To Have and to Hold by Nalini Singh Read Free Book Online Page A

placing a hand over the mouthpiece.
    â€œYou made your choice when you said your vows, my girl. Don’t be looking back now.” With that advice, the other woman walked back inside the house.
    Defeated by this evidence of yet another person who found it easy to believe she’d be unfaithful, Jess said a quiet, “Hello.”
    â€œYou alone, Jessie?”

Chapter Five
    H er hand froze around the receiver. “Do you have a death wish, Damon? If Gabe had picked up the phone—”
    â€œI would have hung up. No big deal.” He laughed but there was a bitter undertone to it she’d never before heard from him.
    â€œWhy are you calling?”
    â€œI told you I wanted to talk to you.” A small pause. “You’re still my friend, aren’t you?”
    Her heart softened. “Of course I am.”
    â€œEven if he says no?”
    â€œDon’t go there.” Gabriel was the one topic she’d never discuss with Damon. “What’s this I’m hearing about you and Kayla?” she asked instead, trying to be his friend.
    The pause was longer this time. “We’re done. I told you I should’ve never married her in the first place.”
    â€œDamon,” she began, but he was already speaking.
    â€œ I told you and you went ahead and married that bast—” He cut himself off before she could. “I don’t love her anymore.”
    â€œYou don’t mean that.” And yet part of her, a part she didn’t particularly like, hoped that he did. She’d held that secret hope ever since Kayla’s car had broken down in Kowhai two years ago, and the beautiful brunette and Damon had become a couple almost overnight.
    â€œYou know who I should’ve married, don’t you?” His voice lowered, became huskier.
    She should have disconnected then and there but she didn’t, overwhelmed by a need that had been years in the making. Because even in that single long-distance phone call, he hadn’t said what she most needed to hear.
    What she couldn’t even let herself think, much less admit, was that she was acting this way out of anger at Gabriel.
    â€œYou, Jess. I should’ve married you.”
    She pressed the end button with fingers that wouldn’t stop trembling. She hated herself for having allowed Damon to go on, loathed the need in her that had turned her into the worst kind of hypocrite. Because while she might not have crossed the physical line into disloyalty, she’d inarguably crossed an emotional one.
    The phone jangled to life again so suddenly she almost dropped it. “Hello?” A wary question.
    The caller turned out to be Merri Tanner, a neighbor. Relieved, Jess chatted with her for a minute or two before Merri said, “We’re having a bit of a barbecue tonight if you feel up to coming. Around sevenish. It’s a busy time but we figured folks could use the chance to blow off some steam.”
    A social buffer between her and Gabe was precisely what she needed today. “Sure. Sounds fun.” Hanging up after another few minutes, she stared out at the land in front of her. So strong, so enduring and capable of causing such pain to the human heart.
    Tempting as it was to ask someone else to take a message about the barbecue to Gabe, that would have been cowardly. And her self-respect had already plunged to new depths after Damon’s call. Putting the phone on the chair, she went to find her husband.
    When guilt threatened to deprive her of her confidence, she fought it by nurturing her anger at Gabe’s cruel threat, refining it, making it razor sharp. She would not give Gabriel Dumont the chance to use that indomitable will of his to crush her.
    She located him talking to the foreman. He broke off his conversation when she caught his eye. “What is it?” There was no trace of anger in his voice. There was, in fact, no trace of any emotion.
    â€œMerri’s invited