It almost made her cry. Suddenly and without warning, they were there, tears in her eyes, from relief and gratitude and modesty. God, she didn’t feel amazing, but she wanted Gabriel to think she was. It felt so freeing to have someone look at her and think that she had it together, that she wasn’t a wreck, a mess, a woman on the verge of a breakdown. She didn’t think she was. She had skirted the edge a few times, but never entirely fallen off, and she was tired of everyone assuming a crash was inevitable.

“Thank you,” she said, blinking hard. “I appreciate you saying that. And we can do whatever you want with my DNA for comparison.”

“We can do whatever you want, Sara. Only whatever you’re comfortable with.” He pulled away, but only to turn fully to her and take her cheeks in his hands. His eyes searched her, for what she wasn’t sure. “I’ve been selfish. I know how difficult all of this must be for you, and I haven’t been sensitive enough to that.”

Ironically, she felt the same way about him. “I don’t think you’ve been selfish at all. We’re just trying to wade through ugly stuff . . . It’s hard. It’s emotional. I actually think we’re doing a pretty damn good job of holding it together. Especially since we had the incident with poor Rochelle.”

He looked away and sighed, his hands falling away from her face. “I want you to take everything Alex says with a grain of salt, okay? Alex is charming, but he’s also a liar.”

Sara raised an eyebrow, not sure how he’d jumped back to Alex. “Okay. But why would he want to lie to me? I don’t even know him.”

“He lies just for the fun of hurting people.”

“So why are you friends with him?”

“I’m not. We’ve just known each other a long time.”

“So he probably brought the absinthe then?” That actually reassured her in a weird way. It was better to know how it had gotten there than to imagine something worse. That someone had been watching them, mocking her.

“Probably.”

“You drank absinthe, didn’t you? When you were having your drinking problem.” She was positive that’s what Alex had meant by his comments.

Gabriel nodded briefly, leaning down and scooping up Angel with one hand as the kitten walked past him. He settled her against his chest and scratched behind her ears. “Yeah. It was appealing because you don’t feel drunk. You feel very in control, very intelligent.”

“I understand.” And had the burning cheeks to prove it. She had felt utterly in control peeling her clothes off and touching herself in front of him. Which they had yet to discuss or even mention.

“But that’s all in the past. I don’t drink anymore at all.”