Page 30 of His Untouchable Heart

“So that was the reason for your meeting with Valencia? I mean, to tell you to fly to Dallas a day earlier?”

“Yep, weird, isn’t it?”

She was quiet for a moment. Then: “So we’re hiding?”

“For now. We’re being careful. There’s a difference.”

She gave a short breath of acknowledgment but didn’t press. And that—her ability to hold space, to not demand—was exactly why I needed to be honest with her.

“There’s something else you need to know,” I said, my voice lower now. “About Charlotte.”

Gabrielle shifted in her seat, giving me her full attention.

“We were on our honeymoon,” I began. “In the Caribbean. One of those over-the-water villas. Jet skis were part of the package, and Charlotte—she was fearless. Always chasing the next thrill.”

My throat tightened, but I didn’t stop.

“She was laughing when she took off. Waving at me, telling me to keep up. I saw her turn to look back over her shoulder, and then…” I swallowed. “She didn’t see the dock piling until it was too late. The impact… she was gone before I even reached her.”

Gabrielle’s hand found mine, resting gently over the gearshift. She didn’t speak, didn’t flinch. Just waited.

“I remember hearing something,” she said softly. “That you’d lost your wife. I never knew the details.”

I nodded, jaw clenched. “It was hard. But I survived it. Buried myself in work, in travel, in Foundation projects. I didn’t let anyone in, not really.”

Another pause.

“Then, a few months ago,” I continued, “I found out something that made it all worse.”

Gabrielle’s brows lifted slightly, but she didn’t interrupt.

“She had a trust,” I said. “From her grandparents. Billions. Not millions—billions.Tied to a clothing empire she never mentioned. Not once. I found out through her attorney. Not her. Not a note. Not even a whispered joke. Nothing.”

I let the words sit there, let the air tighten around us.

“The woman I loved had trusted a lawyer more than she trusted her husband.”

Gabrielle’s fingers gently curled around mine. I could feel the weight of her sympathy but also her restraint. She wasn’t trying to fix it. She was just there.

“It broke something in me,” I said. “I don’t know if it was her silence or my own blindness that hurt more. Maybe both.”

We turned down the single-lane road leading to the resort with individual cottages. The headlights illuminated a small wooden sign tucked behind a hedge—the kind of place no one would find unless they looked.

“I haven’t been with anyone since her,” I said quietly. “Not until you.”

Gabrielle’s grip tightened just slightly.

“And I didn’t expect it to feel like this.”

CHAPTERTWELVE

Gabrielle

Inside the cabin, I expected to feel cold, but the warmth was immediate—radiating from the crackling fire Anthony had lit before I arrived and, most of all, from the way he looked at me. Like I was the answer to a question he hadn’t dared ask until now.

He pulled me gently by the hand, just far enough to close the door behind us, and then wrapped both arms around me. I didn’t resist. I couldn’t. My pulse throbbed in my throat as he pressed his forehead to mine.

In that quiet space between heartbeats, I whispered what I knew he needed to hear—even if he’d never ask for it. “I don’t care how long it takes or how messy the path is,” I said. “I’ll be here while you figure out how to let go of the past… and make room for something new.”

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