Knight in Black Leather: International Billionaires XI: The Latinos

by Caro LaFever

  “You’ll believe, eventually.” The woman said. “I know it.”

  Luc stalked through the kitchen door and into the sunshine of the small terrace behind his house. He blinked his eyes before heading to the shadows, where a plain oak table and chairs stood.

  “Great idea!” she cried from behind him. “I’ll bring the food out there.”

  Slumping into a chair, he closed his eyes. Although he wouldn’t admit it, her Paw-Paw’s special drink had quieted his stomach. If he had to guess, he had two hours to get himself together and head for the restaurant. With extreme reluctance, he realized the woman’s care and concern had made this a possibility.

  “Do you get pie-eyed often?”

  His eyes shot open. “No. Of course not.”

  She slid a plate filled with an egg-and-ham-filled po’ boy and hash browns in front of him. Her brows lifted. “No need to get nasty.”

  “I feel nasty. Bite me.”

  He realized he’d snapped at her just as he had when she asked if he were gay. Usually, he wasn’t defensive about anything anymore. It wasn’t worth the effort. With this woman, though, he seemed to be defensive all the time.

  The thought was too much for his alcohol-fogged brain to understand. So instead, he took one half of the huge sandwich in his shaking hands and forced it into his mouth. The chef in him groaned in pleasure. The grilled bread was fresh and the tomatoes were too. His headache eased, and his tight muscles relaxed.

  “Hmm.” She slid into a seat across from him, her gaze going sultry. “There’s an idea.”

  Bite me.

  His muscles went taut. His headache banged his brain into another dizzy flurry of images. Him biting her lips, her breasts, her thighs. Her biting his chin, his nipples, his abdomen. Luc closed his eyes to her and his mind to her appeal. He chewed the food with careful precision, trying to take in only the smell of the cheese and the taste of the eggs.

  “Good, huh?” Her words nudged into his focus. “I knew you’d like it.”

  She knew him? Absurd.

  His eyes opened to glare across the table, but something behind her caught his attention. “What the hell is that?”

  Turning, she glanced over her shoulder. “Oh,” she said. “It’s a bottle tree.”

  A long, twisting piece of metal rose into the sky. Boughs stuck out here and there, and on each of them was fastened a colored glass bottle. Blue and red, gold and green.

  “What the hell is a bottle tree and why is it on my terrace?”

  She whipped around, her brows furrowed. “It’s a gift from my shop. It wards off evil spirits.”

  “Then it should have warded off you,” he snarled.

  Her face fell in instant hurt.

  His heart fell too.

  “Mierda. Sorry.” He dropped the remains of his sandwich, the one she’d ordered for him, the one she’d picked to help him get over his nausea, onto the plate. “It’s the hangover.”

  Except it wasn’t. His behavior wasn’t anything unusual. He often was a jerk. He liked it that way.

  She shrugged, a nonchalant move that contradicted the hurt still lingering on her face. Tentatively, she nibbled on her own breakfast, a simple egg on biscuit.

  The silence deafened him.

  This woman filled the air around her with her smiles and words and chuckles. Now, suddenly, she’d gone quiet.

  A quiet that hurt him.

  Luc struggled to find something to say to smooth over his rudeness. He shouldn’t care if she were hurt. He shouldn’t care if he’d been the one to hurt her.

  Follando mujer.

  His cock took his unsaid words and twitched to life.

  “Tell me.” He barked the command at her, trying to pull himself out of his lust and out of the doghouse she’d put him in without one damn word.

  The woman jumped. “Tell you what?”

  His brain scrambled for something. “Why did you fight?”

  “Fight?” Her brow creased.

  “That asshat. Your boyfriend.”

  “Oh, him.” Another of her nonchalant shrugs, as if she could barely be bothered with the thought of him.

  It struck Luc that she’d only gotten rid of the animal less than forty-eight hours ago. Did she dismiss her lovers so easily every time? The devastating memories swirled around his heart, choking it. Anger simmered. “Yes, him. Why did you break up with him?”

  Her mouth, a mouth he’d never wanted to notice, but now did all the time, twisted. “I found the asshat with his tiny bibitte stuck in another woman.”

  “Tiny bibitte, huh?” His anger turned to amusement in a flash. “Poor you.”

  She looked at him and then, threw her head back and laughed. The husky, sexy sound filtered through the air to land on his skin and sex. Land on him with a thud of complete desire.

  He really needed to get rid of this woman fast.

  “I don’t like all this stuff around here.” He waved at the bottle tree and the gnome he’d just noticed peering out from behind a flower urn. “All your bottles in my shower.”

  Her laugh stopped abruptly.

  “We need to find you a new apartment,” he doggedly added. “Today.”

  The sunlight had moved since they’d sat and it seemed to highlight the shadowed bruise on her cheek. But the shadows in her wounded eyes were even darker.

  Damn him.

  “Does it still hurt?” He rushed out his offering.

  “This?” Her delicate fingers traced her cheek. “No.”

  You hurt me more, her eyes told him.

  “I don’t mind you staying here until you find another place.” Another pitiful offering.

  “Yes, you do.” She gave him a stiff nod before standing. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll find somewhere today.”

  Before he could cudgel his brain into finding another offering, she ambled away. As if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  But he knew she did.

  He knew there were shadows in her now. Some given to her by the animal.

  And some given to her by him.

  Chapter 10

  He didn’t want her around.

  Fine.

  Nina marched across his street to her shop and slammed the door open.

  Heni’s head popped up from behind the glass case holding their collection of handcrafted voodoo dolls. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing.” Plopping her bag on the antique satin chair used for palm readings, she headed for the register. “How were sales yesterday?”

  “Abysmal,” her sister said with great cheer. “But I hear we’re in for a spot of good luck.”

  “Really?” In her head, she calculated how much of the spare cash she could take for a deposit on a new apartment. “Tell me. I need all the good news I can get.”

  Heni frowned. “You’re the one with the good news, Jeanie told me.”

  Bon Dieu. Her sister was talking about the plan to stay with the saleau. To take away his hurt and make him happy.

  What had she been thinking?

  Luc Miró might have a good heart underneath all that gruff anger, yet he wanted her out. With a passionate intensity she rarely saw. She’d seen it, though, she’d seen his raging desire to get her gone in his brown eyes, in the dark scowl, in his rough voice. He might reluctantly rescue a damsel in distress, but after that, he wanted nothing to do with the aftermath. He wanted to be left alone.

  Fine. She’d leave him alone.

  “I have to find an apartment.”

  “Shoot,” her sister muttered. “I thought you were going to stay with Chef Grouchy for awhile.”

  “No can do.” Sliding open the cashier drawer, she counted out two hundred dollars. That should be enough for a deposit. “He wants me to leave. He was quite clear.”

  “Boo! You are the master at making people change their minds.”

  “Not Luc Miró.”

  It wasn’t that she couldn’t wheedle him around. She knew she could. The way he’d tried to smoot
h over his pointed declaration to get her out of his hair. The way he’d gingerly attempted to cover the desire up. Except she hadn’t been fooled.

  More than anything, however, was her sudden fear. The fear pushed her to get out of his orbit.

  A fear she’d never dealt with before.

  As Paw-Paw had taught her about the bayou spirits who’d come across a girl’s bed in the depths of the night, he’d always given her a wink. But the essence of the stories was real, she’d known. The cold shiver of foreshadowing, the clear warning to be aware. When she’d looked across the oak table, in the sunlit garden of the saleau’s terrace, with the lingering scents of delicious food—right into his eyes, she’d felt that shiver of awareness.

  Fate might have ideas she didn’t want to deal with.

  “Wait.” Heni stomped up next to her, grazing her fingers on her cheek. “What is this?”

  “My ex-boyfriend did it. Didn’t Jeanie tell you?”

  “Javier hit you?” Her sister hissed out her rage. “I’m going to find that rat and kill him.”

  “That’s good by me.” Nina flashed her a smile. “Give him a kick for me before you kill him.”

  The bell above the shop door jingled, and Lilith, their resident goddess, seer, and palm reader swanned into the room. She wore a purple dress with beads and bells sewn into the edges that jangled on the floor by her multicolored tennis shoes. The wrap crowning her head was multicolored as well—a swath of gold mixed with green and black. Below, her dark eyes sparkled with life. “Mes chers, it is a superb day.”

  For Lilith, every day was a superb day. It was one of the things Nina liked about her. One of many. If it weren’t for this woman and her following, the shop would have closed a month ago. “Bonjour, Lil, how’s it hanging?”

  The regal woman waved a ring-filled hand. “What a saying. It makes no sense to ask such a question to a woman. Only men have things that hang.”

  Heni gurgled. “We have breasts.”

  “Mon enfant, breasts do not hang. Not if a woman takes care of herself.” The woman brushed Nina’s purse off of her chair and settled into it with a languid grace. “I am fully booked for today.”

  “Excellent.” Nina sighed with relief. “That should help sales.”

  “Oui.” Lilith looked at her. “What is all that cash in your hand?”

  “I have to find an apartment.”

  “You have a bruise on your cheek.” The old woman’s gaze narrowed. “What did that asshat do?”

  Asshat. Exactly what the saleau had called Javier. How could she have not seen what was so obvious to everyone else? “I caught him with another girl.”

  “Marvelous.” Lilith nodded, her hands lifting to the heavens. “I prayed this would happen.”

  “You prayed that Javier would cheat?” Outrage mixed with amusement colored her question.

  “I prayed he would show his true colors. Ugly black and foul brown.”

  Lilith not only read hands, she read auras. Nina didn’t know if she believed in everything the old woman did, but her clientele was devoted, and followed her right into Trois Sœurs. Since they needed every step of foot traffic they could get, she wasn’t going to quibble around the edges.

  “He sucked your pink aura away,” Lilith intoned. “He was no good.”

  “Totally agree.” Slamming the cash drawer closed, she headed for the office. “I need to start calling about apartments.”

  “Attendez une minute.” Lil’s voice went sharp.

  The change was so rapid and unusual, she tripped on the edge of the old woolen rug they used to cover a rough patch of the floor.

  “Nina.”

  Fate whispered around her, sliding into the older woman’s voice. A shiver of hot panic ran up her back to lie like heated steel in the center of her brain. “What?”

  “Why are you searching for a home when you have already found one, mon bébé?”

  Jerking around to stare at the old woman sitting serenely in her satin chair, she gawked. “What are you talking about?”

  “Le prince de la forêt rue,” Lil stated with authority. “He has swept you up.”

  “A prince?” She frowned in confusion, trying to piece together the French words. Her grandparents had often spoken Cajun French in their own home, but they’d never spent much time passing on the language to their granddaughters. They’d been too focused on passing on the food and the traiteur traditions. “A forest?”

  “The man who rules this street.” Fingers tipped with purple polish gestured toward El Porras.

  Lil must be talking about the saleau. A man so far from being a prince…why, it was as far as the Mississippi was from the Amazon river. “You can’t mean Luc Miró.”

  “I am.”

  “He is no prince.”

  The old woman hummed, her expression turning dark. “I have not told you girls about his history.”

  Lilith had arrived on their doorstep not two days after they’d opened. She’d impressed all three sisters with her talents, and they’d quickly made a deal. Yet, as the months had passed, they’d realized the old woman knew more about their shop and this street, than every other store owner combined. Which was kind of spooky, though none of the Blanchard sisters were put off by spooky. Their Paw-Paw defined the word.

  Heni leaned across the glass cabinet. “Are you’re going to tell us now?”

  “No, it is his to share,” Lilith waved her hand once more. “But I will tell you, Nina, he is yours.”

  Fate’s whisper turned to a roar. “He has no interest in me.”

  Mais, that wasn’t true. The memory of his kiss, of his hard erection, flushed her cheeks.

  “Ah, oui.” The old woman didn’t miss anything. “It is as I say. And you know it.”

  “I need to find an apartment.” The shiver of fear she’d experienced out on his terrace came again. This time, it iced her skin. “Right away.”

  “You can run from this, mon bébé, but you cannot hide.”

  Lilith’s last words followed Nina for the rest of the day.

  The apartment was on the ground floor, had no laundry, and lacked good lighting.

  But it was hers.

  Nina clomped down the street toward the saleau’s home. When Luc Miró returned from his restaurant, she would announce her success, and ask one last favor involving the use of his truck.

  Wait.

  She stopped in front of the black iron gate. The festival. She’d completely forgotten about the festival. Between the shiver of fear, the desire to get rid of her in his eyes, and Lilith’s announcements, she’d forgotten the most important goal.

  Sighing, she took out the key he’d given her, and eased the gate open. Unlike her shop’s lock, his locks opened easily.

  There was nothing to do except suck it up and hit him with both requests. One, please help move my stuff again. And two, be a part of the festival.

  Please.

  Please was a word that slipped effortlessly from her mouth with most people, but for some reason, thinking about saying it to Luc Miró made her grouchy.

  Great. Two grouchy people together in this dark hole of a house.

  Slipping into his house, she ignored the black walls and furniture and shades, making for her temporary bedroom. She should start packing tonight. Still, it was after eleven, and she was tired from a full day finding an apartment, ignoring her sisters, and closing down the shop.

  Tomorrow.

  She undressed and then, pulled on a cotton tank top and shorts she slept in, and made for the kitchen. She might be okay with putting off packing until tomorrow, but she wanted him to know tonight.

  He was free from her.

  The clock told her he’d be home within the hour. Hopefully, he wouldn’t do another bender like he had the night before. She wanted this, them, done. He obliged her by appearing in the doorway a scant five minutes after she’d perched herself on a barstool by the counter in wait.

  His hair was as messy as usual, a flop of curl
s and stray bits sticking up. The fuzz on his chin and jaw was fast turning into a full beard. And his scowl when he spotted her made the impression complete.

  A saleau.

  What had she been thinking when she thought about taking him into her bed?

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I live here.” Pinning a smile on her lips, she gave him her gift. “But not for long.”

  “What does that mean?” He slammed the kitchen door behind him and paced to his espresso machine.

  Concern flickered across her brain. “You shouldn’t drink coffee this late at night.”

  “Who says?” The whir of the appliance quenched his surly words.

  Sighing, she let it go. “I found an apartment.”

  Her raised voice caught his attention. His head swiveled, his gaze narrowing. “Did you.”

  “I did, you’ll be glad to know.”

  “Will I?” The whirring stopped, and he yanked out the dainty china cup and sipped. “Where is it?”

  “That doesn’t matter.” The neighborhood was even less ideal than her previous abode, so she knew he wouldn’t like it. Why get him grumpy before tomorrow? “Would you mind moving my stuff one last time?”

  First pretty please.

  “No,” he said in a slow, soft tone, as if he was realizing all his dreams were coming true. “I’ll be glad to.”

  “I bet you will,” she muttered before sliding off her chair.

  A short, sharp silence fell.

  “Nina—”

  “No, no.” She waved him off. “It’s fine. You like your privacy.”

  His scowl returned. “I do, but that doesn’t mean—”

  “And I like my privacy as well,” she said, crossing her arms in front of her. “So we’ll both be happy.”

  His gaze drifted to her arms. Or perhaps her breasts, because his scowl turned fierce. “What neighborhood?”

  “Never you mind,” she trilled before turning toward the hallway and the stairs. “See you tomorrow.”