Chapter 26 Gabriel
Gabriel
Head hanging low, I grip our bathroom countertop until the nausea settles.
It’s been hours, but every time I think of the things Regis Martell said to Sydney, my pulse pounds with a sick sort of fury.
I once called that prick a friend. Josh tried to warn me that Rege was a piece of shit, and if I didn’t stop what I was doing, I’d become one too. I told Josh he was jealous.
Nothing was coming between me and the alcohol and sex I needed to drown out the demons in my head. Not even the person who’d been my best friend since I was nine years old.
All the people begging me to stop drinking were wrong.
My brother, showing up in a nightclub to pick me up off the floor and drag my ass home covered in my own vomit, was a dick for judging me.
My father, threatening to cut me off with tears in his eyes, was a control freak.
My mother, reminding me that I’d already finished a bottle of wine and I didn’t need more, was a worrier.
I can be around alcohol now without a problem. It doesn’t bother me. My brother-in-law can drink a beer, and I’ll snag the seltzer water or apple juice they always have stocked.
But I stay the fuck away from the people who try to drag me back into that lifestyle. I’m not tempted. I’m fucking ashamed of the choices I made.
I was on a binge with Rege the weekend I turned Sydney into collateral damage. I hadn’t even met her, yet, and didn’t truly understand the pain I’d caused for years. Or how one drunken, selfish act from a stranger had stripped away what little ability she had to trust anyone but herself.
She never forgave me for it. The best she could manage was to pretend it never happened. The best I could do was protect her from any reminder that the recovering alcoholic in me exists at all.
When life gets hard, drinking makes everything worse. It took two years of therapy for me to stop resenting the truth of that statement. Now, I embrace it. The mental and physical toll was reason enough to turn away from alcohol, but it was the lowest reason on my list. The people I love are first.
I’ll never be able to drink in moderation. That’s not who I am. With the sheer amount of alcohol I used to consume, I’d have reached organ failure before I lived to be forty. Sydney knew who I used to be—
Cold sweat prickles on the back of my neck. I retch into the sink, then brush my teeth and rinse the bowl.
Lifting my head, I stare back at my reflection. Calm the hell down.
Sydney and I left the restaurant with nothing but a few polite exchanges between us. Then she slept sitting up on the flight home, something I’ve never had anyone who wasn’t injured do. She’s been in bed ever since.
She was tired, but she could also be shutting down. She didn’t wake when we landed. I carried her inside, and she only roused long enough to change from her dress to one of my T-shirts.
I hear Sydney shuffle in the bedroom and murmur to Rufus. I paste a neutral expression on my face and open the door to find her perched on the arm of the upholstered chair, our prenup still sitting folded, and, apparently, unread, on her nightstand. She doesn’t look up from her phone when I enter.
I can guess what she’s looking at. The internet is full of photos of my past. She only needed to search for them. When she tells me she wants a divorce, I won’t blame her. Our marriage is on borrowed time.
I’ve always known how she felt about my alcoholism, and I’ll always be an alcoholic. I’ll always choose to turn away from even a single drink, because one would put me back into active addiction in a heartbeat. That may not be the experience of every alcoholic, but it’s who I am.
I move to stare out the window with unseeing eyes. After we married, Sydney had all my passcodes, used a family tracker app, and still constantly looked for signs I’d let her down. She always waited for me to prove she was right not to trust me.
I hear the sound of fabric swishing behind me and close my eyes. Rigid, I wait for Sydney’s judgment.
She wraps her arms around me from behind and rests her cheek on my back. “Are you okay?”
A whiplash of emotion flays me from the inside out. I barely breathe, uncertain if I can believe my own ears.
Finally, I turn to face her, pulling her into my arms. “I’m worried about you.”
Her brow furrows. “Do you mean because I threatened that creep? Because . . . it wasn’t smart . . . But I’d do it again.”
She shakes her head. “It’s like . . . leaping for a header knowing your opponent is doing the same thing.
Probably going to crash into each other.
Going to take a hit. But you don’t flinch away from the play just ’cause it might hurt.
I’ve been flinching ever since I got out of the h-hospital.
Seeing danger where there isn’t any. Today .
. . something snapped. Reminded me. I wouldn’t risk my life for pride, but I’ve taken an elbow to the face for a lot less. ”
“I wanted to pound that prick into the concrete the minute he spoke to you,” I say.
“But you didn’t.”
I shake my head. “I started martial arts training when I was toddler. The instructors taught us to compartmentalize our anger so it didn’t control us.
” I pause. “Does that make sense? When I killed Markov, I’ve never felt more rage, but it was a decision I would’ve made no matter what I was feeling because I believed it was right and necessary.
Most of the time, the angrier I feel, the more likely I am to put it in a box in my mind, so I can think clearly. ”
“I’m glad you didn’t try to take over when he th-threatened me,” she says.
I frown. “You’d have been pissed if I’d disrespected you like that.”
Her lips curve slightly. “Yes.”
“I wouldn’t have allowed him to touch you, and if you’d given a hint of fear or of wanting me to do it, I’d have kicked his ass for both of us, but he was drunk and weak. It would have been punishment, not a fight, and I have more effective ways to manage that.”
Her eyebrows crawl up her forehead. “Really?”
“He’s living off his inheritance, but he’s always been oblivious to how he makes money or where it comes from. He’s about to suffer some catastrophic financial losses. Within three months, he’ll be selling that yacht at a loss. He may even need to get a job.”
She bares her teeth in a delighted cringe. “He’ll be looking for a new girlfriend too because Melody isn’t sticking around for that.”
“And he’ll be shocked that the woman he treated like shit left him when he had nothing to offer financially.”
“You’re diabolical,” she says with admiration. “I thought you were the sweet brother.”
“I am.”
She snorts.
“You were asleep for hours,” I say, worry still hardening my gut into knots.
She nods, her sharp chin digging into my chest. “All the activity wiped me out, but it was worth it. Drama aside, it was an amazing day.”
“The things he said about me . . .”
She tilts her head back to look into my eyes. “You’re not worried that I believed him? Alcoholics are notorious liars. And only an asshole tries to convince someone else to drink after they’ve said no.”
“I would never be unfaithful or betray you.”
Her brows rise in the center, and she gives a small laugh. “I know that.”
I search her eyes. “How do you know?”
“Observation?” She squeezes me tighter. “You have empathy. You would never do something that caused intentional pain to someone you cared about. Disloyalty would hurt your soul.”
She listened to that vitriol and looked for reasons to trust me, instead of reasons not to. This is the wife I would have had if bitter experience hadn’t taught her to doubt me.
I run my hand over her hair, stealing comfort from it. Knowing what I say next will change things between us. I turn my head, unable to meet her eyes. “The things Rege said about me partying with him in the past were true.”
Sydney places her hand on my jaw and steers my face down to hers in a move reminiscent of the day we met, but far more gentle.
“How old were you? Early twenties? It would be more surprising if you hadn’t partied.
You’re offensively attractive. Of course women wanted to hook up.
What horny, single twenty-two-year-old would turn that down? ”
Her brunette waves flow loose and wild, and I brush a lock away from her face. “It wasn’t about having a good time. I used it to numb myself.”
She hesitates. “Because of Markov’s family?”
“Among other things.”
“If I’d known you in that phase of your life, I’d have steered clear of you when you were drinking. I wouldn’t have dated you. But I don’t blame you for having a past,” she says.
“You didn’t feel that way when you married me.”
“Then I was a judgmental bitch and a giant hypocrite.”
I frown. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Coming down on you for partying is an asshole move when I didn’t do the same thing to my friends when they did it.
Probably because you’re a man. And I’ve done way worse.
James forgave me for trying to get Clarissa to leave him.
I was trying to protect her, but I was a-awful and judging something I didn’t understand.
If she’d listened to me, I’d have r-ruined her life.
And we still don’t know what I did to those computers. ”
“The computers don’t matter.”
“Yes they do. I was f-fussing about you partying in your twenties? Look at me. I hid or d-destroyed company data. You give me the benefit of the doubt, but m-maybe I’m one of the b-bad guys.”
Her speech has become slower and more stilted the further this conversation goes.