Gant
“What did you think of my family?” I ask Elle as I massage the prescription balms into her feet after our nightly bath.
It took everything in me to just bathe her after our dance session, but I’m quickly realising that babying her from her hair to her feet is a different type of intimacy I didn’t know I craved.
It’s a pleasure to see my baby at peace in my arms in the warm water, to see her eyes drift close with full trust as I shave, shampoo, condition and oil her. The gentle, peaceful rise and fall of her tits as she lets me manoeuvre her any way I want is irreplaceable. Like she’s finally accepting that she’s my little doll, and I’m going to take care of her.
She takes a minute to answer me, her eyes focused on my massaging fingers. “I think they want to hold you close.”
Odd wording.
I force my fingers to keep moving across her soles. They’re not swelling as much any more, and the scars are already fading thanks to the dermatologist's product recommendations, but they’ll never be fully erased. “Like an enemy?”
The little swallow before her chuckle tells me that’s precisely what she means.
“Is that why you hold me close?”
She’s changing the subject.
I rest her left foot gently on my lap before reaching for her right.
“It’s why I did. At first. But now I’m not just holding you. I don’t have to because you’ve already diffused into me. You’re embedded in my heart, and you flow through my veins.”
There it is, another little swallow as those pretty emeralds fly to the floor-to-ceiling windows as she tries to disassociate.
“Just like there’s a connection flowing through my veins to the Parrishs via my mother. But I can’t tap into it. I thought there’d be some kind of primal knowing or longing as we detected one another.”
She looks surprised at that, her eyes finally snapping to mine. “But you looked so peaceful with Delphine.”
“She’s a replica of my mother.”
Do you know who else is a surprising replica? Silas Parrish. He’s Jarett Crewley’s twin.
But you already knew that, didn’t you, baby?
He came into the estate in a blur of green so dark it appeared black. But then the sun hit the paint, and dazzling sparkles of green shimmered at me before he disappeared into the garage. And when Elle appeared with that cut in the gardens, and Silas’ tense, pale face appeared over her shoulder in the tea room not even a second later, it all clicked. Because she’d seen the car, too.
But Elle doesn’t know that I know they’d met, and she doesn’t know that I met him too while Delphine was bandaging her elbow.
She says she doesn’t want secrets between us, and yet she isn’t bringing up the obvious resemblance even a day later.
“Isn’t that a good thing?” she asks. “To see hints of Marisol again?”
“A replica is just that. She was familiar, and she wasn’t. My mother’s personality was far different. Delphine knows what it feels like to be a spare. A begrudging afterthought. A tolerance.”
Dove’s lips part and twitch, her eyes filling with disagreement, but she doesn’t interrupt as she strokes my nape.
“I could relate to her in that way. But she’s still different because she’s sweet. Don’t you think?”
Her throat bobs, and I resist the urge to trace it with my tongue. To trace her pulse that I know is quickening its pace.
“She appears to be.”
Odd wording. Again.
“She certainly was helpful,” she says quickly. “I mean, she confirmed that the baby was born in Hungary.”
“She didn’t mention a baby at all, but the timelines certainly add up. Maybe she doesn’t know that my mother was pregnant.”
“Perhaps,” she agrees, looking through the window again.
“Then again, maybe she does.”
“Perhaps.”
“Maybe she knows a lot more than she’s letting on. Maybe I should indulge them more to see. I’m thinking of inviting Sylo over to play cricket. There’s an indoor pitch downstairs.”
“Of course there is,” she says with a roll of her eyes, “but don’t you need more players than that?”
Silas will be there, too.
“The horsemen and Stassi and Aria will come too. You haven’t been talking to the girls much.”
“We’ve all been M.I.A.,” she says softly with a frown. “Stassi all but disappeared after her blow-up with Hale. I’ve been focusing on my medical care and-” she hesitates. “ You . And Aria, well…”
“Aria has her own problems keeping her preoccupied.”
Her eyes go wide as she sits forward, clearly worried. “Like what?”
“Why don’t you call her?”
But we both know why. It seems hypocritical. Elle seemingly forgave me, at least enough to bide her time, so why not Aria? I know the reason is lurking around as we speak.
“I should,” she says finally. “And maybe you should call Hale.”
“Thank you, by the way.”
“For what?”
“Helping him when I wasn’t there for him. When I simply didn’t care.”
She snorts. “Don’t praise me. I didn’t do it out of the goodness of my heart. I wanted an investment.”
“It doesn’t matter what other side effects come along, you still helped him. It’s more than I’ve done lately.” I let go of her foot and use her calf to drag her closer to me. “I’m happy you did it. That ring wasn’t good enough anyway.”
She’s fighting her words, but eventually, she caves. “Good enough for what?”
“This finger,” I say, lifting her ring finger.
She shifts. “ — ”
“Don’t tell me what I can’t have. I hate it.”
“You hate reality. Someone has to sink you back into it.”
“The same person that’s here with me now? Take some responsibility for immersing me in my delusion.”
She glares at me.
“When I slipped that ring onto your finger, I saw so many delusions as you call them. I call them dreams. Remember when we first met, you told me that ballet was your dream. You asked me if I had any, and I told you I didn’t. Now I do. What’s wrong with sharing my dreams with you?”
She looks at me, a mixture of emotions in her eyes I can’t read.
“Are you afraid of hearing them because they’ll validate what you’ve secretly wanted all along?” I ask, tucking a lock that’s escaped the shitty French braid I’d given her behind her ear.
“No,” she says finally. “Because I’m not spoiled like you. I’ve learned to never want things because I never get them anyway, so what’s the point?”
“That was before you met me.” Before you had someone competent in your life rather than two imbeciles who knew how to fuck raw, and that was enough to make them parents.
Her lips part as I shift her onto my lap so that we’re so close our noses are brushing.
“Whatever you want, I’ll make it come true. All you have to do is say yes to me.”
“But it’s not just you. You aren’t an island like I am. You’re an Auclair. What don’t you get? Your family will never accept me.”
“Delphine seemed to love you.”
Didn’t she, baby?
No sound comes out of her parted lips for a long time before she shakes her head. “Delphine is a Parrish. I’m talking about the Auclairs.”
“You haven’t met my father.”
“Why would I want to?” she asks incredulously, jerking away from me to fall against the couch cushions. “You told me that he wants to kill someone, your own brother. He doesn’t want his wife’s blood to inherit anything , even things he didn’t work for, like her dance studio. Do you think he’d be happy when you tried to bring home the girl that leaked your mother’s sex tape?”
A minor detail.
“Do you think he’d be happy that a red-haired council house cunt was carrying the next Auclair heir?”
She’s thought of having my heir?! But even that warm revelation can’t override the other. Red-haired council house cunt? Where did she get that? Not from herself. That’s something Bart would say.
Something that someone who cared about the ‘pureness’ of bloodlines and social standing would say.
My blood crystallises as I watch a sheen of sheer agony and hurt glaze her eyes as she glares at me. A hurt over a supposed truth she’s been hammering into her brain since she fell in love with me.
“Who said that to you?” I hiss, but she only looks up at the ceiling to keep those tears from falling. The tears I told her not to worry about because I’d drink them all.
“ Look, you got your wish. I’m here. For now. Can’t you just enjoy what’s in front of you?” She gestures around the penthouse. “Isn’t this enough?”
“No, it isn’t. That’s the thing about being spoiled.”
“But not invincible. You know Bart Auclair better than I ever could.”
“Exactly. So, let me worry about Bart Auclair. Let me worry about our love.”
“I don’t love — ”
I grip her neck and pull her toward me, cutting off her words with a kiss. She fights for half a second before she melts into the cushions and my arms.
“You can say anything to me,” I tell her seriously after raking her lower lip between my teeth. “You can even say that you hate me, but not that. Never that. If out of everyone, just you loves me, I can bear it.”
“Bear what?”
“ Everything else .”
She shakes her head slowly, and the static of the cushions creates a fuzzy orange halo around her. One I always knew was there, just invisible above my angel. “That doesn’t even make sense. How can I hate you but still love you?”
“The opposite of hate isn’t love. It’s indifference. You hate me right now for what I did to your feet, but I know you still love me.”
“You don’t know.”
“You're here in my arms.”
“Because — ”
“Never mind the circumstances. They’re only excuses. You could be anywhere tonight. With Jaime and Jarett. With Stassi. At Libellule. But you’re here with me.”
She swallows, and the bob of her throat alerts me to what’s still on it a day later.
“Your neck is red.”
“What?” she asks, brows knitting at the quick switch of conversation.
“It’s red , in four places like a finger necklace. One I didn’t give you last night because I haven’t been back inside of you yet to choke you.”
Immediately, she rubs it. “I’ve been scratching at it.”
My baby’s lying to me…after she asked us not to keep secrets.
If she’s lying, it’s important.
“Have you?” I ask evenly.
“Marisol’s garden… all the flowers and pollen.”
All the lies.
“It must be my allergies.”
I scoop her into my arms, and she gasps as I lift us off the couch. “I’ll get you an antihistamine.”
“I’m fine.”
“That’s what you said about your elbow. That’s what you always say: I’m fine , so no one worries about you. Because no one has ever worried about you until now.”
“ — ”
“I insist,” I say, heading for the kitchen. “Do you want it with a pink lemonade? I know they’re your favourite.”
She looks momentarily puzzled at that. Just as I’d expected her to be.
“From the lingering bottles, you’ve been drinking at least two a day. I’m glad you enjoy them.”
But we both know she doesn’t enjoy them because she hasn’t been drinking them at all.
“Oh, right,” she nods, her eyes slipping from mine. Again.
Another lie.
Another secret.
But I can’t call her out on it. If I do, she’ll attempt to fly away again, and I can’t let that happen. Ever. So for now, I’ll play along because my dove’s playing a new game, one she isn’t sharing with me just yet.
She eyes the two empty bottles on the first island as I guide us into the kitchen. Dove’s fairly neat. She would’ve dumped the cans, never mind that I have a maid now that Jarrett isn’t some major secret lurking around. No, she’s used to cleaning up after herself. She didn’t grow up with a housekeeper. She was the housekeeper.
“Hold onto my neck.” She does so far too weakly. “Tighter, you know how.”
Her cheeks redden, but she follows my instructions. Once she’s secure, I open the fridge with my free hand, grab a new bottle of lemonade and settle it on the counter before cracking the top.
“Sit, baby.” I put her on the counter, too, and it takes her a half second too long to let go of me. A half a second that cracks my lips and shuts hers. “I gave you a tour, but I never showed you the most important part of our home.”
I open two cabinet doors, that’s arranged almost like a fridge inside, including a set of drawers at the bottom.
“If you ever have an emergency, the solution’s likely in here.”
“A minor emergency? Or a life-threatening one?” she asks, gazing around the cabinet door and pulling out one of the drawers. Little glass vials tinkle at the motion, while syringe packets crinkle. “It’s like a damn chemist shop.”
“You can never be too careful,” I say, reaching for a bottle on the third row and extracting a pill before handing it to her. She takes it blindly, just like she lets me rub skin and hair products on her blindly because she trusts me more than she realises.
I watch her drink, watch the bob of her throat as she swallows a shot of vitamin D that I know she’s deficient in. But she doesn’t know that, and the fact that she’s willing to take something she doesn’t need to keep her cover speaks volumes.
“Are you thirsty?” She offers me the bottle after chugging half of it, although she’s clearly disgusted by the taste.
“Drink a bit more first. Our shower was steamy, I don’t want you dehydrated.”
She smiles tensely before drinking a quarter more and shaking it at me. I take it, not because I’m the secret lemonade legend guzzling cans by the case, but because I want an excuse to put my tongue exactly where hers had been a second ago. I only take a sip, though, because I have somewhere to be.
I can’t fall asleep with my baby, whose eyes droop as I catch her in my arms and carry her to our bed where I know she’ll stay safe and sound for at least…I check the time. Seven hours.