coos. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect family.”
“I bet you say that to all your subjects,” Gabriel jokes.
Edie winks at us over the camera. “Only the exceptionally good-looking ones.”
This comment is directed at both of us, I realize, and I pause to consider that we do make an aesthetically pleasing pair. Then there’s Harry’s almost effervescent cuteness, which never fails to melt the hardest of hearts. These photos are going to be integral in painting a picture of a kind, wholesome billionaire. Soon enough, nobody will remember the dark cruelty in Gabriel’s eyes as he barked at those journalists.
After we try a few poses on the couch, Edie takes some photos by the bookcase and then declares that it’s a gorgeous afternoon and we must get some shots outside.
Gabriel carries Harry out, the two of them babbling to each other, thick as thieves. I follow alongside, my heart breaking with every step. I will never have this Gabriel, I realize. Not for real. I have caught snatches of him here and there, and when the cameras are out he is alive and well, but he will never be mine to keep.
I shouldn’t want to keep him, either. Not after everything he’s done, all the people he’s hurt. Yet I recognize an honor in Gabriel that makes his crimes more palatable, especially when I see him and Harry together and know he will always be a good father to my son. This honor is why I have found it difficult to swallow the fact that Gabriel is behind the purple heroin. It just doesn’t seem like him. Maybe that’s why I’m so keen to keep investigating.
Or maybe I’m just stalling the inevitable.
“Alexis?” Edie calls, drawing me from my thoughts.
We’re standing in the back garden near the late-blooming roses.
I blink. “Yeah?”
Gabriel slides a warm hand around my waist, his eyebrows knit with concern. “Are you okay?”
I lick my lips and nod. “Sorry, I zoned out.”
“I was saying that I’d like to get a couple of you next to the roses,” Edie repeats. “Those red ones there go perfectly with your lipstick.”
I nod and take my place, smiling for the camera and taking Edie’s directions as she snaps a few photos. Gabriel stands behind her holding Harry the whole time, eyes trained on me with an electric intensity. I study his expression, as though I will be able to read his innermost thoughts.
“I like that,” Edie says. “You have this ... distant pensiveness about you. Keep that up.”
I keep posing, keep searching. And Edie keeps snapping.
Afterward, Edie gets some shots of Gabriel, then some shots of Gabriel with Harry, and some shots of the three of us together. We end up having to move to another part of the garden because Harry is clearly nervous around the roses. Gabriel and Edie remark that it’s the strangest thing, but I know why he feels like that.
When I escaped this mansion months ago, we took the path through the rose garden on the way to Diego’s car. Harry tried to grab one of the roses and it cut him. He wailed all the way to Diego’s car as blood bloomed like a fallen rose petal on his finger. I wonder if it’s the memory of his hurt finger that makes him antsy or if it’s what came afterward—the isolation, the separation. Walsh’s cruel, laughing face …
I blink back into focus and Gabriel is staring down at me. “Where do you keep going?” he asks, and it has nothing to do with the façade.
“Sorry,” I mutter, and turn to Edie. “What did you say?”
I don’t want to answer Gabriel’s questions.
After another hour or so, we’re done, and Edie shows us some of the raw shots on her camera before she leaves.
“Wait until you see them after they’ve been edited,” she says, flicking through. “Though you both already look like models. If you ever want a boudoir photo shoot done …” She grins. “You know who to call.”
The photos look so ... normal. We are just like any other family in them. Laughing with each other, Gabriel and I staring adoringly at our son, his hand cupping my lower back.
In a different life, I would hang one of these above our fireplace and fill that wall with other family portraits through the years. I’d sprinkle in candid shots—Harry in the bath, Gabriel working in his office. And when Harry went off to college, Gabriel and I would stand in front of the wall of