probably switched on when he’d knocked. “What’s up?”
“Let me guess, hot girl of the week passed out on you?” Marie’s sarcasm was out of character, making him hesitate in his plan to spill all, as she plopped her perfectly shaped, not quite five-foot-two body cross-legged on her unmade bed.
Gabrielle curled her long legs on her desk chair, arms hooked on the back of it, resting her chin on top of her hands.
Guys he hung with ribbed him. Insinuating that something was wrong with him for not going for one or both of the girls. Everyone said the way they let him come and go made it pretty obvious that he could take things further with either one of them anytime. But he couldn’t. They were like...sisters to him. Ever since that first night in the dorm when they’d overheard his father coming at him so hard and had come to see if he was okay. He’d been annoyed at first. Knowing that they’d heard. And then secretly thankful to have them there.
He’d never had siblings. Never had anyone close enough to have his back where his father’s mental and emotional abuse were concerned—and had only begun to realize in the past few years that the old man was, in his own way, abusive. In a weak moment he’d bared his soul to the girls.
And then hadn’t been able to quit.
So...yeah...they had way too much on him.
And were about to have more.
“No one passed out on me,” he said now, in a hurry to get this done and get out, not discounting that there might have been a hot girl of the week.
He couldn’t help it that girls sought him out.
“I played cards tonight...”
“Liiiaammm.” That one drawn-out word was all Gabrielle said out loud. Her expression said the rest. Those silver-blue eyes of hers could be like pinpricks when she wanted them to be. He’d disappointed her.
The soft lamplight was not unkind to the gray-and-white commercial tile on their dorm room floor. Marie’s purple rugs still helped, though.
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble.” Marie was always the more vocal one. And the more fearful. “How much did you lose?” the blonde asked.
He swallowed. Thinking about beer. Wishing, for a brief second, that he was still on the stupid drinking binge he’d ridden freshman year. And hadn’t boarded since.
“You won, didn’t you?” Gabrielle’s tone was soft. He didn’t have to look in her direction to know that those coal-black eyebrows of hers would be drawn. And her lips would be pursed, too.
“Yeah.”
“How much?”
He thought about his answer. About what she’d think. She waited. They both stared at him.
Another flash of memory from that night two years before came to him. Gabrielle telling him that she’d been ready to write him off when, through the thin wall separating them, she’d heard him ask his father how he was going to get to work without a car. She’d thought he was buckling. Finding justification for doing so. A guy had to have a car to get to work.
The old man had told him to take the bus. All the way to Denver, though she hadn’t yet known that part.
“So I still have a job?” he’d asked. Not daunted by the more than an hour-long public commute each way.
According to Gabrielle, when he’d asked that question, instead of fighting about having to take the bus, he’d won her admiration and friendship.
“You’re my son. You will work in the family business and earn your keep.”
“Fine.”
His father had slammed out of his room, and five minutes later Gabrielle and Marie had knocked on his door. When he’d answered, they’d both just looked at him, as though they could see right into him.
Just like they were doing now.
“I won two thousand dollars,” he said. Which told them he hadn’t been playing with the college boys.
Marie’s hissed intake of breath, the worry shining in her eyes, were his penance. The reason he’d come to them...
He’d remember their disapproval the next time he was tempted to rebel against his father and do something stupid.
Gabrielle didn’t lift her chin from her hands as she asked, “You going to report it to the IRS?”
He hadn’t thought that far. “Yeah.” He played by the books.
“You know you’re going to get yourself in trouble if you keep this up.” Gabrielle again.
He did. Which was why he was in their dorm room instead of home in bed. Why, every time, in his quest for freedom from manipulation over the past three years, he’d run his antics by them first before carrying anything out. But not this time.
“You’re winning now, but it won’t last,” Marie added. They knew his life story. Knew where and how to turn the screws. If he’d played cards that night just because he’d wanted a game of chance, then so be it. But he hadn’t. He’d played because he’d been looking for a way to slap the old man in the face. His son gambling would do it.
The heir to his fortune, caught up in the excitement of the win...
An excitement that had almost cost Walter everything. Liam had heard the story from his mother. And had repeated it to the girls on the anniversary of her death. Walter had earned his first million, married and had Liam. His whole life had been filled with the excitement of getting the carrot dangling in front of him. And suddenly, he’d been content. He had all he’d needed or ever wanted.
That’s when his father-in-law had invited him to sit in on a game of cards. A game that had taken him to Atlantic City and then to Las Vegas, where he’d squandered away his own million and had started dipping into his wife’s money.
The second chance she’d given him had been enough, though. Connelly Investments was healthy and Walter made back all he’d lost plus an extra billion or so. He never touched a card again. And had ordered his son never to do so.
“You’ve been drinking.” Gabrielle, the practical one of the two, broke into his reverie. She didn’t ask. She told. Annoying thing was, she was usually right.
“Yeah.”
She didn’t react. “What did he do this time?”
“I was dropping off a folder to the legal department today.” Liam’s current position in Connelly Investments was as liaison between upper management and the lower echelons. A fancy way of saying he was an interoffice mail boy. So, his father had justified, he could have a presence in every department. See how they all worked. Get to know everyone.
It was a step up from sorting the incoming mail, which was what he’d been doing the previous year. His first year of college, after thwarting his father’s living arrangement plan, he’d been employed as a night janitor.
Marie
