Falling For You

by Nicole Taylor

  After Gabriel had bought out Barry’s shares and changed the name of the company, he still had to end some of his father’s business dealings. The Cash-End contract was one of these. When Alexei Lebedev found out, the man threatened him. Gabriel had explained that it was nothing personal. It was just that the focus of the new company would not involve the trade of commodities. Lebedev had then attempted to do business with him in his ‘novel ventures’ as he had called them. Gabriel had told him he would get back to him. He never had. This had not gone unnoticed by Lebedev, who contacted Gabriel sometime later and accused him of disrespecting him.

  Gabriel now ran his hand through his hair. To think that Patrick had gotten them involved with that family after all he had done to extricate himself from them. He had thought he could trust his brother. But then he had thought he could trust Dmitri too. Gabriel remembered when he had introduced Dmitri to Dot, his tongue had practically lolled out of his mouth. Gabriel hadn’t taken it seriously. He had known that Dmitri was a womanizer, but he figured he knew where to draw the line. He had never considered for a moment that the man had been planning and plotting how he could steal Dot away from him.

  Dot was right. He was too trusting. Yes, Patrick was his brother, but did he really know him? They had never really grown up as friends because Lily had successfully kept them apart. In the summer, Patrick was hustled off to spend time with his upper-class Van Wilder cousins in Connecticut. At the same time, Gabriel returned to Dublin to be with his grandparents. And when Gabriel had spent those three years at Trinity College in Dublin, Patrick had apparently been hanging out with the wrong people and getting hooked on drugs.

  Why hadn’t it occurred to him before now that he really did not know his brother as well as he thought? Why had he felt comfortable enough to turn over the most critical aspect of his operations, finances, to a man he hardly knew? He had accepted his advice without question, signed checks, and contracts without scrutinizing them too closely and not giving things a second thought. Why? What had motivated him to do something so stupid?

  “This is the reason I filed the objection to the merger. Patrick asked me to do it. He told me that I would be saving you from disaster, and if I ever loved you, I needed to.”

  Gabriel felt his stomach churn. This kept getting worse and worse. Patrick had not only borrowed money from the Russian mafia, then deceived him about their involvement but had also put Dot up to doing his dirty work.

  Dot came to sit beside him.

  “And you just did his bidding?” he asked.

  “I didn’t need a lot of convincing. When I heard that you had unwittingly gotten entangled with the Lebedevs, I knew I had to help you.”

  Gabriel shook his head. “How is trying to stop this merger, helping me to get out of this mess with the Lebedevs?”

  Dot’s eyes widened. “Gabriel, I never said anything about helping you to get out of this arrangement with the Lebedevs. That was not my intention. I hope you’re not thinking of doing anything rash.”

  “What do you mean, ‘rash’?”

  “I mean, if you try to get out of your agreement with the Lebedevs, the consequences will be dire.”

  “What else would you have me do? You admitted yourself that these people are a scourge on humanity.”

  Dot slid her arm up Gabriel’s shoulder shifted closer so that their legs were now touching. “End these talks with Lamport Holdings regarding the merger. That is the only way to do this. If Lamport Holdings finds out that you are in bed with a Russian crime boss, they will end the deal themselves and blacklist you, Gabriel. That will ruin the reputation you spent the last three years building. Take my advice, don’t say a word about this to Leiliana Lamport. Just end discussions on this merger. Afterward, you can figure out the best way to deal with the Lebedevs.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Leiliana could not concentrate.

  Here she was at this cocktail party surrounded by lively conversation and laughter, yet her stomach was in knots because she could not stop thinking about Gabriel and Dot. No matter what she told herself, she couldn’t overcome the thought that Dot was in Gabriel’s apartment right now. The thought that they were making out or worse was almost more than her frazzled nerves could take.

  She thought of calling Gabriel and asking him point-blank if Dot was there. But supposed she wasn’t there? She might come across as a jealous woman, and Gabriel might think she didn’t trust him. She could perhaps just call to chat with him and might be able to gauge from his tone if he was hiding something. But it would seem foolish for her to call just to talk, given that he had said he needed to work on something. Oh, what to do? She felt like wringing her hands in despair.

  Someone nudged her, and she turned around. It was Anita. She looked lovely with her brown skin and shoulder-length curls.

  “Are you going to purchase anything tonight, Leia? Many of the really good pieces were sold earlier in the evening, but I kept one in the back that I believe you’ll like.”

  An idea immediately formed in Leiliana’s mind. She could purchase a painting now for Gabriel’s house in Ireland. Then she could swing by his place tonight and give it to him. She could always explain that she’d picked it up at the party just now and wanted to drop it off rather than take it up to her apartment. That way, she would discover if Dot was there, and save face if she was not.

  She nodded. “Anita, I’d love to see that painting.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Gabriel felt cold fingers of fear grip him.

  Forget about his company or reputation. What jolted him was the possibility of losing Leiliana over this. What would she think if she knew about this? Would she give him the benefit of the doubt or immediately see him in the same light as his father?

  Dot was still holding onto his arm and looking up at him with her blue liquid gaze.

  He stood and went to retrieve her purse. He gave it to her, his meaning clear.

  She took it reluctantly.

  “I’m sorry, Dot. I’ve got some thinking to do. You’ll have to go,” he said, steering her towards the door. “Is your driver here?” he asked.

  She nodded. “He’s parked outside.”

  Gabriel decided to see her out. It was the least he could do after she had taken the time to inform him of what was happening behind his back.

  He turned around and grabbed his keys, then opened the door and walked with her to the elevators. As they descended to the ground floor, she turned to him. “I didn’t mean to upset you. I just knew I had to tell you, Gabriel.”

  “I need you to do something else for me.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Prevent Patrick from going into the office tomorrow. Find something for him to do. I have to do some searching, and I don’t want him to come and find me.”

  She nodded. “I will.”

  As they walked out to the lobby, he turned to her. ““You were right to come to me. I’m glad you did. But why did you do it?”

  She gave him a sidelong glance. “Do you even have to ask? You know how I feel about you.”

  They were now outside his building. As they descended the steps, the door of a stately black Mercedes Benz opened, and a driver got out and stood beside the car door.

  “Your ride?” Gabriel asked.

  Dot nodded and turned to him. Before he could stop her, she threw her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his. His arms came around her to steady her.

  It took Gabriel a minute to get over his surprise and break off the kiss. He took a step away from her. “Dot, I’m involved with someone else. I can’t do this,” he said.

  “Leiliana Lamport, right?”

  He nodded. She shook her head. “I hope your feelings for her don’t cause you to make a foolish decision about this merger, Gabriel. You need to keep your head on. Goodnight.”

  As she turned to walk away, he called out to her.

  She stopped a few feet away from her car.

  He caught up with her. “Have
you ever considered that there may be more to life than what you’re experiencing now?”

  She tilted her head to a side. “What do you mean?’

  “There’s someone who can give you the joy that lasts.”

  “Who’s that?”

  “Jesus Christ, Dot. He can fill you with joy everlasting. Just repent of your sins and accept the salvation that he is offering you today.”

  She gave him a lopsided smile. “You’re trying to evangelize me, Gabriel?”

  “Yes, I am. I want you to be happy, and that’s the only way I know how to be truly happy.”

  She kissed his cheek. “Perhaps one day, Gabriel.”

  “Don’t wait too late, Dot,” he cautioned as she prepared to step through the door of the limo her driver held open for her. “Tomorrow is promised to no man.”

  ~*~*~*~

  Leiliana sat in the car and stared. Like a person transfixed on a horror show, she couldn’t drag her eyes away from the scene before her.

  Gabriel and Dot were kissing at the entrance to his building. She was pressed against him, and his arms were wrapped around her.

  Leiliana couldn’t take it anymore. If she watched them a minute longer, she would throw up right here in this car.

  In a strangled voice, she told the driver to take her back to the Waldorf.

  Biting back tears, she took up her phone and made arrangements to return home to England early the next morning.

  ~*~*~*~

  Gabriel had spent a sleepless night, tossing and turning as the whole mess in which he had found himself played on his mind like the music of a crazy merry-go-round. He had spent the night praying to God to help him. Help him out of this terrible situation. He knew that only God could help him to find a solution to this problem.

  When the morning broke, he still wasn’t sure what he would do. He took a shower to clear his mind and fixed himself a strong cup of coffee. Then he called Leiliana. The call immediately went to voice mail. He sent her a text message asking her to call him urgently. In the meantime, he would get to the bottom of what Patrick had done.

  Chapter 21

  G abriel spent the entire day searching Patrick’s office for any evidence that the Lebedevs were the principals in A.L. Finance. He even got the IT officer to give him access to Patrick’s emails. He searched every record, every email, every piece of correspondence. There was nothing in writing from the Lebedevs. They appeared to have covered their tracks quite well. All correspondence regarding the loan was handled by their lawyer, it seemed.

  And then Gabriel found something else he hadn’t been expecting—a demand letter from the bank stating the loan for the building project was to be repaid within ten days.

  It was late in the evening when he showed up at Patrick’s Park Avenue apartment.

  “I didn’t know you were back in town,” Patrick said, closing the door behind Gabriel. “Why didn’t you tell me you were here?”

  Gabriel turned to face his brother, praying to God for strength to control himself and not give in to the desire to pummel him.

  “I’ve been busy.” He shoved a sheet of paper under Patrick’s nose. “Read this,” he said, observing his brother closely.

  Patrick took the paper and quickly scanned the letter. His face turned as white as a sheet.

  “It’s a demand letter from the bank requesting that we repay the loan for the building project in full in ten days,” Gabriel said.

  “So it seems,” Patrick mumbled.

  “When were you planning to tell me about this?”

  “This is the first time I’m seeing this letter,” Patrick said, as though that should suffice as an explanation.

  “How did this happen?” Gabriel asked in measured tones.

  Patrick shrugged. “I don’t know.” He walked across the room and began to fix himself a drink.

  “What do you mean you don’t know!” Gabriel exploded. “No bank is going to just demand repayment of a loan unless we defaulted on payments. Is that what has been happening?”

  Patrick turned to give him a defiant stare. “I have been telling you for months that we couldn’t afford to invest in these ventures. That it was impacting our cash flow. It looks as though it finally caught up with us.”

  “Are you telling me that we have been defaulting on our loan, and you didn’t alert me?”

  Patrick splayed out his arms. “I tried. I told you that we were having cash flow problems. I told you not to purchase JJ Inc. You wouldn’t listen. You told me to find the money from somewhere. Get creative, you said. So I did. We got a loan from A.L. Finance, and things were going well for a while. The problem was that we have to repay more than $1 million to A.L. Finance a month. With no revenue coming in from the building project, we had no money left over to make our monthly payment to the bank.”

  “I can’t believe you did something like this and didn’t consult me. I trusted you to take charge of our finances, and this is what you did?”

  “I did what I thought was best. If you have a problem with it, then fire me, see if I care,” Patrick sneered, lifting the drink to his lips.

  With lightning speed, Gabriel rushed across the room. He seized Patrick by the collar. The glass went crashing to the ground, its contents spilling on the floor. The smell of alcohol filled the room.

  “Hey!” Patrick protested, trying to struggle.

  “I ought to toss you out of this window,” Gabriel threatened, pressing Patrick against the wall next to the apartment’s open window.

  “Let me go, you maniac!” Patrick cried. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong! You try to destroy the company which I spent three years rebuilding, and you dare to tell me you did nothing wrong.”

  Patrick tried to pry Gabriel’s hand from off of him. “You are overreacting, Gabriel! This is not the end of the world. We can resolve this. I promise,” he pleaded.

  “Resolve it, how?”

  “Let me go, and I’ll tell you.”

  Gabriel relaxed his hold, and Patrick immediately wrenched himself from his grasp. He stumbled across the room and fell into a chair. “The bank president called me two days ago. I’m dealing with the matter. There is no need for you to panic just because you see a demand letter. This is the traditional first step banks take to collect on a loan.”

  “You are such a scheming liar. You told me minutes ago that you hadn’t seen the letter.”

  “I wasn’t lying. I did not see the letter! The bank president told me they would be sending a letter today. I wasn’t in the office today, so I wasn’t there to receive it. I’m scheduled to meet with him by the end of the week regarding the bank’s intentions towards the loan relationship. He said there may be an opportunity to restructure the loan under new terms and conditions. That takes time and will require negotiating a forbearance agreement.”

  “What is a forbearance agreement?”

  “It’s an agreement by the bank to forbear from taking any actions to collect the loan for a period of time, provided we meet certain hurdles in operating performance that they will define for us.”

  “And when were you going to alert me to this?”

  “Today, actually. I was planning to call you today.”

  “Why should I believe you? You’ve been lying to me for months, years for all I know.” Gabriel shook his head. “Even if we meet with the bank and restructure the loan, there are bound to be penalties from defaulting in the first place. Let’s hear about them.”

  Patrick noticeably swallowed. “It’s likely the bank will increase our interest rate, charge additional fees, and ask for additional collateral,” he mumbled.

  When Gabriel screwed up his face in distaste, Patrick hastened to add, “Or we can get A.L. Finance to settle our loan with the bank. That way, we can get the bank off our backs and only have one creditor to repay.”

  At this, Gabriel straightened. Now they had gotten to what his brother had really intended to do all along. The worse
and most dangerous aspect of Patrick’s betrayal.

  “A.L. Finance. A.L. Finance. It always comes back to them. You know, I could never get you to provide me with any information on that company. All you would say was that they have roots in…Russia was it?”

  Patrick’s gaze shifted. He looked longingly at the bottle of alcohol across the room. “They are the only option we have right now. If things don’t go well in our negotiations with the bank, I propose that we go to them.”

  “What’s the name of the owner of this enterprise?”

  “I don’t think that we need to get too bogged down with that information–”

  “What is his name, Patrick!” he asked through clenched teeth, making a start towards Patrick once more.

  “Alexei Lebedev!” Patrick yelled.

  “Dmitri’s father?”

  “Gabriel, it was the only option we had.”

  “Do you know that Alexei Lebedev is a Mafia boss!”

  “Alleged. He’s not been convicted of any crime.”

  “I can’t believe that you got us embroiled with that man. Do you understand what such an association will do to our business reputation? Furthermore, do you have any idea what will happen when Lamport Holdings gets wind of this? We can kiss that intended merger goodbye.”

  “That’s why I wasn’t too keen on the merger in the first place.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me everything at that point?”

  “Because I knew you’d fly into a rage like you’re doing now.” Patrick put his head in his hands. He looked as though he had no fight left in him. Like he no longer cared.

  “Why did you do this?” Gabriel asked.

  After a few minutes, Patrick raised his head. His face contorted as though he would cry. “Why? I’ll tell you why. I was tired of being taken for granted. From the moment dad discovered you, I was no longer good enough. He was constantly comparing me to you. Everything was Gabriel this and Gabriel that. I wasn’t tough. I wasn’t adventurous. I looked nothing like him. You were all those things. The apple of his eye. I was good at one thing, though. Figures. I was a whiz at finance. I got a scholarship. But did he care? No, all he cared about was you attending his alma mater, grooming you to take over the company. You didn’t even care about the business. I cared more than you ever did, but he always overlooked me.”