Chapter 19. When She Walked

For a moment, Diana could hear only the air conditioner.

Gabriel stood in the hallway, his jacket still over his arm. She hated that he looked like a man arriving for dinner. She hated that ten seconds earlier she had wanted to kiss him.

“Five million dollars.”

“Diana—”

“Don’t say my name as though that will change the number.”

He looked down. She moved aside because she didn’t want strangers walking past while her life came apart. He entered and stopped near the desk.

“Tell me what happened. From the beginning.”

He laid his jacket over a chair.

“After the argument in the park, I spoke to him. He said you’d get over it. He was already seeing Claire.”

Diana pressed her fingernails into her palm. “And you thought you could buy him out of my life.”

“Yes.”

“Why that much?”

“I wanted an amount he wouldn’t refuse.”

There it was, stripped of the language he had used on her couch. He hadn’t given Leo a stern speec