Chapter 5 Bree

April

A few days later, I walked into Gaston's study. He had come home in a hurry, and I was still putting the finishing touches on dinner. Puzzled, I followed the young guard who had come to fetch me.

"Boss wants to see you,' he said, and I went after him, dusting my hands on the tea towel and mentally calculating if the flour I had kneaded would be enough to make sufficient numbers of Indian bread for the family. Claude was stopping by, and he had called me to say that he would be coming with Karina.

They would be staying the night, so I calculated that their room on the second floor needed to be aired out.

Now I entered the room and stopped short in bewilderment.

Two people stood close to each other-my husband and a woman I had never seen before. Beston was also in the room, as was another man, a black man with a shaven head and a sneer, as he turned to look at me. I shifted from one foot to the other awkwardly.

I did not know that we were having guests. I was in my faded jeans and an old shirt, dusted with flour.

As I opened my mouth, Gaston waved me over, pulling me into his arms and kissing me on my mouth.

Then, still holding me to his chest, he said in a low growl, vibrating with a strange happiness,

'Woman, this is my sister, Bet.'

*

I spun around, gladness on my face. And stopped.

The woman was watching me carefully, and just for a minute, I had seen a look on her face, a quick, fleeting look. Not a nice look.

She smiled, and I tried to see any traces of Gaston in her. But I came up with a blank.

She spoke, her voice a nasal twang, as she said, with an unpleasant laugh,

"I'm Bree. Not Bet anymore. You must be ...uh..."

I dimpled and stepped out of Gaston's arms, holding out my hands in welcome.

I noticed the way the woman studied the action, her eyes narrowing fractionally and nodding, making no attempt to reach out to me.

"Hi. I'm April, Gaston's wife,"

I dimpled. My eyes went to the man standing a little away from Beston.

Her cold grey eyes followed my gaze. Tossing back her thin, lank blonde hair, she said in a nasal voice,

"My fiancé, Stan- Stan Cummingham,' said Bree with a light laugh, and I nodded at him. But the black eyes that bored into me made me feel uncomfortable. He was dark-skinned, with a shaven head and a goatee, muscular but nowhere near as compelling in appearance as my Mafia Don. But in a rather coarse way, the man was attractive. For some unfathomable reason, he gave me an instinctive urge to get away from him, and when he made to envelop me in a hug, I stiffened and stepped away quickly.

'Bree found me after all these years," Gaston was speaking, his deep baritone tinged with emotion, and I moved to him. But Bree gathered him in her arms, hugging him before I could reach him. I stopped and smiled indulgently, but a tiny part of me felt unsettled.

She stepped away, still hanging onto Gaston's arm and she went on, casting a sly look at me, jerking her chin at me dismissively,

' She's probably wondering why Stan is younger than me, huh?'

There was a mocking undertone in her voice, and I felt my brows gather in a slight frown. I had not really noticed the age gap, but she seemed to be pointing it out to make me look like some gauche country bumpkin.

Sighing, she moved back into Gaston's arms and went on, resting her head on his shoulder, her body glued to his side,

'I had a hard life, yeah. But then I met Stan,'

Here she turned to him, and gripping his thick neck, she kissed him for a long time. I wanted to wince.

"And then we discovered that my brother was here. We had been looking for him for a long time."

Once again, the sigh as she draped herself over Lucien's arm as she went on,

"And now, finally, I am home. I have found my flesh and blood, my brother."

I shifted slightly, uneasiness shafting through me.

Was that an underlying threat in her voice?

But she was smiling glibly at me. She turned and kissed Gaston, who looked as distant as ever, but his eyes glowed with a pleasure I had not seen before. My heart swelled for him and I moved to him, reaching up to kiss my lover. He scooped me into his arms as I whispered against his mouth,

'I'm so happy for you, my love.'

I knew that Gaston had gone to prison as a youth for killing his mother's pimp, the one who had sold his half-sister after having raped her. The girl, Bet, had been just a minor, and Gaston had come out of juvenile jail years later to find that his sister had been sold. He had spent years searching for her, even in the recent past. But somehow, he had come to believe that she was dead.

Now I looked into his gunmetal grey eyes with love.

He grunted, moving to kiss me hard.

As I stepped away, I saw the look on Bree's face, and once again, a ripple of disquiet went through me. She had a cold, angry look, but her face altered immediately as she caught Lucien's eyes.

'Why do you call her Woman?' she said, in a thinly disguised, sneering voice,

"Is she just your sub? Your pet? Or are you guys really married?'

The mockery in her tones, accompanied by her look, one of contempt, made me squirm. Lucien frowned and said in a hard voice,

"April is my wife. She is My Woman."

Bree seemed to think fast. Pasting a false smile on her face, she went on, her tones sugary sweet,

"Oh, I apologise. Poor April must be scandalized. But you were quite a womanizer, weren't you, Big Brother? And you had so many glamorous women all over you, actresses, heiresses, and women in politics ..." And sending me a sly look, she added,

"She's so young too. Must be looking forward to being shared, right? Or don't you do that in your circles?"

Her voice was light, but I felt my face flame.

Had she just insinuated that I was not good enough for Gaston because I did not fit into any of the above categories?

She cackled, but Gaston's face had hardened.

'She's my WIFE. I don't share her."

He growled, the displeasure evident in his voice and the way he held me to his chest protectively.

Turning to me, he kised my hea and siad, looking into my eyes,

'I have had many women in my life; April knows it. But she is the only Woman for me. The only one I have married, and she is the mother of my children."

I dimpled at him.

How I loved him!

Bree backtracked as Stan made a snorting sound.

With a fake smile plastered on her face, Bree flickered a gaze at me and went on,

"Ooops. My bad. You see, I was a sex slave for a European for years."

She turned to Gaston, and her eyes filled.

Putting me to the side, Gaston gripped her waist, stroking her hair gently. I stiffened. Something about the woman was sending all the wrong signals.

She seemed so fake.

But I could not understand why Gaston could not see through her.