Falling into Exposure (3 page)

Chapter Five

Victoria

It’s past ten when we say goodnight and head back to my bedroom. Gabriel sits down on the bed, looking a little lost again. I still can’t believe he’s here, just hanging out with my friends. I’m happy, but something is obviously bothering him, and I don’t know what it is.

“Do you want me to stay?” he asks.

His expression is one of hope and sadness, and it tears me up inside. I can only imagine how lonely he must get in his apartment by himself.

“Of course I do,” I say, sitting down beside him. “I always want you to stay. You have superior fucking skills, but truthfully it’s your cuddling skills I’m really after.”

He gives me a soft smile and lays back on the bed, pulling me along with him. My head falls back on his chest, and he wraps his arms around me, holding me tight.

When I glance up at him, his brow is furrowed, his mind in a faraway place again. The sadness from earlier has returned to his face, and I squeeze him tighter in an effort to comfort him.

After our shower, I felt closer to him than ever, and I wondered if he felt it too. There was something there between us, and it wasn’t just sex. A part of me wants him to know that, so I decide to put myself out there, letting him know in my own small way.

“Gabriel…” I begin cautiously, “I don’t like seeing you so upset. Please talk to me.”

He looks down at me, searching my eyes. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but I can tell he is struggling with whatever it is.

“I want to help you,” I plead. “In any way that I can, even if it’s just listening. And whatever it is, you can trust me.”

He closes his eyes, his expression pained as he releases a shaky breath. I thread my fingers through his and wait patiently, knowing I can’t push him.

“This time of year is always hard for me,” he says. “This day, actually… April 1
st
. Every year my family gets together and spends the day sailing. It’s kind of ridiculous, considering that we try our best to avoid our parents during the rest of the year. But we do it for my brother Parker because that was his favorite thing to do.”

He pauses for a moment, scrubbing a hand over his face as he laughs dryly.

“Now that I think about it, he only ever went once, so I don’t know how it could have been his favorite thing to do. But I guess it was his favorite memory. We were all still young then, the four of us. My parents had planned one of their vacations without us. But the nanny got sick and they couldn’t find anyone at such short notice. They refused to let us spoil their fun, so they took us along with them. It was the only family trip we’d ever went on together.”

My heart melts at the expression on his face. This is a whole new side of Gabriel Maddox. One that I’m sure not everyone gets to see, but he is letting me in, and I know that’s huge for him.

“They usually liked to send us off to expensive summer camps,” he continues. “So they could have their fun without us. Anyway, they were stuck with us this time, so we went sailing for about a week. Parker loved it. Well, I guess we all did. When you’re young you sort of want those kinds of memories with your family. For one week, we all had fun together. Dad taught us how to sail, and mom mostly sunbathed… but it was good.”

“It sounds nice,” I murmur, squeezing his hand and encouraging him to continue.

“When we got back home, we begged them to take us again sometime. Especially Parker, he wouldn’t relent. We all found it hilarious at the time, but they never did take us on a vacation with them again. I guess they thought their time together was more precious.”

His tone takes on a bitter edge, and the resentment inside of him is palpable. I never noticed it before, but it’s clear as day now. And I realize, this probably has a lot to do with the front he puts up for everyone.

“Anyway, back to my point,” he says distractedly. “That’s why we all get together on April 1
st
every year. To pretend we are one big happy family for Parker’s sake. It’s how my parents say they will remember him. Because I guess it’s easier for them that way. But, truthfully, I dread it every year. Pretending to be something we aren’t. And I know Parker would have hated it too. He would have much rather had us just be ourselves.”

I feel a sharp twinge of pain in my stomach, knowing exactly what it’s like to lose someone important. I clear my throat nervously, trying not to sound choked up as I speak. It’s nearly impossible, though, listening to him, feeling everything he feels.

“What happened to Parker?”

Gabriel shifts beside me, his eyes going cold as he regards me intently. He looks… well…
angry.
And that was not my intention at all. I bide my time, thinking of what I should say or do. And then he speaks, but it isn’t anger in his voice. It’s raw and pure grief.

“Parker committed suicide. When he was nineteen.”

I choke back the tears that are too close to falling. “Gabriel, I’m so sorry. That’s awful.”

He relaxes beneath me, stroking my hair in a comforting gesture. I’m not sure who it’s comforting more, but I’m thankful nonetheless.

“Parker was the oldest out of all of us, the firstborn. He was smart and outgoing, and ridiculously funny. He could always make you smile, even when you didn’t feel like it. But I guess deep down, he was also the most sensitive. He took things to heart and bottled them up inside. He was the one who struggled the most with our parents. They couldn’t understand that he was acting out in order to get their attention. My mom especially isn’t very maternal. I don’t know why she even had four kids… I guess it looked good to everyone on the outside.”

I curl in closer to him, losing myself in his deep voice as he unburdens himself.

“Parker started acting out a lot when he was in high school. Getting into trouble… drinking, partying, embarrassing them. My mother hated it. She always wanted everything in a neat little box, and when it didn’t fit, she couldn’t stand it. She sent Parker away to boarding schools, wilderness camps, that sort of thing. He always managed to get kicked out or run away. He just wanted to be home with us. But she was insistent that she was going to punish him. My Dad went along with it like he always does. And when Parker turned eighteen, they kicked him out. They told us they were going to give him some tough love. By cutting him off from all of us.”

“That’s horrible,” I choke out. “Your poor brother must have been so scared.”

“I guess they thought he would come around to their way of thinking eventually,” he continues. “I hated them for it because I knew how Parker was. He needed us, he needed his family. But he never came back and I couldn’t figure out why. I went looking for him every day after school. For months, I looked everywhere. And then one night, I finally found him, sleeping on a cardboard box in front of the homeless Shelter. He was dirty and gaunt, track marks up and down his arms. I didn’t recognize him at all until he spoke.”

Gabriel’s chest trembles as he holds in his feelings, his eyes squeezing shut. I wrap my arms around him, melding us together as I try to hold back my own emotions.

“I tried to talk to him, but he was angry that I found him. That I saw him that way. He was my big brother, and I always looked up to him. We were the closest out of all of us. He told me to stay away from him, that he was a piece of garbage, just like mom and dad said. They’d actually made him believe that.”

Gabriel opens his eyes and looks down at me. “God, Victoria if you had known him before, you would know he was anything but. He was smart and talented. He just needed the one thing my parents refused to give him.”

I nod painfully, understanding that feeling all too well. Vying for someone’s attention, the person who is supposed to love you, and just never being enough. It’s a feeling you can never quite get past. Not being enough. Not deserving love. I cringe inwardly as I imagine Gabriel’s parents denying their own children a basic human need.

“I can see how that would have affected him,” I reply softly. “Affected all of you, Gabriel.”

He looks annoyed by my remark, obviously not wanting to admit that it has affected him. But I’m glad when he continues to talk, to tell me his story.

“Parker ran away from me that night, and it was the last time I ever saw him. I begged my parents repeatedly to get him help. I even saved up my pocket money to get him into a clinic, but I couldn’t find him again. I looked everywhere, asked so many people. He’d completely disappeared. I held out hope until three months later when my parents got the phone call. The cops found his body in an alley next to the trash of some nightclub. He had jumped from the roof. At first, I didn’t think it could be true. Parker would never kill himself. But then they brought us the note in his pocket, and it couldn’t be denied.”

“That is so sad, Gabriel. I can’t even imagine how that must have been for you and your family.”

“Good old mom, she made sure the story never went to press,” he says dryly. “God forbid a scandal like that could tarnish her image of the perfect wife and mother.”

I shake my head in revulsion. I don’t even know this woman and I loathe her.

“I hated them from that day on, especially her. I started acting out. Not to get their attention, but to embarrass her on purpose. She despised me for it. So when I turned sixteen, she sent me to a military boarding school. I probably should have hated it, but I didn’t. I spent the next two years of my life there and never went back home after that.”

I kiss his chest softly, letting my fingers dance over his skin while I digest everything he’s told me.

“You were so young, Gabriel. It must have been heartbreaking to go through something like that, and then to get sent away from your family. I had no idea.”

He nods but doesn’t speak. He just lies silently in my arms, allowing me to hold him. And it feels nice.

In a moment of extraordinary bravery, I want to tell him something else. “You know it’s not your fault, though right? What happened to your brother, you don’t blame yourself, do you?”

He looks down at me in surprise. “Why would you say that?” he asks softly.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. “A lot of people do I guess, in situations like that.”

Gabriel sighs as he strokes my cheek. “You’re very insightful, you know. I hope someday you’ll tell me what it is that you feel guilty about.”

I close my eyes and bury my face in his chest, knowing that can never happen. It may not be fair, but it’s the way things have to be.

“Have your parents always been this way?” I ask.

“No,” he replies, a wistful expression taking over his features. “They were actually normal once when I was young. They didn’t make their fortune until I was four. Parker remembered better than I could, but he always said how nice it was back then, before the money.”

“We lived in a little yellow run down house. Mom worked as a waitress while Dad ran his first business, a deli. I remember a few things from back then, being poor, not having nice clothes, but mostly I remember being happy. Mom and dad playing board games with us on the weekends. But when Dad’s store went belly up, things changed. He withdrew, working on his plans to get us out of that mess. He was always working on them, for years. And then when he landed some rich investors for his new business plan, it seemed like a dream come true.”

“The hotel chain really took off, and Mom quit her job. I think she had gone without money so long, it had become an obsession to her. She didn’t want anyone looking down on her ever again. She started working her way up the food chain of the rich and famous, spending more and more to get into better circles. She hired a nanny to take care of us. Dad was working all the time, so they started taking vacations without us. It all just kind of snowballed so fast. The money had changed them.”

“I guess it all kind of makes sense to me now,” I say.

“What does?” he asks.

“Just you… I’ve never met another man like you. You have so many different sides to you, but I can understand all of them now. Like when I first met you, I was so turned off by your huge ego. Then I got to see a different kind of Gabriel. And, I…. well that’s what got me interested. Every day I see more to you, and I admire you so much. I was one of those stupid people who made a lot of assumptions about you in the beginning. But now I can see that you aren’t anything like the person I thought you were. I guess I was kind of a bitch to begin with.”

Gabriel laughs. “Kind of a bitch huh? Well, you must have been doing something right because it made me want you even more.”

I lean up and kiss him softly. “I wanted you too… all along.”

“Well, you’re right about the presumptions, everybody makes them. I’ve always resented the fact that people looked at me like I was just some spoiled rich kid who never had to work for anything. After Parker died it became public knowledge that I would inherit the Maddox Hotel Chain. My mother is insistent that I take it, even though it’s causing issues between the family. But I don’t want it, I never did. That’s why I’ve been working quietly on building my own business. I refuse to be defined by the Maddox name.”

“Really?” I ask, stunned. “What kind of business are you building?”

“It’s a software company. I’ve done all of it myself, with bank loans and my savings. Despite what everyone thinks, I don’t live off my parents. I haven’t since I was seventeen. I get paid for my work at Maddox Corp, and I do actually work, but it’s just temporary. I’ve got everything ready to launch my business, I just need to finish lining up investors and I will no longer be associated with the corporation.”