Managed (VIP #2)(83)
“You have a villa?” I picture wineries and rolling Tuscan hills.
Gabriel’s jaw bunches. “On the coast. In Positano.” He glares at Killian. “But it’s all closed up.”
“You can have it aired out with a call. Come on, man, try a little harder with your protests.”
“Arse.”
“It must be beautiful,” I say. With Gabriel’s sense of style, it’s probably perfect.
“We wouldn’t know,” Rye says with a dramatic sigh. “He never invites us anywhere.”
“Because I work, you git.”
Rye waggles his brows. “I bet you’d take Sophie.”
If looks could kill. “Sophie has to work too.”
Hurt makes my voice small. “You don’t want me to see your villa?”
Gabriel’s brows lift. “What? No. My home is your home, Sophie. I thought you knew that much.”
I smile at the tender reproach in his voice.
“Or take her to one of your other houses,” Jax puts in.
“How many houses do you have,” I ask, because, really?
Gabriel glances away. “Five.”
Every time I feel I’ve finally got to know all there is about this man, he surprises me with more. “Where?”
With a long-suffering sigh, he answers. “The flat in New York. The townhouse in London. A flat in Paris.”
“The lodge in St. Moritz,” Brenna adds.
“The villa in Positano,” Rye reminds us.
Gabriel’s gaze darts around, glaring, as if he can’t figure out how to stop them all from speaking but is dearly wishing he could.
“And didn’t you buy a place in Ireland last year?” Jax asks.
“Right,” Killian snaps his fingers. “That little cottage in County Clare.”
“Near my place,” Whip says with a grin. “By the Cliffs of Insanity.”
“They are the Cliffs of Moher,” Gabriel says with a grimace. “Christ, you’re half Irish. Know your country.”
“Dude, whatever, the Cliffs of Insanity sounds way cooler.”
“So that’s six homes,” says Libby, who has been quiet this whole time.
“Great gravy,” I mutter. I rent my place, and it is literally the size of a walk-in closet.
The difference between our stations is staggering, and yet I can’t see him as anything other than mine.
Gabriel ducks his head and shrugs. “Property makes for a good investment.”
Jax saunters over and puts an arm around my shoulders. “Sophie girl, you don’t know the half of it. Scottie is a genius with money. Our boy here is solely responsible for all of us being obscenely rich, as opposed to mostly rich. Seriously, stick with him.”
I roll my eyes. “I’d stick with him if he was a pauper.”
Gabriel looks up and a quiet smile softens the hard edges of his expression. I return it, my heart beating a little faster. Relief that he isn’t terminally ill weakens my knees, and the lump has returned to my throat.
I will stay by his side in sickness, in health, the whole deal. Yet I’m so very glad that he’s safe, my voice comes out thick and husky. “Given that Positano is the only place we wouldn’t have to fly to, I vote we go there.”
His eyes search mine for a long moment. “Do you truly want to go?”
I could give him a hard time about trying to pawn this off as doing me a favor, but there’s something to be said for picking your battles. So I nod and give him the puppy eyes.
“Do this for me? Please, sunshine?”
He sighs, and his shoulders lower from their defensive stance. “All right, chatty girl. You win.”
“Awesome,” Jax says, lifting his hand for a high five.
Gabriel doesn’t move.
“Always leaving me hanging.” Jax shakes his head.
“Just one thing.” Killian rises from his seat to face Gabriel. “You’re leaving your phone with Brenna.”
“What?” Gabriel snaps. “Absolutely not.”
Killian holds out his hand. “Give it up, Scott, and nobody gets hurt.”
“Over my beaten and bloody body.”
The guys all stand, and Rye rolls his head, setting off a dozen cracks in his neck. “Fellas,” he says, flexing his hands, “let’s do this.”
And they do. They actually jump him.
The scuffle is a loud, curse-filled tangle of flailing limbs and grappling men.
It ends with a bloody lip for Rye, a poked eye for Jax, Killian without a shirt, Whip without a shoe, and Gabriel on the floor, suit rumpled and his precious phone spirited away by Brenna, who can run surprisingly fast in her heels.
“Bastards,” he mutters as they file out the door.
“It’s for your own good,” Killian says.
“We love you too, Scottie boy,” Jax calls.
I kneel and kiss a scuff mark on Gabriel’s forehead. “Poor baby. I’ll make it better. I promise.”
He does not look appeased, but his lip quirks. “I’ll hold you to that.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Sophie
* * *
Gabriel has something to pick up for our trip, and he’s gone when I wake. He’s left me a note that says I should be ready to go by nine. Mother hen that he is, he also set my phone alarm for seven, something I bitch about for a good ten minutes as I bumble my way into a hot shower.