me: Never again.
Blackbird: Let me explain.
Me: Are you in the FBI?
Blackbird: Yes. I need to see you.
