OTHER TITLES BY KARINA HALLE
Contemporary Romances
Love, in English
Love, in Spanish
Where Sea Meets Sky
Racing the Sun
The Pact
The Offer
The Play
Winter Wishes
The Lie
The Debt
Smut
Heat Wave
Before I Ever Met You
After All
Rocked Up
Wild Card
Maverick
Hot Shot
Bad at Love
The Swedish Prince
The Wild Heir
A Nordic King
Nothing Personal
My Life in Shambles
Romantic Suspense Novels
Discretion (The Dumonts #1)
Sins and Needles (The Artists Trilogy #1)
On Every Street (An Artists Trilogy Novella #0.5)
Shooting Scars (The Artists Trilogy #2)
Bold Tricks (The Artists Trilogy #3)
Dirty Angels (Dirty Angels #1)
Dirty Deeds (Dirty Angels #2)
Dirty Promises (Dirty Angels #3)
Black Hearts (Sins Duet #1)
Dirty Souls (Sins Duet #2)
Horror Romances
Darkhouse (EIT #1)
Red Fox (EIT #2)
The Benson (EIT #2.5)
Dead Sky Morning (EIT #3)
Lying Season (EIT #4)
On Demon Wings (EIT #5)
Old Blood (EIT #5.5)
The Dex-Files (EIT #5.7)
Into the Hollow (EIT #6)
And With Madness Comes the Light (EIT #6.5)
Come Alive (EIT #7)
Ashes to Ashes (EIT #8)
Dust to Dust (EIT #9)
The Devil’s Duology
Donners of the Dead
Veiled
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2019 by Karina Halle
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
www.apub.com
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781542014915
ISBN-10: 1542014913
Cover design by Hang Le
Cover photography © 2019 by Daniel Jaems
Cover model: Matteo Capicchioni
CONTENTS
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
PROLOGUE
SERAPHINE
Seventeen years ago
I knew when I woke up this morning that today was going to be different.
Normally I wake up because Laura is shaking the bed below me, tossing and turning, like she’s fighting for sleep even though we should be waking up soon. She never sleeps. It’s the bed shaking that usually gets me up in time before Miss Davenport comes into the room and flicks on the lights. It’s how I’m always the first one out of bed, ready to go, smiling up at her and hoping she’ll notice.
She never seems to. It doesn’t matter how hard I try to be good, to show her I want to please her, Miss Davenport ignores me. I’ve been back and forth out of this orphanage for a long time, and I think every time I come back, she hates me a little more.
But this morning, Laura never woke me up. I was sleeping all the way until the lights flicked on, and I scrambled like the crabs I used to see on the shores near Goa. I almost fell off the bunk bed.
Of course, Miss Davenport didn’t like that. Her eyes narrowed as she looked at me, even though I wasn’t the only one just waking up. Still, once I got to the ground, I looked at Laura’s bed beneath me, and she was still sleeping.
“Laura,” I said, pushing on her arm. For a second I thought she could be dead, but she just mumbled and turned over. “Wake up,” I hissed at her.
“Jamillah,” Miss Davenport scolded me. “Leave Laura be. She’s on new medication.”
Almost everyone here is on some kind of pills. Everyone except me. I’m not sure why. I keep hearing the women here at the orphanage talking about us in terms of “bad” and “good” and “abuse” and “trauma.” Sometimes it feels like every other girl gets special treatment. I just get shuffled around. Maybe it’s because I don’t seem to cry like the others do, even though horrible things are done to me every time I leave this place.
I’m only nine years old, but sometimes I think I might be within these walls for the rest of my life, never having a family, never having a place to belong.
“Okay, everyone, get ready for the day,” Miss Davenport said. Then she looked at me. “Jamillah, do me a favor and watch over Laura this morning until she wakes up.”
But breakfast! I wanted to say those words, my stomach growling as it was. But I knew that I was needed and it felt good, almost better than the dry toast with peanut butter we always have.
I nodded at Miss Davenport. “Okay. I will.”
Everyone gave me a pitiful glance for having to keep an eye on Laura. I knew it wasn’t fair that I wasn’t getting breakfast, but I also knew that there aren’t a lot of women working here lately, and if I didn’t do it, no one would.
So while everyone got ready and went off to the mess hall to eat, I sat on the edge of Laura’s bed and waited for her to wake up.
She finally did and looked at me through sleepy eyes. “What time is it?” Laura is thirteen and probably my closest friend here.
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Miss Davenport told me to make sure you woke up.”
She rubbed her forehead. “I haven’t slept like that in, like, forever. What kind of pills did they give me?” She looked at me. “You missed breakfast.”
“It’s fine.”
“Jamillah.” Miss Davenport suddenly appeared in the doorway. “Thank you for doing that.”
I exchanged a glance with Laura, surprised. She’d never thanked me before.
“It’s okay,” I told her.
Miss Davenport raised her chin and looked me over. I wished I were a mind reader, because I had no idea what she was thinking. “Laura, get dressed. Jamillah, you too. Something nicer.”
I looked down at my clothes: leggings and a baggy T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on it that had once belonged to another girl. I loved this shirt. One of the few memories I have of my parents is that my mother loved Mickey Mouse too.
“I don’t know if I have anything nicer,” I told her. We don’t have uniforms here; everyone just gets clothes that are donated.
“I’m sure you can find something. Put it on and then go and wait outside my office. Laura, go get dressed and wash up. You can see the nurse in a bit.”
Oh no. Her office? What did I do?
As she left the room, I look
ed at Laura for answers, expecting to see pity on her face again. “Did I do something wrong?” I asked her.
But she looked impressed.
“What?” I asked.
“Put on something nicer? Go and wait outside her office?” she said, getting dressed. “I don’t think you’re in trouble. I think you might be getting adopted.”
I stared at her for a long time.
We don’t joke about that here.
It’s sacred.
You can’t even think about it or you’ll jinx it.
So I didn’t. I got dressed in the nicest thing I had, which was a striped dress over my leggings, then slipped on my ballerina flats that were a size too small, enough so that you could see the top of my toes making these bumps in them. I slept in braids because Miss Davenport said my hair was too messy for them to handle, so I spat in my hands and smoothed them over my head.
“Good luck,” Laura said to me as I left.
And that’s where I am now, sitting on the chair outside the door to Miss Davenport’s office, swinging my legs in front of me, wondering what’s going on behind that closed door.
Could Laura be right? Could this really be an adoption?
For me?
I don’t dare think about it, so I start biting my nails, even though my last foster mom whacked me across the knuckles with a belt if I did it. At least I know I’m not going into another foster home; they never care about what you wear. One of the older girls told me that they don’t even want you—they just do it because somehow you being in their house makes them more money.
It seems like hours before the door opens, and Miss Davenport looks at me, giving me a small smile. She doesn’t smile often.
“Jamillah?” she says in a nice voice. “We have some people here who would love to meet you.”
My eyes go big.
Could this be true?
I get up and go over to her. For some reason I hold my breath as I step into the room, like I’m afraid to breathe.
There are two people sitting in the chairs across from her desk. Both of them look so different from the usual foster parents. The man has glasses and gray hair at the sides of his head and has a kind smile. The woman is wearing a lovely pink dress, with pearls at her neck and blonde hair pulled back. She’s beautiful.
“Jamillah,” Miss Davenport says, “this is Ludovic and Eloise Dumont. They’re from France. They would like to adopt you.”
My heart suddenly feels too big for my chest.
I’m so happy, so shocked, I immediately burst into tears.
Everything happens so fast, I barely have time to breathe. The whole week feels like I’m in a movie on fast-forward.
One minute I’m in Miss Davenport’s office, meeting my adopted parents for the first time, the next thing I know I’m saying goodbye to Laura and the rest of the girls. I feel so sorry for them that they can’t be adopted, too, that I almost give up my place and tell them to pick someone else instead.
But I don’t. Because I’ve dreamed about this, more than anything. A home, a family. I want to take the girls with me, but I want this too much for myself.
Before I know it, I’m in the Dumonts’ fancy car, in the back seat, and I’m watching London and the English countryside fly by. It’s so beautiful and green, with so many rolling fields and cute houses. All the foster homes I’ve been in were in the city, in dirty areas.
I have a million questions, and I don’t speak any French, but luckily Mr. and Mrs. Dumont both speak English as well as I do.
“What’s your home like?” I ask them.
“I think you’ll enjoy it,” Mr. Dumont says. “It’s just outside the city of Paris. Lots of space to run around and play. Lots of birds and trees and flowers. Very different from London.”
“And you said you have two sons? Does that mean they’ll be my brothers?”
Mr. and Mrs. Dumont exchange a look, smiling at each other. “Yes,” Mr. Dumont says. “Olivier and Renaud. They’ll be your brothers, as we will be your parents. I know it will take some getting used to.”
“It won’t,” I say. Because that’s the truth. I’m already used to it. It’s like I’ve been waiting for this my whole life. The longer this car drives on, the more I feel like I’m actually escaping from that horrible place and the horrible people who would take me in and spit me out after a few months.
“I think you’ll adjust to things very nicely,” Mrs. Dumont says. “Now look, we’re about to enter the tunnel. We’re going to drive on the train, see, and then the train will take us under the water to France.”
There’s a train beside us and the doors on the side are open, and we actually drive onto it and down through the train. It’s kind of scary, and reminds me of some space movies I’ve seen. I wish I had some sort of stuffed animal from the orphanage, but I’m always losing that kind of thing.
Mrs. Dumont turns around in her seat and hands me a teddy bear. It’s fluffy and brown with big eyes. “I got this for you.”
It’s like she could read my mind! I stare at her in awe before I take the teddy bear in my arms, holding it close to me. “What’s its name?” I ask her excitedly.
“Anything you want,” she says.
I think about that for a moment. I think the bear should be called Ernest. Then I say, “Can I have a new name too?”
They look at each other again, in surprise. “Bien sûr,” Mr. Dumont says. “But of course. Any name you wish to have. You will be a Dumont now. You are free to become whoever you would like to be.”
I think about that for a bit. I don’t know what I want my new name to be, but I do want it to be French.
“Can I think about it?” I ask, scrunching up my face, hoping they’ll give me time.
Mrs. Dumont laughs. “Take all the time in the world, darling. Until then, you’ll be Jamillah. It’s a pretty name too. When we saw your name and picture in the email the orphanage sent us, that’s when we knew.”
“Knew what?” I ask.
“That you were going to be our daughter,” she says. “We had been wanting to adopt for years, but everything always fell through and nothing ever felt quite right. That is, until we saw your face. We said that’s our girl. That’s who we have been waiting for and who has been waiting for us.”
“Did you used to wish for me? Because I wished for a family—a nice one—every single night.”
Mrs. Dumont almost looks like she’s crying, her eyes are all shiny. “We did.”
Another few hours go by in the car as we drive through France, but it also feels like no time at all. My face is glued to the window as I hug Ernest tight, watching the landscape go past me. It reminds me of Beauty and the Beast, all the little towns that go past.
Finally we pull down a long driveway to a house right out of a fairy tale. It is large, the biggest house I’ve ever seen, made of stone and surrounded by sunlight and roses.
“We’re here,” Mrs. Dumont says cheerfully as the car comes to a stop right in front.
“This is where I’m going to live?” I ask.
“Bien sûr,” Mr. Dumont says. “And that’s Olivier and Renaud right now.”
I look and see the large wooden door of the house open, and two boys step out. They look to be a few years older than me, and tall. At first I feel a bit sick at the sight of them, because the boys I’ve met in foster homes have always been so mean, and I don’t want these boys to be mean to me too.
“Come on, let’s meet them,” Mrs. Dumont says as she gets out of the car with her husband.
She opens the door for me and holds out her hand. I unbuckle my seat belt, making sure not to let go of Ernest, and grab hold of her hand tight.
She leads me over to the two boys, who are staring at me curiously. They’re dressed really nice—clean dark jeans and shirts tucked in. They’re cute, and when they see me, they both smile shyly.
Maybe this won’t be so bad.
Maybe they aren’t bad boys like the rest of them.
“Jamillah,” Mr. Dumont says, “meet your new brothers, Olivier and Renaud. They’re your family now. We’re all a family now.”
I return the same shy smile to them. “Hello,” I say.
“Bonjour,” Olivier, the younger one, says. “Est-ce que tu parles français?”
I don’t know what he’s saying, so I shrug and say, “Nice to meet you. This is my bear, Ernest.” I show my bear to them proudly.
Renaud steps forward and shakes the bear’s hand. “It is nice to meet you, Ernest,” he says in English. “As well as you, Jamillah.”
“Welcome to the family,” Olivier says. “As they say.”
Welcome to my family.
CHAPTER ONE
SERAPHINE
What an officious fucking psychopath.
That’s all I can think as I stare at my uncle Gautier’s tired yet insidious face, like the old man has earned every wrinkle through the ravishing of someone else’s soul. He stands at the head of the boardroom table and drones on and on about the new website and the online sales and everything he’s done since he’s taken over the company that once belonged to my father.
But of course, he’s not just droning—he’s gloating. He’s bragging about the Dumont label and the boost in sales since he took the business online for the first time in the company’s history, something my father and I had fought against from day one. The old world versus the new world. The good world versus the bad one.
Doesn’t every conflict come down to that?
We always knew that taking the luxury brand online would increase our profits. But it would cheapen the brand, our legacy. It would take away the mystique of the label, the exclusiveness. My father believed that the impulsive, instant-gratification buying habits of today would work against us. “Isn’t it always better to covet than to have?” he’d say.
Though I could always relate to that idea in some way, it was a terrible ideology when your whole career depends on people “having” rather than “coveting.” But it kept the Dumont name up there—the best of the best, the purveyor of makeup and ready-to-wear clothing and iconic leather handbags meant to be worn with hard-earned pride. Subtlety was our specialty. Elegance was our mandate. Class was held above everything else.
But now, my father is dead.
And there’s only me left to fight his battles.
Battles that I’m slowly but surely losing.
Disarm Page 1
