busy lately in the office that I haven’t had time to get off.
I’ll fix that tonight, I tell myself. Scroll through my phone and find a model who knows how to give me a good time. I should do something about my erection, too, but as my mind latches on to all the things I need to do today, it fades in an instant.
There’s work, of course, but then there’s Gabrielle.
I hate hiring people, and I’m already doubting she’ll be good enough.
I take a shower and get dressed, a sharp black Dumont suit with an ice-blue tie that I know brings out my eyes. I might have to be a bit charming today, so it can’t hurt.
Then I head downstairs, swinging by the kitchen where Jolie is making the morning espresso for my mother. My father has most likely left for work already. He can’t afford to be outdone by me. Always the first one in the office these days, though I’m more than certain he’s not particularly doing anything. I’ve been carrying the entire weight of the company’s changes.
“Jolie,” I say to her as I adjust my cuff links. She looks up from her duties with surprise. I rarely address her, nor pay her any attention.
I’m sure I would have when she was younger. I suppose she’s still an attractive woman, if she wasn’t so thin and didn’t look so hardened. She’s tall, with frizzy blonde hair that never seems tame despite it being tied back, but her eyes always vacillate between eerie blankness and pure anxiety, as if she can’t choose which state to live in.
“Yes, Mr. Dumont,” she says, standing at attention.
“It’s Pascal,” I tell her. I hate being called Mr. Dumont.
She just nods curtly and waits for me to go on.
“I heard your daughter was back in Paris,” I tell her.
A tight smile comes across her face. “She is.”
“Is she here to work? Because I might have a job for her.”
Her expression doesn’t change. Perhaps she was waiting for someone to ask, or maybe my mother already said something to her.
“I can’t speak directly for her, but I think that would be wonderful,” she says.
I nod and flip through my phone to check my schedule. “Where is she staying? Would she be able to come by the office at noon?”
“I believe she is in a hotel.” She pauses. “She did not think it right to stay in the guesthouse with me. I can text her and let her know. Your office at noon.”
“You do that. Thank you.”
After that, I get in my Audi and drive to work. Traffic can be hellish, and we live quite a bit outside Paris, but I don’t mind the time in the car when it’s just me and I can think.
Naturally, my mind goes back to the letter.
It goes to my father.
It goes to what Blaise said last night: How is it living in that house of horrors, knowing full well what our father is capable of? How does that sit with your conscience?
The truth is, I don’t let myself think about it. That’s how I get through it. That’s how you can get through anything in life, no matter how horrific, immoral, or appalling. Just don’t think about it.
Pretend it doesn’t exist.
Pretend that there is no truth.
And yet . . . I can feel something stirring inside me, sinking through my veins like black oil. Maybe it is the truth. Maybe it’s the realization that as the days tick on and the closer I work with my father, the more I become my father.
For once in my life, I’m not sure that’s who I want to be.
And yet I can’t see myself becoming anyone else.
Once at the office, I sink into the strife and hustle. It’s been nearly a year since Ludovic’s death, and though all the staff is new—save the receptionist—it’s taken this long for the company to really hit its stride. In some ways it’s true of the world. Ludovic was revered and admired for sticking to his morals and ideals when it came to the Dumont label. He was against collaborations with artists, against online shopping, against sales. He held true to tradition no matter the cost.
The moment my father and I were able to take over, we changed it all up. We shook every part of this company loose and made it so that it could compete in this century. Ludovic’s tenacity and old-fashioned leanings may have been quaint, but we were finally able to bring