Chapter 19
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Anthony
As soon as the door clicked shut behind Gabrielle, I poured another half cup of coffee and headed straight for my office—smiling like a man with a secret. It wasn’t the smug kind. It was something softer. Something that made my chest feel strangely light.
She didn’t know I saw it. The way her hands trembled when she reached for her purse. The way her voice wavered on the word “fresh air,” like it barely held itself together. She was paler than usual, moving slower, more carefully.
I might not have experienced being a father, but I wasn’t completely oblivious. I’d lived long enough to recognize when something was changing—and Gabrielle wasn’t just tired.
I settled into my chair, set the coffee aside, and opened my laptop. A second later, I was typing into the search bar.
First signs of pregnancy.
The list was unremarkable in its simplicity: nausea, fatigue, mood swings, dizziness. There it was—all of it. The past week suddenly organized itself like a puzzle clicking into place.
She hadn’t eaten much yesterday. Couldn’t finish her coffee this morning. That far-off look in her eyes whenever she thought I wasn’t watching.
I leaned back in my chair and exhaled, staring at the slow spin of the ceiling fan above me.
It hit me all at once. The quiet truth of it. If she was pregnant—if that faint look of unease she’d been wearing all morning had anything to do with it—then my entire life had just shifted a degree from center.
I didn’t panic.
Strangely, I didn’t feel fear.
I felt… drawn forward. Like I’d already stepped into the next chapter, all I had to do was catch up.
Would she want to keep it? Would she even tell me if she didn’t?
That thought stung more than I expected.
Gabrielle was fiercely independent. She protected herself with a quiet sort of grace. But this— this —wasn’t something I wanted her to carry alone.
I closed the laptop gently, set my elbows on the desk, and rubbed my hands together like I could warm the thought into something real.
Maybe I was wrong. Maybe it was just stress, exhaustion, or the mess we were wading through with Curtain. And if it was, I’d let it go. I wasn’t going to pressure her. She’d tell me when she was ready.
But still… a small part of me, tucked somewhere under my ribs, already hoped.
And that was new.
After a while, the gallery’s back doorbell chimed with a soft ping that echoed through the hallway outside my office. A second later, I heard the shuffle of footsteps and someone calling, “You want me to get that, Mr. Moreau?”
I was already halfway out the door.
“No,” I said, glancing toward the security monitor in the hall. The camera feed flickered—then settled on Gabrielle standing at the loading dock entrance, sunlight caught in her hair, a smile on her face that did something to my chest.
“I’ve got this.”
I don’t remember crossing the gallery floor. One second, I was watching her through a grainy monitor. The next, I was stepping out into the warm Miami air, blinking at the brightness—and at her.
She was radiant.
Not in that cliché, glowy kind of way they talk about in books. But in the way someone looks when a weight has been lifted. Her shoulders were looser. Her smile real. She looked at me like she was finally breathing freely again.
“Hey. I’ve got news,” I said softly, moving toward her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but I didn’t give her the chance.
I stepped in close, set my hands gently on her shoulders, and said it—simple, quiet.
“Let me guess… you’re pregnant.”
Her lips parted. Then trembled.
And then she started to laugh. And cry. At the same time.
I caught her before the tears could fall, pulling her into my chest and wrapping my arms around her as she buried her face in my shirt. Her laughter shook against me, soft and breathless. She mumbled something I couldn’t quite make out until she leaned back and wiped at her cheeks.
“How did you know?”
I smiled. “Intuition.”
Her eyes searched mine like she didn’t quite believe it—but she didn’t press. She just leaned back into me for another second.
“Are you okay?” I asked, brushing her hair away from her face.
“Much better now,” she said. And I believed her.
We stood there in the sun, the gallery behind us and something entirely new in front of us, and for a moment, the rest of the world didn’t matter.
Gabrielle stepped back from our embrace and wiped her eyes again, this time with a little smirk tugging at her lips. The joy was still there, but something had shifted in her expression—calculated, focused.
“That’s not the only surprise,” she said.
I arched a brow. “There’s more?”
She turned, unlocked her car, and opened the back door.
Inside, resting in a custom crate that looked almost too pristine, was a canvas wrapped in layers of archival tissue. My breath caught before I even reached for it.
“I had a visit,” she said. “Curtain.”
That name tightened something behind my ribs. “You must have gone to your apartment?”
She nodded. “To take the pregnancy test and he was waiting by my car.”
I moved beside her and stared down at the crate. “He just gave it to you?”
“After some persuasion,” she said. “He wants it sold. Said the deal’s with me, not you. Typical ego.”
My jaw ticked, but I kept my reaction contained. The painting demanded my full attention now. Carefully, I reached in and lifted the crate, Gabrielle steadying the door open for me.
Even before we unwrapped it, I knew what it was.
“Femme au Collier Vert,” I said softly. “Picasso.”
Gabrielle nodded as we carried it inside together. “He had no clue what he was holding.”
We moved through the gallery’s intake hallway in practiced silence, Gabrielle unlocking the doors as I adjusted my grip. In the scanning lab, the light was cool and crisp. Controlled.
We laid the crate on the padded table and began the careful process of unsealing it.
The canvas inside was stunning. Bold greens and soft, uneven brushstrokes framed the woman’s neckline, her expression subtly melancholic in the way Picasso had mastered. The signature placement, the texture of the linen—at first glance, it was textbook.
Too textbook.
Gabrielle handed me a pair of gloves, and I loaded the painting onto the Burker Tracer’s platform. The machine came to life, and the screen lit up, feeding the scan line by line in pale green and red tones.
We stood there together, side by side, watching it all unfold.
The first alert blinked red.
Then another.
I squinted at the results, reading the spectral data against known standards. The pigment composition didn’t match mid-1940s European stock. The layering was too uniform. Even the binder medium had an inconsistency—something modern, synthetic.
“It’s not real,” I said, the words heavier than I expected. “That’s not his brushwork. The pigment’s wrong.”
Gabrielle exhaled slowly. “So, it’s a fake.”
“A damn good one,” I admitted. “But it won’t fool the right buyer.”
She didn’t say anything for a moment. Just watched the data scroll across the screen with a stillness I knew wasn’t peace. Eventually, she rubbed the back of her neck and turned toward the storage cabinet.
“We’ll wrap it back up and put it in the vault,” she said. “Now, I have to find a way to tell Curtain he was duped.”
“You don’t have to do that right now,” I said, squeezing her hand as I helped her reseal the canvas, both of us more careful this time, not out of reverence—but out of the understanding that this wasn’t over.
Gabrielle’s steps were slower as we made our way down the corridor toward the vault.
“You okay?” I asked, watching her closely.
She nodded once and grinned. “Let’s go celebrate.”
We picked a quiet little spot just off Biscayne Blvd.—a rooftop bistro strung with white lights with a Cuban jazz vibe. The kind of place that didn’t feel like hiding. It felt like living.
Gabrielle had pulled her hair back—eyes clear again. She looked like herself. No—she looked more than that. She looked settled, like someone who’d finally let herself believe good things could actually stay.
We ordered light—grilled fish, tostones, and fresh fruit. Nothing fancy. No need. Just being here, together, in the open air with the smell of the sea and the warmth of her hand in mine under the table… that was more than enough.
Halfway through the meal, Juliette arrived—windblown and late, as always. She dropped into the seat across from us, eyes already sparkling with mischief.
“Okay, don’t keep me in suspense. Can I plan a gender reveal? Will it involve fireworks, or is that too on-brand?”
Gabrielle groaned and laughed at the same time. “Jules, I don’t have a due date yet.”
“Minor detail,” Juliette said, waving her hand. “I’m already on Etsy. Wait—do we like woodland animals, or are we going with a minimalist desert theme? Cacti are very in right now.”
Gabrielle leaned back in her chair, the laughter still tugging at her lips, and let her sister ramble. I could see it—the relief, the surrender to joy—rolling off her in waves. She wasn’t used to being taken care of. But right now, she was letting it happen.
And I was grateful for that.
Watching the two of them trade stories, argue over whether the baby would need more swaddles or sleep sacks, I felt something shift again inside me—something deeper, quieter.
I wanted this. All of it.
Not just the child. Not just Gabrielle. But this life. The chaos, the closeness. The family.
Juliette was mid-rant about stroller colors when I leaned in with a smirk. “You’re both overthinking it. It’s going to be a boy.”
Gabrielle blinked. “Oh? Confident, are we?”
Juliette grinned. “Let me guess—‘intuition’ again?”
“Exactly.” I gave them both a look. “I knew she was pregnant before she said a word, didn’t I?”
Gabrielle laughed, shaking her head. “Okay, fine. But if you’re so sure, you better start thinking up names.”
“Already working on it,” I said, clinking my glass of sparkling cider against hers.
“To surprises,” Gabrielle said.
Juliette raised hers, too. “And to fake Picassos. May they rot in gallery hell.”
We laughed, and for the first time in weeks, the sound didn’t feel like a break in the tension.
It felt like peace.
As Juliette got momentarily distracted by her phone, I leaned closer to Gabrielle and kept my voice low, just for her.
“I love you,” I said. “I’ve loved you for a while. I just didn’t know how to say it out loud without screwing it up.”
Her smile faltered—only for a second—before it widened. She blinked fast, then reached for my hand and squeezed.
“I love you too,” she whispered. “And thank you… for finally letting go of your guilt and grief. I was starting to wonder if you ever would.”
I laughed, shaking my head as she grinned at me.
I looked at her—a beautiful woman I hadn’t realized I needed until she was suddenly the center of my world—and I knew, with absolute clarity, that I would protect her, protect us , with everything I had.
For the first time in a long time, the future didn’t feel like something to brace for.
It felt like something to meet head-on.
Juliette turned back toward us just then, phone in hand, eyes gleaming. “That was Lina in Switzerland,” she said, slipping her phone onto the table. “She’s got what we need.”