This Crazy Rich Boy

She can't believe what she's seeing: Gabriel acting like a child, cooing and making baby talk to the puppy. He acts like he's holding an actual human baby, showing the puppy around the suite, giggling when the puppy licks his face.

"He's so cute," he says. "Where did you get him?"

"It's a 'she' and her name's Samantha," Claire says. "Bought her at the park."

"Really? Somebody's selling dogs at the park?"

"I guess I just got lucky. It was serendipitous."

A shadow passes over Gabriel's face, remembering why he's here in the first place: because Claire wasn't around when he tried to pick her up. "What came over you, vanishing on me like that?"

Claire gazes out at the city skyline. There's still no sun. Everywhere are clouds and grayness. "That's what I need to speak to you about."

Gabriel puts the puppy on the floor. Sam is freaked out when her feet touch the carpet; she sniffs at it, probably surprised at the new surroundings. But her instinct kicks in soon, as she begins exploring the suite, like a school kid on the first day of summer. "You sound serious," Gabriel says.

"Dead serious," she says. "Because I was almost killed. Or at least severely harmed."

Gabriel cups her face in his hands as Claire's tears starts streaming. "Jesus, what happened, love?"

She gazes into his eyes, trying to fathom the future. If only she could see the consequences. If only. "How was lunch with Miguel?" She wipes her tears with the back of a hand, and turns to look for Sam, who has disappeared.

Gabriel follows her with a look that says, "What the hell?"

"I'm not sure about Miguel," Gabriel says. "He also didn't show up."

Claire stops in her tracks. "Did he call you up?"

"No," Gabriel says, exasperated. "I was even thinking earlier that you guys may be up to something, because both of you were missing."

"He didn't even leave a message? Texted you?"

Gabriel shrugs. "Tried calling him up, but his number's out of reach. What do you think happened with him?"

"He's probably in hell, with all the evil ones."

He laughs drily. "How do you mean? Did anything happen to you without my knowledge?"

Bloody hell, time for the truth. "Gab, yesterday morning, Miguel tried to harm me."

"What?" Gabriel's jaw drops. "What in hell do you mean? This is Miguel were talking about, my brother? Are you sure he…"

"Harm" is actually the understatement of the year, Claire thinks. She's thinking of ways how to open this delicate revelation to Gabriel, and the more she thinks about it, the longer she's just standing there, looking for a way out. In the end, the truth is simpler, because it is the truth. "He'd been trying to chase me, Gab. I wanted to tell you this for the longest time, but somehow, I was waiting for him to realize the error of his ways. But I didn't know how to 'manage' him. He's your brother, after all, so it's awkward to simply reject his advances as I would with any other person."

"Jesus. How long has this been happening."

Claire shrugs. "A lot of it was unspoken. He'd let me know of his feelings in subtle ways, and I try to ignore it as much as possible. Maybe because I'm a coward, too. These things are new to me. I never experienced this before, so I didn't know how to tell him off."

"So what did he try to do? You said yesterday morning…"

"I'm not sure what he intended to do, but he confronted me. He was trying to corner me. And I had the inkling that he was trying to take me or something."

"Take you? As in 'kidnap' you?"

"I'm not really sure, Gab. But he did try to grab me. Like he's, you know, obsessed. Like what Jake Magno did to me. I bȧrėly escaped him."

With quaking voice, Claire proceeds in detailing out how, to her horror, she'd find Gabriel speaking with Miguel on an iPad not many minutes after the ȧssault, Miguel acting like nothing happened.

Gabriel listens to it all with that look of amazement, like he's hearing something utterly fantastical. His reaction is disbelief, but he says nothing lest he aggravates Claire's pain. Yet, he couldn't deny it—what he's hearing now does not seem like the Miguel he has known all their lives. This is so strange.

The silence is so thick you can cut it with a knife. Then in the middle of all that awkwardness, Sam the puppy reappears, barking at them, wagging her little tail. Gabriel, by instinct, kneels down and picks her up, yet you could see in his eyes some acute distraction, as though he's entranced, trying to connect the dots, trying to decide whether he's here, right now, and this is all happening. That his beloved brother tried to **** the very woman that saved him from his hopelessness, the woman that gave him a renewed sense of direction. Miguel knew that. Miguel knew everything, even the smallest feelings. And yet.

Then the room phone rings. They both look at it as though it were a dead body that suddenly came back to life. The look on Gabriel's face says, "Go ahead, pick it up."

Claire hesitates. But she'd hate it even more if she doesn't know what the phone call is about. The phone trills loudly. She picks it up, grasping the receiver like a lifeline. "Hello?"

"Claire...Or are you Bella?" the voice says, unmistakably Miguel's.

"Miguel? Where are you—"

The line abruptly goes dead, like somebody slammed the phone.

Claire is white as sheet, her heart pounding. Gabriel returns her stare with a look that, at first, seems all confusion, until it all melts down into all-out rage. "He can't do something like that to me. To you." He slam-kicks the nearest furniture, which explodes into powder. Gabriel screams a guttural scream, like it's coming from a wounded beast. "I want to kill him, Claire. He's no longer my brother! I want to tear him to shreds!"