The Fate Date (Glengarry Curse #1)

27. Chapter 27

Chapter 27

Gavin

T he cab ride back to the shop was a scene Gavin would relive in his nightmares. Sabrina’s eyes were glued to the window like the last of the fall leaves that clung to the trees. Every so often her shoulders would shake, and in her reflection, he’d see her cheeks streaked with the evidence of her pain. He’d seen her cry before. He’d been able to wrap her in his arms and hold her until the wave had passed. But this time every tear was like acid burning a hole in his chest. His stupid decisions, his reckless actions, had hurt someone he loved once again.

When the cab stopped outside her shop, she hopped out without a backwards glance, slamming the door in his face, and heading to her apartment via the side entrance. He paid the driver and collected their bags .

He needed to explain things. He had to make her understand that he didn’t mean any of it. That those horrible words couldn’t be further from the truth.

He set the bags down in her main living area. Sabrina came out of her bedroom wrapped in a clashing granny square blanket. She collapsed on the orange sofa, and for the first time since he’d known her, he saw just how tiny she was. Yes, he knew she was petite, but her presence—in a room and in his life—was magnanimous. It was like someone had sucked the magic right out of her. That someone had been him.

Before the pain and panic could settle in his chest again, he gathered up his courage. “Can we talk about this, please, Sabrina?”

She nodded.

“I’m so sorry.”

She said nothing. Her eyes were bloodshot, but at least she was looking at him now. His feet started to pace the room, zinging with nervous energy. “The night I saw you at the bar with Duncan, I was frustrated by my feelings for you. I drove Gilbert home, and we know how to push each other’s buttons. I lashed out and said things I didn’t mean. Alfred was recording me without my knowledge and he cut and spliced things together to make it worse than it sounded.”

“Is that the real reason you backed out of the presentation?”

Gavin’s hands went to his hair again, and he nodded. “He cornered me this morning with the audio. I agreed to back out if he deleted it.”

She looked at the floor. He sat on the couch next to her and tried to reach for her hands.

She pulled them away. “What you said hurt. I know you said those things before we…” Her eyes caught his meaningfully. “I mean, I judged the shit out of you too, when I first met you. But that’s not what bothered me most—you lied to me, Gavin.”

“I was trying to protect you. I didn’t want you to hear those things.” He should have had a contingency plan. He should have destroyed all copies of that audio. He shouldn’t have gone to breakfast in the first place, put her in a position to be embarrassed like that…

“So you buried it. Like everything else.”

Gavin’s racing brain faltered. His body tensed away from her. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

The blanket slipped from her shoulders as she sat up straight, eyes narrowed as she looked him up and down. “You really are like your father.”

The words were an unexpected punch to the gut, the force of them causing his legs to stiffen and shoot off the couch. “Excuse me? ”

“Not in the way you think. You’ve been so concerned about reigning in your impulses, avoiding risk and controlling your family’s finances. But the gambling your father did isn’t what hurt the most Gavin—it was his secrets.”

Gavin forced air into his lungs because somehow in the past five seconds he’d forgotten how to breathe. His feet stumbled backwards, tripping on poor Lisgar’s tail. It wasn’t true. She didn’t understand. He’d spent the last ten years avoiding his natural tendencies, evading his father’s mistakes.

“You do the same thing: you buried your father’s secrets; you lied to your colleagues about the truth of our relationship; you kept information from me, even when I specifically asked about it. You say it’s for our best interests—that you didn’t want to hurt me, didn’t want to taint your family’s memory. But that’s horseshit. You do it to protect yourself.”

He felt like he’d been cast out of his carefully constructed fortress of control, suspended in free-fall as his head spun with the veracity of her words. He thought he’d been protecting her, but deep down, maybe he’d prioritized his own self-interests. Because if he’d been honest with her from the start, if he’d trusted her, he wouldn’t be in this predicament now. The secret he’d entombed wouldn’t be at risk of exposure.

“Tell me the truth, Gavin—what are you really trying to hide?”

His mind flashed to the scene, ten years previous, the sickening feeling intensifying as he lived it again, this time with the knowledge that she might be right.

“You or your mother will have to—”

“Me.” He interrupted the lawyer, seated behind his oversized desk, flanked by his wall of framed diplomas. His dad had chosen him as the financial executor on the will. As devastated as Gavin felt right now, he knew his mother did not have the capacity to manage this. He would take care of this for her. It was the least he could do .

“One of you will have to arrange for the income and property taxes to be paid, as well as the mortgage on the house and other personal debts your father had outstanding at the time of his death.”

“Okay…”

The lawyer then presented Gavin with an astronomical figure.

“I’m sorry, this is the outstanding amount? There must be some mistake…”

“Your father re-mortgaged the house about six years ago, and then again last year.”

Gavin looked at the monthly payments, some of which had been missed.

“That’s not possible, my father did all the house upkeep himself, there was no need for a mortgage.”

The lawyer shifted in his seat, looking supremely uncomfortable. “I imagine it was to pay for his considerable personal debts.”

“I’m sorry?”

“There have been frequent payments to GamezOnline in recent years.”

The lawyer produced the credit card statements, and the meager breakfast Gavin had been able to stomach this morning threatened to make a reappearance.

“What website is that?” Though deep down, he knew.

“Online gambling.”

Gavin stopped breathing.

“It appeared to happen in spurts,” the lawyer hunched over as if it might minimize the sting.

Gavin looked at the evidence. So many years. So many debts. And…

It looked like the last time his father had gambled was a year ago. In fact, it looked like he’d been able to make some regular payments, even accumulate some savings until… three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago.

When Gavin had called and asked for money because of his own financial compulsions.

Gavin barely made it to the garbage before he vomited his breakfast. His body wanted to purge what it had just seen, just realized, and continued to heave long after the contents of his stomach were empty.

A sudden heart attack the doctor had said. Could have been caused by anything—but his father was fit and active for his age. Ate well, mostly from the garden. He’d always been good natured, easy going, jovial—not a care in the world.

Except thousands in debt.

And Gabe said he’d been sitting at his computer when the attack had occurred.

Gavin finished up with the lawyer, laden with paperwork, and returned home to his mother and brothers. All three of them about to graduate high school and start University.

They sat around the worn maple dinner table, the one their father had built, with deep grooves and stains from years of use. Each of them at their spot. The chair at the head of the table empty.

“What is this?” Gilbert moaned.

“Tortilla casserole aunt Eloise dropped off,” his mother muttered.

“Looks like cat sick.” Congealed beige slop dripped down from his fork as he eyed it suspiciously.

“Quit being so dramatic,” Gareth snapped at him.

Gabe pushed the food around his plate silently.

His mother pasted on a smile. She’d worn lipstick today, given all the visitors, and she looked strange with it on. It had caked into the deep grooves of her parched lips and contrasted with her abnormally pale skin.

“How did it go at the lawyer’s office?” she averted her gaze, blinking quickly at the ceiling to keep the tears at bay.

The sight of her in so much pain… he couldn’t make it worse. He couldn’t tell her the money was gone, their home in jeopardy—because of his actions.

“I’ll take care of everything mom—don’t worry. It’ll be fine.”

God, Sabrina was acutely perceptive. She’d zeroed in on the root of his failures the first night they met, and it was his short-sighted feelings that had fooled him into thinking this wouldn’t come between them. He wanted to tell her. He’d have loved to bare his repugnant soul to someone—but how could he? She gave up so much to support her mother at the end of her life. She’d dropped out of school, seen to her mother’s care, pinched pennies, and tried her damned hardest to keep their shop alive.

How could he tell her that he’d caused his father’s death?

Her eyes pleaded back at him, the flinty flecks of green demanding honesty. No one could know about his destructive habit. Yet, as she’d pointed out, it would appear not much had changed in the past ten years. His ego had once again resulted in the people he loved being hurt. He’d learned nothing. And she deserved better than that.

Like he’d practiced with his family the past decade, he forced his face to be unreadable. “I can’t.”

Her bottom lip trembled, and he felt it quaking in his chest. But he couldn’t let it show.

“Then I can’t do this.”

“Please, Sabrina.” He could hear his composure slipping, the desperation in his voice. He’d find a new job, keep his family payments going, help her with the shop. He’d give her anything. Anything but that one confession.

“I want someone who is going to be truthful with me, not who runs away at the mere mention of vulnerability. Because I was always honest with you.”

Her eyes welled with tears, eating away at his insides once again. She was right—of course she was. She was right about all things, all the time, always. And he was hurting her. He’d been fooling himself, at the retreat centre, believing in her unfailing optimism that they could make a go of it. But he was being selfish, thinking that he deserved her love and support when she was better off without his thoughtless actions.

He gave her one last final look, trying to memorize the features of her face, and the hurt that distorted it, so that he wouldn’t be tempted to upend her life again.

Then he grabbed his bags and walked out.