“But you can’t,” she snapped, forcing herself not to look at his mouth.

“I know that. I screwed up. I get that, too. And now I’m trying to explain. Something I haven’t done a lot of in a long time.”

“Ah, so the great Gabriel Kane, who doesn’t answer to anyone, will deign to explain. And I’m supposed to be all excited about this big emotional breakthrough?”

His dark eyes went hard. “That isn’t what I meant, Portia.”

He looked at her, his jaw cemented before his eyes drifted to her lips. She knew he wanted to kiss her. Her heart sped up.

“I meant that it’s not easy to explain because I hardly understand myself. I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what I feel, or why I couldn’t bring myself to tell you I already owned the apartment. Not any of it. But from the first time I saw you sitting on the front steps, wearing those flowered shoes, something about you … spoke to me. Hell, I’d been dead for years, long before my wife died.” He hesitated, as if searching for words, but clearly believing he had to. “Seeing you sitting there, I felt something … intense. Not long after, I recognized that if I let it happen, I would come to need you.” His gaze hardened. “I don’t do need.”

“That’s great,” Portia said with a scoff, refusing to let up, unable to let up. She couldn’t afford to. “You’re just what every woman wants.”

“Don’t, Portia. Don’t keep throwing this back at me.” His face was ravaged. “I’m doing the best I can. I’m trying. At least give me that.” He waited a breath, and when she remained silent, he continued. “I denied what you made me feel. Hell, I fought it tooth and nail. But every time I told myself to just tell you that I owned the apartment and kick you out, I couldn’t. And that infuriated me. How had I become so weak? It’s only been by not being weak that I’ve succeeded in life. Who the hell am I if I wasn’t the strong guy? Look at this face, Portia.”

Her breath caught in surprise.

“Is this the face of a man who can afford to be weak?” he demanded. “No, it’s not. I learned that as a boy. But that’s the thing: The minute you saw me, without having any idea who I was, or that I had money, you looked at me in a way I had never experienced before. You couldn’t have been drawn to my money, because you had no idea who I was when you first saw me. You saw me walking toward you, I saw you see me. I saw the way you looked at me. Drawn in. You wanted me, Portia. I felt it. I saw it. And when you learned I had money, real money, the kind you needed, you wanted nothing to do with it. Do you know how amazing it was to me that you didn’t want my money? Hell, you wouldn’t even cash the check that I had to force you to take. Anyone else in your position would have snapped up my offer of financing—”

“Offered without believing in me,” she interjected, holding on to her anger, hating that her heart was melting.

“But I gave you a check. It doesn’t matter how it was offered, because you didn’t want a penny of it anyway. Every day I have people who want a piece of me, but only for my money. Even my mother, my brother.” He hesitated. “Even my wife. All they want or wanted from me was my money.”

She swallowed back the ache she felt for him. She wanted to tell him there was beauty in every strong and harsh plane of his face. It got harder to hold out. Her fingers itched, not to bake, but to touch him. But on the heels of that thought came another. The reality of Gabriel’s Meal, a reality that she wanted to run from, but couldn’t. How could she after she had watched her grandmother being struck down by lightning based on a meal, the scar on her shoulder a reminder if she was ever inclined to forget?

Her heart slowed at the thought, a deep settling of resolve. As much as she loved him—and she knew she did—as much as she ached for him right then, despite what he had done to her, her grandmother’s entry proved all the more that Cuthcart meals spoke truths.

The meal she had prepared for Gabriel had been followed by a very different kind of storm. Gabriel’s Meal had been the beginning of a total unraveling of both their lives, starting with the fight between Gabriel and Anthony and ending with Ariel nearly dying, the arrival of the inspector squashing her dream sandwiched in between. Gabriel’s Meal had spelled disaster.

“It’s too late for us, Gabriel. You betrayed me. You lied to me.” Emotion and pain swelled, pushing her on. “But the fact is,” she stated, “you said I was ridiculous. Crazy.”

“What are you talking about?”

“When I told you that Ariel was in New Jersey. You said, ‘That’s crazy. Hell, you are crazy. Ridiculous.’”

She could see by his expression that he remembered.

“And you didn’t say it in some flip way. You looked me in the eye and I saw that you believed it. Admit it, Gabriel, you think I’m odd. Different. Ridiculous. Deep down, you don’t believe in me. That makes you no different from my ex-husband. You both want me to be someone I’m not, someone who fits into a normal box, someone who doesn’t know things because of food. My husband said I wasn’t normal. You used different words, but you said the same thing.” She had never felt so sad. “So no, despite the fact that all you have to do is touch me and I melt, despite the fact that I fell in love with you, madly, deeply, in a let-you-eat-crackers-in-my-bed, shouting-Stella-from-the-courtyard sort of way, there is no future for us.” Her voice broke. “I deserve better than men who think of me as lesser than them, when they bother to think of me at all.”

“Portia—”

She saw the pain in his eyes, but she didn’t let up. “I deserve better than men who want me to fit whatever they think suits their particular life.”

He stared at her hard, and she could see the truth sink in. And still, she didn’t let up. “I thought you were a different kind of man, Gabriel.”

He flinched.

She sucked in her breath, hating this, but held his gaze. “I fell I love with you, Gabriel. But you only thought of yourself. I deserve someone who will love me just the way I am. Now, please, move away. I want you to leave.”

She saw the moment he realized she was serious, that she wasn’t going to be convinced. After a long furious, aching second, he nodded.

He left her then, without looking back. And her heart broke a little bit more.

Forty-four

“ROBERT BALEAU, please,” Portia said into the phone, Stanley and Marcus standing on either side of her.

The woman who answered hesitated, then asked, “Who may I say is calling?”

Portia grimaced, glanced at Stanley, who scowled at her, then raised her chin. “His ex-wife.”

The woman gasped. “Portia, is that you?”

Portia’s stiffened. “Rayna?”

“I knew it! Portia, darlin’, how are you?”

“I’m fine, how are you? What are you doing answering the phones?”

“Well, you know how you had to stay on top of everyone around here to get them to do their jobs. Now you’re gone and that Sissy—” She cut herself off. “Let’s just say that things aren’t running too smoothly around here.”

Portia had heard just that after a woman who used to work for Robert had tracked her down and offered her a bit of good fortune.

Rayna sighed over the phone. “He has me doing everything from answering the phones to dealing with the press. Lordy, do I miss you. And not just because without you things are a mess. Are you really okay?”

Portia searched for a cheerful voice to answer. “I’m great.” She glanced at Stanley and Marcus. “And I’m about to be even better. Is Robert there?”

“Let me see—”

Suddenly Portia heard Rayna cover the receiver with her hand, but not before she heard Robert’s familiar bark in the background.

Rayna came back, this time as proper as when she had first answered. “Yes, Mr. Baleau is in. I’ll put you through.” But just before she transferred the call, Rayna whispered into the phone, “Miss you.”

Then the clicks before Robert bellowed into the phone. “Portia! It’s about time you returned my calls.”

As if she were a child reprimanded by an adult. It sank in that it had always been that way between the two of them, more so the longer they were married. She felt the sting of embarrassment.

Stanley must have sensed something, because he leaned forward and rasped, “We didn’t spend the last twenty-four hours teaching you how to not be a nice girl to have you fall apart the minute you get on the phone with that guy!”

She squeezed her eyes closed. Their lessons didn’t have one bit in common with the “ladylike behavior” her mother had drummed into her head. But even she had figured out that her mother’s pilfered etiquette book was for the birds.

Every ounce of embarrassment and fury rose up, pushing every trace of devastation she felt over the loss of Gabriel aside. Never in her life had she wanted to kick someone’s tail.

“It’s time you pay what you owe me, Robert.”

Stanley nodded.

Robert scoffed into the phone. “What are you talking about, Portia?”

“You owe me for the apartment!”

A surprised pause before, “Portia, you’re upset—”

Stanley and Marcus waved their hands, shaking their heads. “Do not get upset!” they hissed.

“Me? Upset? Why would that be, Robert? You divorced me. Then you married the only friend I had in Willow Creek. Fine, that’s your prerogative. But it’s not your prerogative to withhold the money you owe me, both from our marriage settlement and the proceeds from the sale of my apartment—and let’s not even discuss my forged signature.”