Stepbrother Thief(35)

I stare back at him as Solène presents a brilliant feminist argument in favor of the dress that far exceeds her years, and challenge him with the look. Why are you staring, you prick? Do you wish you had a family? Do you regret abandoning us all those years ago? Well, fuck you.

More and more lately, I notice Gilleon watching, cataloguing, surveying. He keeps examining Solène, examining me. I said all he had to do was open his eyes and look; I'm terrified that he's looking now.



The next day, Gill interrupts me in the middle of a horror movie, coming into the living room and sitting on the coffee table. He's wearing a red T-shirt, black jeans, and a black shoulder holster. I look at the gun tucked away in it and then back at his face, pressing pause on my movie.

“When's Solène's birthday?” he asks me, looking right into my face. My hand clenches on the remote and my breath comes in shallow bursts. I know Gill notices, know it with every fiber of my being, and suddenly I'm scared. Terrified. Sweat beads on my forehead and my mouth goes dry.

“Why?” I ask him, brushing some honey gold hair from my face and glancing at the white linen curtains across the room from me. “Is that important somehow?”

“I want to make sure all of my records are straight. I don't have access to her real information anymore since Aveline got to it.” Gill reaches into his back pocket and produces a small piece of paper with a date scribbled on it. “Is that right?”

September seventeenth.

“That's right,” I say, staring at the false birthday I had Cliff give Gilleon when he told him he was adopting a baby girl. If that birthday were true though, it would make Solène a nice round nine years old instead of the nine and a half she really is.

“Hmm.” Gill stands up and moves away, back into the dining room, sitting down at his computer with a clenched jaw. April seventeenth. That's Solène's real birthday. Six months after Gilleon left.

I stare at the TV, but I can barely get my shaking hands to press the play button on the remote. I don't care about my movie anymore, don't care about anything but keeping my secret.

I'm scared.

I'm really and truly scared.

I don't want Gill to know about my daughter.

My daughter. No. That's not right. Our daughter.

Ours.

Mine and Gill's.



My heart is light, like a butterfly, resting softly inside my chest. Yes, it's tinged with a bit of sadness, with memories of my mother and her gentle smile, the way she wore her hair in a loose chignon and sung to herself when she was making coffee in the mornings. She'd have loved to be here today, shopping for the baby, sitting across from me at lunch, picking out odds and ends for my surprise plan for Gill.

But she isn't here and that's okay. I'm young, in love, in Paris, and I have a whole gaggle of girlfriends around me, primed with inappropriate commentary that sounds even more vulgar when it's in the language of love.

“Tu me fais bander,” my friend, Katriane, says, doing a very poor imitation of Gilleon's voice. “Let me take you over the dresser and I'll show you how hard I really am.”

“You think Gill's going to tell me about how hard he is and then fuck me? That is your best guess on how he's going to respond to finding baby clothes and stuffed animals on our bed?” She shrugs and pouts her pale pink lips at me, her lightly accented English a beautiful lilt against the murmur of the city streets.

“It's how I'd respond, were I male. Fortunately for us all, I am not.” I roll my eyes and allow her to open the door to the next shop, ushering me inside ahead of everyone else.

“He bought you that beautiful ring,” Jacqueline says, keeping the conversation in English for my benefit. I've been living here for four years now, and my French is pretty damn good, but I still prefer to speak in my native language. I mean, who doesn't? Normally, I speak French with the girls, but today's been declared a national holiday by the four of them—the day that I announced I was pregnant.

It took me a while to figure it out, longer than it should've, but things with Gill are always a whirlwind of love and sex and witty repartee, that I hadn't realized what might be happening until a few weeks ago. The news has been sitting on the tip of my tongue since then, on the verge of breaking out at any moment, but Gilleon's been so preoccupied with work that I didn't want to waste it. I want to savor the moment, like I've savored all the other wonderful milestones in our lives: the day I first met him, when we first kissed, when we got our own apartment.

I surreptitiously run my thumb over my engagement ring, a gorgeous vintage piece with an infinity twist on either side of the center diamond. The whole front half looks like it's paved in jewels, frosted in gems that sparkle when I move. It's more than I ever could've hoped for—especially because of the expression on Gill's face when he gave it to me. I could see the excitement there, the love, the promise of a good life.