Love split Cheeky Girl reveals torment she hid from world

WEEPING Cheeky Girl Gabriela Irimia told last night of the traumatic secret miscarriage she suffered after her split with MP Lembit Opik and sobbed: "Losing the baby was the worst day of my life."

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As she revealed the tragic truth behind her bizarre romance with the Lib Dem oddball, and the reason for their shock break-up, pop star Garbriela confessed she REGRETTED ever getting engaged to him.

And she spoke for the first time about a terrifying SEX ATTACK that blighted her life at just 14 and has haunted her ever since.

The revelation of Gabriela's secret baby will shock 43-year-old Opik. He had no idea she was pregnant, but just before the break-up- revealed in last week's News of the World-he spoke of his dream that they WOULD have kids together.

Panicked

Still wearing her diamond engagement ring, tearful Gabriela told of the moment her pregnancy went wrong, as she returned home to Rye, Sussex, after a charity run in London with fellow Cheeky star and twin sister Monica.

"I felt the most awful cramps in my stomach," said Gabriela, 25. "I never experienced that much pain in my life. It was agony and I didn't know what to do.

"I wanted to call my mum Margit because she used to be a midwife back in Romania-but I'd kept the baby secret from her too.

"By the time we got back home it had turned into a chronic pain and I couldn't sit down. I dragged myself upstairs and ran a bath hoping it would go away.

"But it was like a knife stabbing me and I thought I was dying. I totally panicked and started screaming for my mum. She came rushing in, saw the blood and said, 'Oh my God!'

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"I was in shock and knew something really bad was happening. But Mum didn't get hysterical she just coped with everything and got me to bed. I didn't have to tell her I was pregnant, she knew. She thinks I must have been five or six weeks gone."

The drama followed days and nights of soul-searching for Gabriela after she first discovered she was carrying Lembit's child.

She told us: "I thought we'd been so careful about our love life. Then around mid-June I was passing the chip shop and suddenly just really fancied fish and chips.

"I bought a good portion but when I got home I had two bites and felt so sick I rushed to the toilet.

"I thought it was just a stomach problem. Then I started waking up every morning feeling the same way. I didn't put the two things together at first." But sister Monica did-and urged her to take a pregnancy test.

Gabriela recalled: "I thought, 'What will I do if I AM pregnant?' Suddenly I had all the worries about what could happen-physically and financially, career wise and my relationship with Lembit. I was so scared. The test took five minutes and I couldn't even look. Then Monica saw the telltale blue sign for positive and she turned to me and said, 'Do you want to tell anyone?'.

"And the answer was 'No!' I did NOT want to tell anybody.

"I wasn't just scared for me. I was thinking about everybody around me. My first thoughts were for Monica and our career together. What would she do? The Cheeky Girls are a duo. But I knew I couldn't go through an abortion.

"I'll never forget the day, it was June 21. I just wanted to run away. I felt like I'd let down everybody including myself."

Chain-smoking and brushing away tears, Gabriela recalled how her relationship with Lembit was already getting stormy.

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"At the end of June we weren't getting on very well," she said. "There were lots of arguments over nothing. One reason was I kept thinking, 'If I am going to keep the baby, what's going to happen?' Would I live with him? It would be impossible. Would I live at his place near his constituency in Wales?

"Would I be waiting for him to come home two or three days a week? Some days he's in London and then he's in other parts of the country. Would I cope alone?

Shocked

"My view is that you have to be living together to bring up a baby. I'd have to give up my career totally and to be honest I wouldn't be prepared for that right now. I was really worried from so many angles.

"You have to be so certain about something like that and I just didn't have the courage to tell him I was pregnant. I didn't feel ready.

"I know Lembit will be shocked reading this today. I just couldn't tell him any other way. I feel awful for not telling him. Obviously he had the right to know and if I could turn back time I WOULD do it.

"Lembit had said so many times how much he wanted kids. He had this dream worked out of the perfect family. But I didn't do this on purpose. My God, I feel so guilty about losing the baby. These terrible secrets have been too much to bear."

The couple last spoke on July 1 at a charity dinner in London's Park Plaza hotel when they had a blazing row which brought all their troubles to a head.

Gabriela-who was hiding the grief over her lost baby and preparing to perform on stage with Monica-said that at one point angry Lembit was holding on to her wrist preventing her joining her sister.

"We were sitting at the dinner table and he wanted me to stay there at his side chatting to guests. He actually gripped me for three or four minutes before he let go.

"We'd been having a silly argument about whether I was going to stay over with him that night. But I had a very important business meeting next morning in Rye and told him I didn't want to.

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"He just kept trying to wear me down. It was childish but I'd had enough. The row was still simmering after the show and we had another argument in the changing room.

Break

"To be honest, it was doing my head in. He was trying to make me feel small and I stormed out.

"Later he called me to apologise but as far as I was concerned the damage had been done.

"I realised how unhappy I'd been over the past few months and decided I needed a complete break from him. I'd reached a point of no return. There were lots of text messages asking for a second chance but I wouldn't reply.

"I do still love him but I thought, 'This guy is not for me.' It was because of his behaviour, wanting me to be with him more and more. But I couldn't just drop everything to be with him. And since our engagement three months ago it's got worse."

Gabriela then revealed how she had doubts about the engagement within MINUTES of accepting Lembit's proposal beside Rome's Trevi Fountain.

She explained how he surprised her at a time when she was struggling to come to terms with the death of her beloved 85-year-old grandmother Maria.

"It was just two weeks after she died and I was still grieving," said Gabriela.

"But Lembit went down on bended knee in front of the fountain and it was so romantic. I didn't want to lose the moment so I said 'Yes' because I wanted to commit myself to him.

"But at the same time, it instantly clicked in my mind that I'd done something very wrong. I rang Monica and told her how I felt and she was shocked at what had happened."

The niggling doubts soon developed into fierce arguments between the couple as Lembit became increasingly controlling. Gabriela recalled: "He was saying that as his fiancée I had to make more of an effort to be alongside him.

"He wanted me to attend all his functions with him. I felt guilty because we'd always row over it. But I don't want to do appearances for political propaganda.

"I really liked it at the beginning because he was so proud of me. But why does he continue to show me off?

"And I told him that I don't like touching or kissing in public and how sometimes I felt just like an accessory on his arm."

Concealing her pregnancy and miscarriage has brought back memories of another dark secret brave Gabriela has borne since she was 14-a degrading sex attack that's made it hard for her to trust any man.

Whack

She was invited to a party in her Transylvanian home town by the local hunk, a 21-year-old known and trusted by her family.

But as they strolled across a park he lunged at her, grabbed her handbag, and ordered her to do as he ordered or she would not be going home.

"He pushed me against a tree and I got very scared," said Gabriela, tears again welling up.

"I started to scream and hit him with both hands but he gave me a sharp punch right to the head and I almost lost consciousness as I fell to the ground.

"Then he gave me another whack on the head and was trying to undress me, his hands were everywhere.

"He pushed me to my knees and forced me to give him oral sex. He was so aggressive, pushing me and hitting me, I had no choice. I was so terrified I did what he said."

Gabriela was too embarassed to go to the police and has tried to blot out the memory of that hour-long ordeal. But she added: "You can't ever get over it really. You learn to live with it."

But the effects have cast a shadow over Gabriela's sex life. Despite the Cheeky Girls' naughty image, Lembit was only her second serious boyfriend.

And her qualms meant she refused to sleep with him for TWO MONTHS. "But our love life was great and it got better and better as I trusted him more," said Gabriela, who has shrunk from a size eight to size four and suffered panic attacks since splitting with Lembit.

"He's very gentle and really cares about me. That's the one part where we don't have problems.

"There's no rush and he's a very romantic and passionate lover. We like to cuddle up wherever we go and be close with each other.

"He always said he felt very lucky to be with me."