face right now, son. All red, all flustered. That’s so rare to see. I rather like it, seeing something bother you for once. However, I don’t like that it’s happening on her behalf. You don’t have history with her. I do.”
“What history do you have?”
“I’ve always been rather fond of her,” he says. “You know that. So I like to think of her as mine. Like a pet of sorts. Naturally, when your mother called me while I was away and told me that not only was she back in Paris but she’d be working for you, well, I wasn’t very happy about that. I’m still not.” He looks down at the newspaper and twists it around and around, like he’s wringing someone’s neck. “I just want you to remember that. Who runs the show here. I’ve raised you so well, almost too well, to the point where you think you’re in charge of things when you’re not. You don’t have a say, son. You never will. Not as long as I’m alive.”
He gets up and looms over me. I stare at him with hard eyes. Hatred spikes through my veins, something I’ve been trying not to feel toward him, something I’ve let lie beneath the surface like a dormant volcano.
“Now, I’m done being polite. If I require the use of Gabrielle, for whatever the reason, I’m going to take her. Do you understand?”
My jaw is locked so tight, I can’t even talk.
“Pascal,” my father says in a soft voice, mockingly. “You really must learn to share. What’s yours is always definitely mine. That’s never going to change.” He gives me a smug smile. “Now, do we have any other business to discuss? I’m heading to the city for the day.”
With my father gone all last week, I had been meaning to have a talk with him right away about the letters. I wasn’t going to mention them outright, but I was going to ask if he had any enemies he could think of or if he thought maybe the things he did would ever come back to haunt him one day.
All these questions were another way of finding out whether the letters are for him or for me.
But now, after this, I simply don’t care. If the letters are for me, I’ll figure it out. If they’re for my father, then let whoever the hell is sending them come for him.
Let them confront him with the terrible things he’s done.
Let them destroy him.
I’ll simply stand to the side and watch.
As if he can hear my thoughts, his gaze sharpens like a knife.
“More than that,” he goes on, “you must learn to keep your guard up. This is very unlike you.”
“What are you talking about now?” I ask, exasperated. He’s talking in circles around me at this point.
“Do you trust her?”
I stare at him. “Trust her? Gabrielle?”
I trust her more than I trust you.
“Yes.”
“I don’t know. I guess so—she signed an NDA.”
“Good,” he says. “But sometimes that doesn’t mean anything. Don’t you find it odd that she’s back?”
“Why should it be odd?” I’m not sure if I should say anything to him about Gabrielle being worried about her mother. In fact, I probably shouldn’t. I’m not giving him any more information, because all he does is turn it around on people. And what if what Gabrielle is worried about involves my father and her mother together?
“You were what, twenty-three when she left? You were probably busy with work and your divorce; you wouldn’t have been paying much attention. But she was eighteen, and she was a very troubled young girl. She was scared of everyone, especially men. I fear that something traumatic may have happened to her, but unfortunately she wouldn’t let anyone help her.”
All of this makes complete sense. “So why shouldn’t I trust her?”
He shrugs. “I have no idea. She seems a lot better now. I would keep an eye on her, if I were you. Better yet, I’ll keep an eye on her for you.” He turns and heads out of my room, pausing in the doorway. “You’re welcome.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
GABRIELLE
Try as I might, I can’t escape Sunday morning. It shows up with the rising sun, promising me a day of running and dodging, doing what I can to avoid Gautier.
I spend most of it lying in my bed with the door locked and the curtains closed, reading an old, dog-eared copy of The Jungle Book that was on my shelf, until my mother insists I join her