by Simply BWWM
“You can’t possibly be making a threat like that, Julian! It’s the girl’s whole career! You’d destroy that out of jealousy? Out of retaliation because she won’t sleep with you but she wants me? You’d really do that? Over something so totally unimportant? You don’t care about her at all! She’s nothing to you; just another woman, just another piece of ass for you! What do you care?
You go through women all the time and none of them mean anything to you! Why does this one matter? You don’t care about her, you don’t like her, you don’t love her, she means nothing to you! This is all about you getting what you want! You’re a selfish, spoiled, son of a bitch who is ready to demolish a woman’s life just because she doesn’t want to have sex with you!” his voice raised slightly, as his temper began to flare even more.
Julian gritted his teeth and nearly shouted back at Julian. “It’s a matter of pride! It’s a matter of family honor! It shouldn’t matter how I feel about her, and it shouldn’t matter what I want her for! What should matter here is that you are not putting me first! I am your brother! Your blood! If I want the woman, and I had her before you did, then I should get her! You should respect me, and respect our bond and what I want, and you should stay the hell away from her!
I told you at first that you could have her when I was done with her, but now I don’t even want you to have that! You’re putting her before me, and that isn’t what family does! I come first! Me! I am your priority, I am your brother! She’s mine! You back the hell off! You have a duty to me and to our bond, and you are putting that trashy little bitch right between us where she has no business being!”
Anger shot through Antonio like a bolt of lightning and he had to hold himself back from completely losing his temper with Julian.
“She is not yours! She works for you, as an employee! The fact that you have been after her does not make her yours, it gives you no right over her whatsoever! She’s not a possession to be owned, Julian, she is a person; a woman, and you cannot possess her like an object! She does not want to give herself to you, and you have to acknowledge that and let it go! She said no, she said she doesn’t want you, that’s it! Let her go! It just so happens that she wants me, and I want her! I want more than just to take her to my bed, Julian, I am falling in love with her, I want her in my life, and you are the only thing standing in the way of that happening!” He took a step toward Julian, who was fuming at that point, and he continued.
“I am not breaking any brotherly bond here, Julian, and you have no right pulling that crap with me. None! She’s between us right now because you want her for sex and I want her for love. If you can’t see how stupid and shallow that is, then you’re the one who doesn’t understand what our brother bond is! You’re the one who has no right to her!
You don’t want her for anything more than a quick lay, and she’s worth so much more than that. She’s worth being loved, and I can give her that; I want to give her that! How do you have no respect for me, for my love for her, and most of all for her as a human being? How can you be so damn chauvinistic? How can you put no worth at all on the love I have for her? How does your lust for her come before my love for her?” Antonio was on a warpath. Everything that he had been keeping bottled up was being unleashed, and there was no holding back the tide.
Julian’s eyes were ablaze with outrage. “I had her first! I told you to stay away from her and you didn’t! You don’t respect anything! Our blood bond should be the most important thing to you and it’s obvious to me that it isn’t! I’ve had it with you taking whatever you want no matter how I feel about it! You don’t get everything just because you’re older, Antonio, there are limits to what you should get, and she is beyond your limits because she’s mine! You stepped in where you had no business being and you put yourself first, like you always do!
You’re a selfish bastard, Antonio! I’ve put up with your greediness long enough! I’m going to tell you this right now, and I mean it! If you go after her, not only will I destroy her career, but us… you and me big brother, we are done. I will disown you and that’s the god’s honest truth. You choose her over me, you lose me. That’s how this is going to go. You think you love her enough to lose your own brother? Go after her. I will destroy her and I will leave you; you will be dead to me forever!”
The line had been drawn. Antonio knew as he stared at his brother that Julian was in earnest. He meant every word he said. Everything was in jeopardy. Their brotherhood, their family, his love for Gabriella, her career, and he knew that when Julian discovered the changes at the company, it would only get worse.
Everything was teetering so delicately on the brink of disaster for everyone, and the one who seemed to be pulling all of the strings was Julian. He was the one who was going to wreak havoc if everything didn’t go his way. Antonio knew that most of it probably wasn’t going to go Julian’s way when it was all said and done. It was going to be much worse when Julian learned that he had lost any kind of control at Medici Corp.
Julian turned on his heel and stomped out of the front door, slamming it behind him, and a moment later, Antonio heard the car engine scream and the tires squeal as Julian peeled out of the driveway. He sighed and walked to the back of the house, letting himself out of the doors onto the patio overlooking the gardens where he had danced with Gabriella.
He had no idea how he was going to try to keep from seeing her, but the more he thought about it, the more he knew that he couldn’t bear to cost her the career she had worked so hard for. He wanted her, and he knew that everything he had said to his brother was true; he was falling in love with her, but he couldn’t let his desire and need for her cost her everything she had spent most of her life building up. He refused to be the downfall that ended her career; especially for his own desires.
He was going to have to let her go, as much as he didn’t want to, as much as he ached for her and wished with all of his heart that she could be his, he knew that there was no way it could happen. Not as long as his brother was holding all of the aces and calling all of the shots. Julian was the only thing stopping them, and he wasn’t going to budge. There was no future for either of them with Julian making the rules and demands.
There was no way around it. He was going to have to let Gabriella go, at least for a while. At least until his brother’s interest in her waned and his focus shifted to other desires. Then maybe, some distant day in the future, he might have a chance at winning Gabriella as his own, if she hadn’t found someone else by then, and if she had forgiven him for everything that had happened with his brother.
Chapter8
Gabriella awoke and looked around her bedroom. Her eyes were wet and she reached her hand up to wipe away the tears. She wondered for a moment where they had come from, but a moment was all it took for her dream to come flooding back into her mind.
She had been with Antonio, in her bed at the cabin. They had made love all night and had fallen asleep in each other’s arms. When they awoke in her dream, they had been kissing and talking, when they heard Julian’s voice coming to them, and Julian yelled and fought with them, though they could not see him, until Antonio began to fade while still in her arms; like a misty vapor, he gradually disappeared, calling her name and reaching out for her, and try as she might to grasp for him and hold on to him, she could not close her hands around him, and he disappeared just as she woke up.
Her chest hurt and she tried to rub her headache away with her fingertips on her temples. After a few long moments she climbed out of bed and heard her phone ringing. Reaching for it, she saw that it was Lila, and she answered right away.
“There’s my girl!” Lila sang out in her sunshine voice. “How are you doing today, honey?”
Gabriella closed her eyes and held her hand to her mouth for a moment, trying to stem the tidal wave of emotion that threatened to overtake her. She took a deep ragged breath and Lila heard it.
“Oh no… honey what’s wrong?” she asked, her voice gentle with concern.
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br /> “It’s the Medici’s. Both of them. I’m a wreck,” she said quietly, swallowing a hard knot in her throat and taking another deep breath.
“What now?” Lila asked.
Gabriella walked into the kitchen holding the phone to her ear. She filled the kettle and pulled a mug and a box of tea out of the cupboard as she explained. “Well, I was doing a shoot for the April issue… not the cover, just contents, and Antonio showed up. I couldn’t believe he was there because the magazine is Julian’s; it’s something he owns on his own without his brother. Antonio has nothing to do with it, so I was really surprised when I looked up in the middle of the shoot and saw him standing there watching me. Girl… the way he watched me… like I’m the frosting on his finger!”
“Whew! That’s hot!” Lila said with a gasp.
“It was so hot. He just stood there watching me, and when it was over, he and I went back to my dressing room and things heated up so fast between us! You wouldn’t believe it. He was kissing me when Julian just barged right through the door and started screaming at us. He made Antonio leave and then he told me that if I ever see him again he’s going to ruin my career. He can do it, too.
He’s one of the big shots in California fashion because of the magazine, and he would only have to make a few phone calls to end my whole career. I wouldn’t be able to get a job modeling anywhere! I am so terrified that that’s what he’s going to do! I didn’t work all of this time, all of these years, making all of the sacrifices that I’ve made just so he can throw it all away in a minute because he’s angry that his brother and I want to be together! You should have seen how mad he was!” She closed her eyes and shook her head at the memory of it.
Lila was furious. “How can he do that? He can’t do that! You need to report him to somebody! You need to get him in trouble! There are laws about that!”
Gabriella shook her head, though she knew that Lila couldn’t see it. “I can’t do that! I mean, I could, and he would get into trouble, but you know he’d trash my career before he even went to court, and honey, he’s a billionaire… he’s going to hire some big name attorney to defend himself and then I’ll have to prove it, and right now it’s all ‘he said she said.’
There’s no way I can prove it. Hell, he could even lie and say that I was coming on to him to try to get the cover, and make me look like the one who is being underhanded. There’s no way to really get him for this one. He’s making the demands, but he hasn’t forced me to do anything; so far it’s all threats. I believe he’ll follow through with all of them, but they are just threats right now. Verbal ones; ones that I can’t prove.”
“This is sickening,” Lila grumbled angrily.
“It is. I know it is. That’s only part of it. He told me never to see Antonio again or it was all over for me, but I just can’t keep Antonio off my mind. I think about him all the time, and I want him so much. I dream about him, I miss him, I feel lonely without him. It’s crazy! I haven’t ever had an interest in a guy like this. Not ever!” Gabriella frowned thinking of how much he was affecting her. “It’s like he’s in every part of me and I just can’t get rid of him!”
Lila laughed a little, but it was an ironic laugh coupled with a moan, and with no hint of humor. “Oh no, baby girl. Oh no.”
“Oh no what?” Gabriella wondered aloud.
“You’ve gone and done it now,” Lila said knowingly.
“What have I done?” Gabriella asked in confusion.
“You went and fell in love with Antonio,” Lila answered quietly.
Gabriella froze for a moment, shock rocketing through her. She blinked a few times and lowered her brow. “I… no I haven’t. No… I haven’t. I’m not in love with him… Not at all. I’m… I like him a lot, and I wish we could be together, but I haven’t…” she paused as the concept sunk fully into her mind.
“Oh god,” She whispered, realizing the truth.
“You fell in love with him. I didn’t know if you were ever going to fall in love, because it hasn’t happened to you before,” Lila said with a comforting and gentle voice.
“I fell in love with him,” Gabriella admitted out loud. Lila was right. Gabriella had had plenty of boys and men after her, but she had never even looked at one long enough to like him much, let alone fall in love with him, because everything she ever focused on was her career.
Lila sighed deeply and her voice was soft and loving. “I wish I was there to hug you. You’re about to go through hell. If you want to come up here at any time and get away from those crazy Medici boys, you come right ahead. You always have a room here, and you know it.
I’m so sorry honey. You’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and that jackass Julian put you there. Right there in between choosing your career or his brother who you are in love with. Great. What a bastard.” She grumbled a bit more. “He better hope I never meet him,” she swore.
Gabriella closed her eyes and let her head fall back on her sofa. “I can’t believe this. No wonder I can’t get him out of my thoughts and my mind.” She sighed and groaned softly. “What am I going to do?” she asked in a thin uncertain voice.
“You’re going to focus on your career,” Lila answered sternly. “There’s nothing you can do about the boys, and both of them have caused you nothing but trouble. You work, and you keep looking for other modeling jobs, and you do nothing but your career, just like you’ve always done, and every time Antonio comes into your mind, you push him out and think about work. Every time. Focus on your job, honey. That’s all you can do, thanks to Julian.”
She knew that her best friend was right. “There’s no other way out of this for me,” she agreed. “If I focus on the job, the only thing I have to worry about is when the next time Julian will come onto me is… if he does it again, and I have a bad feeling that he will. He’s banged up from his wreck right now, or I think he would have tried again already.”
Lila grew angry again. “If he does anything, you better report him, do you hear me? He can’t get away with that. Not at all. If he comes after you like that, you call the authorities. He has no right to do that to you, or treat you that way. Do you hear me? You turn his nasty ass in!”
Gabriella smiled. She loved that she had such a good strong woman in her corner. “Yes ma’am. I’ll definitely turn him in if he tries anything with me. I promise.”
“Even if you think it will cost you your career. You do it,” Lila demanded.
“I know. I promise,” Gabriella agreed. “Hopefully he will just let it go. He knows I don’t want him, and now he knows that I want his brother, so maybe he’ll back off. Here’s hoping,” she said with a shallow laugh. She didn’t believe for a moment that he would let it go, but she could hope.
Her mind turned to something else that had been worrying her, and she brought it up. “Lila, there’s something else that I’m really worried about.”
“What’s that honey?” Lila asked curiously.
“Well, my contract with the magazine is up in March. I have to renew it with the company. I want to renew it, and I want to keep my job there, but I don’t know if Julian will let me. I’m so worried about that.” Gabriella’s voice was little more than a whisper.
“Have you ever had to see him before to renew it? Isn’t that something that you do with Kathy?” Lila asked hopefully.
“Yeah, Kathy usually does take care of that, but with Julian coming after me like has, I don’t know if he will wind up getting involved in it. I keep hoping that he has no idea it’s coming up and that it’ll just be paperwork for Kathy and he won’t even know about it, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.” Gabriella sighed heavily.
“You are one hot mess after another. My god, girl,” Lila said and Gabriella could just see her shaking her head. “Well, just take it one day at a time; that’s all you can really do anyway, right? You just keep going in to work every day, and when the contract comes up, just hope that Kathy is the one handing it to you to sign. You better keep me po
sted on all of this, and really honey, if you need a break, you come up here. I’m always here for you.”
“Thank you, Lila. I love you.” Gabriella smiled for the first time that morning. They said goodbye and she got ready for work with Lila’s words in her mind. Take one day at a time. Just keep going. That was her plan, and though it wasn’t much, it was all she had.
One day at a time passed into the next, and they began to slip by slowly. Soon a week had passed, and Gabriella hadn’t heard from Julian at all, which was an enormous relief to her, and she tried as best she could to focus on her work, and to not think of Antonio at all, but it was one of the hardest things she had ever done, and it hurt like hell.
Keeping him from her thoughts during the day was difficult, but keeping him from her dreams every night was nearly impossible. She tried to think of anything but him every night as she went to bed, but every night when her eyes were closed, he was there in her dreams, talking to her, holding her hand, dancing with her, kissing her, making love with her… so many different dreams.
Every morning when she woke up, she was sad to find that none of them were true. It was all a painful façade, but she couldn’t risk blowing her career, so she let the dreams go every morning, and she focused on work, and so the days passed by, one by one, like a ticking clock.
Another week was nearly gone when she was out shopping one day and heard her phone ringing. She pulled it from her bag and saw that it was Antonio. She watched his face light up the screen, and she saw his call ringing over and over, and she wanted more than anything to answer it, but she held herself back with every ounce of determination and strength in her. He was off limits, and she knew it.
If it was important, he could leave a message and she would check that, but she couldn’t bear to answer the phone and hear his voice on the other end of it. She knew she wouldn’t be able to tell him no if he wanted to see her, and she couldn’t let herself down that way.
