Page 76 of Embracing Love

Chapter 31

Tanya winced as she left Gabriel’s office. As if it hadn’t been enough of a shock to deal with his coldness, she’d also had to suffer the embarrassment of not knowing about Nadine’s impending visit.

It couldn’t be that Nadine was being sent over to clear up the legal problems, could it? Immediately Tanya’s defenses shot up again.

Nadine wasn’t supposed to be over until August, with Sandra. At least that had been the news she’d last heard.

She felt disenchanted and let down by the very people she had once thought were her friends. Or lovers. She stopped to wipe the tears that welled in her eyes.

Gabriel had been so cold, to the point that he’d almost told her he couldn’t see her. She understood that the legal problems between Spiral and Flight also impacted the Zimmerman Group, but yet she couldn’t be sure it wasn’t Gabriel’s way of pushing her away.

This, together with the sparse communication between them while he’d been away, all tied in.

She regained her composure enough to walk on, clutching her bag to her shoulder tighter than ever. Drawing in a long breath she walked along the street lost in her thoughts. Her heart was heavy and her mind in turmoil.

She should never have gone to see him. It had been a last minute compulsive thought that had consumed her. Unable to understand his aloofness, she’d decided to pass by in order to catch him in an unguarded moment, so that she could see his reaction to her.

And now she had.

Perhaps this was for the best. After all, she could see how strong his love for his son was. A man like that—there was no reason why he couldn’t go on to have more children with someone else.

She could never be that someone and she wasn’t about to make him suffer her fate. Edgy once more, unable to think positive thoughts, she wished she had talked herself out of turning up at his office.

What had she been thinking? Just like when she’d gone to his hotel room, did she think that by turning up at his office, he might tell her how much he missed her? That he might tell her she meant something to him?

Maybe that night with Gabriel, with her handing herself to him on a silver platter, she’d made it all too easy for him.

She’s been crazy to think Gabriel Valois might want anything to do with her.

For the rest of the week, and into the next Tanya buried herself in the work she’d brought back from Milan. She also caught up as best as she could on the work that had culminated in Paris while she had been away. With the Flight campaign on hold, she was able to remove herself completely from anything to do with Gabriel.

The convention at the Stormont soon became yesterday’s news. And with the coldness between them dividing them, Tanya withdrew into herself.

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