Gabriel's Regret: Book 1 (The Medlov Men Series 2) (19 page)

Valeriya frowned. “Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m not,” Gabriel said sternly. “I know it’s hard for you to understand, but it meant something to me.” 

Valeriya blinked fast.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude.”

Gabriel looked around her large room and realized that it was formerly a junior suite turned into her bedroom.  Standing up, he walked over to the pictures hoisted above the entertainment center.  The frames didn’t fit her monochrome exterior.  They were all delicate frames with frilly little designs, surrounded by dainty pink trinkets. 

Lasering in on one photo in particular that stood out to him, he knew right away that the man standing in the suit in front of the hotel with a bright smile had to be her brother.  She had his face, his eyes.  

“This is him, your brother, Alexei?” Gabriel asked, feeling more guilt as he looked at the young man’s picture.  This guy was in his prime when he was struck down.  Tragic.  Probably unnecessary. No wonder she distrusted him so.  He had made a mess of her life. 

Valeriya stood up and walked over to stand beside Gabriel in front of the pictures. With a proud smile and sad eyes, she confirmed it. “That’s him.  My brother, Alexei.  He was very handsome,” she said blushing. “And very brave.  I’ve never met anyone braver.”

Gabriel was certain that no one had ever said such things about him.  He envied Alexei that.  “Were you two close?”

“Absolutely.  I was the middle child, but he never made me feel inferior in any way. He was always there for me, always trying to protect me.”  She felt her eyes watering. “Do you have any siblings?”

“Not that I know of, but my father was not the type who would have told me, even if I did.  My mother only had me.  It was a mistake, but for some reason, she kept me.”

Valeriya frowned. “Why wouldn’t she keep you?”

He shrugged at the loaded question. “I don’t know.  I never got the feeling from her that she ever wanted children.”

Valeriya smirked. “It’s not exactly the type of thing that you broadcast.  Maybe you weren’t an accident at all.”

“Trust me, if you knew my father, you’d know that I was definitely a mistake.  He wasn’t the type of guy that you intentionally did anything with, especially procreate.” 

Gabriel picked up another photo and studied it.  It was of Valeriya in an elegant pink Georgette ballet skirt, tights and black leotard.  Her brown hair was pulled back in a bun.  Her face was made up, only just enough to accent the beauty that was already there.  It wasn’t her as a child or a teen but as an adult. 

“You were a dancer?” he asked, eyes wide.  So he wasn’t the only one with a past.  “When?” 

“Yes, in Moscow.  A ballerina.  I came home for my mother’s birthday three years ago and never returned to the Company.”

“You are breathtaking,” he said, admiring her photo.  “So graceful.”  Not that she wasn’t now.  But at least her athletic build made since.  “You know, now that I think about it, you do look like a ballet dancer.” 

It hurt Valeriya to hear him say it.  Dancing had been a dream of hers that had almost come true, but then like so many things in her life, it was snatched away prematurely.  She battled inwardly with the loss, even now.  “The war started after the fallout in Kiev.  Russian Separatists began to move in from one side and Nazis moved in from the other. My family… my mother and father were killed in a shelling, and Alexei started to form the Revolution with other members of the community who had also lost people.  At the time, he was already in line to take over the hotel and had played football here as a boy and was genuinely regarded as a Community Leader already.  My little brother, Andriy, was just a young boy who needed someone to take care of him, and I needed,” Valeriya paused.  “Well, I needed something to believe in again. I needed to believe that we could make them all pay for what they had cost us…all of us. So, I never went back to dancing.  I stayed here to organize and fight and help as many people as I could.”

Gabriel’s mouth fell open. It was amazing how much of a person you missed if you just took them at face value. If he had not come to this room, he would have completely missed her and who she truly was, and she might have missed an opportunity to see him for the same.  However, he could see the pain in her eyes.  She had suffered so many atrocities in such a short period of time that he was certain that she filled with doubt. 

“You made a sacrifice for your family.  That’s very honorable,” Gabriel said, sincerely.  “Your brother was not the only courageous person in your family.” 

“Not honorable enough to save my brother,” Valeriya lamented.  “All I can do now is save Andriy and children like him.  They have dreams, you know.  And those dreams don’t include dying before there are adults in dust and debris from shellings.” 

“I promise I will do whatever I can to help you, Valeriya.” 

She looked away. “You don’t have to say that.”

“Trust me. I never say anything that I don’t mean and I don’t offer help to anyone that I don’t want to help.” 

Her voice was softer and quieter.   Obviously moved by his words, she wiped her wet eyes.  It had been a long time since anyone outside of their community had offered to help her or her cause.  “We don’t have to talk about that right now.” 

Gabriel nodded. Glancing over to the bookshelf beside the small entertainment center were three books stacked on top of each other by Alexander Pushkin.  He couldn’t help but pick them up.  They were all leather bound works, just like in his dream the night before and the ones in his bedroom back home. 

Valeriya instantly picked up on his interest in them. Was he a fan as well?  If so, it would not be the first curious thing about him.  Gabriel seemed cultured, if nothing else.  But what truly moved him about her was that under the layers of machismo and overwhelming masculinity, there was a kind man. 

“Were those your mother’s books?” Gabriel asked, flipping through the pages. He had put these words to memory over the years and often he recited them to himself, especially in the darkest of moments.  

“No.  They are mine.  I read them a lot to Andriy when the fighting first began.  We had no power at certain points of the attacks and I would put him to sleep with Pushkin’s books by candlelight.  It’s ironic really.  A Black Russian author is my favorite in the world.”  She smiled at him clueless to the chord that she had struck in his heart. 

He kept his eyes on the books but her words inflamed him.  “A woman who hates Russians reading Russian literature?”

Valeriya quickly clarified a little more sharply than she intended.  “No, I don’t hate
all
Russians. There are so many Russian people who have died to speak out against Putin’s Russia and the war that they wage on us.  People are gunned down in the streets in front of the Kremlin, imprisoned for investigations, beaten for what you all in American consider a constitutional right.  No, I hate the monsters who are trying to tear down our country and take it for their own. I hate the people who bomb us and attack innocent children without any regard to human life.  I don’t hate the people who are only trying to live their lives in their country like I am trying to live my own in mine.  We are all victims here, both Russians and Ukrainians alike.”

“I know it’s a complex question, but what do you think caused the war here?”

Valeriya gave a sarcastic smile.  “First, I believe that the Sochi Winter Olympics were the preemptive strike on Ukraine, because it brought the people of Russia together and it emboldened Putin and made him feel as though if he could pull off such a big production for the world, then maybe he could take it over.”  She bit her lip.  “And then when our president had the opportunity to enter into the European Union and chose to lean toward Putin instead of thinking about the economic stability of our country, it doomed us.  We don’t need Russian sympathizers.  We need proud, transparent leadership who cares about all Ukrainians, regardless of color or religion.”  

“And you plan to fight Putin?” he asked, a little concerned with her ambition.  He didn’t know the guy personally, but his uncle did and there was no doubt that Valeriya was woefully out of her league if she thought that she could successfully win a war against one of the world’s most powerful dictators. 

“I plan to fight for my country and my countrymen.  It’s just that simple.  In the face of nationalism of this magnitude, the only choice that people have is to fight back.  You cannot be afraid. You cannot be deterred.  And I know what you are thinking. I can see it in your eyes.  All of that doubt is the same doubt that I see in my fellow Ukrainians, but I want to replace that doubt with determination because anything less will end in our country flying the Russian flag.” 

It was clear that just broaching the conversation might cause too much distraction.  Gabriel didn’t want to ruffle her
liberty
feathers so late at night when they needed to be focused on them for the moment, so he diverted to something else.  “Which ones have you read?  Pushkin, I mean.”

She was happy to talk about something less stressful.  Her heart rate was climbing and booming in her chest.  Trying to calm her emotional state, she looked at the books in his hand.  “I’ve read every book of Pushkin’s ever published.” 

So had he.
  “It’s better to have dreamed a thousand dreams that not to have dreamed at all.”  Gabriel put the book away.  He could quote Pushkin all night.  His voice croaked as memories of his childhood flooded his mind.  “He was my mother’s favorite as well.  She used to read to me when I was boy.”

“What was her name?” Valeriya asked, curious to learn more about her mysterious giant. 

“Emma Hutton.”  He said her name with reverence.  “When she passed, I took her collection of Pushkin with me.  It was one of the few personal effects of hers that I have in my home.  I left the other stuff in the penthouse. I go there sometimes just to be alone with her things, feels like I’m as close as I’ll ever be to her when I am there.”  He didn’t say aloud that he also read the Pushkin books in the same chair that she had read to him in, often aloud.   

“That’s exactly why I can’t leave this hotel.  It was my parents’ dream. It’s where I grew up.  It’s all I have left.”

Turning away from the bookcase, Gabriel looked down at her, possibly seeing her for the first time.  It was amazing that he’d come half way around the world to fall in love with a version of his mother.   But it made sense to him.  Who else could he identify with but a person who was emotionally and spiritually invested in the same way that his mother was?   And if she was like his mother, then whether he admitted it or not, he was like his father.  It was the first time in his life that he had owned that, but now standing in front of her, he did. “Do you believe in fate, Valeriya?”

Dark eroticism started to take over the dimly lit room as he spoke the words.  She felt it coming as she gazed at him under heavy lashes.  The calm before the storm had passed and now only the storm between them remained.

“Yes,” she answered simply, refusing to step away as she had done before. Her heart raced in anticipation of what she wanted. “Do you?”

“Not until just now,” Gabriel said, tangling his hand in hers.  He drew her long, narrow hand to his mouth and kissed it.  “Not until you.”

“What do you see when you look at me, Gabriel?”  Valeriya asked. 

“I see a woman that I’ve known for years, even though we just met.  I know your determination. I know your fight.  I know your heart.  What is it that you see when you look at me?”

“A lost, angry man,” she said, eye twitching.  “I see a person who is capable of so much good.  I see power.  I see rage.  I see beauty.”  Her voice was suddenly wistful. “I see an Alpha in a world full of Betas.  The question is will you finally lead instead of follow.  Will you finally take your place?” 

“You see all of that?” he asked, nearly speechless.

“Da,” she answered. 

“After that, how am I not supposed to want you?” he asked.  Stepping closer, he lifted her chin with his index finger. 

“That’s the rich boy in you, supposing that you are the only one who wants something.”  She blinked slowly and took a deep breath.  “Maybe it is me who craves you.  Did you ever consider that?”

              Gabriel could feel himself rise to a concrete erection that he did not bother to hide.  “What I do know is there is nothing you can’t ask me for that I would not gladly give you.  And if it’s me that you’re craving, then I’ll give you your fill tonight.  That I can promise.” 

Valeriya’s lips parted. She knew what he was about to do to her; she knew that she might very well regret it, but she could not resist him any longer.  Still, there was a responsibility to say what needed to be said.   “It would only be for one night, Gabriel,” she said, feeling her heart swell with emotion and remembered arousal at the thought of what was going to surely happen.

Gabriel bent and gently kissed the soft spot where her neck and shoulder connected inhaling her fear and desire.  He inhaled her pheromones.  “No, it will be in our minds and our hearts forever.”

Valeriya let out a shaky breath.  “Promise not to talk about it in the morning.”  It sounded like a cold request, but she knew that any mention of what happened tonight would only bring her sorrow when he left. 

“No, I don’t promise.  That’s what is wrong with you.  Too headstrong to see what’s right in front of you.  And once you have been made to see it, too stubborn to want it anymore,” Gabriel said, rubbing his hands down her slim shoulders.