I sit up and find myself looking right across the lawn at a lit window on the second floor.
Pascal’s window.
And to my surprise, he’s standing there.
Except he’s not alone.
He’s with some woman with long dark hair and big breasts.
I recognize her as the front-desk girl at the hotel.
Aurelie.
And she’s completely naked, her breasts and the side of her face pressed up against the glass, palms wide and flat to brace herself as Pascal fucks her from behind.
I immediately look away, my cheeks flushing, knowing I saw something I wasn’t supposed to see.
But when I get up to go close the curtains, I can’t help but look again, more clearly this time.
I can see Pascal, the side of his hips, his legs, the taut ridges of his abs and his firm chest, skin smooth and tanned from the summer sun. His arm muscles sinewy and tight as they grip the woman’s waist and he pumps in and out of her.
I catch his eye.
A hot, intense gaze flickering in them as he stares right at me.
For a moment, I’m actually turned on.
And then I’m equally as disgusted with myself.
I stare back at him, stone-faced, and shut the curtain.
Looks like his date went well.
CHAPTER SIX
PASCAL
“So how is your mother doing?” I ask.
Gabrielle seems to flinch at the question, as if she had forgotten I was in the same room as her.
I suppose it is kind of weird to be in my bedroom when she’s trying to clean it, but it’s Saturday morning, and I can’t be bothered to get out of bed. Granted, I did get out of bed at the crack of dawn when I put Aurelie in a car and sent her home, but after a night of sex, I’m exhausted. I had remembered Aurelie as a bit boring in bed, but last night she completely proved me wrong.
“My mother?” she asks as she sprays cleaner on the windows. There are a fuckload of smudge marks left on there, courtesy of Aurelie. I don’t normally bring women back here—just because it’s so far out of Paris—but Aurelie gave me head on the whole car ride, and once we were in here, I had the devious notion of fucking her in front of Gabrielle.
I thought better of it when I realized that after the way I’d treated her earlier, it would probably be grounds for her quitting, and that’s the last thing I wanted. But once I saw the lights on in Gabrielle’s bedroom and could see straight into her room, I knew that was enough.
Was I trying to make Gabrielle jealous? Yes.
Did it work? Most likely no. The girl acts like she hates me even more than she did before, but that could be for many reasons, including the fact that I’m lounging in bed half-naked and pestering her while she cleans my room.
What it did do was ensure that when I came inside Aurelie, I was thinking about Gabrielle the entire time.
And I don’t think I’ve come that hard in ages.
“Yes, your mother,” I tell her, propping myself up on my elbow, the covers sliding down to my hips and barely covering my cock, which is standing at attention, as it seems to be lately when Gabrielle is around. “You said you were worried about her. That’s why you asked to live here to begin with. Remember?”
“Oh,” she says, pausing midwipe and then spraying the glass again and resuming. “Yes.”
“So is she okay?” Getting information out of her is almost like a hostage situation.
I can see her reflection in the glass, the way she presses her lips together in thought, how she stares down at the servants’ quarters. I’m guessing that no matter what she says to me, she doesn’t think her mother is okay. “It’s too early to tell.”
“Do you mind telling me what the problem is?”
She glances at me over her shoulder, her face like stone. She gives a slight shake of her head.
“Okay, fair enough,” I tell her. “Though you know you can tell me anything. I’m here for you. I aspire to be one of those cool bosses.”
I added that last bit because I knew it would get a rise out of her, and it does. She rolls her eyes and gives me a slight smile before turning back to work, and it feels like sweet victory.
“You know, maybe you ought to have the day off,” I tell her, feeling a little bad now for making her work. “It’s sunny, it’s hot. The weather is absolutely perfect. Go outside and relax with me.” I pause. “Or come in here and relax with me.”
She shakes her head and resumes cleaning. “I’m quite happy doing this.”
“How could you be happy doing this? You’re cleaning the rich prick son’s bedroom while he’s lying in bed, naked, if you must know, and watching you.”
“I didn’t need to know that.”
“Ah, got enough of it last night, did you?”
She gives an exasperated sigh and then turns to face me. “Next time, try closing your blinds.”
“Next time, you close your curtains,” I tell her. “Besides, it’s my house you’re a part of. This is a workplace hazard.”
“Seeing your dick shouldn’t be a workplace hazard.”
“And yet it is,” I tell her. “Sorry I didn’t include that in the job description.”
Our eyes lock in a game of mental chess, and I’m starting to think she might enjoy sparring with me, though not as much as I do.
“I disgust you, don’t I?” I ask when she doesn’t speak.
Her brow raises. “If that’s what you’re going for, then no. You don’t.”
“Guess I’ll have to try harder.”
She gives me nothing in her stare and then turns to look back at the window. “I think I’m done in here.”
She starts to walk away, but I call out, “Hey. Come back here.”
Her gait halts, and her shoulders lower in defeat. Slowly she turns around.
“What is it?”
“Come here,” I repeat.
She walks a few steps forward until she’s at the foot of the bed, staring down at me with suspicion. The truth is, I don’t know what I want from her, I just don’t want to be alone. I’d rather be getting on her nerves if nothing else.
“Give me something,” I tell her.
“What?” She crosses her arms with a sigh.
“Tell me something about yourself that I don’t know.”
“You don’t know anything about me, Pascal.”
“Then you should have lots of things to tell me. So tell me something. Anything.”
“Fine. Birds scare the shit out of me.”
I laugh. “Birds? You’re scared of birds?”
She shrugs. “I blame Alfred Hitchcock and the pigeons in New York. Are we done?”
I decide that maybe I need to make this a little more businesslike. “Did you look into the names I gave you?”
Her eyes go round.
I press on. “Marine and Olivier. Did you look into them?”
She doesn’t seem too impressed. She walks around the side of the bed, right up to me. She leans in close, the smell of her flooding my senses as she puts her lips at my ear. Heat generates from her skin to mine, and the hairs on my neck stand on end.
“What happened to your paranoia?” she whispers, and my eyes roll back in my head, my cock stiffening to the point of strain. Her face lingers beside mine for a hot and heady moment before she starts to pull back, and instinctively I reach up and slip my hand behind her neck, holding her in place, our faces just inches from each other.
I stare at her lips, then her perfect nose, then those eyes that are searching mine with curiosity. Not an ounce of fear. She doesn’t even try to pull away.
Her gaze flicks to my mouth, and the blood running through my veins pumps hot and wild, my breath starting to catch in my throat.
I pull her down an inch, that inch that closes up so much space, feeling like I’m about to be overtaken by something very powerful and hungry and unstoppable.
“If you kiss me, I’m quitting,” she says softly.
My
eyes flick up to hers, and she’s raising her brow in challenge.
Shit.
I can’t afford to take that risk.
“You’re a little tease, you know that?”
Her expression cools. “I’m sure everyone who doesn’t throw themselves at your feet would be considered a tease to you.” She leans in again to my ear. “If you want to talk about business,” she whispers, and I swear to God I’m going to explode because her voice just became this throaty, sexy thing, “then come find me later. But I know your family and—”
A knock at the door makes us both jump, and she immediately straightens up just as the door to my bedroom opens.
My father strolls in with a newspaper in his hand and stops as soon as he sees us.
“Am I interrupting something?” he asks, his voice flinty as he looks between the two of us.
“Not at all,” I tell him, sitting up and pulling the covers up as well, hoping they hide my erection, because this would look like something completely different otherwise.
I exchange a worried glance with Gabrielle, and she immediately puts her head down and quickly walks toward the door, giving my father a curt, “Sir,” as she passes him but avoids looking at him.
“Gabrielle, stay,” he says and reaches out and grabs her by the arm. He does this with such force and familiarity that it rattles something inside me.
Gabrielle glares at him combatively and pulls back as she stops, but my father doesn’t let go of her arm. Instead, he smiles at her. It’s wolfish. It’s the smile you never want to see from him.
“Father,” I say loudly, and my father looks at me in surprise. Then he drops Gabrielle’s arm.
“There’s no need for her to run off,” he says to me and then smiles at her again. “I would prefer it if she stayed.”
“I have work to do,” she says stiffly, looking at the wall.
“Work?” He brings his gaze to me. “You’re working her too hard, Pascal. It’s her first week, and you’re only giving her Sundays off.” He twists toward her further and puts his hand on her shoulder. She eyes it, flinching a little. “Stay here with me, I insist. Perhaps I can take you for a drive today if your slave master will let you have the time off. Otherwise, we’ll do it tomorrow.”
Now I’m seeing pure fear in Gabrielle’s eyes, fear I don’t want her to feel. “Father,” I say again, my voice firmer. “Let her go so she can work.”
He eyes me like I’ve just ruined something spectacular for him, and the smile he gives me is as false as his teeth. “Do I get no say here? She is working in my house. In fact, I don’t recall you even discussing her hire with me. Rather impetuous of you.”
“Gabrielle,” I say to her, ignoring him. “If you could prepare the files for Monday’s meeting, that would be great.”
I’ve never discussed any files with her before, but she nods gratefully and then exits the room, her feet moving fast.
“Monday’s meeting?” my father asks, staring at the door for a moment and then looking back at me. “Which meeting is that?”
“The weekly meeting with the heads of the department,” I tell him. I do have that meeting every Monday, and he should know that.
“Perhaps you’re working yourself too hard too,” he says, striding over to me, fiddling with the newspaper. He’s dressed in his weekend outfit, which is always the same, a blue dress shirt and cream-colored pants.
“Someone has to do it,” I say.
“Yes. Someone has to. I know what you’re getting at, Pascal; you don’t think I’ve worked enough. Perhaps I never did. There’s a reason Luddie was around for as long as he was. But of course, even though he did it all, he did it all wrong. You have to learn, son, to delegate. Let someone else run the company. We’re the CEOs; we’re not expected to work. We pay other people to do that so we can sit back and drink and fuck whatever we want. That’s the life, you know.”
My nose twitches. It never sounds good when he says it.
“Now, was I interrupting something here? Because the two of you seemed awfully, well, close.” He sits on the side of the bed, and I know that’s a power dynamic thing, and I hate it. I’m lying down, naked, so I’m vulnerable and stuck, while he’s lording over me.
“We were talking,” I tell him, wondering if he saw my hand behind her neck, but I think we had broken apart by the time he came in.
“What about?” he asks, tapping the edge of the rolled-up newspaper against his thigh.
“Her maid duties. Is that all?”
The corner of his mouth twists into a smirk. “You’re awfully defensive about her, Pascal. Don’t go down this path.”
“And what path is that?”
“Fucking the help,” he says simply. “I know you’ve done it before.”
He’s not wrong. I slept with Charlotte in the beginning, before I realized she was overtly needy and couldn’t separate us from her job (not that there ever was an us), and I did with another maid in the past. I can’t help it. They throw themselves at me, and there are some things in life I just can’t say no to.
“That’s not what’s going on,” I tell him.
Of course, I wouldn’t mind if that were the case.
“Then what is going on?”
I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. Nothing. She’s new. My life is fucking crazy right now. There’s a lot to discuss.”
He watches me carefully and then nods. “That I understand. But I may want to borrow her sometimes, just so you know.”
His comment makes me uneasy, as does the glint in his eye. “Borrow her?”
“Yes. Sometimes Jolie is busy doing stuff for your mother.”
No. I don’t like this at all. I can’t even explain why, but I don’t. “Gabrielle is mine. I pay her salary from my pocket.”
“And I pay your salary. So therefore . . .” He frowns at me and then lets out a sour laugh. “You should see your 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 s
ending 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 for lunch on the terrace.
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