Chapter 38
LAILA
‘I am back!’ Gabriel entered the villa and walked out to the patio where I was still sitting there trying to get my head around the bombshells that had just been dropped. ‘Room service will deliver breakfast in ten minutes. They are just making the—’
‘Why didn’t you tell me you sold your app?’ I snapped.
Gabriel froze and his face dropped.
As secrets went, I supposed it wasn’t a bad one.
It wasn’t like he was hiding a family or that I’d discovered he was married after telling me he was single.
But it was still a secret and I wanted to know why he didn’t want to share it with me, especially when judging by the articles online, it was already public knowledge.
And Gabriel having money was yet another reason why things could never work between us. He led a completely different life.
‘I did not want you to treat me differently.’ He rubbed the back of his head. ‘I just wanted to… feel like me for as long as possible. When people find out I have money, it changes things.’
‘Does your mum know?’
‘Non.’
‘How the hell have you managed to keep it a secret for so long? What if she looks you up online?’
‘Have you met my mother?’ He raised an eyebrow.
‘She does not Google people. Unless she wants to find out how rich a prospective lover is or if she thinks the effort will benefit her. It is mostly people who work in the industry who are aware of the sale. The average person in the UK is unlikely to know or care who owns the app and my mother no longer has any friends in France who would tell her if they read something about it in a French newspaper.’
‘And you didn’t think to tell her?’ I asked. Gabriel laughed like it was the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. ‘Why are you laughing?’
‘Again, have you not met my mother? She loves money. If she got the slightest hint that I had made a lot of it, she would take the first Eurostar to Paris and ask for an allowance. Non. The longer she does not know, the better. She is getting nothing from me.’
‘Why don’t you two get on?’
‘Because she…’ His voice trailed off. ‘I try not to speak badly about people. Why were you googling me?’
‘Ricky called. He knows about us. And he knows you have money.’
‘Comment? How?’
‘Let’s go inside,’ I suggested.
Once I’d closed the patio doors, we sat on the sofa. I explained about the photos.
‘That is…’ Gabriel paused.
‘Mortifying?’ I offered.
‘Obviously it would have been better if he had not seen the photos, but I am not ashamed. Sex is natural. We did nothing wrong. And you should be proud that at least you could discuss it like adults.’
‘Yeah. I always wanted Ricky to feel like he could talk to me. I could never do that with my parents.’
‘You have never really talked about your parents. Do you still speak to them?’
I paused and swallowed the lump that had formed in my throat.
‘No,’ I said, tears forming in my eyes. ‘For fuck’s sake!’ I muttered. It was stupid that this still got to me. It happened over twenty years ago. I should be over it by now.
‘Sorry – I did not mean to upset you.’
‘It’s not… I wasn’t swearing at you. I was swearing at myself. Because…’ I quickly wiped my tears.
‘Laila!’ Gabriel’s eyes widened with alarm. ‘What is wrong?’
Seeing the concern on his face was all it took for the floodgates to open. I started sobbing like a tired newborn baby.
Instead of probing me with questions, Gabriel just took me in his arms and let me cry on his shoulder.
I wanted to apologise. Tell him I was sorry for acting like an idiot and soaking his nice shirt with my tears, but the words just wouldn’t come. Instead, I just kept crying for what was probably forever.
It was as if all of the tears I’d kept bottled up for so many years had finally decided to come out at once and now that the dam had burst, there was no hope of holding them back.
Gabriel rubbed soothing circles on my back as I cried my heart out.
Eventually, the tears stopped. I’d probably exhausted my body’s entire water supply. I pulled away slowly and when I saw the state of Gabriel’s shirt, I winced.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I seem to have a habit of ruining your clothes. First I soak your shorts and now I’ve destroyed your shirt with my tears and snot!’ I gave him a weak smile.
‘You have nothing to apologise for. I have many shirts. This is not even my favourite. I was thinking of throwing it away anyway.’
That was so sweet of him to try and make me feel better. If I’d done this in front of anyone else, I would’ve felt embarrassed or self-conscious, but somehow Gabriel made me feel comfortable. Like it didn’t matter what I did or said, he wouldn’t judge me.
‘My parents disowned me,’ I blurted out.
Gabriel didn’t say anything. It felt as if he was giving me the space to decide whether or not I wanted to elaborate and I got the impression that he’d be fine with whatever I decided to do. Just knowing that gave me the reassurance and strength I needed to continue.
‘My parents were always very strict. I wasn’t allowed to go out and have fun at the weekends like most kids.
They always had me doing chores like scrubbing the floors or cleaning the windows.
Whatever they could just to keep me inside where they could see me.
I even had to choose a uni that meant I could still live at home so they could keep an eye on me.
Which is probably why I rebelled a little. ’
‘How?’
‘By having a boyfriend – Ricky’s dad. Obviously they didn’t know, but when I got pregnant and they found out, they said they were… “disgusted and extremely disappointed”.’
I’d remember those exact words until the day that I died. Every time I pictured them saying it, it felt like someone had poured vinegar onto a deep wound in my stomach.
‘They told me I should get rid of the baby. And when I said that I wouldn’t, they said I couldn’t stay under their roof, so they kicked me out.’
Gabriel’s eyes widened with shock.
‘They threw you out when you were pregnant?’ he asked.
I nodded and a fresh tear rolled down my cheek. Looked like I hadn’t exhausted my body’s water supply after all.
‘Putain!’ Gabriel gasped. ‘That is horrendous! What did you do?’
‘For the first few weeks, I was able to crash at some of my uni friends’ places – at the halls of residence.
I went to a uni in London because I couldn’t afford to move away, so I didn’t have my own place.
Anyway, I got really bad morning sickness, so I wasn’t the best guest. Plus, they were young and wanted to party and sleep around, so having me in their room cramped their style. ’
‘And the father?’
‘He didn’t want to know. He also wanted me to get rid of it.
Said he was too young to be tied down with a baby.
And he was living at home too. In the end I got housed by the council temporarily which was awful, but at least it was a roof over my head.
I basically had to go through everything alone.
All of my good friends had moved away to universities outside of London so they weren’t around.
And when they were, the last thing they wanted to talk about was antenatal classes and childbirth. ’
‘That is terrible that you had to do all of that alone.’ Gabriel shook his head.
‘Yeah. In the end, I just had to get on with it. I suppose I was on autopilot. But it was tough because I was kind of still a kid myself and all of these things were happening to my body and I didn’t really have anyone to turn to – other than my midwife, who was great.
Without her, I don’t know what I would’ve done.
That’s why I do the volunteering now at the young mums’ support group.
Because I never want anyone to go through the loneliness that I did. ’
‘Using your negative experience to help others experience something more positive is a wonderful thing to do.’
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘And now? I know that you speak with Ricky’s dad and they have a relationship.’
‘Yeah. When Ricky was born, his dad said we could stay in his aunt’s house which he’d been left, but I’d have to pay the bills and make it habitable.’
‘And what about your parents? Did they ever get in touch?’
‘No.’ I shook my head, fighting back the tears.
‘When he was born, I sent them photos. Even though what they did to me still hurt, I gave them my address so they knew where I was staying and said I’d love for them to visit.
But they never did. I continued sending photos of Ricky every year around his birthday, hoping that they’d get in touch, but nothing, so I stopped.
It’s like I’m dead to them. They don’t care about me.
I can’t understand how a parent can just abandon their child like that and never give them a second thought.
It wasn’t like I committed murder or some other awful crime.
All I did was have a child. I just don’t understand what I did wrong. ’
And there went the tears again.
Gabriel wrapped his arms around me and squeezed me tight. I continued sobbing.
I was about to try and make light of my crying, but when I looked at him, I saw that his eyes were red rimmed and watering.
Then a fat tear rolled down his cheek.
‘Gabriel?’ I frowned. ‘What’s wrong?’
I knew that sometimes when you heard someone tell a sad story, it was easy to get sucked in and for it to make you emotional too. But somehow I sensed that this wasn’t about that.
As another tear slid down his cheek, I knew for certain that they weren’t just empathy tears for me. They were personal.
It was like I’d touched a nerve. Like my story had triggered him.
‘It is not important,’ he said, wiping his cheeks. ‘We are talking about you.’
‘No,’ I said firmly. ‘We’ve finished talking about me and getting everything off my chest has made me feel so much better. If you want to talk about what’s upsetting you, I’m here.’
Gabriel’s gaze dipped to the floor and the silence stretched between us.
I knew he was thinking. Wondering whether he wanted to go and open up about whatever was bothering him.
I hoped that he felt comfortable enough to trust me and elaborate, but just like he’d done with me, I wouldn’t push him.
It was important that he did it at his own pace.
‘I am fine, just…’ His eyes darted to the left and then right and although he said he was fine, I was sure that he was holding something back.
I wanted to know what it was, but all I could do was hope that he’d tell me when he was ready.
‘It is upsetting to know that your parents did not care about your feelings. They just abandoned you when you needed them the most.’
‘Exactly. It was such a struggle for me. I know that it was my actions that led to that, but my parents could have showed some compassion and helped me, but they chose not to. That’s why I always vowed that Ricky would never have the horrible upbringing I had.
I wouldn’t treat him like a slave or lock him in the house and force him to do all the chores.
I told myself that he’d want for nothing.
I wanted him to always be able to talk to me, no matter what. ’
‘And clearly you have achieved that.’ Gabriel took my hand and squeezed it.
My heart swelled.
Maybe I had.
Maybe I was a good mum after all.
Ricky could’ve been angry or annoyed about discovering I was involved with Gabriel, but once I told him that I was happy, he was calm and understanding.
I’d like to hope that Juliette would be the same, but something told me that explaining the fact that I’d been sleeping with her son wouldn’t be so straightforward.