Glided Gravity

Chapter 2

Scarlett Vale couldn’t find sleep that night.

The card Gabriel Dray gave her had been her verdict. Sleek. Minimalist. Black and gold. She had seen so many men who had made their fortunes empires, and none of them had ever opposed her. No one had ever looked her full in the eye and stayed unshaken.

But Gabriel Dray with his long, strongly built, easily self-confident figure, with clear features, flawlessly fashioned style, and magnetism, had not paid any attention to her.

This made him dangerous.

The city that was outside her windows was glittering. She filled her glass knowing fully well she wasn’t going to empty it, and walked the full border of her penthouse. The curse was buzzing in her body — aching, impatient, but silent power that had spoiled all men its victim.

Stop thinking of him, she said to herself. You have been staying alone this long.

The card had stayed where she left it, and was not obeying her will.

No one had to call and tell her who it was as she could guess who it was early in the morning when her phone rang. Calm. Controlled.

DrayCorp. 10a. m, Gabriel said. The tone which left no doubt whatever. Then the line went dead.

He didn't ask. He commanded.

And still, she went.

The headquarters of DrayCorp was glass and light constructed as a symbol of efficiency. Scarlett had caught her own image in the mirrored panels of the elevator on the way up. A neutral expression on a calm face. No perfume, no diamond armor. Nothing more than black silk and moderation.

She did not want him to believe that she was in the same game with the rest of the world.

The doors were opened to silence — the silence that was only there where it was possible to purchase it with money. Gabriel stood there before the window with his hands clasped behind him and the city sprawled down the window like a map which he had already charted.

When she came in he didn’t smile. Just nodded once.

"Miss Vale."

It seemed strange to have her name on his lips. Colder. Sharper.

He waved his hand over a chair opposite him. She sat, crossing her legs, shielding the discomfort. She did not wish him to notice.

He said nothing for several seconds. Only studied her. The burden of that stare was clinical—and not predatory, as the others had been, but dissecting.

Between them was a wafer-thin folder. He opened it. Photographs. Names. Numbers.

Her ex-lovers. Scarlett's throat tightened. Every single countenance a ghost she had endeavored to forget, men that had loved her, glorified her, and then collapsed into vice. She did not have to read the captions to recall the end of each of their stories: financial ruin, infidelity, obsession.

Gabriel closed the file. "You see the pattern."

It wasn't a question. She threw back her head, attempting to seem indifferent. I watch men that made poor investments.

Or, he said to himself, "I am looking at a woman whose presence changes things."

He was not blaming her but wondering. That was even more unnerving than anybody who had ever screamed her name in a scandal column.

Have you invited me here to prove a theory? She asked.

Theories do not terrify me, that is why I brought you here, he answered. "You do."

Her heartbeat stumbled.

His movements were accurate, controlled, and he came nearer. You have spent years evading attention feeding on it. Fleeing through your curse and living in it. I want to understand why."

I have no obligation to answer you, she said. But her voice was not as convincing as she would have made it.

Gabriel gazed at her still a little more and went back to his desk. There will be a board meeting tomorrow. I am expecting five of our leading investors. I want you in that room."

She frowned. "And if I say no?"

Then you will keep running, he said simply. And the men you left behind will chase until they find you. They are seeking a person to point a finger at what happened to them, Miss Vale. They are quite near us, tracking you down.

The warning sank like a blade. He knew.

She did not know how much, but she could feel that it was enough to make her pulse quicken.

When she returned home that night, she had a message. They're watching. Don't trust him.

No name. No number. It was the same creepy fear she had experienced over years.

Scarlett threw the phone onto the couch and walked away. The curse turned her into a desirable, untouchable and cursed woman. Nevertheless, it turned her into a target as well. When the truth of her was revealed—the inexplicable series of good and bad things following her— all the men who had been in love with her became crazed with the notion that she had brought it on herself.

Now Gabriel Dray, the man whose hand, her charms had been powerless, was to inspect her under the microscope. A part of her wanted to vanish. Not the first time she had done it. New city, new identity and, again, isolation. But this time felt different. Gabriel wasn't chasing her. He was watching. Waiting. She wanted him too because she could not tell why.

Too soon came the following morning. She returned to DrayCorp, and so disregarded the curious glances of the assistants, who were whispering as she walked on. Gabriel received her with the identical cold indifference with which he had received her before, but he looked at her momentarily — not necessarily in admiration.

No introductions. No pleasantries. He took her to the boardroom that had glass walls.

It shone outside the windows as the city welcomed five men, shaking hands, and exchanging polite power. Gabriel only mentioned Scarlett as a consultant.

They suppressed their curiosity.

She made no remarks as the meeting opened, and merely watched. She experienced the curse waking up—a thrumming beneath her ribs, faint, still actual. In minutes, the atmosphere was different. She spoke, and the men swung forward. Voices softened. The negotiation was made too easy.

Gabriel noticed. His eyes wandered up to her at least once every several seconds, not as an object of passion, but as an object of attention. He was waiting till he could measure what he alone could measure.

By the time the meeting was completed, all the investors had accepted conditions that they had turned down before.

It wasn't a charm. It wasn't a negotiation. It was her.

And he knew it.

Then the men left, agreeing to come in two days to sign the deal. Gabriel stood by his table with an undefinable look.

Not a coincidence, he said.

Scarlett was slightly shaking her hands when picking up her notes. "You wanted proof. You got it."

I would like to understand, he said. "But now I want control."

There was no arrogance in his voice, but certainty.

Precisely, be wary of what you can control," she said. The sensation of gravity does not respect the person falling.

That evening she stood at her window again, and the city was shining down below. The curse was humming—, living. Long it had been her secret, her punishment, her shield.

Now someone else has seen it.

Gabriel Dray had not been entangled by her. But all the same, he had brought them closer. This made him unpredictable.

She ran her finger across his card a second time, the embossed name glimpsing in the light.

Gabriel Dray.

The only fellow who had not stooped to her gravity — although, somehow, she was already circling around him.

Deep down, Scarlett knew that whatever game he was playing... she had already made the first step into it.