Gabriel's Regret: Book 1 (The Medlov Men Series 2) (2 page)

“Briggy, you don’t love me,” he whispered.  “You only think you do.”

Although he knew that he was getting ready to start a shit storm, he could not ignore how good it felt to be completely honest for once.  His cousin, Anatoly, had been right to confront this mess head on and tell her the truth. She deserved at least that. 

“How can you say such a thing?” Caught off guard, her face contorted into a mix of confusion and pain.  For a minute, she stopped breathing all together and tried to jerk herself free from his hold. 

Gabriel released her from his hold but stayed close. His voice was low and even but his heart slammed into his chest.  “I can say it because I don’t love you, Briggy. I don’t.  I want to. I do.” He did want to love her.  It was not a lie.  “It kills me that I can’t. I’m…I’m fucking ashamed of it. You are a good woman. You deserve better, but I just…I don’t love you.” 

Her eyes widened in hysteria. “Then why did you ever take me?” She took two steps back and looked up at the giant in shock. 
He was a miserable bastard!

Gabriel pushed himself not to clam up now. “I had my own selfish reasons, none of which are good enough to defend what I’ve done to you, but you deserve the truth and so do I.” 

“Done to me?” she repeated.  “Done to me? 
Êtes-vous sérieux?
You have ruined me!  You and your miserable cousin have ruined my life!” Her tears multiplied.  “You have used me; you have disregarded me…”

Now some of that was not true.  No one told her to fuck Anatoly and then seek solace in his arms.  Gabriel still had a huge chip on his shoulder about that. His cousin wasn’t just a fling like she had first suggested of her previous relationship.  Anatoly had left an indelible impression on her that she didn’t hide very well at all, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up.  Maybe they could manage this conversation without the shit slinging?  Maybe they could end this like adults without hurting each other any more than they already had? 

“Does my loyalty to you all these years not count for something?”  she asked.

“Of course it does.  It means everything to me, despite what I’ve done to you,” Gabriel answered, seeing that she was about to get completely out of control.  “I don’t want to see you cry.”  He winced like he was in physical pain. “I just want us to be happy and that can’t happen if we stay together.”

She had heard none of his words.  Still stuck on the fact that Gabriel had injured her heart, she barked at him.  “And you think it is okay to just discard me, because I’m not
them
. I’m not Royal, and I’m not Renee. I’m just your live-in girlfriend.  Some additional amenity added to your over-the-top lifestyle…in-house pussy! Dmitry warned me.  He begged me not to consort with you and Anatoly, but I didn’t listen.
Je pensais que tu m'aimais.” 

See,
Gabriel thought to himself
, even in this you had to mention Anatoly.

Wiping more tears, she looked down at the diamond bracelet on her dainty wrist that Gabriel had bought her for their one-year anniversary and yanked it off, breaking the delicate clasp.  Throwing the bracelet at him, she cursed again. “You give me all of these things that I could never afford on my own, just to make me realize what I’d be missing if you left me.  Then you treat me like shit to show me how much you don’t want me. You’re as psychotic as your fucking father. Maybe worse because you know better!”

Gabriel tried, though it was growing difficult, to ignore her harsh comments. Regardless of what Ivan had done, she had no right to mention his father. What did she know about Ivan Medlov?  What did she know about the Vory v Zakone?  What did she know about anything? 

“I give you these things because I want to.” He bent and picked up the $100,000 bracelet and set it carefully on the bed.  He talked to himself the entire time, telling himself not to blow a fuse, not to lose his cool, even though lately it had been so easy to do. 

In his voice, she could hear that she had finally hit a nerve and in her despair that notion brought comfort.  Talking about Ivan Medlov pained him. 
Good
, she would zero in on that now and dig into his open wound until she hurt him as much as he had hurt her.

“You give me these trinkets, because Dmitry and Anatoly give them to their wives,” Briggy hissed.  “You give them to me because you want to feel like you are one of them, and I am one of those women.  But you are not one of those men, and I am not one those women.”

Gabriel took a deep breath. Now she was questioning his fucking manhood?  “Don’t do this, Briggy,” he warned. 

“Do what? Tell the truth,” she asked.  “I know
you
of all people have a problem with that.”

He gave a fuck-you laugh.  With a smirk painted on his handsome face, he rolled his eyes, “I appreciate your candor but…”

“Don’t do that!” Briggy pushed him as hard as she could, but he did not budge.  Just a few inches from seven feet tall and 280 pounds of pure muscle, it was as if she were pushing against a brick wall. “You always say something smug when you want to berate me!” she scowled. 

“I’m not…”  But he was about to berate her.

“You are!  Look at me, you fucking bastard!” She hit him again, this time with a closed fist in his lower abdomen. 

Gabriel shook his head and stepped back. Wiping a thumb over his nose, he picked up the poorly packed bag.  “I can’t fight with you anymore.  You’re all over the place.  First, you’re crying, then you want to hit me, then you want to insult me.  You know what? I’m done with this Mickey Mouse bullshit.  You want a man?  I’m being one.  When I get back,
then
we can talk.  Maybe by then, you’ll have your head on straight.”

Briggy was happy. Finally, she got some emotion out of him.  “I don’t want to talk anymore!” she screamed. “I’m tired of talking to you!  All you do is lie anyway!  You’re a liar; you always have been. You lied to get into this family.  You lied to stay connected to it. You’re the only one who doesn’t belong here and that makes you feel emasculated, so the only way to prove yourself worthy as a man is to use your dick. Well, that’s not good enough, Gabriel Medlov.  No matter what, you’re still a boy despite your best efforts, which are pathetic at most. You’re a boy dealing with grown men who see right through you.  Hell, I see right through you, and I’m sick of it! You disgust me!”

He glared at her with wild eyes. 
Had she lost her damn mind?
  The very thought that she saw anything beyond her blind ambition was hilarious. 

His voice was grave and foreboding now. “Don’t push me, Briggy.  You may think you’re mad, but…”

“But what?” She pulled a wild strand of blonde hair from her face and flared her nostrils at him.  “But what, you sell out?”

Fuck it.
  Gabriel couldn’t take her words anymore.  They were like nails digging down a chalkboard in his ears.  Feeling his anger boil over, he dropped the bag on the bed and stepped closer to her. 

His eyes burned with anger. “I’ve taken my punches from you.  I’ve listened to your insults.  You say you want to go! Well, leave!  It might be best for both of us.  Just fucking go! I’ll put you up somewhere. I’ll pay for everything no different from what I’m fucking doing right now! All this is just one big asset-retention scheme, anyway.  Well, don’t worry. You don’t stand to lose a thing, but the man who seems to be a fucking problem for you anyway.  You no longer have to covet…”

“I do not covet,” she snapped, insulted by his insinuation.

“Who’s the fucking liar now?” He looked her up and down in disgust. “You do not fool me,” he said, voice low. “You don’t think I know all about your secret little wishes?”

Her heart skipped a beat.  “You don’t know what I wish.” Or at least she prayed he didn’t.

Gabriel stood up straighter and let her have it for once.  Besides, she had it coming with her shabby ungrateful ass.  “You
wish
you were Royal or Renee.  You
wish
you had free reign over this place to be the spoiled rotten, over-pampered housewife with a shit load of entitled kids to hold as collateral over your husband’s head, the woman who decides what colors go on the walls in the villa in Tuscany, what thousand-dollar-a-piece fucking dinner plates to buy for Christmas dinner and where in the world the entire family, whether they like it or not, spends the holiday.  You
wish
you were at the top of the mob wife food chain, instead of with a lowly council member as his live-in girlfriend
to use your words
. You
wish
we could forget that you were the help.  You
wish
you could forget that my mother was a fucking lady of the English Royal Court while yours was a poor dying cancer patient who couldn’t afford to pay her bills, so you talk about my father every chance you get to keep me grounded and embarrassed, when the truth of the matter is that you’re still embarrassed that you had to go and work for the big bad Black woman in her guarded mansion to make ends meet.”

Briggy was mortified by Gabriel’s words.  He had never in his life spoken to her like that.  She reached up and slapped him as hard as she could, but that didn’t stop Gabriel. He sneered at her and continued. 

“You’d do anything to be with the Czar, and it doesn’t matter who that is as long as he has the title.  If you had to, you’d fuck Dmitry, but you’re scared you’ll end up like Victoria.  You
wish
you were still with Anatoly, but he dumped you for Renee and left you to clean his sheets after he fucked her in the bed he used to screw you in. But a man like that would never give a damn about you, no matter how many tears you shed.  So you went after the pitiful
boy
of a cousin that everyone can see straight through,
according to you
, because it makes you feel better to have me around so that you can say that you have at least one of the Medlov men, even though it took you being passed around like a fucking baby wipe to land one.   Better than being out on your ass or fetching Royal her afternoon cocktail for the rest of your life.”

He wiped his lips and smirked at her.  “But you did get me, didn’t you. You clever little hungry minx. And everything that you’re bitching about, and at the same time enjoying, comes from the hard work that I do, the money that I make, because if it were up to Anatoly, we would have left your ass on a stump in Prague with a homeless sign around your neck.  I’m in a business where I can be killed or sent to prison for the rest of my life at any time; I’ve got people who want me dead and want
you
dead for screwing me, and you want to talk to me about being weak and scared when you haven’t done anything of value since you blew me six months ago.  Well, you’re just as weak as I am.  But at least I have a birth right to be here, and I’m not just using my best guilt trip and holding a man hostage using my miserable fucking cunt as a bargaining tool!” He stopped himself, realizing that his words had sent Briggy pale.  He didn’t mean to say cunt.  He didn’t mean to scream, but she just would not stop pushing him, insulting him, berating him.  After taking a well-needed breath, he shrugged her off.  “Just pack your things, find a map, pick a place and get out of my fucking life before you drive me insane.”

His words cut her deep.  In fact, she had to look down just to make sure that she was not bleeding.  “Yes,” she sobbed. “Yes, I want to fucking leave.  I want to take me and my baby as far away from you as possible, because you are not worth it.”

“Baby?” Gabriel’s mouth flew open.  She had just kicked the air right out of his diaphragm.  Running a hand through his black mane, he shook his head and looked at her hands touching her stomach. He glanced up at her without an ounce of pity. “You know; you really have the worst fucking timing I’ve ever seen in my life.  You couldn’t have just said 15 minutes ago that you were pregnant?  You couldn’t have just told me instead of doing this shit!”

“This
shit
needed to be said,” she said viciously, but inside she knew that was a lie. 

“No, you had to push me to say
these things
to you so that you would feel better about leaving me, better about being dumped!” His eyes gleamed with malice.  “Well, good. Fucking great, Briggy.  I hope that you got what you asked for.”  His eyes watered.  “You fucking deserve it.”

Briggy had not expected the tears or his response, and she knew at that moment that she should have handled things differently. She definitely should have never pushed him to his breaking point.  But neither one of them could go back and change one word, because it was all true, even what he had said about her. 

Gabriel sucked his teeth.  “I am done fighting with you, period.”

“I shouldn’t have said those things,” she said quickly, putting up a hand in protest.  Maybe they could just calm down for a moment and regroup.

But Gabriel didn’t give a shit anymore and he definitely didn’t want to hear anymore.  “Like I said, I’m done.”  

He turned and headed toward the door.

“Gabriel, don’t go,” she called out, desperate to fix this.

“We will talk when I return.”

Seeing him leave despite her news of the baby was more painful than anything he had said to her.  She had only one thing left in her arsenal to keep him from stepping outside of that door.  “I’ll be gone when you get back,” she warned, voice trembling.  “You will never see this baby again if you leave now.”