Visions (Cainsville #2)(107)

Which was pathetic. Weak and pathetic and desperate. He’d made a mistake, a relatively small one. By tomorrow, he wouldn’t even need to apologize.

But he should.

When his cell phone rang, he jumped, then cursed himself for startling like a spooked cat. It rang again, and the surprise and the annoyance fell away as he thought, It’s her. Olivia. Calling to tell him what a jerk he was. He didn’t care. She was calling.

He hit the button so fast that it wasn’t until he’d already pressed it that he actually saw the name: James Morgan.

He almost hung up as the line connected. He would have, if it couldn’t be seen as a sign of cowardice. He almost swore, too. That wasn’t quite as great a faux pas, but it was a personal line he preferred not to cross. The world liked to paint him as a thug. His size, his choice of clients, his moral ambiguity—it all added up to that conclusion. Gabriel Walsh was an ill-bred, uncouth thug. He would not give them the satisfaction of hearing him speak like one. He would watch his word choice and his diction, and not be what they expected.

So he didn’t curse when the line connected.

“Olivia isn’t here,” he snapped in greeting.

A pause. Then, “I should hope not. It’s ten at night. Whatever mistakes she’s making, that’s not going to be one of them.”

Any other time, the insult would have rolled off. Morgan was an idiot. He didn’t know Olivia. Didn’t understand her. Mocking Gabriel was the desperate, weak ploy of a desperate, weak man. But now Gabriel had f*cked up and Olivia had walked out, and this * sneered at the very suggestion she might have stayed.

“What do you want?” Gabriel managed to say.

“I have copies.”

“Copies?”

“Of the file I sent Olivia. I just learned that it was routed to your office, which explains why I haven’t heard from her. You think that by shoving it through the shredder you can stop her from finding out about you.”

Gabriel laughed. The sound was sharp as a blade, and Morgan should have taken the hint.

“I’m glad you find this funny,” Morgan said.

“Oh, I don’t find it funny at all. You’re so certain you know what happened, because you’re so certain you know Olivia. If she’d read that file, she’d have come running back and thrown herself into your arms, begging for forgiveness and protection. Is that how your fantasies run, Morgan?”

Silence.

“I’m sure they do, which only proves you are a bigger fool than I imagined. Olivia read the file, and I would suggest that you are lucky she didn’t pay you a visit. It would not have gone well.”

“Bullshit.”

“I can ask her to confirm receipt tomorrow if you like.”

“What did you say to her? No, wait—I don’t need to ask. You said it was lies. All lies. Poor Gabriel Walsh, unfairly persecuted.”

“Yes, that’s exactly what I said, because she knows I would never stoop to something as distasteful as blackmail or intimidation. It would be like accepting money to protect my client.”

Silence as Morgan thought this through. Gabriel resisted the urge to call him an idiot again. He wasn’t really. He couldn’t be, having achieved his level of success. But Morgan had a technical mind, which served him well in his chosen field. Beyond that he was, functionally, an idiot.

“If you wish to speak to Olivia on this matter, I will ask her to call you,” Gabriel said. “After that conversation, you will make no further attempts to contact her. Your obsession is becoming wearisome. Cut your losses. Walk away.”

“Or what? Or you’ll blackmail me with that McNeil business? Go ahead and try. You made a mistake tipping your hand, Walsh. I will not back off until I have Olivia. Let me offer the same advice. Cut your losses. Walk away.”

Morgan hung up. Gabriel stood there, staring at the phone, all the emotions of the evening bubbling up, the rage and the confusion and the hurt seething together into a perfect storm, with a perfect target.

Gabriel grabbed his keys from the hall and stalked out.





CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN


I wanted a motorcycle. Preferably a Harley, though I would settle for something smaller, as long as the reduced size didn’t mean a reduction in engine power.

First a gun, then a switchblade, now a motorcycle. Next thing you knew, I’d be making appointments for tats and piercings.

When I told Ricky that, as we lay in a patch of forest, naked and sleepy, he said, “I’d be up for the ink. Get one together. Something meaningful.”

I was taken aback at first. When I thought of couples getting joint tattoos, what came to mind were those unfortunate “Candy Forever” ones that in five years would have the guy telling new girlfriends it referred to his love for Tootsie Pops. That wasn’t what Ricky meant, though. He had tattoos. Four, each marking something he wanted to remember, and that’s what he was suggesting.

Would I do that? This relationship marked a stage in my life that was significant. A person who was significant. A time I would not regret.

“I’d go for that,” I said.

He opened one eye, looking surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

He pulled me on top of him. “Well, give it some thought. I’ll bring it up again in a few days, after the buzz of the riding lesson wears off.”