The Object of His Obsession (The Alexanders Book 4) (15 page)

“That doesn’t matter now,
okay.”

“It matters to me. I want
to know.”

Gabrielle sighed, not
seeing the relevance. “He asked me if I still loved him, and I said
no, of course. I told him I loved you. Trust me…Dilvan is not a
threat to us. Now, let’s get back to my issue with you.”

“Which is?”

“Your lack of trust. It’s
not a good feeling to be accused of something you know you didn’t
do, and that’s what you did to me.”

“Gabrielle, you have to
understand my position. I was happy, expecting my first child and
then it gets dropped on me that the baby might not be mine? Put
yourself in my shoes. How would you have reacted?”

“I would have believed
you!” Gabrielle shook her head again and closed her eyes. “I love
you, Tyson. But a relationship without trust isn’t a
relationship.”

“I do trust you,
Gabrielle.”

Gabrielle shook her head
again. “The messed up part about all if this is, I would never do
that to you. Never. And I will always believe you over any rumor
and over what anyone says about you. I don’t care if your own
mother told me something about you that you’ve done. I would
believe you because you’re my husband,” she said in tears. She
dabbed her eyes. “I thought we would be together forever, Tyson,
but—”

“But what, Gabrielle?”
Tyson asked. Sadness filled his eyes as he felt his heart fall
around his feet.

“I can’t be with you
anymore. I can’t. It’s time I start being the woman I need to be
and stop allowing myself to be a victim of people who are supposed
to love me.”

She stood, her eyes
flooded with tears and walked away from him.

Tyson remained sitting at
the table, speechless. After two months of very little
communication with her, it all came down to this – his wife leaving
the room in tears, telling him that it was over. With his elbows on
the table, he buried his face in his hands, trying to think of
something that could prevent this down spiral of his marriage. He
couldn’t allow this to happen. He loved his family too much to let
it fall apart.

Chapter 28

Padma and Colin seemed to
be in good spirits. Colin made an effort to be home more so he
could visit Dilvan at the psychiatric hospital in Kill Devil Hills,
North Carolina. His son needed him to be home, so he offloaded his
duties on employees whom he knew could handle difficult tasks in
his absence until he could manage his business locally. He was
never supposed to be spending so much time in New York to begin
with. Maybe if he’d been home, he could’ve been there for
Dilvan.

* * *

For the family dinner,
Padma went all-out. As usual, she’d hired chefs to prepare their
food. The main course would be medium-well steaks served on a bed
of creamy mashed potatoes with various sides, including shrimp
fettuccini, fried rice and greens. For an appetizer, they were
eating a fresh spinach salad, with chopped garden tomatoes and
mozzarella cheese, served with a homemade Italian
dressing.

For a while, all you could
hear was forks clanking against ceramic plates. Then Beatrice, blew
a breath and said, “Sho feels good to have somebody else
cook.”

Padma smiled. “Yes, it
does. That’s why I hire chefs.”

“You don’t do a lot of
cooking anymore, do you, Beatrice?” Lalita asked.

“Well, you know I cook for
the Food House now.”

“Oh, yeah. That’s
right.”

“And I still have to cook
for myself, too,” Beatrice added.

“I’ll have to find you some
good frozen entrée’s you can buy, Beatrice,” Gabrielle said. “Then
you can just pop it in the microwave and eat.”

“Oh, no, honey. I came up
on collard greens, black-eyed peas and cone-bread fulla sugar.
Ain’t got time for no plastic, frozen food. No ma’am.”

The family laughed
together, well everyone except for Tyson and Heshan.

Heshan sat next to Tyson,
and even though they were sitting side-by-side, Tyson hadn’t said a
word to him since they arrived. He blamed Heshan for the way things
had played out, when really, Heshan wasn’t the one to blame. He was
just another victim of hearing an incomplete story completely wrong
and trying to find out the truth. Well, he could take part of the
blame, but at the time, he thought he was doing what was right for
Tyson. He had no idea Tyson had been listening to him, the same way
Lalita didn’t know Heshan was listening to her when she first
relayed the story to Padma.

Tyson was physically at
dinner, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He wasn’t joining in any
conversations, just sitting quietly, glancing up across the table
at Gabrielle every now and again.

Colin was telling the
family about Dilvan’s treatment plan and Tyson wasn’t interested in
the least. He had no sympathy for the Dilvan. None. Their kinship
didn’t mean a thing to him, and keeping it real, he would not have
shed a tear if the man had died. Dilvan was dead to him
already.

Padma was holding baby
T.J. like he was her grandchild. In many ways, she felt like he
was, being that she’d taken Gabrielle in like a daughter. And she
would spoil him and love him just like Lalita’s children. She
already bought the baby insane amounts of clothing, nearly
depleting the inventory at a local baby shop in Southern Shores,
not to mention all the items she’d ordered online.

Lalita and Prasad were
sitting so close, they may as well went ahead and shared a chair.
Apparently, after she got the secret out that she’d been holding on
to, her life returned to normal. Lucky for them...

Tyson was happy for
Prasad, but at the same time, he felt robbed because his marriage
was on the rocks while Prasad’s marriage was flourishing
again.

And then there was
Heshan...he wasn’t saying much of anything but since everyone else
was distracted by conversation and food, he leaned over and said
discreetly to Tyson, “Hey, man. I’m sorry how everything went
down.”

“It’s not your fault,
Heshan,” he said. Then in a louder tone to get Gabrielle’s
attention, he said, “According to Gabrielle, all the blame falls on
me.”

His plan worked. Gabrielle
looked up at him when she heard him say her name. His eyes were
intense but that didn’t stop her from holding his heated gaze. She
could feel the fire across the dining room table.

“I just want to know
something, Gabrielle,” he said, now that he had her
attention.

“Tyson, I’m not going to do
this here.”

“Well, I am, especially
since I don’t know whether or not you’re coming home
tonight.”

Suddenly, the room was
quiet. All the micro-conversations that were once going on around
the table had been put on hold. Ears were opened, attuned to a
response from Gabrielle. Would she say anything in response to
Tyson, or would she keep her mouth closed? It’s not like everyone
didn’t know they were having problems, but no one wanted to see
them break up. All the family wanted them to stay together and not
just because they had a baby together. The family wanted to see
Tyson and Gabrielle together for one reason – simply because they
loved each other.

Gabrielle took a sip of
water. Discussing this matter in front of the family wasn’t
something she wanted to do, no matter how much Tyson had wanted her
to.

“I made a mistake,
Gabrielle, and I’ve apologized for it. Countless times I’ve
apologized to you.”

Gabrielle stared down at
her plate, embarrassed. Since the family seemed to be so interested
in what was going on, she wondered if they’d began taking sides.
Did the women understand her viewpoint? Did the men side with
Tyson?

Tyson stared longingly at
her. Pleadingly even. He had to save his marriage. Even though
bringing up the problem in front of the family was distasteful and
not something he’d usually do, he had to get the woman he loved
back into his arms. That was his goal.

“Gabrielle?”

She looked up at him,
meeting his gaze in a confluence of mesmerizing, rich colors that
the chandelier was doing to his already amazing eyes. Then she saw
something in them that she never saw – something that almost made
her lose her breath. Made her heart feel stabs of pain. A bubble of
tears formed in them but none fell.

“I just want to know if you
could ever love me again,” he said, in a husky, agitated
tone.

“Tyson...”

“Please, just answer that
for me,” he said.

His sadness was eating at
her heart like acid. Tyson was always the tough guy, the problem
solver, the person who made things right – not the vulnerable one.
He was afraid of losing her, she knew, and she didn’t want their
marriage to end. She only wanted him to trust her, and if he
couldn’t do that, then the marriage was already over.

“Do you ever think that you
could love me again?” he asked.

“I can’t do this right now.
I can’t.” She got up from the table, fighting back tears. She took
the baby from Padma and walked to the living room. Once she
strapped T.J. in his car seat, she was out the door and on her way
to an extended stay hotel. Tyson was right. She wasn’t coming home
tonight.

Chapter 29

To love someone who won’t
love you back is like suffocating without the inability to die.
It’s like living without being able to take a full breath and you
can never be yourself again until you have your oxygen back. Your
breath back.

That’s how Tyson felt as
he sat on the bed alone at home. Gabrielle hadn’t come home. She
told him she was staying at a hotel, choosing to be transparent
because he had a right to see his son and to know where he was
located. Her decision not to come home and her unwillingness to
answer his question left him feeling lost and defeated. He’d asked
her if she could love him again and she avoided him. Maybe it was
because he’d posed the question to her in the presence of the
family. He knew that was a bad move, but he was so desperate to
mend their relationship that he couldn’t suppress his
feelings.

Tyson hung his head in
despair, trying to envision what the future would look like without
Gabrielle and his son by his side. Would she eventually fall in
love again? Could he handle seeing her with another man? His son
being raised by another man? He knew the answer was no. Gabrielle
was
his
woman.
Period. There would never be an end to them.

The ringing of his cell
phone startled him, took him out of his thoughts. It wasn’t until
it rang that he remembered he was sitting on the bed in his room.
The sound of the ring brought him back to reality.

He took the phone from the
belt clip on his side and saw his father’s cell phone number flash
on the display. His father rarely called, but lately, he’d been
checking up on his son and wanting to know how little T.J. was
doing.

“Hello,” Tyson
answered.

“Hey there, son. How’s
everything?”

Tyson tried his best not
to sigh. “Everything’s fine, Dad. How are you and Mom?”

“We’re fine. We can’t wait
to come visit you guys. That’s all your mother has been talking
about.”

“Yeah...”

“And she’s been buying all
kinds of toys.”

“I bet.”

“So are you settling into
fatherhood okay?”

“Yeah, Dad. Why do you
ask?”

“Well, I know things were a
little hectic when we left, and you’re not as talkative as you
normally are so...”

Tyson released a heavy
sigh. “Actually, things aren’t quite okay.”

“What is it,
son?”

“I accused Gabrielle of
something she didn’t do, and now...um...let’s just say she’s not
too happy with me right now.”

“Tyson, son, listen. Your
mother already told me what happened, so I’m up-to-date on it. I
just wanted to hear it from you. Now let me tell you a story about
your mom and I. When you were about five years old, I did something
extremely stupid. I met a young lady at work...her name was
Rosemary. We started out as co-workers, then friends, then close
friends and I knew we were closer than what we should’ve been.
Then, one day, your mom and I got into an argument over something.
I forget what is was, but I can remember how angry I was at her. So
I stormed out of the house and went to see Rosemary. She knew I was
upset, so she tried to console me. She ran her hands across my
face, and then she kissed me, son. She kissed me, and instantly I
knew it was wrong. It didn’t feel right. So I nipped it in the bud
before it could turn into something, and I never told your mother
what happened. I didn’t think it was a big deal because it was just
a kiss. However, it was a big deal, you know why?”

“Why?”

“Because I started to watch
your mother like a hawk. Every move she made, I thought she was
seeing someone behind my back. She wasn’t of course, but that’s
what I thought because I knew I had done something wrong so I
constantly accused her of doing something wrong.”