Redemption

by Jennifer Bene

  “And then fled the scene,” she finished the bullshit story for him, and he grabbed a fistful of her hair and bent her over in the middle of the kitchen, landing a rapid series of spanks across her ass. Lianna had her hand wrapped around his wrist and the other one trying to deflect his swats, but she was wearing jeans, and he knew she could handle a hell of a lot more than this.

  “Sticking to that story?” he asked, and she whined through her teeth. “Okay then.” He spanked her once more, just a little harder, and then reached for his belt. As soon as she heard the movement, she started squirming and digging her fingers into his wrist.

  “Fine!” Lianna shouted through a laugh. “There was no arsonist burglar involved, I just happened to lay it too close to the stove.”

  Lifting her upright again, he grinned as he let go of her hair, cupping her face in his hands. “Setting fire to the kitchen isn’t going to get you out of learning to cook, angel.”

  “It wasn’t on purpose.” She said it with such exasperation he knew it was true, but whether Lianna Mercier was actually capable of learning to cook was still up in the air.

  “All right then, finish putting the groceries away, but leave the chicken out on the counter,” he commanded, and she tucked her hair behind her ears before she crouched to dig through the grocery bags. Heading into the living room, he dropped into the chair to take off his shoes, smiling when he heard Lianna humming in the kitchen.

  A week before, he would have rolled his eyes at the term ‘domestic bliss,’ but if this was what that felt like with Lianna... then he was okay with it. As messed up as their trip to France had been, it seemed to have resolved the last things standing between them. Lianna knew her family, the good and the bad, and he knew that when she had to choose between him and their life of luxury with all of their happy family bullshit... she still chose him.

  It wasn’t like she hadn’t told him that she wanted him again and again, but whoever said ‘actions speak louder than words’ was a wise motherfucker. He’d loved Lianna, but some part of him still hadn’t trusted her. Not completely, anyway. Whether he was fully aware of it or not, he’d been waiting for her to leave him. To find something better, someone better, and jump ship from the complete dumpster fire of a person he was. It could have happened when they finally dropped the charges against her, and it almost happened when Jean-Luc showed up in her life. Those days they spent in France had just fueled his paranoia, built it up, and when she’d talked about moving there... he’d snapped.

  Looking back at everything made him feel like a fucking idiot. He knew why he’d acted the way he had, even though it was just his own bullshit driving it. But, more importantly, he could see that during the entire trip, Lianna had never given him a real reason to doubt who she wanted to be with. She’d been choosing him even when she was surrounded by all those two-faced family members who had pulled out all the stops trying to take her away.

  He just hadn’t been able to see past his hatred of the Faures, or his fear of losing her, to realize that he was the only one fucking it up.

  As much as he still hated the asshole, Jean-Luc had done him a favor in trying to come between them. By drawing a line in the sand and forcing Lianna to choose between him and Jean-Luc’s family, the bastard had actually managed to make David’s relationship with Lianna stronger. That one action had been worth more than anything else Lianna could have said, because when she left the Faure estate that night, she’d actually chosen him.

  And she was still choosing him.

  Jean-Luc kept calling her, but she’d declined them all. He’d warned the man in his office that she’d hate him, but Jean-Luc hadn’t believed him because he didn’t know Lianna. He hadn’t seen her breakdown when she realized who her father actually was, hadn’t seen her own father point a gun at her, and he definitely hadn’t been there for the fall-out.

  David wasn’t innocent in any of it — not by a long shot — but at least he’d been there.

  He’d seen her strength firsthand. He knew just how much rage and pain hid behind that pretty blonde exterior. But Jean-Luc had made the same mistake his brother had; the same error David had made before he actually spent time around her... he’d underestimated Lianna, assumed she was just a beautiful doll, empty, without any depth, and ready to be molded into whatever Jean-Luc thought his family was missing.

  But that wasn’t Lianna. She didn’t break for anyone.

  And he loved her all the more for it.

  “Baby, were you serious that I have to flatten the chicken with this? It’s going to get everywhere.” Lianna was standing at the edge of the kitchen, holding the mallet in one hand and wearing a look of disgust and concern that made him stifle a laugh.

  “That’s why I said we’d put it between plastic wrap.” Standing up, he headed back into the kitchen to see a badly mangled chicken breast on a cutting board. “Okay, angel. I’m going to show you how to do this without shredding the chicken.”

  Chuckling under his breath, he cleaned up the mess she’d made and pulled out the things they’d need to get started for real this time. How he’d zoned out enough to miss Lianna wielding a mallet in the kitchen, he had no idea, but at least she’d only ruined one of the chicken breasts.

  Almost an hour later, they had all of the chicken pounded flat and breaded, ready to go in the cast-iron pan as soon as the oil was hot enough. Lianna was wiping down the counter with cleaner, obsessed with the idea that she’d somehow contract salmonella if she didn’t go over it a hundred times.

  “I promise that’s fine,” he said, tugging her away from the counter. “Now, about Sunday—”

  “Are they really all going to be there?” Lianna asked, cutting him off as her anxiety rose to the surface again.

  “Yep. There’s a game on Sunday and so Tommy, Liam, and Sean will be there. Tommy and Liam are married, and Tommy has two kids.” He shrugged. “Sean is still a fuck-up, so he’ll be there alone.”

  “Is this retaliation for me making you meet my entire family?” she asked, smiling a little, and he wrapped his arms around her, leaning down to kiss her. Gently at first, but when she wound her arms around his neck and pressed herself close, he took control of it. It wasn’t until she moved one hand down to his belt that he pulled back.

  “Naughty girl. We have to finish dinner first.”

  Her groan had him chuckling again as he turned them, pinning her against the counter. “I promise I’ll make it worth it, even if you fuck it up.”

  “What happens if I ruin dinner?”

  Leaning in, he nipped her throat before he whispered directly into her ear. “Bad girls don’t get lube.”

  “Fuck.” The little whine that slipped past her lips had his cock waking up behind his zipper, but he pulled back from her before she tempted him to turn off everything and fuck her first.

  “Want to pay attention now?” he asked, and she nodded, that pink flush spreading over her cheeks. No matter how nervous she acted, he knew she’d be soaking wet if he shoved a hand down her pants to check — but that line of thinking wasn’t going to help the hard-on go away. Rubbing a hand through his hair, he stepped away from her. “What were we talking about?”

  “You retaliating against me dragging you to France by making me meet Harry’s entire family at once.” Lianna grinned at him, and he fought the urge to spank her again.

  “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but at least the McConnells aren’t secretly running a massive criminal empire. They’re all in construction.”

  “And friends with the Corrozzos,” Lianna added, and he groaned.

  “As Harry pointed out, he’s not friends with them, but he’ll do work for whoever pays him.” Turning toward the stove, David hovered a hand over the oil, frustrated that Lianna’s stove was taking so long to heat it up. “It’s not ready yet, but once the oil is hot enough we’ll—”

  Her ringtone went off, and she sighed, leaning over the counter to look at where it was charging on the bar before she declined t
he call. “You were saying?” she asked, but she’d barely finished it when her cellphone rang again. Huffing, Lianna declined again, and crossed her arms as she faced him.

  “Jean-Luc?” he asked.

  “The call is from France, so I guess he’s just decided to try a different number now.” Lianna took a step toward him, and the phone rang again. She let out a frustrated groan, spinning around, but he caught her arm.

  “Let me handle it.” Walking around the bar, David yanked it off the charger and answered the call gruffly. “Leave her alone. I think she’s made it pretty damn clear that she doesn’t want to talk to you.”

  “David? Is that you?” The voice threw him for a second, because it definitely wasn’t Jean-Luc, but then he recognized it.

  “Rémi?”

  “I need to speak with Lianna,” he replied, his voice flat, and David just laughed.

  “If you’re calling to plead on behalf of your father, you might as well hang up. She’s not talking to him after the shit he pulled, and calling her over—”

  “Give her the phone, David. Now,” Rémi snapped, and he fought the urge to lay into him. Setting the phone back on the counter, he plugged it into the charger and then tapped the speaker phone icon as Lianna moved closer, her brows pulled together.

  “It’s Rémi, and he’s being an asshole,” he explained, and Lianna blew out a breath.

  “Hello, Rémi.” She didn’t sound happy at all, and he loved that she wasn’t hiding her irritation with her cousin. “What do you want?”

  There was a pause before Rémi’s voice came through the phone, rougher than before. “Did you do this?”

  “Do what?” Lianna asked, meeting his gaze over the counter as she raised her hands in a silent question. When Rémi didn’t answer, she leaned closer to the phone. “Look, if you’re pissed at me for leaving, you need to talk to your dad. He knows what he did, and he knows how I feel about it.”

  “I can’t do that, Lianna,” Rémi answered, his voice cracking. “He’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?” she asked, and a chill rolled down David’s spine, a sinking feeling rapidly ruining his appetite.

  “My dad,” the man whispered, and David wished more than anything that he’d misheard him, but he knew he hadn’t. All the color drained out of Lianna’s face as she stared at the phone, her hands braced on the counter in front of her.

  When he realized she wasn’t going to speak, he asked the important question. “What happened?”

  “Are you sure you don’t know already?”

  “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?” David felt his anger surging forward as he raised his voice. “We’re in New York, Rémi, which is exactly where your father sent me.”

  “But I just saw him,” Lianna said, sounding more than a little dazed. “He was fine. He looked healthy.”

  A harsh sound came across the line before Rémi spoke. “I don’t think it matters how healthy you are when someone puts a bullet in your chest.”

  “Someone shot him?” Lianna shouted, and David grabbed onto the bar just to ground himself in reality, because this couldn’t be happening. He wasn’t upset that Jean-Luc was dead, it was the fact that Rémi had already made it clear that the Faures thought they’d done it.

  This is bad. Fuck, this is very, very bad.

  “Be honest with me, dammit!” Rémi shouted, and there was no doubt that the man was crying, or close to it. “Did you have anything to do with this? Did you really threaten my father?”

  “Threaten!” Lianna shouted, and he wanted to cover her mouth so she didn’t say the wrong thing, but she was on the other side of the counter, and the flush had returned to her cheeks along with her temper. “I didn’t threaten him at all! You were there! You heard me leaving, you heard everything. I’m sure all of you did!”

  “Maybe you didn’t threaten him then, but what about after? What about David?” Rémi pressed, and he clenched his jaw tight. “Everyone knows how David feels about my father, and he did send him away.”

  “I didn’t do anything to your father!” he growled.

  “David has been here, with me, in New York,” Lianna said, still pissed, but she sounded a lot calmer than he was capable of at the moment. “How in the hell could we have been involved?”

  Rémi scoffed. “Don’t pretend like your father didn’t have the same kind of connections my family does. It’s not like it’s hard to find someone willing to kill for money, and my father made sure you had plenty.”

  “You’ve met me, Rémi! You really think I’m capable of something like that?” she asked, and he hated that he could hear the pain in her voice when she continued. “I had no fucking idea what my father was doing, and—”

  “That’s what you keep telling everyone, isn’t it?” Rémi snapped, his voice growing angrier. “But my father crosses you, and less than a week later he’s dead.”

  “You’re wrong,” David said, shaking his head even though the other man couldn’t see it. “Lianna has always been innocent in this shit. Her father kept it from her and killed himself when he realized it was going to come out.”

  “Unless he didn’t kill himself,” Rémi retorted, and David felt sick.

  Had Michael Turner told Jean-Luc that part too? Had Jean-Luc already shared the details of everything that had happened with his son? The heir to his proverbial throne?

  “Maybe Lianna wanted all of them out of the way,” Rémi continued. “I mean Marc took a bullet too, but he’s still alive.”

  “Someone shot Marc too?” Lianna asked, her eyes searching his for some kind of answer or comfort, but he didn’t have any. This was bad.

  “In the arm,” Rémi answered. “Guess their aim was off.”

  “Is everyone else okay?” she pressed. “Did anyone else get hurt?”

  “None of us are okay, Lianna,” Rémi growled, muttering in French for a moment before he returned to the phone. “We’re all in hell right now, but no, no one else was shot. My dad went to see Marc to talk about you.”

  “So, who else was with Marc and Jean-Luc?” David asked.

  “Why would that matter?”

  Rolling his eyes, he remembered the weird way Marc had acted around Lianna, and the argument they’d had during the soccer game. “It’s pretty convenient that the only witness is also the only survivor, Rémi. Even you have to admit that.”

  “I don’t have to admit anything. You’ve hated us from the beginning, David, and you haven’t tried to hide that. We all know how you felt about my dad, and now you’re just shifting that hate onto my uncle, who has absolutely nothing to gain from betraying us. He doesn’t inherit the family, I do.”

  Leaning forward, Lianna moved the phone closer to her. “I don’t care who inherits the family, Rémi. This is insane. I wasn’t happy with your dad, but I’d never hurt him. I wouldn’t hurt anyone!”

  “We’ll see,” he replied, and there was too much pain and anger in his voice for David to feel anything but dread as the man kept talking. “I want you to know that I won’t rest until I find out the truth, and I will figure it out.”

  “This wasn’t me,” Lianna said, and he realized she was close to tears when her voice broke, which only made David angrier at the whole bullshit situation.

  Grabbing the phone off the counter, he talked directly into it. “She’ll be waiting for your apology when you realize the truth, Rémi.”

  There was no response, and when David looked down at the phone, he realized Rémi had hung up on them. Shoving the phone back onto the counter, he looked up just in time to see Lianna start hyperventilating, the tears turning her blue eyes into that vibrant tone that he loved under almost any other circumstance — but not now. She slid to the floor on the other side of the counter, and he cursed under his breath as he moved around to pick her up.

  Then he realized he could smell smoke.

  “Fuck!” Rushing to the stove, he turned off the burner and grabbed the handle of the pan before he could stop himself. He bit d
own on the shout of pain as he ripped his hand back from the burning cast-iron, fumbling for a potholder to pick up the damn thing. Carrying it carefully to the sink, he dropped the smoking mess in and swung the water to the other side so he could run cold water over the burn. It didn’t look that bad, and now that the kitchen wasn’t going to catch on fire, again, he could handle what was actually important.

  Lianna had her knees pulled up to her chest, her face buried in her arms, but that was only going to make her breathing worse. She was still hiccupping whenever she tried to take a full breath, and the last thing they needed right now was her passing out.

  “Come on, angel.” Crouching down, he scooped her off the floor, adjusting her against his chest so he could carry her into the living room.

  “H-how is this even possible?” she asked, wiping at her eyes as he settled them on the couch.

  “I don’t know. I mean, it’s not like that family doesn’t have plenty of enemies. It’s never just been me.”

  “But why?” Lianna looked at him, and it was only because she seemed to be calming down that he even thought about discussing the idea that had been forming in the back of his mind while they were arguing with Rémi on the phone.

  Looking down, he ran a hand over her thigh before grabbing her hand and holding it tight. “We both saw Marc acting weird in France, pretending he didn’t know you even though you remember seeing him at the penthouse with your father. And… didn’t Jean-Luc deny them ever meeting when you argued with him?”

  Lianna sniffled, sitting up on his lap before shifting to lean against the armrest, her legs draped over his as her brows pulled together. She was thinking, all those wheels turning behind her perfect eyes, and he started running his fingers up and down her back as she turned over the idea. After a minute or two, she looked up at him again. “You think it was Marc?”

  “It makes sense.”