Page 68 of The Artist
“Is that true?” Victor asked Belle in a voice that sounded remote and distorted to me.
Belle suddenly looked as tiny and fragile as when I first saw her eleven years ago.
“How could you let this happen?” he blamed her while I was fighting to find words and get my senses to work properly.
“I never thought it would be a problem since I don’t have sex.”
“What, never?”
“It’s been years since I tried it and determined that it wasn’t for me.”
My hearing was clearing up, as Victor kept attacking Belle. “That’s no excuse. It’s your civic duty to protect yourself from pregnancy. What if you’d been raped?”
Victor’s last words tore me from my temporary state of shock. “Don’t you even fucking say that.” The thought of anyone raping my sweet Belle made me crazy.
“So, it’s fine when you violate her, but not others?” Thor barked at me. “You gave your promise that you’d marry a Northlander and then you chose a French woman.”
“I didn’t! Belle doesn’t even want me like that.”
“And what if she’s pregnant with your child, huh? Are you just going to let her give your child up to their beehive society? Did you think about that?”
Of course, Victor had to comment, “We’re not a beehive. We’re a highly evolved and intelligent society.”
We all ignored him as Thor and I stared at each other. “I would never give up my child, you know that.”
“As if we would ever let you,” my father muttered with a tone of annoyance.
Turning to Belle, I confronted her. “Are you pregnant?”
“No!” Belle couldn’t keep eye contact with me and looked down. “I don’t think so.”
“Wait a minute.” Victor touched her arm. “You had your period when we arrived. That means the chance of your ovulating these past two days is slim.”
Provoked by Victor’s insistent involvement in my business with Belle, I groaned. “She didn’t have her period. She just told you that because she didn’t want to have sex with you.”
Victor arched an eyebrow in Belle’s direction. “Is that true?”
She covered her face with her hand and gave a small nod.
My aunt Pearl came from the side and placed a hand around Belle’s shoulder. “Come with me. It’s enough with all the attacks on you for one day.”
Seeing Pearl and Freya walk off with Belle between them made me feel shitty, but I was still facing my dad’s, uncle’s, and cousin’s wrath.
“You promised!” Thor said for the tenth time. “We all did!”
“You need to calm the fuck down!” I sneered.
Khan growled and walked to stand next to Thor, both of them watching me with grimaces of anger. “Do you realize what an international crisis this could turn into?”
“We can’t let the woman leave until we know if she’s carrying my grandchild,” Magni exclaimed.
“Dad! Her name is Belle.”
“You can’t hold her here either,” Victor said, which made all of us stare at him.
“Why are you still here?” Khan dismissed him rudely. “Your protégé left and now you’re meddling in our private affairs.”
“It’s hardly private if it involves a member of my delegation and has the potential to turn into an international crisis.”
