Gant
“Being seen and filled,” she says moments later, cutting through the heavy quiet. “You pour into me when I’m so empty that I can’t do it myself, no matter how badly I want to. Good or horrible, you're there for me.”
“Look into my eyes.” She does after a beat, her eyes red and swollen. “I will never leave you.” Not for long. Not forever. “I promise.”
“Do you promise to share everything with me?” She holds up the torn letter.
“What do you want to know?”
“Why did you destroy it? Shouldn’t you cherish her memories?”
I gaze at the death portrait. “They aren’t my memories.”
“Your brother may cherish them.”
“I don’t know who the bastard is. If I did, he’d already be buried.”
She gasps, her grip on my shoulder tightening.
“My father will kill him the second he’s found.”
“What? W-why?”
“He gifted my mother crucial parts of his company. Parts her firstborn would inherit.”
“His own child,” she whispers. “But why would he do that? He could just give it to you himself.”
“So you didn’t find the marriage contract?” I ask, skimming the destroyed letters strewn across the floor.
“Marriage contract?”
“My parents were never in love. My father was looking for a socially acceptable wife, and my mother wanted to please her family and elevate her status, especially that of her future children. My father saw it as a throwaway, a compromise to make her feel secure while, as you pointed out, it didn’t matter since it would be his child anyway. Essentially, he wasn’t giving her anything he wouldn’t have given me himself.”
“ Firstborn… She willed everything to her firstborn. So it’s safe to say Bart didn’t know about this other son?”
“Safe to say.”
“Would he have married her if he’d known? Or would he have found another target?”
I don’t believe Bart’s earlier words that he wouldn’t have.
“My father’s laser-focused, as spoiled as I am. If he wanted her, he’d have her. Any problems, he’d simply solve. If he’d known about the kid before the marriage, he would’ve tracked and killed him first. The same thing he’s trying to do right now.”
“ Trying? ”
“The bastard is another mystery. Just like the driver.”
Elle’s eyes grow wide. “You…you don’t think this is all connected, do you?”
“You know I do. I told you my mother always had a reason. Jarett isn’t a coincidence, and neither is that driver.”
“I think I’m starting to believe you. Maybe there was something about Jarett…something I can’t see through my hatred.”
Why isn’t she questioning me about Jarett’s sudden pop-up? She knows my father was hunting him the same way I hunted and lured her to Beaulieu with a fake scholarship. But my baby’s smart. She must be connecting the dots…but she isn’t asking.
Now look who’s keeping secrets.
“Jarett didn't have anything Madame could possibly want,” she says, shaking her head, and the long tips of her hair tickle my arms. “I’d bet my life on that.”
“Don’t ever say that.” I squeeze her tighter.
She gazes down at me, startled. “It’s just a figure of speech.”
“I don’t like it. Not coming from your lips.”
Another silent moment.
“The physiotherapist and therapist are coming to see you today. And every day until we return to Beaulieu.”
She’s about to argue, but then she relents.
“I want to dance again,” she says finally. “Whatever it takes…and I want to find out what Madame wanted from Jarett. Maybe it’s not something he did or didn’t do, had or didn’t have. Maybe it’s not something of his own merit but something by association.”
“Like what?”
She deflates a bit, but something…something tells me my baby has an inkling.
“I don’t know. Maybe Madame saw something in Jarett that she related to her past? To a time in her life before Bart Auclair and the lifestyle that comes with him?” She shakes her head. “I’m just rambling.”
No, I think she’s precisely on track.
“Bart thinks that the missing link is this first prince.”
She gasps and damn near falls from my lap, but I grip her ass and resettle her on my cock. “You don’t think that, do you? That we could share a sibling through Jarett and Marisol?”
“I think it's a possibility.”
“But that would change everything between us.”
I love the panic, the fear in her tone.
“It would change nothing. Just look at Aria and Etienne.”
“They’re step-siblings. They don’t share blood.”
“Neither would we. Not with each other, anyway. Besides, this prince is nothing to either one of us. His blood connection to our parents doesn’t change that overnight. The horsemen are more of my brothers than this stranger could ever be.”
“You mean like Hale, whose club you tried to destroy?”
“You still remember that?” I drawl, and before she can answer, my phone buzzes.
Normally, I’d ignore it. Elle’s on top of me, so who else do I need? But then I remember who she’d just brought up, old Haley and how I’d dodged him all week. Begrudgingly, I pull my phone from my pocket.
“Beaussip?” she groans.
Given all the shit that went down last night, I’d expected a blast from her too, but surprisingly, it isn’t Beaussip.
The name, Delphine, rolls across the screen. My aunt. She’s been calling me all damn break and every break, for two years.
“Who’s Delphine?”
I love and hate the way there’s no jealousy in her voice, just sheer curiosity. Does this mean she’s beginning to trust me again?
“My mother’s sister.”
“Sylo’s mother?” she asks, getting to her knees so that her ass leaves my dick and her tits nearly suffocate me. I run my tongue up her sternum, and she shivers, falling back into position.
Why the hell would she be excited over Sylo’s mother?
“You should answer it.”
Should I?
“I never answer when she calls.” And she’d been calling since the funeral.
“Maybe you should start. She could possibly help with this mysterious brother. I mean, Madame was her sister, maybe she knows about the birth? Or at least, more than you do. Plus, you said yourself that the Auclairs never had a relationship with your mother’s family after her passing.”
“My mother never tried to have a relationship with them before her passing either. They weren’t close.”
“Still, your father hasn’t spent much time looking into them, right? Maybe they were close at some point. Maybe your father and the marriage are the reasons why they stopped being close.”
She wants me to pursue looking for this brother? This brother I told her my father wants dead ? Does she think I’m joking, or does she think I’ll have a change of heart once I meet him?
“I don’t know that.”
“And you won’t if you don’t accept the invitation she’s trying to offer. Think about it: if she didn’t care for your mother, why would she be trying to care for you?” “
Care for me?
“It’s just a call.”
“You don’t know that either.”
I look at the glowing screen and pick up at her urging, at her clear giddiness of getting something out of the exchange.
“Aunt Delphine,” I say once the call connects, but my eyes never waver from Elle. “It’s funny. I was just thinking about you.”
And apparently, so was Elle.