But on her terms, not her cousin’s.
Dear God, Damien deserved to know about the death of his unborn son and the circumstances surrounding it. She would want to know if the positions had been reversed, no matter how much it hurt or made her angry. She now knew it wasn’t fair of her to keep that from him, whether he decided to destroy her father or not.
And if Damien did his worst—and please God he wouldn’t—she had to believe her father and mother would still be okay. They had each other, after all.
Damien had no one.
Fifteen minutes later Gabrielle quietly closed the door to her Porsche and walked up to the front door of a small house nestled amongst the palm trees and ferns. It was midmorning and, as suspected, she could see Keiran sitting inside the living room. He was lounging on the sofa, watching television, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Her mouth tightened as she pressed the doorbell. How dare he try and wreck her life and those of the people she loved. He deserved no less than what he got in future, she decided, waiting for him to open the door. The look of shock on his face was going to be priceless.
It was.
But he soon recovered. “How did you know I was here?” he demanded curtly.
She stepped past him and into the house. “You use people, Keiran. So I figured you’d still use an old girlfriend.” She stopped in the middle of the living room and arched a brow at him. “How is Teresa, by the way?”
His eyes narrowed. “Get on with it, Gabrielle.”
“I’ve come to tell you one thing. You’re fired.”
For an instant he didn’t move. Then he gave a short laugh. “You can’t fire me. I hold forty percent of the shares.”
“You’re fired,” she reiterated firmly. She didn’t care how many shares he held in the company.
He crossed his arms. “I don’t think so, coz. Or have you forgotten that I’ll tell Damien all about you? And your parents.”
Her chin angled. “Do your worst, Keiran,” she challenged.
Surprise flickered in his eyes before they turned cool and calculating. “Perhaps I already have,” he said, sending shock running through her. “You see, I knew I’d blown it last night when I pointed out the bruise in front of everybody.” All at once he glared at her as if it were her fault, then shrugged. “But no matter. I won’t be coming back to Kane’s anyway. I’ll be selling my shares, and Teresa and I are going overseas to live on the money. It should last us a few years, don’t you think?”
At that moment, an attractive woman came out of one of the rooms, then stopped dead, surprise flashing across her face. “Oh, hello, Gabrielle. I haven’t seen you for ages.”
Gabrielle nodded her head, but she wasn’t in the mood to chitchat. Not that Teresa wasn’t nice enough. Older than Keiran by about five years, she was always the one he came to when he needed help.
Teresa frowned as she glanced from one to the other. “Is something wrong?”
“Very,” Gabrielle said.
“Don’t listen to her,” Keiran snapped. “She’s only here to—”
“Fire him,” Gabrielle said, feeling a little sorry for Teresa, yet the other woman must know the type of man Keiran was.
Teresa gasped. “Fire him?”
“Ask Keiran about it.”
“Shut up, Gabrielle,” he growled.
“Ask him, but I doubt he’ll tell you the truth.”
“I said shut up,” Keiran said through gritted teeth as he stormed toward her. And then he grabbed her arm and shook her.
Gabrielle shrugged him off. She was too angry now herself. “Ask him how he’s been blackmailing me to leave my husband and my family and all that I hold dear.”
“That’s enough!” Keiran suddenly yelled, lifting his hand and slapping her across the face. The sound of it ripped through the air, and Gabrielle’s head snapped sideways.
It took a moment or two for the stinging to set in. And the shock.
Teresa was the first to move. “Keiran!” she exclaimed, pushing him away from Gabrielle. “What are you doing?”
Gabrielle’s hand went to her cheek as Keiran recovered his balance then just stood there, staring at her. He looked as taken aback as Teresa did, but Gabrielle didn’t have time to feel even the littlest bit sorry for him. He’d really crossed the line this time.
She took her hand away from her face and drew herself up straighter. “Don’t ever show your face at Kane’s again, Keiran,” she said, and on that note she sent Teresa an apologetic look and left them standing in the middle of the room. She walked out the door and quietly closed it behind her with cool, calm control.
And that’s how she felt right now. Despite the slap, despite knowing what was ahead of her with Damien, she felt liberated from the clutches of her cousin. It gave her the tenacity to keep on going. If she and Damien were to have a chance at a life together, everything had to be out in the open. They couldn’t move forward until they put the past behind them.
She decided to go home first and put a cool cloth on her face to stop the stinging and redness. By the time she’d finished, Keiran’s imprint was nowhere near as bad as she’d expected, though she suspected she might end up with a bit of a bruise.
Then she drove to Damien’s office, intending to wait until he’d finished his meeting. If Keiran had done his worst like he said he had, she just hoped Damien gave her the chance to explain.
But by the time she walked into the reception area of his office, anxiety had taken hold. She wouldn’t be human if she didn’t feel worried now.
His PA was nowhere to be seen, but a slight noise emitted from his office, so she walked over to the door that was standing open. Perhaps his PA was in his office tidying up.
She gasped when she saw Damien sitting at his desk with a bottle of scotch open and a half-empty glass. He’d had his head in his hands but he’d lifted it when she spoke.
He looked at her then, and her heart faltered at the pain in his eyes and the paleness of his cheeks. As if propelled, she slowly entered the room and stopped dead in the middle of it, the fine hairs on the back of her neck standing to attention.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he rasped, the words sounding as if they were ground out of him.
Her heart squeezed tight. “So Keiran did tell you.”
“There was a report on my desk this morning when I came back from seeing you.” He swallowed hard. “It said about this idiot who ran into you with his car. About the accident. About you…your unborn baby.”
It was slowly sinking in that he finally knew. Her legs went from under her as she found her way onto one of the chairs. It felt like all the oxygen had been sucked from the room. “I’m so sorry, Damien.”
His eyes pinned her to the spot. “You had another man’s child,” he said harshly.
She blinked, trying to clear her mind. She’d forgotten he would think that. “No!” She took a deep breath. “It was your baby, Damien.”
His head reeled back. “Mine!”
“The baby was yours, Damien. And before you ask, the condom broke that one time, remember?”
He sat there, barely moving, but his face said an awful lot about the pain he was feeling. She felt it, too.
All at once he pushed himself back from his desk and stood, turning around to look out the huge windows behind him, but as if he couldn’t bear the pain, he spun back to face her. “Why the bloody hell did you run five years ago if you knew you were carrying my child?”
Her throat tightened. “I just had to.”
“I wasn’t good enough to be the father of your child, was I?” he said in a low voice, like it was something he should have expected.
“No!” She was shocked he’d say such a thing. Not Damien Trent. He was born secure. He’d never had an insecure moment in his life.
But then she remembered his childhood. And she knew differently. She took a deep breath and uttered the words that could destroy all their lives. “My father told me to leave.”
His eyes sharpened. “Told you?”
“He was drunk one night and bitter over my mother. He told me to take my things and get out and never come back.”
He scowled. “But he would have sobered up the next day. Surely you must have known he wouldn’t mean it?”
“I was scared, Damien,” she said, seeing the anger burst into his eyes before she’d even finished saying the words. “I was scared that eventually he’d lose control and hit me,” she said, blinking back tears at the mere thought of it. “I couldn’t risk that happening.” Not like it just happened with Keiran.
He went quiet. A muscle ticked in his jaw. “And yet you couldn’t come to me?”
A flash of guilt stabbed at her. “No. You would have made me stay.”
“You don’t have a high opinion of me, do you?”
“I do now. I’m sorry but back then I could only think you were like my father.”
His green eyes remained steadily on her face. “I would never, ever physically frighten a woman, sober or drunk.”
“I know, but I was young and I was hurting and I was confused by what I felt for you. And I had no idea what you felt for me.” She bit her lip. “I guess I didn’t really need much of an excuse to leave.”
There was a lengthy pause as he seemed to assimilate that. Then, “Why didn’t you tell me about the baby when you came back? You’ve had plenty of opportunity.”
Cold fear returned full throttle, but she had to continue on the path of truth she’d chosen. “I was scared for my father’s sake. I’m still scared that you’ll blame him for everything. You see, if I hadn’t left home I wouldn’t have been in that car accident and I wouldn’t have lost our child.” She took a ragged breath. “But as far as I can see he doesn’t remember a thing. And he’s changed, Damien. We can both see that. So please, please don’t say anything to him. And please don’t tear down everything that he’s built. He’s my father. I love him. I don’t want to see him hurt.”
He stayed silent for a couple of interminable seconds, his face giving nothing away. “And that was our child he helped to kill.”
Tears gushed into her eyes. Despite her plea, he was going to take revenge on her father after all. “Damien,” she choked. “Anger won’t bring our baby back. Please, you have to let it go. If you don’t, it will destroy you in the end.”
He held himself stiffly while some moments passed. “I admit I’d like to do Russell harm right now.” Then something seemed to ease inside him. “But I won’t.”
She gave a sob. “Oh, thank you.” The relief was intense and it washed over her like a wave. Her father and her mother could live their lives in peace now. She could live her life in peace now. She swallowed. Except there was the small question of what was to happen between her and Damien now.
“So, you’d rather I think badly of you than your father?” Damien said, bringing her back to the present as he finally moved and sat again on the leather chair.