didn’t you correct it? Why did you go on making me think it was me?”
I shrug. “I guess I wanted to know how bad you were. What you’d confess to. I wanted to know if you had anything to do with Ludovic’s murder, if you were exactly like Gautier.”
Something hard comes over his eyes. “You know I’m not. You know it.”
I swallow, nodding. “I know it now. I do. I know who you are, Pascal, even if you don’t. You’re a good man. You could be a great man if you just figured out what you stood for.”
“Oh, I suppose you’re standing for something right now.”
“I’m standing up for myself!” I erupt at him, spittle flying from my mouth. “Do you have any idea what I went through with him?”
A heated look comes across his face. “My father said you slept with him. Is that true?”
I want to cry. “Of course that’s what he said. Ask yourself this, Pascal—what do you really think happened? Ask yourself why I would be counting down the years until I had all the right means and all the right moves to finally get my revenge. Do you honestly believe that I would have slept with him, if I had a choice?”
Silence falls between us, the only sound my ragged breath and the heartbeat in my ears.
I watch as the understanding slowly dawns on him, his features turning harder by the second until they’re sharp enough to cut diamonds.
“He was your monster,” he says, his words broken, his voice going so low that it nearly sounds inhuman. “He was the one who raped you.”
I can’t help the tears that are starting to spill down my cheeks.
I’ve wanted to tell him so badly.
I wanted to tell someone who would believe me.
“Do you believe me?” I sob. “Please tell me you believe me.”
“Of course I believe you,” he says. His voice is softer, but the anger hasn’t dissipated, not even a little. “I will always believe you. I just . . . I hate myself for not putting it all together. I hate that all this time . . . And yet I must have known on some level. I must have known and I didn’t want to admit it. To admit it is to face it.”
“You’re facing it now. I’ve been facing it for a long time. Every single second of every single day.”
“You don’t have to kill him,” he says. “We can do this together. We can take him down.”
“No!” I yell. “No! It won’t work! You know it won’t. You know he deserves to die.”
“I know he deserves to die!” Pascal yells back. “But not at your hand! This won’t happen the way you’re picturing, Gabrielle. He’s prepared. He doesn’t even care. He’s not sweating it, he’s reveling in it. It’s a game to him, and you walked right into it.”
“I set up the game!” My hand is shaking now, and I have to put both hands on the gun, the gun I took from Pascal’s desk drawer. “I planned to come here. I wanted you to hire me, Pascal. I pretended I didn’t, but I wanted it. I didn’t just get back from New York. I’ve been in Paris for a year, waiting for the right opportunity.”
His face pales, jaw goes slack. Stunned.
“You used me,” he manages to say.
“This isn’t about you right now,” I tell him, pleading with my voice, my eyes. “I didn’t plan to fall in love with you. That was never on the agenda. I tried my hardest to protect my heart; I thought it would be easy. You were supposed to disgust me! You were supposed to be just like him, but you weren’t. You aren’t. You’re so much better than you think you are, and I fell for you, with every inch of me.”
“If you love me,” he says, looking pained, “then you’ll put the gun down.”
“But I can’t,” I tell him. “Because what he did is still stronger than that. Once he dies, I’m free, don’t you see? Don’t you understand? Then we can be together.”
He shakes his head, his eyes wet and anguished as he breathes in deep. “No. You’re free now. We can leave now, we can go to Mallorca. We can go to California. We can go anywhere in the world, just the two of us, and I will leave all of this behind.”
“You can’t. You’re the Dumont brand.”
“It’s just a name, Gabrielle. A name I’m willing to discard, a family I’m willing