Scandal Never Sleeps by Shayla Black, Lexi Blake Page A

that lecture. He was sure it had been a doozy. He wondered what she would say if he told her he’d recently been at a party with the famous director.
    “So your dad taught you how to fly,” she said with a little bit of wonder in her voice.
    He would love to take her up. Climb about twenty thousand feet where the world receded and a man could see forever. “Yeah. He was a cold man, but he gave me that. I think of him when I fly. He died a few years back. Heart attack. I think it started earlier though. The FAA took away his license because he failed the medical exam. Once he was grounded, he wasn’t the same. My mother went a year later from cancer. I miss them. I wouldn’t have thought I would, but I do.”
    She sat up and looked down at him, her eyes solemn. “That’s something we have in common. We’re orphans. I know it sounds silly since we’re adults, but after Dad died, I couldn’t get that word out of my head. I guess it doesn’t matter how old we are. We still need our parents. I only had one, but he was enough.”
    “He did a good job.” Tenderness welled inside him.
    “Yours did, too, Gabriel.”
    He couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Oh, I wish I could agree. You don’t know me outside of this room. You don’t know the things I’m capable of. I am everything my father wanted me to be. Ruthless. Successful. Unrelenting. Stubborn. Arrogant.”
    He was the man whose hands had twitched at the thought of Mad screwing around on Sara. He was the man who was still going to find the woman who’d fucked his sister over and ensure she did not benefit in any way from Mad’s death.
    Eve straddled him, cupping his face in her hands. “I don’t believeyou. I think you’re more yourself in here than you are out there. I know I feel that way. I haven’t felt as safe in months as I have the last two days. I really don’t want it to end.”
    Gabe curled his hands around her hips, reveling in her curves. His cock was at full staff again. “I don’t, either. Come here, baby. Let’s make tonight count and we’ll talk in the morning. Maybe things will look different to you then.”
    He drew her down and prayed he could persuade her to give him more.
    •   •   •
    T he next morning, Everly stared down at her phone and sucked in a shaking, shocked breath. Now she knew exactly how Pandora felt. She’d opened that box she wasn’t supposed to open and unleashed chaos on her world.
    “Hey, baby. Are you sure you don’t want anything more than coffee?”
    She darkened the display on her phone the minute she heard his voice. “No, I’m good. It’s too early for breakfast. I’ll get something on my way to work.”
    “All right. I’m going to take a quick shower. Then we’re going to talk, all right?” He appeared in the doorway, obviously comfortable with his nudity. “You sure you don’t want to join me?”
    “Sorry. I’ve got some really important e-mails from work. I should go.” After what she’d discovered moments before, she needed to run, not walk, back to Brooklyn.
    He was Gabriel Bond. She’d spent the weekend with aeronautics tycoon Gabriel Bond. He was a multi-billionaire playboy. She hadn’t needed to dig very deep. All she’d had to do was Google
pilot
,
Creighton Academy
, and
blond man
. The search engine had spit out more details than she’d been prepared for. Entire websites were devoted to his love life. He dated models, actresses, and gorgeous socialites. Heabsolutely did not have a fling—much less a lasting relationship—with a cop’s daughter. She didn’t even comprehend the world he moved in. Worse, she’d read another piece of horrifying news: Maddox Crawford had been his best friend. That explained why he’d been in the bar on Friday night. He’d attended the funeral, too. Everly wondered how she’d ever explain her connection with Maddox to Gabe?
    It was easy; she wouldn’t. He’d said himself that he wasn’t the same man outside this room. She