Taming the Bitch (COMPLETED)

Chapter XV - Hit and Run

"When are you ever going to leave him alone?!"
Her voice tore through the office like a storm the moment she marched in, Vincent striding behind her with a brow already arched in expectation.

Gabriel Davis did not flinch.
He simply sipped his coffee, gaze fixed on the window overlooking the frantic pulse of New York below.

"Why do you still meet with him?!" she screamed, hands trembling, fists clenched so tightly her knuckles paled. "Stop bothering yourself with that swine!"

Vincent's eyes narrowed — the word swine striking a nerve. She had called him that once. The echo tasted bitter.

"There is nothing left he can do to make me go crazier or ruin your name!" she shouted, tears already streaking down her cheeks. "It's all been done! So just leave him alone!"

Vincent felt the ache in her voice like a blow. He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms, to take that fury and pain and cradle them away. To hold her. To keep her. To have her belong to him alone.

And the bitterness — God, the bitterness — told him far too much about how deeply she had trusted that other man... and how viciously he had broken her.

"You're the one making things worse!" she cried. "You entertain him, you feed him with your wealth! You started all of this! You ruined my life — not just him! So don't you dare try to keep him—"

"Take her away, Vincent."

Her father's voice sliced through the room like a whip, aimed not at her but at the man behind her. The coffee cup shattered against the floor, dark liquid streaking across the tiles.

"The plane is waiting at the airport. Take your fiancée away from this place. I'll see you at the wedding tomorrow."

"W-what...? W-wedding?" she breathed.

"I said take her away. You leave New York today. You fly to London for the ceremony."

Her knees weakened. She stared at him, aghast. He couldn't be serious. He wouldn't dare marry her off to this insufferable man — not like this. Not so soon.

"N-no..." Her voice trembled as she stepped back, ready to run.

"Adrian came before Ryan did," her father said sharply.

She froze.

Adrian — who hadn't spoken to her once since the engagement was announced. Adrian, who had vanished. Adrian, whose silence gouged her deeper than she ever admitted.

Her father's voice turned cold, controlled.
"Things are becoming... difficult. Dangerous. Especially for his mother."

Gabrielle's breath hitched.

"She's dying," he said in French — deliberately cutting Vincent out.

Her entire body trembled.

He stepped closer, lowering his voice even further.
"I can tell the doctors to leave her as she is. Refuse treatment. It would be so very easy."

Her legs buckled, and she would have collapsed had Vincent not caught her by the shoulders, gripping her firmly as she sagged in shock.

"Her life is in your hands, Gabrielle," her father murmured in French. "You always wanted to be a doctor to save your mother. I trust you'll extend the same mercy to your best friend's."

She shook violently.

"I hate you..." she whispered in French, voice cracking.
"I hate you with everything in me..."

Vincent felt her chest heaving beneath his hands. He didn't know the words, but he knew enough. Whatever Gabriel Davis had just said had gutted her.

"You'll no longer share my name after tomorrow," her father added coolly. "You should be delighted, Gabrielle Ralph Walton-to-be."