The Honeymoon Period (The Austin Series) (59 page)

‘I’m not
saying I’m perfect Gabe, God knows I’ve caused plenty of arguments between us,
but those issues have only ever affected us as a couple. I’ve only made friends
with Milo and Cindy since I got here and you’re trying to stop me seeing both
of them and now you’ve just dragged Lexi into this as well. That hurts me even
more after you told me you finally understood how much she means to me. You’ve
gone back on your promise to let me spend time with her and be more
understanding. If you can break
that
promise, how am I ever supposed to
trust
you
?’

‘Great, now
you’re lecturing
me
on trust?' he spat. I had no idea where that barb
was aimed and I really didn’t care, I was exhausted and this was too much.

‘I’m done
with this, I’m not going to stand here arguing all night. I’ve got a full day
of lectures tomorrow and I need some sleep. I think you’d better go.’

‘You expect
me to just go in the middle of this?’ he snarled.

‘We’re getting
nowhere fast Gabe, and I can’t share a bed with you now, not when I’m so angry.
I need a time out.’ I sighed.

‘A time
out? You’re unbelievable,
you
want a time out from
me
?’ he
laughed. I lifted my head and glared at him. That was a low blow, making out
like I was beneath him, not good enough for him and I should be thanking him
for his attentions. As if I didn’t already have those concerns. I’d been angry
with him up until this point, now I was bloody seething.

‘Sorry to
disappointment, Gabe cocky Austin, Gods bloody gift to women,’ I hissed as my
eyes flashed at him. ‘If you’d wanted easy, wanted a girl who obeyed your every
command, who liked your ridiculously controlling behaviour and the invasion of
personal privacy then you should’ve stuck with one of your hundreds of bloody groupies
and continued to take out your issues on them every night with a rough angry fuck.’
My hands were visibly shaking as I raised my voice to him and I could feel my
heart pounding wildly in my chest.

‘Maybe I should
have. It would’ve been a damn sight easier than this. I could’ve just stuck to screwing
girls that were grateful for it, without all the fucking drama of this bloody
relationship,’ he hissed back. I gasped and took a step forward and slapped him
as hard as I could, ignoring the stinging in my palm and the look of anger on
his face as he rubbed his cheek.

‘I don’t
believe
you. “Girls that were
grateful
for it?” Then if being with me is such a bloody
chore, I’ll make things really,
really
simple for you, Gabe. Screw you.’
I flipped him the finger and tried to side step him to leave, but he grabbed me
and forced me up against the side of the car, his hands gripping my biceps
tightly. I could feel his fury seeping out of every pore as he pinned me to it
with his entire body weight.

‘You’re
not
walking away from me, Mia,’ he growled his face in mine. Normally I’d have
found his male aggressiveness, twitching erection and proximity intoxicating,
but I was so upset at his words and anger it felt like a stranger had just invaded
my personal space and it made me really uncomfortable.

‘No, I’m not
walking away Gabe, tonight I’m going to run as fast as I bloody can, because at
the moment, you’re seriously fucked up. Go and take a few days to sort yourself
out,
please
, because I can’t take much more of this, I don’t know how to
help you anymore.’ I looked up into his eyes, but barely recognised the person
looking back at me. He’d changed again and I tensed as his full body weight
pressed against me and his grip got even tighter. ‘Let. Me. Go,’ I begged.

‘No,’ he
said forcefully, expecting me to yield to him and his grip tightened.

‘
Owwww
,
let go of me,
please
, you’re hurting me,’ I pleaded as tears of
emotional and actual physical pain started to stream down my face.

‘I’m
hurting
you
?’ he laughed. ‘You’re the one fucking walking away from me,
Mia.’

‘Because
I’m upset and scared, I need a time out, I’m not walking away forever because I
still love you, even when you’re hateful like this. Gabe,
seriously
, you’re
really hurting me. You promised not to hurt me Gabe, you said you’d do anything
to make me happy and right now I’m not happy and
you’re
the reason.’

His fingers
were so tight around my arms they were definitely going to bruise, badly, it
felt like the circulation to my lower arms had stopped, like when the blood
pressure cuff at the doctors went too tight. I tried to stifle a sob, but
couldn’t hold it in. I heard him inhale sharply, as if my words had shocked
him. I looked up at him through my tears, his face had fallen and he looked at
me confused, but he still showed no signs of releasing me. I could only think
of two ways of getting out of his grip, stamp on his foot really hard and risk
him reacting even worse with the pain, or use our sexual safe words that he’d
always heeded, I sniffed and took a deep breath and tried to talk to him as
calmly as I could.

‘Gabe it’s
important that you hear me right now, I’m about to say something and I’m not
saying this because I don’t love you, I’m saying this because you’re
physically
hurting me and right now I’m terrified of you.
I quit
. I quit.’ I heard
him gasp as his head reared back and he looked at me, with a mixture of shock,
horror and pain written all over his face, as if my words had finally sunk in, as
if he’d just realised that I wasn’t being melodramatic in the heat of the
argument. He immediately released his grip on me and backed away holding his
hands up in surrender. I instinctively moved further away from him as I rubbed
my arms trying to get some life back into them, I could still feel the impression
of his fingers.

‘Fuck, I’m
so sorry, Mia,’ he uttered, in disbelief.

‘I don’t
want you to be sorry again, Gabe. I want you to stop this crazy behaviour. This
isn’t who I fell in love with, this isn’t who I just spent an amazing romantic weekend
with.’ I looked at him sadly and it hurt me even more to see how confused and
upset he was looking.

‘You’re
right,’ he sighed as he rubbed his hands over his eyes and slumped back on his
car. ‘Fuck, you’re right and it’s all
you
, it’s all about you, I told
you that you bring out the best and the worst in me Mia, and right now the
worst is making me feel physically sick, I hate myself right now, so go. Go
before I change my mind. I’ve just crossed a line that I never thought I
would,’ he said sadly as dropped his hands and looked at my tear streaked face
and my fingers caressing my throbbing biceps. ‘I promised I’d never hurt you
Mia, and I never thought I ever could, but to see you standing there looking so
scared of me …’ he faltered and shook his head.

‘Gabe?’ I
looked at him confused and wiped my face.

‘Go. I’m
giving you an out. I’m obviously not good for you, you never cried before me,
now all you do is cry and it’s because of me. So go.’

‘Gabe, I
don’t understand …’ I stalled as I wiped my eyes, what was he trying to say?
That we were done?

‘I’m making
it easy for you Mia, because for some damn reason that I can’t understand you
won’t do it. We’re over,’ he said flatly as he looked at me.

‘No,’ I
gasped. ‘I was angry, I just wanted a time out until you calmed down, not a
permanent out, Gabe. Please, you’re not obviously not yourself, you don’t know
what you’re doing.’

‘No,’ he
laughed which ended with a slight sob and jerk of his shoulders as he pinched
the top of his nose. ‘I obviously don’t know what I’m fucking doing, because
I’d never knowingly hurt you Mia, you’re my … you’re my … entire word, but being
back here in Westhampton, it has me feeling seriously fucking tense and angry,
which is why I don’t want you anywhere near me, Mia. I can’t risk doing this
again, or worse. Go, just walk away,
please
.’

‘You’re
breaking
up with me
?’ I whispered, suddenly the pain in my arms didn’t seem all that
bad, if anything suddenly there was no pain in my arms, it had enveloped my
heart.

‘I don’t
have a choice Mia, I’m terrified of hurting you any more than I already have
baby. I don’t know what the fuck’s wrong with me, this isn’t me, I’m not like
this, I’ve
never
been like this.’ He hung his head, not able to look me
in the eyes.

‘Then let
me help you,’ I begged.

‘No,’ he
snapped as he looked back up at me and glared.

‘You
promised you’d never leave me, Gabe. Was that … was that a
lie
?’ I
whispered, hardly able to believe what was happening.

‘No,’ he bit
back quickly, holding my gaze, letting me see he meant it, but just as fast he
turned his back on me. I wiped my face and sniffed back my tears as all of
those feelings of abandonment came flooding back, it was my dad and Alex all
over again and I’d sworn to myself I’d never let that happen, yet here I was.
This time was different though, this time the pain was a thousand percent more.

‘Then what,
Gabe?’

‘I also
promised to never hurt you Mia, and I just did. I’d rather hurt you by making
you leave me than by ever physically hurting you or scaring you. I don’t ever
want to be the person that puts that look of fear in your eyes again, so if I
have to break my promise, as well as your heart
and
mine to keep you
safe, I will. Please go, I’m not sure how I can do this if you’re going to continue
be nice to me, I don’t deserve it.’

‘You’d
never intentionally physically hurt me Gabe, you just got carried away because
I made you mad, you thought I was breaking up with you. Please don’t do this.
Let me help you, I love you, Gabe.’ I put my hand on his shoulder and he spun
around and grabbed my shoulders and shook me hard.

‘For fucks
sake Mia, for once in your
damn
life will you do as you’re fucking
told,’ he hissed as his eyes lit up with fury again. ‘Is this what you want? To
make me so angry that I hurt you? Will that give you a reason to finally hate me
so you can move on?’

‘Gabe,
please
,’
I begged. ‘I don’t want to hate you or move on. I want to help you. You need to
calm down and come inside.’ I reached up and touched his face. It was changing
so quickly from anger to pain, confusion then love and back again, like a
revolving door filled with too many emotions for him to handle. I was so worried
what he was going to do if I left him alone. He batted my hand away from his
face.

‘Don’t
fucking touch me,’ he snapped.

‘Gabe, let
me help you, something’s seriously wrong with you, this isn’t you.
Please
baby,’
I begged as I tried to take his hand, my heart aching for the state
he was in, as well as for me.

‘Just. Fucking.
Go,’ he roared in my face, then turned and shot his fist straight through his
car window, chunks of glass flying everywhere.

‘Gabe,’ I gasped
and quickly jumped back as he turned to face me again. I could see from the
look on his face that he’d lost it, I realised that there was no reasoning with
him in this state. I was suddenly worried that he might accidentally hurt me if
he continued to lash out, but I was trapped between two cars with the car park
wall behind me and all six foot one of furious emotional male in front of me. I
backed up against the wall feeling terrified, not so much of what might happen
to me, I was sure he wouldn’t take his aggression out on me any more than he
already had, but I was scared of what it would do to him if he
did
accidentally hurt me while he was venting. I just knew he wouldn’t be able to
cope with that, the thought that he’d physically hurt me would be abhorrent to
him. Just as I was about to scream at the top of my lungs to try and snap him
out of it, I heard someone else’s voice.

Everything
went in slow motion as I saw Gabe turn around in that direction, blocking my
view of whoever it was. I saw a fist come flying towards Gabe’s jaw and I
winced and quickly covered my eyes, hissing through my teeth as I heard the
sound of another punch meeting bones and a car shuddering as a body was slammed
back into it. In that split second I knew I needed to step in, I couldn’t take
him getting hurt again. I loved him so much that I was prepared to risk getting
hurt myself to protect my man, I’d fight to the death if I had to. I opened my
eyes and gasped in shock when I saw his attacker.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thank you so much for
reading The Honeymoon Period. If you enjoyed it, please could you spare a
moment to leave a review for me? They mean so much to authors, they help new
readers discover our work and make all the long hours sat alone at our
keyboards creating these stories so worthwhile!

CJF x

Mia, Lexi
and Gabe’s story continues in book five of The Austin Series

Love & Loss

For more
information on the series, please check out my social media links:

http://www.cjfallowfield.co.uk