CHAPTER ONE

She didn’t notice him get up. She didn’t feel him leave her side. He slipped out of bed, leaving a sudden emptiness in the tufted, satin- stenciled duvet, a trail of his warmth. It was just after 5:00 a.m., the second Monday in July. The sun would be along soon to burn away the haze and what remained of the cool night’s rains.

He showered first, then dressed in a smartly cut suit. A tailor- sewn, light linen with subtle striping was his choosing.

The soft gray was set off with powder- blue lines and a matching breast scarf. He was a man of exteriors, and always had been, a man unafraid to tell the world that his best was better than theirs. And it was. He had been born to it, mostly, having inherited his father’s wealth and intellect.

With his mother’s good sense, he’d keep it— safe from the eager fingers of a wife he couldn’t bring himself to love for more than a day at a time.

The home Jackson Gabrielle shared with his wife, Etienne, was an expansive, Mediterranean- style compound composed of several buildings, including a small stucco and-stone cottage situated on the westerly edge of the lot.

Larger and wider than the others along Habersham Drive, the tree- lined main avenue connecting Peachtree Battle with Tuxedo Park, the house was of a size and design that pleased Jack. Situated in one of the most exclusive enclaves in Atlanta, the Gabrielle estate sat just three blocks from the Georgia Governor’s Mansion, a stone’s throw from downtown but clearly a million miles away from the tossed-up high-rise condos and new money living in the renovated warehouse lofts.

Jack reveled in the notion that his lily- white neighbors were jealous. So what if they resented him? The source of his money was certainly no mystery.

His father had been a physician long before little black boys could ever dream of getting into more than a handful of medical schools. The late Dr. Leland DuBose Gabrielle was a surgeon, one of the best the country had ever known in his time, colored or otherwise.

At his mother’s urging, young Jackson had followed his father into medicine. There was a prescribed recipe, an ordered road set down by his mother, Naomi. His father’s wishes were codified in his last will and testament: Achieve more, get more money. Jack would not disappoint. But his father had died too soon, when Jack was just fifteen, just three days after his graduation from the ultra exclusive Westminster Academy.

If nothing else, Leland had left him with the art of dressing well, he thought to himself. He stood in the dressing room, snapping on a pair of pewter cuff links and knotting his vintage silk necktie. Both had belonged to his father. His custom- built closets teamed with fine tailored suits, silk ties, and Italian leather shoes. At forty- three, Jack had become a man of appearances and the world was his stage.