Falling into Exposure (Falling 2)

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.”