Page 59 of Corrupted Queen

I head out of my room and go down the hall to Gabriel’s office, knocking on the door.

No answer.

I knock again, but there’s still nothing. I try the door handle, but it’s locked as usual. Either Gabriel is inside, watching me on the cameras, waiting for me to go away, or he’s somewhere else. Either option is just as likely.

I decide to search through the rest of the house before I start talking through the door to a potentially empty room. I am surprised when my search leads me to the living room, and I find Gabriel on the sofa with a newspaper cracked open in his lap. I pause in the doorway, studying him.

Gabriel isn’t the kind of guy to sit down with a coffee and the paper in the middle of the afternoon. It would be less shocking to walk in on him meticulously constructing a ship in a bottle.

If he hears me enter, he doesn’t show it. I take soft steps around the back of the sofa and peek over his shoulder. My eyes catch on the lower-left headline.

BILLIONAIRE PLAYBOY HUMILIATED AT FUNDRAISER.

There’s a photo of Gabriel, too, with that awful woman’s pinched face opposite. My face twists with disgust.

“The fact that they’re focusing on this instead of the actual crisis at hand is criminal,” I mutter.

Gabriel stiffens. I guess he didn’t hear me come in.

He speaks in a low, almost bored tone, without looking up. “Don’t sneak up on me.”

“I wasn’t. It’s not my fault you didn’t hear me.”

“Normally your clomping footsteps are enough to wake the dead,” he replies, flipping the newspaper to the next page. “You were sneaking.”

I hop over the back of the couch and sink next to him. I try to pull his hand into my lap but he resists, shooting me a dark look out of the corner of his eye.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Why haven’t you come to me since the fundraiser?”

Gabriel’s jaw muscles tense. “I’ve been busy.”

“Reading the gossip column in the paper?”

He looks up, eyes flashing. “Alexis, do you want something? Or have you just come to annoy me?”

“Yes, I do want something, actually. I want you to let me in.”

He rolls his eyes.Rolls. His. Eyes.Like how a petulant teenager would react to a parent trying to “hang.”

“Do not roll your eyes at me!” I snap. “That’s a fair request, Gabriel. Aren’t you tired of all these games we play? It doesn’t have to be like that. If you let me in we won’t have to pretend anymore. We could be a team.” I cover his hand with mine. “We could be a family.”

His lip curls but he doesn’t respond, just looks back down at the paper. I doubt he’s actually reading the sports highlights and I know I am meant to take this as a dismissal.

Part of me wants to go, too, to scuttle away with my tail between my legs. What did I think was going to happen? Did I think he would take my hand and we would skip all the way to the storage shed, where we’d toss purple heroin into the air like confetti?

“Gabriel, please,” I say, grabbing his chin and turning him to face me. “I’m tired. Aren’t you tired?”

“Always,” he replies in a dull voice. “I’m always tired.”

“Then let’s stop this and start working together.”

Gabriel yanks out of my grip and rises to his feet. He gives me a look that presses like lead weights on my shoulders. I feel I might sink into the earth’s crust with the force of it.

“Stop it, Alexis,” he says. “There’s no point.”

And then he leaves, and I collapse against the cushions. I’m almost glad it didn’t work. I’m embarrassed and hurt and angry, but I feel guilty too. I did just put myself out there and get denied, but part of my motivation for doing so was to get inside knowledge on his purple heroin operation. I wonder if Gabriel saw through me, or if he just wants nothing to do with me.

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