Page 60 of Corrupted Queen

Maybe it’s a bit of both.

I sigh and get to my feet. If I’m not getting anything from Gabriel, I have a couple of leads to follow up. I’ve been trying to reach dockworkers who have witnessed the meetings to see if I can use any descriptions of the mysterious third party—the one selling the drugs to Gabriel—to try to identify them. If I do, I think I’ll be able to cut Gabriel out of the narrative entirely.

After that, I have to start getting Harry ready for the family portrait we’re taking this afternoon. Gabriel’s publicist said it would be a good idea to put one on the website.

It’s crazy to think that Gabriel just flat out rejected me, but in a couple of hours, he will have his arm around me with a bright smile on his lips.

He will pretend to love me, and I will pretend that it doesn’t hurt like hell knowing that he doesn’t.

* * *

By the time the photographer, Edie Armstrong, arrives and the soft-box lights have been set up, Gabriel is back to the smiling, doting version of himself. He wraps an arm around my shoulders and jokes with the photographer about how “this one doesn’t have a bad side,” and I smile and go along with it, though I can’t help but replay this morning’s not-fight in my head.

Stop it, Alexis. There’s no point.

The contrast between how he was this morning and how he is now is so stark that it hurts. The worst part is, this doesn’t feel fake, though I know it is. It has to be.

“Let’s get the three of you on the sofa,” Edie says, adjusting her camera. “We’ll take some standing shots after.”

She has sharp, cat-like brown eyes and a tangle of dark curls tied in a bun at the top of her head. She seems to see more than most, her studious stare catching and zeroing in on seemingly mundane parts of the room. I wonder what she sees when she looks at us. Does her supervision pierce Gabriel’s thick veil of lies?

Gabriel and I arrange ourselves on the sofa, with Harry balanced between us, and Edie offers a few directions before she starts snapping photos.

“Good,” she coos. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a perfect family.”

“I bet you say that to all your subjects,” Gabriel jokes.

Edie winks at us over the camera. “Only the exceptionally good-looking ones.”

This comment is directed at both of us, I realize, and I pause to consider that we do make an aesthetically pleasing pair. Then there’s Harry’s almost effervescent cuteness, which never fails to melt the hardest of hearts. These photos are going to be integral in painting a picture of a kind, wholesome billionaire. Soon enough, nobody will remember the dark cruelty in Gabriel’s eyes as he barked at those journalists.

After we try a few poses on the couch, Edie takes some photos by the bookcase and then declares that it’s a gorgeous afternoon and we must get some shots outside.

Gabriel carries Harry out, the two of them babbling to each other, thick as thieves. I follow alongside, my heart breaking with every step. I will never have this Gabriel, I realize. Not for real. I have caught snatches of him here and there, and when the cameras are out he is alive and well, but he will never be mine to keep.

I shouldn’t want to keep him, either. Not after everything he’s done, all the people he’s hurt. Yet I recognize an honor in Gabriel that makes his crimes more palatable, especially when I see him and Harry together and know he will always be a good father to my son. This honor is why I have found it difficult to swallow the fact that Gabriel is behind the purple heroin. It just doesn’t seem like him. Maybe that’s why I’m so keen to keep investigating.

Or maybe I’m just stalling the inevitable.

“Alexis?” Edie calls, drawing me from my thoughts.

We’re standing in the back garden near the late-blooming roses.

I blink. “Yeah?”

Gabriel slides a warm hand around my waist, his eyebrows knit with concern. “Are you okay?”

I lick my lips and nod. “Sorry, I zoned out.”

“I was saying that I’d like to get a couple of you next to the roses,” Edie repeats. “Those red ones there go perfectly with your lipstick.”

I nod and take my place, smiling for the camera and taking Edie’s directions as she snaps a few photos. Gabriel stands behind her holding Harry the whole time, eyes trained on me with an electric intensity. I study his expression, as though I will be able to read his innermost thoughts.

“I like that,” Edie says. “You have this ... distant pensiveness about you. Keep that up.”

I keep posing, keep searching. And Edie keeps snapping.

Afterward, Edie gets some shots of Gabriel, then some shots of Gabriel with Harry, and some shots of the three of us together. We end up having to move to another part of the garden because Harry is clearly nervous around the roses. Gabriel and Edie remark that it’s the strangest thing, but I know why he feels like that.

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