Page 11 of Forbidden Sins

One hit brought him to the website for Stanford Law School. She was part of a group photo of the most recent graduating class. He found her, in the second row, with no problem. She was like a beacon. She looked more like the woman he’d married the night before, and nothing like the troubled teen she’d been. Her eyes were bright, her smile proud. As she should be with her honors degree. Gabe was impressed and kept looking, but no matter how much he looked, he couldn’t find a way to contact her.

With a frustrated sigh, he shut his laptop. Gabe felt impotent, unable to fix the situation he’d found himself in. He called Rafael’s PI and left a message for him to call him back. But for the moment, there was nothing else he could do. He wandered down the marble hallway. Being a lawyer had certainly lined his pockets, but it was the money that he’d earned as part of the Brotherhood that had given him the finest of luxuries. At the end of the wide hallway sat his piano. He hadn’t played in months. Between his work trip to Hong Kong and the ungodly hours he spent at the office, he had had little free time, most of which he spent at the gym or at Di Terrestres. He sat at the bench and lifted the cover revealing the shiny black-and-white keys. He placed his fingers on the keys, but before he could apply any pressure, his doorbell chimed.

Gabe wasn’t expecting company, nor did he feel like seeing anybody, but he stood, and as he made his way down the hallway, the doorbell chimed again.

“Hold on, I’m coming,” he said, even though he knew the person on the other side would not hear him through the heavy door. His head still pounded, and the third chime of the bell tested his patience.

He whipped open the door, not sure who he was expecting to see, but he was about to give them a piece of his mind. But his angry tirade stopped in his throat, and he was shocked to see Ellie standing on the other side.

“Ellie,” he whispered.

“Hi, Gabe.”

CHAPTER FOUR

ELLIEWASN’TSUREwhat sort of reception she should expect. But she stiffened when Gabe asked her, “What are you doing here?”

“We need to talk about...well, everything. Can I come in?”

That seemed to shake him free, and he stepped aside and held open the door for her. “Yeah, sorry. Of course. Come in.”

Ellie walked into Gabe’s home. His place was modern, yet classic. Spacious, light, with large windows, clean lines. Not only was it uncluttered, but it looked as if nobody lived there at all. She ventured farther inside. She walked down the spotless marble floor, her high heels clicking as she went, and passed a large media room—his man cave, she assumed—where lush leather furniture was pointed toward one of the largest television screens she’d ever seen. She pictured Gabe and his friends watching sports in front of it, and wondered which sport was his favorite, or if he even liked sports at all.

“Can I get you anything?” he asked.

“Water’s good,” she told him. She still felt fatally dehydrated from the night before, and just looking at Gabe had made all of the moisture evaporate from her throat.

“Sure thing. Kitchen’s on the left,” he told her. “Make yourself at home.”

The kitchen was like the rest of the place—large, clean, devoid of the clutter and knickknacks that littered her own living space. It said a lot about Gabe, that he lived a neat, ordered existence. And she did not. Her life, ever since she’d been a child, was chaos—a wild ride—with brief detours into ordered and serious. They might have gotten married, but they weren’t husband and wife. She took a seat at his table, wishing that it wasn’t too dark to see into what was probably a beautiful backyard, judging by the house.

Gabe poured each of them a glass of water from the fridge dispenser and passed hers over while taking a seat next to her. “We need an annulment,” he said, his voice firm.

“That goes without saying,” she agreed. “I’m not familiar with divorce law in Nevada. What do we have to do?”

She could see the change in Gabe’s demeanor as he launched into a speech about law. He looked at ease, and no longer volatile. “The first step is to file a complaint for annulment, which includes basic information about both of us, and the grounds for an annulment—intoxication should cover that. It won’t be the best reason the court has seen, but that’s what happened.” His smile was lopsided and wry. “I can file it and get the papers ready by tomorrow.

“After you’re served, you file an answer, the court will schedule a hearing within ninety days and a judge will schedule a hearing to determine whether an annulment is appropriate. It’s not ideal, but at the hearing, we’ll have to testify before a judge.”

“Ninety days? Testify at a hearing?” Ellie’s panic began to rise again. “That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it? There isn’t an easier way?”

“We could have not gotten married,” he said, with a grim smile. “But it’s too late for that.”

She didn’t appreciate his attempt at humor. “God, this is the longest one-night stand in history.”

He left the table and came back with a notepad and pen. “I can draw up the papers and have someone serve you with them on Monday. Where will I find you?”

Ellie knew that like every other workday, she would be spending most of the day and night at the office. “I’ll be at work,” she told him.

“Okay, where’s that?” he asked, poised to write.

She started to tell him, but she could picture the rumors that would be started if someone saw her getting served with legal papers at the law office. Word would ultimately reach her father, and there’s no way she could explain that she’d drunkenly married a stranger at a cheesy twenty-four-hour wedding chapel. “Can we meet somewhere else?”

“Yeah, sure.” He seemed to think for a moment, before writing down an address. “Why don’t you stop by here sometime tomorrow evening?”

“Where is this?”

“It’s a club.”

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