“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.”