She raced to where her luggage sat, all packed up and ready to go—thank goodness—and picked up the outfit folded on top that she planned to wear today. “Do me a favor,” she said. “Call a cab and have them waiting for me at the entrance to the hotel in ten minutes.” Within seconds of saying that, she was closing the bathroom door behind her.
Minutes later she emerged, showered, dressed and ready to go. At first she thought that Gabriel Lafleur had skipped out on her and the whole messy ordeal— which she quickly decided would’ve probably been the best way to end this nightmare. But, unfortunately, though the weakening in her knees proved she actually felt otherwise, she saw him a second later, standing at the window with his back to her. He was now wearing the same dark gray pants he’d worn last night.
Without comment, Joelle quickly gathered her personal effects that were still on top of the dresser and dumped them into her cosmetic bag. Then picking up a piece of her luggage in each hand, she cleared her throat in the hopes of getting his attention. Like he hadn’t already heard her rummaging around in the room. He turned around to face her with his hands in his pockets. “I’m leaving now,” she said.
She saw him take in a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know what I’m supposed to say at this point.”
“Then don’t say anything,” she replied. Her heart was galloping around in her chest as if it were a wild, caged stallion.
A lopsided, sheepish grin slid up one side of his face. “But I feel like I should say something. I feel like I owe you that much.”
“You don’t owe me anything, Lafleur. I’m a big girl.”
“Somehow I feel that this is all my fault. I’m sorry.”
“Look, it just happened, okay? So let’s be modern thinking adults about this and just get on with our lives.”
“Hey, if you can live with it, then I sure can,” he replied. “It’s just you seemed to be upset earlier, so I was trying to make you feel better.”
Joelle sighed deeply. Truthfully she didn’t know if she was ever going to be able to live with herself, again, but, at the moment, she saw that she had no other choice than to try. “Look, for my own peace of mind, once I get back home I plan to have my attorney look into this matter and see if he can come up with anything. If he does, then I’ll give him the okay to resolve whatever problem we may have created for ourselves.”
Gabriel nodded his head. “That’s probably a good idea.” He walked to the bedside table where his wristwatch was, picked up a notepad and pencil and jotted something down. “Here,” he said a moment later, tearing off a sheet. “This is my telephone number just in case your attorney needs to get in touch with me.” He shrugged. “You can never tell.”
Joelle hesitated only a second before taking the piece of paper from him and stuffing it inside a pocket of her purse. Then, pulling out one of her business cards, she gave it to him. “Just in case,” she said.
“You never know,” Gabriel replied.
“True,” she said, and for some reason she felt breathless. “I guess we just as soon make this as easy as possible on ourselves.”
“I agree.”
Joelle turned for the door.
“Hey—Ames,” he said in a softer tone of voice. “Wait a minute.”
Pivoting around to face him, she lifted her eyebrows in question.
“What do you think? Did we actually get married?”
The question startled her and, for a brief moment, Joelle had no idea how to answer it. But, at the same time, it immediately brought a few things into focus for her. For one thing, she wasn’t going to part from this man and have him worry that perhaps she would show up at his doorstep one day, saying they were husband and wife and that he owed her something. He didn’t owe her anything.
Gabriel Lafleur didn’t know it, of course, but in her everyday life, she was a fully dedicated career woman and was quite capable of taking care of herself under any circumstances. “I—uh—no, I honestly don’t think we did.”
“Yeah,” he said after a moment of hesitation, “that’s what I think, too.”
“Goodbye, Lafleur,” Joelle said. “Have a nice life.”
“Goodbye, Ames. Take care.”
Then, in spite of a sudden heaviness at the center of her chest, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, turned and hurried out the door.
She knew it would be the last time she would ever see Gabriel Lafleur again.
And though she hated to admit it, a small part of her regretted it.
It was so silly of her, she knew. Nonetheless, it was true.
Arriving home that evening, Joelle took a deep, steadying breath, unlocked the door to her high-rise condo and stepped inside. Her telephone was ringing and she thought she knew who it was. If there was anything she could say about her father, it was that he was persistent. Well, she wasn’t anywhere near being ready to talk to him just yet. First she needed a couple of aspirin and some sleep, then maybe she’d be ready to confront the world, again. But, for tonight, she had enough on her mind. She stood nearby while allowing her answering machine to pick up the call and listened to see if her initial suspicions were accurate.
And, sure enough, they were. Within a moment she was hearing her father’s condescending tone of voice as he demanded that she answer her telephone and talk to him. From the number of messages she saw flashing on her machine, he’d obviously been trying to reach her for days.
Yeah, well, he could try reaching her all he wanted, but she wasn’t going to listen to his tirades anymore. Not after the way he’d humiliated her in front of all his employees. After all, it wasn’t every day that a daughter, who was always faithful to her father’s wishes, found out that he was having another employee within his company spy on her work performance and report those findings back to him. This time she was through allowing him to manipulate her. He might be her father, but he didn’t have any right to dictate her life.
This time, though, he’d really hurt her. In fact, he hadn’t gone into retirement and turned over his company to her at all. He’d only made her believe that she’d finally won his respect for him to do that, when all the time he was still calling the shots from behind the scenes. Damn him, anyway. He’d made her look like a fool. Well, this was one time she wasn’t going to forgive him for it. Nor was she ever going to trust him again to be on her side. But, more importantly, now, more than ever, she was determined to show him that he was wrong about her, and that even without his so-called help, she had the intelligence and tenacity to become highly successful. As much, in fact, as any son of his would have.
She was never going to forgive him.
Never. But, enough of her father for now. At the moment she had other, more urgent things to worry about. Things like Gabriel Lafleur.
No…actually, she really didn’t want to think about him, either. The problem was, if only she could stop herself. Wasn’t it enough that first thing tomorrow morning she was going to have to contact her attorney and have him look into the matter of her last night in Acapulco? My goodness, couldn’t something, somewhere give her a simple break?
It didn’t look that way. Because, already images of Gabriel were lurking at the corners of her mind, just waiting to jump forward. One in particular, the one where he was kissing her on the elevator while going up to her room was especially haunting.
It made her stomach quiver.
Her breasts tingle.
It