Gabriel knew this scene all too well. Heck, he may have even orchestrated some of them, and expertly too. To him, it was the easiest way out of any relationship quandary he inadvertently got himself into because he was on a performance streak. However, being caught in the middle of such mishap, however, was not an experience he ever expected to be the main attraction in.

He could have planned this better.

Despite his state of undress, or that of the woman lying close to his feet, Gabriel only had his mind on one person, the gaping man standing beside her not memorable. Narrowing his gaze in consternation, he waited for the obvious reaction that was expected to occur.

She tore her gaze away from his member to stare at him, and then to the naked woman at his feet, her face morphing into one of confusion. She definitely had a lot of questions, but it was clear now wasn't the appropriate moment, so she pursed her lips instead, eyebrows lifted as she folded her arms over her chest region.

"Gina, he wanted me," Lilah's whiny voice broke through the serenity of the environment, forcing Gabriel to clench his teeth impassively. The more he remembered what had almost transpired earlier, the more he felt like strangling her.

"The least you could have done was ask for complete privacy. I wouldn't have barged in like this if you had told me."

Three pairs of jaw dropped at that statement. Of all the comments, reaction or action that Gabriel expected from her, this was not on the list.

Astounded, he watched her lips lift up in a smirk, surprised by the level of calmness she exhibited.

"Didn't you hear what I just said? Gabriel came after me!" Lilah whimpered, staggering to her feet, all in the bid to drive home her point.

Gina nodded, adjusting her kimono around her frame. "I did, and very clearly, too. Now, if you'd excuse me, I'd like to go freshen up." Her words depicted she wasn't perturbed by the situation in any way.

"Freshen up? We have a serious matter here. Didn't you hear what she said? Gabriel came after her!" Malcolm cried partly from disbelief, and partly from desperation. Gabriel was certain he was beginning to count his loss since this was not how he must have envisioned this scenario.

Gina whirled around to scrutinize Malcolm who shifted slightly on his feet. "She's not a child. If she didn't want him, she shouldn't have accepted the invitation to come to this room. That is, if she was even invited."

Gabriel watched Lilah squirm away from him, closer to her boyfriend before muttering with false bravado "I was invited."

"I believe you." She shrugged disinterestedly, her bemused expression locked on him. "And I also believe Gabriel came after you. Now that we have concluded on that, I need everyone to leave so I can take my siesta. The doctor recommended it."

Bereft of options and arguments to support their story, the duo filtered out of the room not before casting a glance at the remaining pair, briefly wondering if their plan had been an ingenious success, or a complete and utter fail.

Finally alone, Gina moved from her position and headed towards the bed, purposely ignoring him.

Gabriel felt a ridiculous amount of laughter bubble in his throat as he waited for her to settle down. He didn't understand a word of what had transpired earlier, nor did he care what fish Lilah and his brother had managed to bait, but he was positive Gina's reaction was on the high side of abnormal. Didn't she like him? And didn't that necessarily equate to rash, angry behaviours?

Gina was far from being angry.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts when she began to hum a fast paced tune, swaying her hips sensually in synchronisation. It was crystal clear from her action that she definitely was not angry.

He knew he should have handled this situation better.

He watched her sway to the vanity table, settling quietly into the chair. Ignoring his presence, she pulled out the drawer, rummaging through while humming what he ascertained finally was a popular hiphop tune.

"What was that?"

Gabriel knew silent treatment when he saw one and he was not about to be subjected to it. She may have pulled a nonchalant display for his brother and the dim-witted girl, but he could see right through it.

"What is what?" Her voice was distracted, as she tinkered with her skin pampering products.

Patience had never come cheap to him, but he fisted his palm and told himself he couldn't unravel this mystery if he wasn't calm.

"That show you put up for my brother and Lilah. If you wanted privacy, you could have just asked?" He mimicked in a high falsetto. "I know we're not exactly together, but don't you think you went too far?"

She pressed a cream into her palm and paused in the process of rubbing it. "Actually, no, I don't."

When he felt the gritting action of his jaw, Gabriel flared his nostrils to calm down. "You don't?"

She lathered her arm before replying, "I don't think I went too far cause I wasn't acting. I told them exactly what I felt at that moment. It wasn't for your benefit, so you don't have to feel indebted to reciprocate the act."

He bit against the laughter that bubbled up to his throat as he knew the laugh would sound hauntingly strangled. "You weren't acting?" He didn't understand why his brain was having problem comprehending the situation.

She sighed, sounding tired and frustrated at his ignorance. Adjusting on the seat to face him, she explained. "I knew you liked her if what you told her at dinner was any indication. She's exactly that eye-catching. So, me getting angry when I see you two together is absurd. First, because I cannot compare to her, at least not in this state," she paused to indicate the swell of her belly which had his eyes locking on the now visible bump, "and second, we are not anything significant feeling-wise. I hope you see now why I said what I did."

He saw, Gabriel realized with a sickening dawn but unfortunately, his anger wasn't loosening on its grip anytime soon. Why had he expected a different reaction from her?

"How can you say you knew I liked her based on a careless dinner talk? You know how untrue that is." He was nitpicking on an insignificant word but he was rapidly sinking. "You, also, know I would never sleep with her even if I'm high."

She seemed to consider the point before shrugging dismissively. "Your member seems to disagree with you."

Following her gaze, he realised with mortification that he was still naked, and his body was reacting subconsciously to the cold environment. Annoyed, he yanked the towel off the bed and wrapped it securely around his waist. "This issue this afternoon was entirely out of my hands. I don't even like her at all to spend a second in her company."

They were standing metres apart from each other now, but it didn't seem like she was paying much attention to what he was babbling. He didn't understand why he wanted her support, why he demanded her solidarity, maybe, except for the simple fact that he had always had it, and couldn't bear to lose it.

"You realise it's your word against hers, right? You say this, but she says contrary. Malcolm saw something else entirely, and I definitely know what I saw."

"What you saw is what I told you happened, Gina. Nothing else."

"Like I said earlier, that's your word against hers. For all I know, she may have been resisting your advances towards her. What I saw looked like that." She pointed out blindly, seeming eager to be on the other side than to support him. "Do you think Malcolm will finally become my friend if I tell him exactly what I saw?"

The little coy smirk on her lips was enough to clue him in that something wasn't right, that she was keying into a bad situation and fast.

He vaguely recalled the idea of reverse psychology did not exactly work on her, yet he hoped to give it a try. "If you think trusting Malcolm is such a good idea, why don't you go ahead and tell him what you saw?"

When she made to march past him for the doors, he reacted quickly, in fact, too quickly, he ascertained when he saw the triumphant gaze in her eyes right before they were cloaked.

"I'm glad you can see how I have the upper hand here, especially with your brother and his girlfriend against you. In the end, with your terrible reputation, I don't see this going much in your favour."

"You would go against me?" He was incredulous. Shell-shocked was the more appropriate term.

"Like I said, you're outnumbered, and in a family where everyone hates me, I'd much rather be in their good graces than out of it if I'm going to be stuck here alone for the next five months."

"You're in my good graces, and you're not alone." He spluttered helplessly, trying to fight her obstinate thoughts.

"But that's the problem. You're not here. Those people outside these doors are. If I support you, they'll turn against me when you're not here, and I can't defend myself. But if I lie against you, I can be their friend. And in a family where no one has been quite friendly with me, I need to chose my tent carefully, don't you think?"

He froze, reeling back slightly when his ear caught drift of what she intended.

"What are you saying?"

She gave a bright smile, one he could swear bedazzled, nearly blinding him in the process.

"What I'm saying is that I want my freedom from you, damn the contract, or I'll help your brother and his girlfriend in whatever horrible scheme they are planning. Your choice."

++++++++

Gabriel didn't have a clue what was going on in everybody's mind today but he was certain they tethered dangerously close to the side of abnormal. First, Christian had been weak at their tennis match, playing like a fidgety amateur and squirting horrible tales about his failed relationships. The guy was a tough cookie, and reminiscing past mistakes was not his specialty.

Then there was Gina. Even right now, he still wasn't sure what had transpired in the room. That attitude floored him, and he wasn't used to being floored, but when she went a complete turnaround on him and had him by the hook, he knew things weren't going to go his way, at least not today. 

Presently, he was sitting in an armchair in his father's study, and even though he had been subjected to numerous boring lectures on the morals of living by his father, his instinct was certain he was getting the short end of the stick tonight just because.

"Can someone explain to me what happened?"

Raphael's voice thundered, cutting through his thoughts. His eyes much similar to Gabriel's moving judiciously from one son to the other. Gabriel ignored the prompt to begin, directing his gaze instead to his brother, who clenched and unclenched his fist as if getting ready to combust while sitting in the next armchair.

"I walked in on Gabriel forcing himself on my girlfriend--"

If he hadn't already been thrown under the bus by his own girlfriend, he would be strangling someone now. Instead, a chuckle escaped his lips as he fought against a chortle. 

"--if it hadn't been for Gina's attempt, we would have killed ourselves while thrashing the house."

Raphael watched the quaking man opposite him, not a single funny bone present in him. "Is this true, Gabriel?"

"Is what true? That your precious son is trying to tarnish my image by concocting this lie? Or that you already made your decision without fair hearing?" He sneered, the chuckle still in his undertone. "If we're done here, I have important things to discuss with my girlfriend." He was already up on his feet.

Raphael banged his fist on the desk, rattling the frame, barely managing to pause the man already heading for the door midstride. "If you actually stayed to listen, you'd hear that my opinion is far from your half-assed speculations."

Gabriel sighed heavily before turning to glare at his father, "impress me."

His directed gaze forced Gabriel to reluctantly slump back into the armchair, not before muttering a few curse words.

"I know you are a good man who wouldn't commit such crime, but I also know my son who is vile enough to setup such schemes. Malcolm told me how you broke off your engagement to Queenette, and I must express my displeasure towards such behaviour."

"What I do with my private life is none of your business." His nonchalant response was a decoy, and he hoped his father would take the bait.

"Your private life may not be my business, but, it is my business when you hurt other people's children, Gabriel. First, Queen, and now, Lilah. Who knows who else has been a victim of your callousness? Maybe, Gina is suffering from your heartless decisions, as well."

"I think you're forgetting Amelia," he pointed out spitefully, watching as his father's brows creased, "but I guess she doesn't count since she was a servant girl, right?"

He watched his father glower at him, probably wishing to incinerate him on the spot. Deciding raising ghosts was not a favourite pasttime of his, he sighed audibly. "It doesn't matter which girl it was, what stands out is your horrible treatment of these ladies."

"That is actually true. You don't know how to treat a woman nicely." Malcolm jeered, looking smug that Gabriel was under the microscope. Again.

"Don't let me recount your pathetic history of falling helplessly for every girl I've ever dated one after the other as if on a love curse."

"And yet, you are the one who can't get what you desperately want despite how hard you push yourself," he retorted, happy to score.

"Malcolm, stop talking!" The rasped tone from their father was positively ignored.

"If it wasn't for your interruption and meddling, you know fully well I wouldn't be dealing with your mediocre self. Just you wait until this company is all mine like it should be, and I will show you how desperately I can get whatever I want."

"Let me burst that bubble for you, brother. This company and all of its subsidiaries will never be yours, no matter how hard you try."

"Boys, settle down and stop shouting!" Raphael's warning bellow came from a distant wavelength which neither son paid heed to.

"That's a lie. It's obvious to everyone that I am the rightful heir to this company. I'm the best person to head it, even our Father knows it. He's just playing a fooling game." The confidence flowing off his body in waves was suffocating.

"Well, you're the fool here. This company was never meant to be yours. Father never had you in mind as his successor at all!"

Although he suspected the reluctance behind his father's decision had a lot to do with changing his rightful heir, it still shocked Gabriel out of his ego shoes to be blasted with the reality.

Eyes narrowed, nostrils flared, he continued to glare at his brother, somehow hoping on his auditory nerves to pick up his father's loud boom. Turning around fully, he leveled his gaze at the man who glowered at his younger son before sighing. Matching the scorching gaze, he exhaled heavily.

"You never meant to give the company to me." It was rhetorical, yet the most sane question to be thrown out at this time.

Raphael sighed again, seeming to be at loss for words. It was a first for him, at the same time, it was a delay tactic to chose the right words.

"Why would you do that?" Gabriel was eager to fill the silence with grave words. "Am I not your biological son?"

Raphael averted his gaze at that, looking conflicted. If the spitting image wasn't the dead giveaway, Gabriel would have been doubting genetics right now. But, he had confirmed his paternity years earlier for a different reason.

"I wouldn't be surprised if we're not related," Malcolm inserted comically but the tense moment did not welcome humour nicely.

"I will kill you!"

"Malcolm, get out!" Raphael hissed, grating his teeth. "I need my privacy with your brother."

Malcolm shuffled around like a kid about to throw a tantrum, taking his sweet time to exit the study, much to their annoyance.

Finally alone, Gabriel went out full steam. He was pacing the length of the desk, his fists balled as he fought against hitting something. Or someone.

"Let me get this straight, am I even in any part of your will at all?"

Raphael nodded, his eyes locked on the moving body. "Of course, you are. You are still my son."

"I have trouble believing that recently." The ugly sneer was chilling and gore.

"I only kept you out of the company for a particular reason, not to punish you, or act out a loathing. Power and immeasurable wealth corrupts the mind, and you have absolutely no resistance whatsoever."

"I don't see how that is any of your concern, or why the company isn't in my name."

"Then perhaps I should explain," his father replied, settling into his chair, his knuckles locked. "I'm a Sixty year old man who has no one to call his own despite my wealth. Even before my wife died, I had been alone a lot longer than that. I have no healthy relationship with any of my children, even though we have our family meetings every month. I don't know what goes on in Anthony's head. Monica would never confide in me if she's seeing anyone and I don't know why. Malcolm acts as my handbag just so he can get free giveaways and you swore yourself as my enemy a long time ago," he paused, probably trying to align his thoughts comprehensibly.

"I lost you when you were fourteen, exactly that period when you were ill for a whole week and I didn't know about it. I came back from my trip a week earlier, only to come home to a stranger."

Gabriel froze at that memory, his spine stiffening subconsciously and he averted his gaze. He knew what his father was referring to, but he had never elaborated on that incident to anyone, not even to himself, and he was not about to start now.

"I don't see what going down memory lane has to do with you kicking me out of the company like some dead rat. I gave my life for this company, and I must have it!" He seethed, his breathing laboured as he fought against the inane feeling to smash something.

"No, you mustn't!" Retorted Raphael unequivocally, his stance rigid. "You are just like me, maybe even worse. I was a nobody, struggling to survive back then and thinking, once I had all that money, I'd be happy. I never got that, not from my wife, definitely not from my father-in-law, not even my own children. In my case, I realised the balance quite on time, yet too late to actually change my past.

"You, on the other hand, are too ambitious. You are too driven by greed to even see that you're making the same decisions I took back then, the same mistakes I did, and I will not allow you do that to yourself, Gabriel, over my dead body."

He recoiled from the heated intensity in the glare, wondering if he could circumvent this decision, but agreeing his father was not a man who was double-minded.

"Even if it takes me to the point where I have to walk over your dead body, be certain I will have this company."

Raphael did not reply to that, signalling the end of their discussion, so Gabriel exhaled loudly, finally feeling calm in a while.

"Why must you have the company?" His query was hollow, sounding mocking. "You don't need it. You can do well for yourself with the money you have acquired in this company for the past eight years. So, tell me, why?"

As if on a repeat, the words rolled off his tongue monotonously. "I have to show you. I have to show everyone that I am better than all your children. I must prove myself better than all of them!"

Raphael nodded, watching him sound distant, and he berated himself for being partly responsible for it. "You don't have to, you know."

"What?"

He sighed, sounding fatigued from their earlier debate. "I guess I should break it to you now that this performance streak you're on is all 'you'. I've never asked you to be better than your siblings. I've, also, stopped demanding you beat your own records. The need to prove yourself over and over again has been you all this while. You know I don't care, not anymore. I stopped caring six years ago, since after that incident," he trailed off, probably remembering said 'incident'.

Recovering from his reverie, he flashed his oldest son a lopsided sign that lacked any sign of mirth. "So, why do you continue?"

For that, Gabriel had no response.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I wrote this chapter about fifty times, and the forty-ninth chapter did not have this scene. At all.

I'm glad we're seeing a little bit of Gabriel and we'd continue gently down slope from here on out.

His conversation with Gina should bear fruit soon, and I can't wait to see what.

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Thank you