Page 37 of Gabe's Obsession

Whatever the hell that meant. She'd forgotten all about her discussion with Gabe this morning about some employee breaking the rules.

"You're the one who broke some sort of rule last night?" She didn't want to think about Gabe having to punish her friend.

She shook her head. "Oh no. Not me. I know better than that, believe me. But Levi and I were here last night and I overhead what happened. So he asked me to come in."

"Well, I guess you can let me in then. I was about to pound on the door in the hopes someone heard me."

Tori laughed, a hesitant sound that made it clear her friend wasn't buying whatever she was trying to sell.

"Is everything okay? You seem, I don't know--off."

Nina straightened her spine and plastered a smile on her face that she hoped her friend believed. "I will be. I just need to talk to Gabe."

Tori hesitated as if she wanted to say more. Instead, she pulled a keycard out of her pocket and handed it to Nina. "Here, I won't need this anymore today so you can go ahead and go on in. Gabe's in his office, but I--uh--would wait until he's done with his meeting. Things are not going well.

For once in her life, Nina's curiosity didn't even bother to stand up and notice. She didn't give one fuck about Gabe's other problems right now. She could guarandamntee they weren't as important as what she had to say.

"Thanks.” She took the offered card and started to walk away when an idea occurred to her. "Hey, Tori. I'm going to be going out of town for a couple of days. Do you mind taking care of the cafe for a few more days? I know it's asking a lot at this point, but I'll be back to work real soon I promise.” She highly doubted that, but she didn't need to tell anyone else that just yet.

"Sure, it's no problem. You know I love working in your kitchen. It's a blast."

Nina sagged in relief. She didn't want to close the doors quite yet, but no way could she deal with being around here much longer when everyone learned the truth.

With that, she waved and slipped around the building to the employee entrance.

The third floorthat housed the private play areas and the owner offices felt eerily quiet in the middle of the day. She never came up here. For one, she wasn't officially a member and they had strict rules about that kind of thing and secondly, she didn't want to.

She'd always feared coming up here would mean she'd have to watch Gabe play with other women. A sight she never wanted to see. A fresh bout of nausea poured through her and she clutched her stomach.

She approached Gabe's office with what felt like lead feet forcing her to use extra effort to make it to the end of the hall. Unfortunately, Liz, Gabe's secretary, was sitting guard outside his office. Well, not so much guard as just sitting at her desk, but it felt like she might be standing guard ready to stop anyone from going in.

Yes, paranoia had definitely set in.

Nina slapped on another fake grin and greeted the secretary she’d met once or twice at a Christmas party or something. She couldn’t quite recall. ”Hi, Liz."

The woman looked up, shock crossing her face at Nina's sudden appearance.

"Uhm. Hi, Nina. Can I—uhm—help you with something?"

"Nah, just here to see Gabe." She avoided meeting the woman's gaze any further and headed towards Gabe's closed door.

"Unfortunately, he's in a meeting right now and can't be disturbed. He might be a while, too. But if you want to leave him a message, I can make sure he gets it as soon as he's free."

Shit.

She contemplated how to handle this. It had taken everything she had left to give just to get this far. The idea of sitting here for what could be a very long time seemed intolerable.

"I'm afraid what I need to tell him can't wait." She hurried to the door before the secretary could stop her. The woman yelled for her to stop, but she was too late.

Nina burst through the door and came up short. If she'd thought things went bad at her visit to the jailhouse, that seemed almost minor in comparison to what she walked into in Gabe's office. And Savannah's bombshell had been so far from minor it wasn't even in the same ballpark.

"What the fuck?" Nina glared.

There were two men flanking Gabe's desk and kneeling between them with her back to the door was a naked woman with her arms raised and attached to Gabe's desk with a pair of black leather cuffs.

In the middle of the room stood Gabe, his suit jacket off, his sleeves unbuttoned and pushed up to his elbows and a big, heavy flogger resting in his right hand.

"Nina."

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