taking the life out of his craggy, lined face.
“Maybe not with your own hands,” Gabe growled. “But there’s blood on them just the same.”
Her dad cringed, defeat curling his body inward. “The accident wasn’t anyone’s fault.” On the last word, her dad’s voice hitched with emotion.
Keisha’s lungs clamped shut, and she stumbled back a few steps. She must have misheard him.
There ’ s no way —
Then she noticed the resignation and remorse etched into every line on her dad’s face, and she didn’t know whether to scream or cry. A wave of icy confusion crashed over her, leaving her shaking where she stood as her knees threatened to give way.
Gabe wasn’t similarly affected. He practically grew in size as he stalked across her office. “You think a retired race car driver lost control of his car because the streets were a little rainy? Right after his business partner steals all his best clients and leaves him high and dry. Sound familiar, Dell?” He snorted dismissively. “No way. He had more than enough knowhow to make a deliberate choice look like an accident. He slammed his car into the overpass for the insurance money because you’d stolen everything he had.”
The room tilted as her head floated, barely attached to her neck. The light-headedness rocked her back until her hip struck the desk, but the sharp jab scarcely registered in her muddled brain. Reaching out for something to anchor her to the here and now, she accidentally slashed her hand through the stack of bills. They fluttered to the floor like snowflakes of doom.
“Why now?” Her father sighed. “Why after all these years?”
“Because I just found out who my real father was, and that the cash I used as seed money to make my first million came from my father’s life insurance.” Bitterness scrapped Gabe’s voice raw, revealing the unearthed resentment and pain underneath.
It couldn’t be true. There was no way. Not her dad. She held onto the belief as tight as a child’s chubby fingers wound around a balloon string. Gabe was wrong.
“Son, I don’t know what you think you know, but your dad had his own way of doing things, and they weren’t always the best options.” Soft and calm, her dad acted like he was talking to an animal that had been spooked by thunder. “It’s true we were business partners before he died, but our partnership ended weeks before his accident. I couldn’t do things his way anymore. He kept coming in half tanked. Made too many risky decisions. Borrowed money from the wrong people.”
“A likely story,” Gabe said.
Her dad shook his head. “Have you talked to your mother about this?”
“I don’t need to.” Rage shook Gabe’s voice, and the vein in his temple looked ready to burst. “You drove him to his death as sure as if it was your foot on the gas pedal.”
Unable to hold her tongue any longer, Keisha slapped her palm against the desk. “I won’t stand here and let you spread lies.”
Gabe ignored her comment, reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a sheaf of legal papers. He dropped them into her dad’s lap. “Sign on the dotted line, and you don’t ever have to hear me say another word again.”
Blood pounded in Keisha’s ears, her pulse driven into overdrive by Gabe’s misplaced sense of revenge. She straightened her shoulders and moved to stand between her dad and Gabe. “Forget it. This is a family company. Only a Jacobs will ever run it.”
That got Gabe’s attention off her dad. When his head snapped up to look at her, every bit of the Gabe she’d met last night had disappeared into a black hole as if he’d never existed. “You’re making a big mistake.”
“You’ll understand if I ignore anything that comes out of your mouth,” she snapped.
“I’m beginning to think you have an obsession with my mouth.”
“Only smacking it shut.”
Last night, his words would have been flirty, making her stomach do the loop-de-loop. Today they were