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    The Heart of It
    The Heart of It
    The Heart of It
    Ebook66 pages54 minutes

    The Heart of It

    By Molly O'Keefe

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    About this ebook

    On the outside rich and successful Gabe Peterson has everything.

    No one would guess the ghosts from his past are tearing him apart.

    Desperate, he reaches out to Elena – a resilient call girl, with her own childhood scars – for help.

    In their moments of honesty, the two forge the most surprising relationship of their lives.

    But will they be brave enough to make it into something more?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBryant Street Publishing
    Release dateJan 12, 2021
    ISBN9781094414256
    Author

    Molly O'Keefe

    Molly O'Keefe sold her first Harlequin Duets at age 25 and hasn’t looked back! She has since sold 11 more books to Harlequin Duets, Flipside and Superromance. Her last Flipside, Dishing It Out, won the Romantic Times Choice Award. A frequent speaker at conferences around the country she also serves on the board of the Toronto chapter of Romance Writers of America. She lives in Toronto with her husband, son, dog and the largest heap of dirty laundry in North America

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      Book preview

      The Heart of It - Molly O'Keefe

      Chapter One

      She was there.

      At the bar wearing a dress the color of a bruise’s dark heart. Her brown hair caught the candlelight as she tilted her head to check her watch.

      Is she early? Or am I late? Gabe wondered and stepped out of the shadowy elevators into the top-floor bar at the Thompson Hotel.

      It was Tuesday night and raining, so the bar was empty. When he walked in, brushing the rain out of his hair and off the shoulders of his jacket, she glanced up. Of course, everyone in the bar glanced up, which he was used to. People noticed men who were six feet, six inches tall and built—as his mother said—like a barn door.

      But Gabe really only cared about her.

      Her eyes touched him—his shoulders, his wet red hair, his face—and then she went back to her glass of wine, taking a sip with careful nonchalance, as if being sure not to notice him. He wasn’t great at social cues, spent far too much time alone, but that posture he understood: pretending not to notice while actually noticing with every fiber of his being. That was his official language.

      She’d told him they should act like they didn't know each other. Wipe the slate clean. That had been easy to agree to. He liked a clean slate.

      He took the stool on the other side of the corner, a few seats away from her.

      What can I get you? The bartender asked, slipping a napkin on the bar.

      Moosehead in a bottle. He took off his coat and set it over the stool next to him. He unwound his scarf and set it on top of his coat. Carefully. Neatly. His awareness of her just a few feet away made all these things he did seem conspicuous and deliberate.

      Don’t pay any attention to me. He mocked his own seriousness. I’m just pretending you’re not there.

      Would you like a menu? The bartender asked.

      Sure.

      He was starved. The game had gone into overtime, and there hadn’t been enough guys so he’d never subbed out. Which was okay with him—he played the top-tier Tuesday night hockey beer league for the workout, so he could skate hard enough to empty his head. That was easiest to do when he didn’t get off the ice.

      There were a million other places for a post-game drink and burger, but he liked this top-floor bar. His Canadian publisher had thrown a party for him here once, with signature drinks and a piano player. Very swanky. Too swanky, really. But he’d loved the view. The perspective of being above the city when he spent all his hours down in one of the chambers of its concrete heart.

      He glanced backwards over his shoulder, taking her in with a sweeping glance that pretended to look outside through the walls of windows.

      Not much of a view tonight. Her voice was nice. Soft and low and sweet. He heard just that little bit of an accent and wondered—as always—which part of Quebec she came from.

      Not unless you like watching the storms, he said. The sky was dark, but he could see the storm blowing in from the west, rolling across the front of Toronto, the CN Tower about to be obscured. Rain lashed the windows. It was grey and dark and cold and about to get a little violent.

      He was glad to be inside.

      I never thought of it like that, she said. I suppose lightning would be pretty awesome up here.

      If you like that sort of thing.

      The bartender set down his beer, and he grabbed it with both hands like a lifeline.

      Do you? Her merry eyes gave the impression they were talking about something other than storms. Like that sort of thing?

      I grew up in the prairies. He was surprised to hear the truth coming out of his mouth. Storm watching was top-shelf entertainment. My whole family would stand on the porch to see those summer fronts roll in and turn the world a kind of greenish purple.

      Sounds a little scary, She watched him through her lashes, her lips curled in a teasing smile. And boring, if watching storms is considered a good time.

      He laughed and nodded. Boring yes. Scary . . . only if the sirens went off. If they didn’t, we’d sit there and watch the wind kick up so fast and so hard it laid all the wheat flat. He took a sip of

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