way it shows off her ass and plays into a million fantasies I’ve had, fantasies I’ve even acted out before. Women will wear anything you tell them to when your cock is big enough and you have enough money.
I take a moment to study her, the way her light hair is pulled back, showcasing a long, delicate neck. She’s got the kind of soft throat that makes me understand vampirism.
“Is everything all right?” she asks. The more curious she is about something, the larger her eyes get. Now they look at me like two polished gemstones.
“Not quite,” I tell her grimly. “I’ve been, well, dealing with something that I don’t want to. Perhaps it’s best to ignore it, but it’s the kind of thing that could blow up in my face at the same time.” She’s still watching me intently, so I reach into my pocket and pull out the envelope, handing it to her.
“What’s this?” she asks, and I reach into the drawer and pull out the first letter, placing it on the desk.
“I don’t know what this is. I was hoping you could tell me.”
Her eyes widen. “Me?”
“Maybe you can make sense of it,” I tell her. I lean back, my leather chair squeaking as I do so, and steeple my fingers together, watching her.
She looks over both letters and envelopes for a bit and then finally shakes her head before looking up at me. “I don’t understand. You must know what these are about.”
I press my lips together a moment and nod. “I have an idea, yes.”
“So? What is it? What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything,” I say quickly, though the more I say that, the more I wonder if I did in some way.
I never wanted my uncle to die, and yet . . .
Gabrielle squints at me, and I remember to slip on my mask, even though I’m about to tell her everything.
Or almost everything.
“I think the person who sent these letters thinks that my father murdered Ludovic.”
Her brows shoot up. “Your father murdered his own brother?”
Careful, I tell myself. Be very careful right here.
“No.” I pause, composing my thoughts. “This is just what someone thinks.”
“And what makes you so sure of that? Why jump to that conclusion? Surely you’ve done many horrible things that would make someone want to blackmail you.”
It shouldn’t bother me that she said that, because it’s completely true, but it does anyway. “Don’t be so sure.”
“I’m more than sure,” she says, and for a moment I wonder if she’s talking about my cousin Olivier and the fact that I had a hand in blackmailing him for ten years. “You don’t get to the top without crushing people on the way up. Everyone knows that.”
I don’t know what to say to that. I can’t argue with her.
“Look,” she says, placing her delicate hands on the papers. “I can help you, but you have to help me. And you’re holding a lot back, which makes me think that NDA was worthless. So why don’t you tell me the truth?”
“Why don’t you tell me the truth?”
She shakes her head, a strand of hair falling across her eyes that she quickly brushes back. “I’m not hiding anything. And this isn’t about me, not even a little. Tell me the truth, Pascal. Why do you think this is about your uncle? Has anyone told you they have this theory?”
I sigh and run my hand down my face, feeling exhausted all of a sudden. “Yes,” I say after a moment, my gaze absently sliding over the bookshelf. “My cousin Seraphine. She was convinced that my father murdered her father, that it wasn’t a heart attack. Poison or something, I don’t know. She was so convinced that she started to do a little spying on her own and then enlisted the help of her ex-husband and a private investigator.” I’m not too proud of the next part. I lick my lips, feeling dry. “But her ex-husband, Cyril, he’s a real piece of shit. He cheated on Seraphine and married her for money, so it was no surprise when he won nothing in their divorce. And he’s not the kind of man who likes his pride knocked around, so he went directly to my father the moment Seraphine contacted him.”
“Revenge,” Gabrielle says slowly, and those storm clouds roll in again, this time bringing disdain to her eyes, for my father, for my family, for me. “I’m going to guess this doesn’t end well, or else Seraphine would