Disavow

by Halle, Karina

  “I would think the real creeps wouldn’t care if you’re married or not.”

  “Every bit helps.” Her expression grows hard.

  “You have a problem with men hitting on you?”

  “I take it that’s hard for you to believe,” she says mildly, then smiles for the waiter when he comes back with our drinks. Her smile is so bright and beautiful, it’s like a gut punch, and when the waiter finally takes the time to look at her, I can tell he’s affected in the same way.

  “Not at all,” I manage to say after he leaves. “You’re unusually beautiful. That is to say, beautiful in an unusual way.”

  She smiles wryly as she picks up her cappuccino and blows on it with those unusually perfect lips. “You could have left it at the first sentence.”

  “I could have, but it wouldn’t have been honest.”

  “Yes. I’m sure honesty is what runs Pascal Dumont, one of the most ruthless and richest men in France.”

  “Ruthless?” I repeat, brows raised. “That’s new. You should have added that to your list of adjectives.”

  “I’m sure I’ll have more to come. I should be writing these down.”

  “You should. In the meantime, I know you’re not married. Are you seeing anyone?”

  She nearly snorts into her drink. “You’re awful.”

  “That has already been established.”

  “I’m not seeing anyone. If I were, I doubt I would have left New York.” But as she says this, something dark clouds her eyes. It’s absolutely fascinating, like watching a summer storm come in.

  “And so why did you leave New York?”

  She shrugs and taps her nails along the cup. “It was time.”

  “Rather cryptic answer.”

  “But it’s the only answer,” she says. “It was time to return.”

  “Okay. So what did you do in New York? My mother told me you were in business school or something like that?”

  She looks at me sharply. “Does that surprise you?” I can tell this is a touchy subject, but I don’t think I know how to tread carefully.

  “Yes, it does,” I tell her. “You dropped out of high school and started working for us when you were sixteen, all the way until you left. Rather abruptly, I might add.”

  “That doesn’t mean I didn’t further my education elsewhere.”

  “Why business?”

  “Perhaps I was inspired by living amongst the Dumonts.”

  I watch her for a moment, seeing an array of emotions on her face and yet unable to pin down any of them. “I don’t buy that.”

  “It’s not for you to buy or not.”

  “So when you left, when you stopped working for us, where did you go? I remember your mother was terribly upset that you disappeared.”

  Those storm clouds in her eyes get larger, darker. “I didn’t disappear. I told her I was done. I was going.”

  “Well, from the way my parents yelled about it, you didn’t tell them anything. You know, your employers.”

  “Who was doing the yelling? Your mother or your father?”

  “Does it matter?”

  She blinks, as if caught off guard. “No.”

  “My father. Of course. You were his personal maid, weren’t you?”

  “I don’t think that was my title. I was equal to my mother.”

  But she wasn’t. I remember Gabrielle as being my father’s special little pet. Although I’ve seen what happens to pets in this household. I had a hamster once when I was a child, until my mother flushed it down the toilet. Certainly taught me a valuable lesson about getting too attached to things.

  “And so where did you go then? Right to New York?”

  She seems to think that over, as if she’s not sure. Or she doesn’t want to say and is crafting a lie. Why, I have no idea. “I was all over Europe. Then London. Then the US.”

  “And now you’re here with your business degree to do what? Your mother had said you wanted your job back.”

  “My mother is delusional,” she says quietly. “I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

  I frown. “I don’t pay your mother much attention.”

  “Because she’s beneath you.”

  “Because she’s the help. That’s up to you to decide whether that’s beneath me or not. At any rate, I have no reason to believe she’s delusional. About what? She works hard and does it with a smile.”

  “Exactly,” she says before busying herself with a sip. Then she puts the mug down and looks me straight in the eye. “I’m going to level with you, Pascal. I’m worried about her.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t explain. It’s a gut feeling.”

  “Gut feelings come from somewhere. Has she said anything?”

  I try to think back to my recent interactions with her, but I come up with nothing unusual. Jolie is just always the same. Although maybe that’s because I don’t see her often, and when I do, she’s working. I might have to ask my mother about her.

  Gabrielle shakes her head. “No. We didn’t talk much while I was away either. There wasn’t much to say.” She rubs her lips together, and a shy expression comes across her brow. “Listen, now that we’re here and we’re talking . . . I think I should move in with her for a few months.”

  This completely catches me off guard. “Now you want to move in? You do realize that’s not something either you or your mother has any say in, right? That’s not her house. It’s mine. I decide who moves in and who doesn’t.”

  Or technically my father does.

  Heat flashes through her eyes, turning her pupils into tiny pricks of coal. “I’m aware. I assumed you would let me do it because you like me. You said so yourself.”

  I let out a loud laugh. “Like you? Well, I suppose I do. And I find you incredibly attractive in ways I can’t quite put into words. Maybe because you despise me so. It’s so refreshing. But that only goes so far, and why should I give you what you want when you haven’t given me what I want?”

  Her throat bobs as she swallows anxiously. “And what is that?” she asks in a tight voice.

  “You know what it is,” I tell her, leaning in closer and smiling. “I need a maid.”

  “I’m sure you can find one.”

  “I want you. I want someone I can trust.”

  She stares at me for a moment before she says, “And what makes you think you can trust me?”

  “Because you’re being honest with your feelings toward me. That’s always a good step. I can’t tell you how many people, women especially but men, too, kiss my fucking ass and hail me as their king when they secretly hate me. They do it because they want something, and they think I’m too vain and arrogant, as you have said, to catch on. But I know. I always do. And when you find someone who is the opposite of all that, well, you better make sure you hang on to them.”

  “But I am better than a maid,” she argues.

  “Would your mother like to hear you say that?”

  She sighs. “What I mean is, I can do more than that. I’ve learned so much. Use me.”

  My brow shoots up. Use her? “I like the sound of that.” I suddenly have an image of me using her in a very naked, very sweaty, very wild way.

  “Use me for something more,” she clarifies.

  For the first time since I’ve been in Gabrielle’s company, I’ve remembered the true reason why I need someone I can trust. The letter. I need someone who can look into this for me, someone smart who I can rely on. She’s right. I would need her for something more.

  “Okay,” I tell her, displaying my palms on the table. “How about this? You’re my personal assistant who occasionally cleans my toilet.”

  Her nose crinkles as she gives me a look of utter disgust. “You have a way with words, don’t you?”

  “If you want to live with your mother, on our property, you have to pull your weight. And no, you can’t just pay rent. That’s not how this works.”

  “I thought you liked money,” she says, folding her a
rms and sitting back.

  “I do. And I have a fuckload of it, more than I know what to do with. But sometimes, even a Dumont has to admit that money isn’t everything. Sometimes we all need a little help.”

  She seems to mull that over, staring down at her fingernails. A few seconds pass like hours until she finally looks at me. “Fine.”

  “Fine what?”

  “I’ll be whatever it is you want me to be.”

  I give her a crooked smile. “Be careful, little sprite. You should know better than to leave it open-ended like that. I have a very wicked imagination.”

  “And like a sprite, I’m harmless until threatened. So take that as a warning.”

  “How did I get so lucky?” I muse.

  “There’s no such thing as luck,” she says and then waves over the waiter.

  “You’re going so soon?” I ask as she hands him a few euros, as if I weren’t going to pay for her.

  “I have to pack up my things,” she says, glancing at me. “If I’m going to move in tomorrow, which I assume I am.”

  So presumptuous.

  “You know, I’ll probably be at work, if you wanted to stop by the office first,” I call after her as she walks away.

  She doesn’t answer. I watch that ass as she disappears out of the café and across the street. In a few seconds she’s completely gone, and I have to pause and wonder if I just had coffee with something supernatural.

  I’m also not sure if she blinded me in such a way that I just committed to the worst idea I’ve ever had.

  CHAPTER THREE

  GABRIELLE

  You’ve made a huge mistake.

  What were you thinking?

  How did you even think you would survive this?

  Those thoughts and countless more run through my head as the taxi takes me up the long, tree-lined driveway to the Dumont estate. With each second that ticks on, each stately, flourishing tree that passes by, I feel the knot of dread in my stomach tightening and tightening until I don’t even think I can breathe.

  The driver stops out front, and I breathe out a sigh of relief to see no cars in the driveway and no sign of anyone at home. I figured both Gautier and Pascal would be at work, which will make this so much easier. If Camille is out, even better. I would only have to deal with my mother.

  “We’re here,” the driver says to me in broken French. I get out of the car, and as he hands me my suitcases from the trunk, he says something to me about being lucky.

  This has nothing to do with luck.

  I chose to do this.

  I chose to return here.

  For eight years I have done my best to try to right the wrongs that were done to me, to no avail. The fact that I’m here is probably a sign that I should have stayed in therapy instead of bailing after one session, but it doesn’t matter in the end. This was a choice, and I have to see it through.

  Once I make up my mind about something, I don’t back down.

  Even if I should.

  Even if my mind might be questionable at times.

  Besides, my mother deserves to be liberated. I’m not sure many would agree with me on that front, especially after what happened. She chose her employer over her own daughter.

  But blood is a funny thing. She’s really all I have left in this world, and she’s just a victim when it comes down to it. I can free her, though. I can help her discover how wrong she was to stay. At the very least, I can try.

  And when I leave here, I’ll know I did all I could.

  The driver drops my suitcases off at the front door and then tells me, “Good luck,” as if he knows I’ll need it. He doesn’t drive away, though; instead he waits. He wants to make sure I go inside, either for my own protection or to ensure that he’s not just dropped off a crazy person at the Dumonts’, though the latter would not be a stretch.

  I ring the doorbell, and the moment I hear the familiar chime, I immediately want to be sick.

  Hold it together, I scold myself, swallowing down bile. You won’t last long here if you don’t.

  It feels like forever before the door opens and I’m face-to-face with my mother.

  My first reaction is one of shock.

  She is so much older, it nearly shatters my heart on the spot. It’s as if fifty years have passed by, not eight.

  “Mama,” I cry out softly, shocked at my own reaction. I wanted to remain levelheaded and calm and impersonal, at least at first, at least until I knew what I was up against. But the moment I see her with thick bags under her eyes, the lines between her brows, the hollowness of her cheeks, I know that being here has ravaged her more than I imagined.

  And even if it hadn’t taken a toll on her skin, even if Camille had sprung for some surgeon’s skilled hands to do their magic on my mother, you could never hide the emptiness in her eyes.

  “Gabrielle,” she says and gives me a shaky smile. “It’s really you.”

  For a moment we stand there, staring at each other in shock and awe until we finally snap out of it at the same time, coming forward in an embrace. It’s light at first, but then she holds me tight and I have to breathe deep through my nose, all the way to the back of my lungs, to keep the tears at bay. I’ve refused to cry about what happened to me, and I’ll be damned if I lose it now.

  I’m not sure how long we hug for, but it’s enough so that the driver pulls away and disappears down the driveway, and then I know, then I really feel it, that I’m here.

  But it’s not home. It has never been a home.

  “Oh, my darling,” she says to me, kissing me on both cheeks and holding me at arm’s length. At least her hands are stronger than they look. “I didn’t think you’d show up.”

  “Well, I’m here,” I tell her. I’m about to crouch down to pick up the suitcases when I hear the clack of heels on the tile floor and see Camille appearing behind my mother. She’s wearing a flowing white caftan, her hair perfectly done, her face stretched beyond recognition. Her arms are out, and she practically shoves my mother aside to kiss me on the cheeks.

  “My goodness, Gabrielle,” she says, and I nearly choke on her Dumont perfume. She looks me up and down. “Look at you. You’ve changed. You’re so beautiful now, a real young lady.” She gives my mother a wink. “Looks like I’ll have to try and hide her from Gautier.”

  That wave of nausea rolls through me again. Camille said it as a joke. It has to be. There’s no way she would let me in this house if she really knew what Gautier did to me back then.

  My mother nods and smiles at Camille, but her eyes are curiously blank. They feel nothing, maybe even see nothing as far as this subject is concerned.

  Just like before, I think. And then I remember why I’m here, and I quickly paste on a smile for Camille’s sake. “Thank you for your kind words. You look as stunning as always.”

  “Oh, come now,” she says with false humility. “Can you handle the suitcases? I’m afraid I just had my nails done and none of the men are at home.”

  “I’ve got them,” I say, and when my mother tries to take them from me, I shoo her away.

  I walk through the house, following Camille as she sashays. We go through the foyer, past the grand study and the dining room, and through the kitchen. My heart picks up speed with each step I take until the suitcases feel like lead and I start to feel dizzy.

  This place.

  This kitchen.

  That scene that’s embedded in my head, the fear so real.

  Somehow I make it through by forcing myself to listen to Camille blather on about this and that, probably all the upgrades the house has gotten since I left, though it all looks the same to me.

  I breathe a sigh of relief when I step through the french doors out into the yard, expansive, green, and well manicured as always, following the stone path that leads to the servants’ quarters that are buried back among chestnut trees. I can still hear the thud of the chestnuts that fall on the roof every autumn.

  At least this house looks a little different n
ow. It’s a miniature version of the main house, old as hell and made of stone with a gray tile roof, but even though it still seems to be the same size—two bedrooms, a kitchen, a living room, and bathroom—there’s an outdoor patio that’s half-covered with a bistro table and chairs set up, and there are lilies growing from earthen pots. It looks a lot homier. As it should, I suppose. At this point it’s my mother’s home more than anywhere else has been.

  “So,” Camille says to me after I put my suitcases outside my room. I’m not sure I want to step in there yet. Not while she’s here. “Feel free to ask me anything. Gautier is away on business until the weekend.” At those words, the relief flowing through me is as palpable as a landslide. “Pascal is at work and isn’t expected to be back until late. I’m not sure what Pascal has planned for you, but you can always start by helping your mother around the house, just to get back in the swing of things.”

  “Is it just Pascal living here?” I ask, not wanting to say Gautier’s name. “Where is Blaise?”

  Camille purses her lips like she just ate something sour. “Blaise is in Dubai. He moved.”

  The way she says it is so clipped that I don’t need to ask what happened. Something did, and it pissed her off.

  Way to go, Blaise, I think to myself. I never liked Blaise that much, but he was better than the rest of them. An outlier of sorts. It makes sense if he moved far away and distanced himself.

  Come to think of it, I think I remember their cousin Seraphine doing the same. After Ludovic died, everything in the company completely changed, in Gautier and Pascal’s favor, no surprise. Now Blaise and Seraphine are both in Dubai. I’m guessing that’s not a coincidence.

  I’ll have to ask Pascal about that later.

  Then the thought makes a knot form in my stomach again.

  Pascal.

  I can’t believe I’m working for him.

  I can’t believe this is where eight years away has gotten me, working for the devil’s son, in the devil’s house.

  “I’ll leave you two to get reacquainted,” Camille says as she begins to leave. She pauses in the doorway. “Just don’t take too long or it will come out of your paycheck.”

  Then she leaves, and I know she wasn’t kidding.