Page 106 of Chasing the Dream

When she unlocked the car, he noticed her hands were still shaking. “Let me drive.” He held out his hand for the keys.

She hesitated and then placed the keys into his palm and went around to the passenger side.

He’d just left the parking lot when she covered her face with her hands and burst into tears.

“Oh, sweetheart.” He turned onto the first neighborhood street he came to and pulled off to the side of the road. Then he reached over and wrapped his arms around her the best he could across the console.

“You’re okay now. I’ve got you.” He held her tightly and let her cry it out until the sobs turned to whimpers and then died out.

“Can you tell me what happened now?” he asked.

She nodded against his chest and then looked up at him with bloodshot eyes and black mascara streaks down her cheeks. “You were right about him.”

“What did he do to you? Did he hurt you?”

She shook her head. “At first, everything was fine. He showed me around the tavern, and then we had lunch. But afterward…”

Gabe tensed up, wishing he’d punched the guy when he’d had the chance. “What then?”

“He admitted he was attracted to me, and he said that was the main reason he signed the contract.”

“I knew it.”

“Then he said, ‘I know you’re attracted to me too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have come here alone. You would have brought your boss with you.’”

“Asshole.”

“I denied it, but he wouldn’t let up. He kept saying things about how good it would be between us, and…”

Her voice caught, and it took a few seconds before she continued. “He asked if I wanted to go into the back room with him.”

Gabe shook his head, the ferocity of his anger surprising him. “Then what?”

“Then I fired him.”

His eyes went wide, and he felt some of the tension flow out of him at the thought of her standing up to that beast. “You fired him?”

She nodded. “I told him I wouldn’t work with him anymore, and then I called him a few choice words before I got up and stormed out.”

Her lips twitched at the corners, and he smiled for the first time that day. He cupped her face and leaned his forehead against hers. “I’m so proud of you.”

“I’m not.”

Confused, he wrinkled his brow.

“I should have listened to you in the first place, and then none of this would have happened.”

“It’s okay. You’re okay, and that’s all that matters.” He kissed her forehead, and he would have continued kissing her if they were somewhere more private.

“I just realized something,” she said. “You were right there when I came out of the tavern. Where’d you come from? Were you there the whole time?”

He nodded, hoping that she’d forgive him for doing exactly what she’d asked him not to do. “I was having lunch at the diner across the street.”

She cocked her head and narrowed her eyes at him. “You chose that restaurant out of all the restaurants in Scottsdale?”

“I had a hankering for corned beef on rye, and that diner happens to serve the best one around.”

“Yeah, right.”