Disavow

by Halle, Karina

  Most of the time.

  From the kitchen downstairs, I hear the dinner bell ring out.

  “Time to go,” I say to Gabrielle as I quickly smooth on moisturizer, then come out to get her. She’s already rolled on her side, so I grab her by the elbows and gently haul her to her feet.

  “You okay?” I ask, leaning down quickly to kiss her on the top of the head.

  “I’m good,” she says, smiling up at me. I smooth the hair away from her face. “I’m glad Seraphine’s maternity wear is made for real women.” She runs her hands over the sides of her dress. “Unlike the Dumont brand,” she adds with a smirk.

  “We’re working on it,” I tell her.

  “Yeah. You’ll get there once you carry more than small, medium, and large, right?”

  “Change comes slowly in the fashion world,” I remind her.

  “Bullshit,” she says. “You have to be the change if you want to see the change. Until you do, I’ll be shopping at your cousin’s store exclusively.”

  She sashays out of the room, and I shake my head. She’s always teasing me about how archaic we are with the brand. In some ways, we’re exactly the way Ludovic always dreamed we would be: stuck in our ways, sticking with the classics, refusing to evolve. But I also know evolution will happen when it’s time.

  I quickly catch up to her and grab her hand, kissing the soft skin on top of it, and we make our way down the hall and the stairs.

  We pass by the kitchen, which has a maid and two cooks running around trying to get everything ready. I smile and nod, trying not to distract them. I used to compliment the head chef, Paula, but she seems to take it as an insult, so I’ve stopped trying.

  This time, she waves a serving spoon at us to keep on walking.

  Outside, tables are set up on the beach, one for the adults, one for the kids. They’re covered in white linen tablecloths (from our recently opened home collection, one of the few good ideas Blaise has had), with large shells and candles as centerpieces (a craft project started and then quickly abandoned by Cadence and finished by Gabrielle).

  Everyone is already sitting down, and it looks like Gabrielle and I are the last to arrive.

  “We figured you were having a nap,” Seraphine says to us as she pours the kids drinks at the kids’ table. “I swear, every day I’m here with you, Gabby, you’re getting bigger and bigger.”

  “Don’t remind me,” Gabrielle says. “Probably also because the food keeps getting better and better.”

  We sit down, with me at the head of the table. Blaise is at the other end. Seraphine comes to sit beside him as the housekeeper and chefs come to serve us food.

  Much like the time I got Gabrielle paella from the restaurant around the corner, the chef has cooked up the same, in a huge serving dish that takes up half the table.

  “Ewww!” Ludovic says from the kids’ table. “They still have their heads on. I’m not eating those.”

  “Me neither,” says his twin, Damon.

  I smile at Olivier. “Picky eaters,” I comment.

  Olivier raises his chin. “If I recall correctly, you were the one as a kid who refused to eat anything with eyes or bones.”

  “Actually, that was Blaise,” I correct him. “I’m the one who loved to bite the heads off the shrimp and torture you all with it.”

  “Of course you did,” Gabrielle says under her breath.

  “Damon, Luddie,” Sadie says, raising her voice as she leans over the back of her chair to look her boys in the eyes. “You don’t have to eat them if you don’t want to. But if you don’t, then you won’t get any dessert either.”

  “That’s not fair!” Ludovic cries out before folding his arms into a pout.

  I don’t see Sadie, Olivier, and the boys that much, because they still live in California, running a whole new batch of Olivier’s hotels. They’re concentrating on the boutique varieties and guesthouses in amazing locations, like Renaud’s various vineyards or up on ocean cliffs, catering to the young and hip crowd versus the opulent and lavishly wealthy side of things. Olivier and I don’t often see eye to eye, and I personally think he’s cheapened his own name a bit, but I guess he’s doing things the American way, and it’s really working out for him. After all, it’s not about me—this is Olivier’s brand and his life, and he’s making a killing. Sadie and he seem very, very happy with their little family.

  The twins are a handful, however, always running around the place and terrorizing their cousins. I’m not sure how flattered my uncle would be if he knew that his namesake loves to pull my daughter’s hair. Then again, perhaps this is his revenge from beyond the grave. Would serve me right, I suppose, since I spent so much of my childhood making Olivier’s life a living hell.

  But Olivier and Sadie do take a family trip to France once a year, where we all get together at some point. As I said, Olivier and I aren’t that close, and I don’t think we’ll ever be. But the hate and animosity are long gone, and what’s there instead is an acceptance. Which sometimes seems harder to swallow. You have to work at it, I think.

  When it comes to Renaud and Jen, they both have a lot of Dumont wineries on the go in France and Italy now, so they’re often passing through. They don’t have children, but they love the girls, and whenever they’re in Paris, Jen insists on babysitting so Gabrielle and I can go out and enjoy ourselves on a date. It just doesn’t happen as much as I would like.

  Still, looking around the table now at my family—brother, cousins, and their wives—I can’t help but think it’s been far too long since we’ve all been together like this. This needs to be more of a habit.

  It would be even better if my mother were here, but she’s off in the Maldives with her boyfriend, Claude. He’s this Swiss banking billionaire who has just as much money as she does. There was a period after my father’s death that she kept up with her various affairs with young men around the world, affairs she probably had during their marriage. But in the last year or two, my mother has calmed down and found peace within herself. Claude is her age, even a bit older, and enjoys the finer things while keeping a humble and steady head. I think she’s finally found someone she can be herself with, and he keeps her grounded at the same time.

  I wish I could say the same for Gabrielle’s mother, Jolie. After Gautier’s death, she was distraught to the point of being catatonic. It took a long time for her to come around, and she’s still not 100 percent there. We thought the easiest thing was for her to continue to live at the house with us, but Gabrielle knew that the ties between her mother and my father needed to be broken completely. So we bought her an apartment in Paris, where she still works as a housekeeper in one of Olivier’s hotels. She doesn’t need to work, but she wants to—it’s all she has and knows—and while she hasn’t even looked at another man since, Gabrielle believes she’ll find her peace soon, whether that means within her or with someone else. At the very least, we take her out for dinner at least once a week, and she’s started to take painting classes to express herself.

  As the housekeeper comes along and fills our glasses with Dumont champagne, I tap my glass with the side of my fork. I clear my throat. “I just wanted to say a few words . . .”

  “Oh God,” Seraphine mutters into her drink. “A speech.”

  “Speech, speech!” Cadence yells from the kids’ table with a mouth full of food.

  “Not a speech,” I tell everyone. “Just a few words, and I’m a man of few words, after all.”

  Gabrielle snorts at that. I ignore her and press on. “I just wanted to say that it’s been too long since we’ve all been together like this, and I think we need to make sure that times like this happen more often. The days are long but the years are short, as they say, and I know we’re all feeling that. We’re all here, and we’re all living our lives, and as we’re living our lives, we’re all changing. It’s hard sometimes to keep up with that, especially as it’s happening. And I think we’re all changing for the better. But maybe, as the days and months and y
ears flip past, we can all reach out more to each other. Go through the changes together.”

  “Look at Pascal, trying to pull at the heartstrings,” Blaise says with a smirk.

  “No kidding,” Olivier says to him. “He’s reminding me of the sappy speeches my father loved to give. Talk about change.”

  “Shut the fuck up,” I tell him.

  “Daddy said a bad word!” Cadence yells from the kids’ table.

  Gabrielle giggles, holding her stomach. “I think the baby heard that too. I just got a hell of a kick.”

  I’m both distracted by Gabrielle and the baby and annoyed at Olivier’s words.

  I’m not turning into Ludovic.

  I’m certainly not turning into my father either.

  I think I’m just turning into Pascal Dumont. A better version each time.

  “Anyway, here’s to change, then,” I tell them all, raising my glass in the air. “Here’s the new and improved Dumont family. May we never stop growing, never stop changing.”

  “And never stop making money,” Seraphine quickly adds.

  One by one, everyone raises their glasses, the bubbles sparkling in the setting sun, the smiles clear on everyone’s faces.

  We all cheer.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Wow. I can’t believe the wild, tumultuous, decadent, and scandalous lives of the Dumonts have come to an end. It has been such a thrill ride to write about this family and their fashion dynasty, their twisted relationships, and their dark family secrets. I was completely inspired by Dynasty (old and new) and various soaps, wanting to bring outlandish and edgy drama into the romance genre, and I hope I did just that!

  I have many people to thank, but I’ll start off with Maria Gomez. You have been the rock of this whole operation. Thank you for believing in me and in this series; I couldn’t have done any of this without your support and passion for the work. Same goes for Holly Ingraham, an editing guru like no other, who shaped up Disavow and all the books in the Dumonts series into much better versions of themselves.

  I would also like to thank the whole Montlake team for making this partnership so damn enjoyable. Your love for the written word and swoony romance was contagious, and your energy could be felt across the board. You made working together such a delight, and I am honored to have been a part of your team.

  The usual suspects, Nina Grinstead, Sandra Cortez, Kathleen Tucker, Colleen Hoover, Tarryn Fisher, Hang Le, my Antiheroes group, my readers, my friends, and bookstagrammers: Thank you all for being there when I needed you. This book is for you.

  And last but not least, Scott and Bruce. You light up my world. Thank you.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Karina Halle is the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of Disarm and Discretion in The Dumonts series as well as The Pact, The Offer, The Play, and more than fifty other wild and romantic reads. A former travel writer and music journalist, she currently lives in a rain forest on an island off the coast of British Columbia with her husband and their adopted pit bull. There they operate a bed-and-breakfast that’s perfect for writers’ retreats. In the winter, you can often find them in California or on their beloved island of Kauai, soaking up as much sun—and inspiration—as possible. Visit Karina online at www.authorkarinahalle.com.