I swallow, eyes wide, heart hopeful. “No,” I say in breathless disbelief.
“Oh yes. The whole confession. Everything about Ludovic’s death, plus a remark about you. It’s not going to take long for them to piece it together. The police have the tape now. He’ll be convicted posthumously for his brother’s murder, and there will be zero doubt of what he did to you.”
“Except when it comes to my mother.”
“We’ll deal with that later. But you can bet I’m taking these tapes to the press. I want them to know exactly what my father did. I want to rip his reputation apart for the whole fucking world to see. I hope he knows it. I hope he feels it as he burns in hell.”
The passion and conviction in Pascal’s voice, his steely gaze, send a thrill down my spine.
Now I’m safe.
Now I’m safe.
I might just burst into tears.
“Of course, that’s not the only surprise I have for you,” Pascal says. “And it was a surprise to myself. A big one. I’m not even sure how you’ll handle it, but just so you know, I’m handling it well. Better than well. I think it’s the best thing that could have ever happened to me, happened to us.”
I stare at him, having absolutely no idea what he’s about to say, but the intense devotion in his gaze is giving me chills.
“What?” I say softly. What else could there be? What could be better than the death of Gautier Dumont?
He takes his hand and places it on my stomach, ever so gently, just below where my body is bandaged up. “The bullet missed all your organs and arteries. It was a clean shot, straight through. You lost blood, but your mother was able to give blood to replace it. So there’s that. That’s one good thing on her behalf. Just remember all this before I go on. You’re going to have a full recovery. You’ll have a scar right below your ribs, and that’s it. You’re fine, and you’re going to be greater than great. Okay?”
“Okay?”
He keeps smiling at me, turning sweeter. “You’re pregnant.”
My eyes go round, brows shooting up to the ceiling.
My heart seems to freeze in my chest.
I can’t even speak.
“You’re pregnant,” he says again. “And perhaps I’m terribly optimistic in thinking it’s my baby, but hey, that’s a new leaf for me. You’re pregnant, Gabrielle. And I know this is all your choice and I’m going to support your choice, no matter what it is. But in case you’re afraid of how I feel, just know that I . . . well, I fucking love you, for one thing.”
He loves me.
He loves me, and I’m pregnant.
I can’t even process this.
I can’t even think.
All I can do is feel.
I feel love, love, so much love, so much joy, so much . . . too much.
Pascal is looking teary-eyed again, and I put my hand down over his, over my stomach, grasping it. “I love you,” he says again, “and I think I might just be a good father if given the chance. And I know you’d be such a good mother. The baby would have a lot of love, extra love to make up for the love we both never had.”
I burst into tears, smiling through them. I cry and I cry, trying to reassure him that I’m happy, but it’s all so much, my body isn’t equipped to handle this much happiness. I’ve trained it over the years to carry so much pain, it doesn’t know what to do with the opposite.
I feel like I’m drowning in it.
What a beautiful way to go out.
“Please tell me those are happy tears.” Pascal sniffs, wiping his nose with his hand.
“They’re happy tears,” I say between sobs. “They’re happy tears. I love you. I love you so much.”
All the things I never knew I wanted, never knew I needed, life had a funny way of giving them to me.
And it all started when I first saw Pascal Dumont.
The son of the devil.
My lover, my savior.
The father of my child.
My friend.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
PASCAL
I always knew my father’s funeral would be the event of the year. It was something he often talked about, how we would spare no expense in putting on such an extravagant operation that it would draw in mourners from around the world. He wanted every last penny the Dumont label had to be put toward it, because, as he said, the brand would die with him. When he was gone, the label would go down as well. He believed it couldn’t possibly survive if he hadn’t, as if it hadn’t been around through decades and generations of Dumonts, from our great-grandfathers to today.
I think what my father really wanted, though, was to ensure the world didn’t forget about him. He wanted everyone to throw themselves on the streets and mourn, scream his name and pound their fists and cry at the loss of such a great man. I know he definitely wanted to go out in a way that would overshadow his brother.
Well, in his death, my father managed to succeed in both those things.
Though he didn’t deserve the excessive funeral of his dreams, and we are putting it on with as little pomp as possible, it drew the attention of people all around the world. Except that it wasn’t in the way he wanted. People are here because my father is now notorious.
He was a killer.
He was a rapist.
He was an abuser.
And he is dead, slain by his own son.
I guess that makes me just as notorious as he is.
For once, I don’t mind the comparison.
He also succeeded in outdoing his brother’s funeral, but for the same reasons. While Ludovic’s funeral was full of people who actually mourned him for his kindness and generosity and vision, Gautier’s is full of those who look upon him with shock and disdain.
I’m going to guess, though, that no one is really all that surprised.
Regardless, it’s been a hell of a week. In some ways the best week of my life, in others, the worst week.
When I saw Gabrielle get shot, I swear my whole entire world disintegrated. I thought I had lost her. I thought I’d crawl out of that house with blood on my hands and a missing piece of my heart, never to be whole again. Never to truly live again.
But I kept Gabrielle alive.
Then the medics took over.
It was only when she was in the hospital and the doctor pulled me aside to tell me she was going to make it, that the bullet hadn’t hit any arteries or organs, that I finally breathed.
And then the doctor told me the news that would change my life even further.
That Gabrielle was pregnant.
And the baby was safe.
Obviously, I had no idea, and I don’t think she had any idea either. We hadn’t used a condom that first time, but after that, we were pretty careful. Normally when I sleep with a woman, I am adamant about using a condom, even if they say they’re on birth control, because I can’t risk it. I don’t want the chance of an STD changing my life, and I also don’t want a purposeful pregnancy. There are so many women out there who would love to have a bastard son of Pascal Dumont, just to get a foot in the door, to take my money, to mooch off the brand.
But with Gabrielle, the thought hadn’t crossed my mind at all.
She isn’t like them.
She isn’t like anyone I know.
She’s going to make me a father, and the feeling . . . it’s indescribable. It’s something I rarely even thought about, and when I did, I’d dismiss it with a sneer. I wasn’t fit to become a father, I didn’t want to become a father, there was no woman alive who would ever make me want that.
But with Gabrielle, I knew. When the doctor told me, I knew.
This is what I’m supposed to be.
This is how my life is supposed to go.
I won’t give this child the life I had; I’ll give it one full of love and devotion and strength. I’ll be able to change my legacy into a legacy of good, put light into the darkness in my bloodline, start again.
I glance down at my Gabrielle, the mother of my
child, by my side and give her hand a squeeze.
We’re standing in the funeral home in Paris, the same one that I was in for my uncle. Despite everything, their graves will be beside each other. I like the idea of Ludovic in heaven smiling down on my father in hell. Two brothers, two different destinies.
Gabrielle looks up at me and gives me a small smile. I didn’t want her to come to the funeral at first. She only got out of the hospital two days ago, and now that she’s pregnant with my child—my child—I wanted her to take every precaution.
But Gabrielle is still stubborn, even after almost dying. I have a feeling she’ll be exponentially more stubborn as a mother. She insisted she come with me. Not just to give me moral support, because we both know people are going to judge the fuck out of me for what I did, no matter the proof, no matter that my father deserved it and it was a matter of our lives or his. But she wanted closure too. This is what she wanted for so long, and to deny her the chance to watch my father’s coffin get lowered into the ground would be cruel.
Of course, Gabrielle needs help. She’ll get the help. We both know that the revenge and the trauma and the guilt and the pain that she’s carried in her heart for so long will only damage her more over time. She needs medication and therapy and a lot of love and support, and I’m prepared to give my whole life to making her better. She wanted to fix me? Well, she has. She has made me become the person I needed to be, the person I was always afraid to be. She made me be okay with being the real Pascal Dumont, not a man in my father’s shadow, not a minion following in his footsteps. And now that she’s fixed me, I have to fix her.
I have to heal her heart, her soul, help her become the woman she’s meant to be without all the pain and horror that molded her into someone else. I want to help her be a mother, a wife, a friend. I want us both to live free from the shackles of the people we used to be.
Those people died with my father.
Now we’re starting anew.
“Are you doing okay?” I ask her.
She nods and adjusts the neckline of her black dress. Ironically, it’s her maid uniform.
“I’m just worried,” she admits.
I bring her hand to my mouth and kiss her knuckles. “Tell me why, and I’ll handle it.”
She gives me a wry look. “I’m not sure that you can. I’m worried about my mother, for one.”
Ah, yes. Her mother has not taken this very well at all. If Gabrielle needs help for her fragile psyche, then Jolie needs ten times that amount. When she arrived at the hospital, even though she saw Gabrielle lying there in bed, IVs and monitors hooked up to her, her first words were about Gautier. Where was he, what happened to him? I guess she had heard the news and refused to believe it.
When I told her the truth—and I mean all the truth—she wouldn’t listen. Even when I said I had proof, she waved it away. I was so afraid that she was going to start yelling at Gabrielle and blaming her that I had to remove her from the room before she did any further damage to her daughter’s mind.
It’s only now, in the last day or two, that she’s started to calm down, and her truth is starting to come out. I guess that’s what being questioned by the police, psychiatrists, and trauma experts will do to you. Not only was Jolie brainwashed by my father, she suffered his abuse from practically the moment she and Gabrielle arrived at our house.
Again, I feel awful for not having noticed, for never paying the help any attention. I never saw the signs, and I fear that if I had, I would have brushed them off because they didn’t concern me. I was such a selfish bastard, I was the only thing that mattered in my life.
When Jolie was further examined, they discovered bruises and cigarette burns up and down her arms, covered by the long sleeves she always wore, in the same way that my father almost always wore a long-sleeve shirt, even in the middle of summer, to cover up the jagged scar left by Gabrielle’s corkscrew. We all knew it was there, though we didn’t know why or care to, but to him it must have been a daily reminder of the one who fought back.
Now Gabrielle doesn’t have to fight anymore.
“Your mother will be fine,” I tell her. “It’s going to take time, but she’ll get there. Please don’t worry about her.” I want to add that she doesn’t deserve it, but I know that Gabrielle doesn’t see it that way. Ever since she was a child and under the abuse of her father, the two of them became a unit. Even when they split, even when Gabrielle had no choice but to leave to save her own life, Gabrielle’s whole focus was to come back and save her mother, even if her mother didn’t want to be saved.
And she didn’t want to be saved. She made that clear.
Now, though, she might not have the choice.
“So what’s the other thing you’re worried about?” I ask her. “Is it the press?”
It’s just the two of us standing in the room, the wolves at the door. The press has been hungry for the both of us since this happened, and I can’t blame them. This is the story and scandal of the century. Two feuding brothers, good and evil, heads of one of the biggest fashion houses in the world, both dying at the hands of their loved ones. One murdered by his brother, the other killed by the prodigal son. We’re the stuff legends are made of, if only we weren’t legends to begin with.
But as much as I can handle the press—indeed, I think I might even thrive on the attention—I don’t want Gabrielle to be exposed to it. It’s not fair for her to relive the trauma, especially as she had to recently. The police and our lawyer visited her in the hospital and questioned her about everything, just as they did me. Of course, we left out that Gabrielle intended to kill Gautier. That admission would only fuck up the whole process, and she was smart enough to keep her mouth shut.
She did have to talk about what he did to her in every detail. I wanted to leave the room at some point, the rage that I had toward my father coming back in full force. It didn’t matter that he was dead. But I stayed because she needed me there, even though it killed me to relive it with her. Though it couldn’t have been nearly as bad as what she went through, over and over again.
I think the police are satisfied. The proof in the recordings is more than enough to ensure neither of us will be convicted, especially as now they have to reopen the case into my uncle’s death.
But the press? The media? They’re ravenous for Gabrielle, giving her such lovely nicknames as “The Murdering Maid” and “The Scandalous Servant.” Little do those papers know I’m about to sue all their asses for defamation, and I’m going to win. Killing Jones in self-defense isn’t even close to murder, and they know it, they just want to throw her under the bus and sell copies.
“The press?” she repeats, bringing my thoughts back to the present. “No. I don’t care what they say about me. I know what the truth is. And I’m okay with it. I’m worried about your family.”
Ah. That.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m nervous too.”
She chuckles. “That does not make me feel any better, Pascal. I know if you, of all people, are nervous, then this is going to be a doozy.” She pauses, and this time she squeezes my hand. “It’s going to be okay, you know.”
I don’t know that at all. The funeral starts in thirty minutes, and I haven’t seen any of my cousins or my brother. My mother and Jolie are outside, dressed head to toe in black, complete with matching veils. It’s almost comical, considering what my father thought of both of them. But my mother seems to thrive on it. The attention she’s getting is all she ever wanted, especially now that she gets a chance to be the weeping widow. She’s playing it up like a Broadway star.
When my mother first came to see us at the hospital, she was in complete shock. I couldn’t get a read on her, what she was really going through. She saw me with my bruised face from where Gabrielle clocked me, she saw Gabrielle in the hospital bed, tubes going into her. She had to ID my father’s body. She had to be questioned by the police, and of course her story is the truth.
It wasn’t until
I was able to leave Gabrielle for a few hours to go home and put on some fresh clothes that I was able to talk to my mother in private.
To my surprise, I found her in her bedroom. When I first entered the house, there was nothing but silence. The air was still, like it was holding its breath. It felt like death, even though my father didn’t die there.
Then I heard it. The softest sobs.
I cautiously went up the stairs, not sure what I was going to find.
And there she was, on the couch in her room, crying into the velvet arm.
I stood there in the doorway for a moment, unsure of what to do. I’d never had to comfort my mother before. My family isn’t like that.
Finally, she looked up.
And she smiled.
Even with her mascara running down her face and the smudged lipstick and her messy hair, she looked younger than I had ever seen her.
“Can’t you feel it?” she said, her eyes glassy from the tears.
I immediately looked around to see if she’d been drinking, but there was nary a bottle of booze in sight.
“Feel what?” I asked her, cautious that perhaps she’d lost her mind in grief, something I hadn’t expected.
“The weight.” She paused to wipe the tears from under her eyes. “It’s gone. The weight is gone.”
I couldn’t understand what she was talking about. Then she got up from the couch and walked over to me, her back straight, her gait steady. Up close, I could see the intensity in her eyes. It shone like diamonds, buoyed by something like . . . happiness.
She placed her hands on either side of my face and then gently pulled my head down to kiss the top of my forehead.
That affection, so rare, so genuine, combined with everything that had happened, brought tears to my eyes.
“We’re free, Pascal,” she said to me, grinning as the tears spilled down, her hands still holding my face. “Both of us. We’re both free now because he’s gone.”
And then I understood.
Her tears weren’t of grief.
They were of relief.
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