Glitter Baby

finally ready to take your place beside me.”

She turned over onto her back and looked up at him. “I don’t know what you mean. Take my place beside you?”

He curled his hands around her shoulders and massaged them. His eyelids were half closed, almost sleepy. She wanted to leave before something terrible happened. She looked up at the parachute. It hung limp and yellowed above her.

“You belong with me, cherie. At my side. You belong with me in a way your mother never did.” He slipped his fingers just inside the open collar of her robe. “I am going to shape you into a magnificent woman. I have such wonderful plans for you.” His hands dipped lower, pushing open the neck of the robe…moved lower again.

“Alexi!” She reached up and caught his wrists.

He smiled so gently she was embarrassed at what she’d thought he was going to do.

“It is right, cherie, for us to be together. Do you not see it every time you look at yourself? Can’t you see your mother’s unfaithfulness whenever you look in the mirror?”

Unfaithfulness? For a moment she couldn’t think what the word meant.

“It’s time for you to know the truth. Give up the fantasy, enfant. Give it up. The truth will be much better.”

“No…”

“You’re not my daughter, cherie. Surely you’ve felt that. Your mother was pregnant when I married her.”

The beast had come back. The great, ugly beast who wanted to chew her into pieces. “I don’t believe you. You’re lying to me.”

“You are the bastard of Errol Flynn, my oldest enemy.”

It was a joke. She even tried to smile to show him she was a good sport. But the smile died, and the painted clouds on the ceiling blurred as she remembered Johnny Guy talking about Belinda and Errol Flynn and the Garden of Allah.

Alexi leaned over and pressed his cheek to hers. “Do not cry, enfant. It’s better this way. Don’t you see?”

The clouds swam before her, and the beast nibbled at her flesh, taking tiny bites that weren’t big enough to do the job right. He touched her lightly through her robe.

“So beautiful. Small and delicate, not plump like your mother’s.”

“No! Damn you!” She shoved his hands away and tried to get up, but the beast had devoured her strength.

“I am sorry, cherie. I’ve been foolish, and I’m quite embarrassed.” He let her go. “I must give you time to adjust, to see things as I do, to see that there is no harm in our being together. We share no blood. You are not pur sang.”

“You’re my father,” she whispered.

“Never!” he said harshly. “I’ve never thought of myself as your father. These past few years have been a courtship. Even your mother understood that.”

She pushed herself up. The mattress buttons dug into her knees.

“Don’t dwell on this now,” he said. “I’ve been unforgivably clumsy. We’ll go on as we have until you’re ready.”

“Ready?” Her voice was thick, as if she were drowning. “Ready for what?”

“We’ll talk of it later.”

“Now! Tell me now!”

“You’re clearly distraught.”

“I want to hear everything.”

“It will seem strange to you. You’ve had no time to adjust.”

“What do you want from me, Alexi?”

He sighed. “I want you to stay with me, to let me spoil you. I want you to grow your hair so you’ll be beautiful again.”

There was more. She knew it. “Tell me.”

“You’ve not had enough time.”

“Tell me!” Her fingers dug into the mattress, and she offered up a silent prayer. Don’t say what I know you’re going to say. Don’t say you want me to be your lover.

He didn’t.

He said he wanted her to have his child.

Alexi explained his plan as Fleur stood at the dirty attic window and looked out on the roof. Something pink lay on the tiles, the featherless body of a baby bird that had fallen from a nest in one of the chimneys. Alexi walked around the attic room, his hands in the pockets of his robe, and neatly laid it out for her. As soon as she got pregnant, he would take her away somewhere for the duration, and then, when it was over, announce that he had adopted a child. The baby would have his blood, her blood, and Flynn’s blood.

She stared out at the little featherless body. It never had a chance at life, never even had a chance to grow its feathers.

He assured her that his motives weren’t those of a lecherous old man-You said it, Daddy, not me-and after it was over, they could go back to their old relationship, and he’d be her loving father, just as she wanted.

“I’m hiring a lawyer,” she said, but her voice was so tight that the words came out as a broken whisper, and she had to repeat herself. “I’m hiring a lawyer. I want my money.”

He laughed. “Hire an army of them, if you wish. You signed the papers yourself. I even explained it to you. It’s all quite legal.”

“I want my money.”

“Don’t worry about the money, cherie. Tomorrow I’ll buy you anything you want. Diamonds for your fingers. Emeralds to match your eyes.”

“No.”

“Your mother was alone once,” he said. “She was penniless, with no prospects for the future. And pregnant, although of course I didn’t know that at the time. You need me now just as much as your mother needed me then.”

She had to ask him. Before she walked out of this room, she had to ask, except she was crying again, and she could barely force out the strangled words. “What do you know about me?”

Her question puzzled him.

She was choking. “What do you know about me that makes you think I would do something so horrible? What weakness do you see? You’re not stupid. You wouldn’t make this obscene proposal if you didn’t think there was a chance I’d accept it. What’s wrong with me?”

He shrugged. It was an elegant gesture, and also a little pitying. “It’s not your fault, cherie. The circumstances forced it on you, but you must understand that, by yourself, you are nothing more than a pretty decoration. You don’t have any real value. You don’t know how to do anything.”

She wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I’m the most famous model in the world.”

“The Glitter Baby is Belinda’s creation, cherie. You would fail without her. And if you were to succeed…Well, it wouldn’t be your own success, would it? I’m offering you a function and the promise that I will never turn my back on you. We both know that’s what’s most important to you.”

He believed she was going to do it. She could see it in his perfect arrogance. He’d looked inside her, seen what was there, and decided that she was weak enough to do this obscene thing.

With a choked sob, she ran from the attic room and down the stairs to her own room, where she locked the door and pressed her back against it.

Before long, she heard his footsteps in the hallway. He paused outside her door. She squeezed her eyes shut,