by Caro LaFever
Jerking around, he stared at her. Contrary to her usual pose, she held herself with stiff rigidity and her expression was grim. The sorrow leaching through her words hit him, like the impact of a thunderclap. “Nina—”
“He’s put me down all my life and instead of confronting him, I just ran away or pretended it wasn’t happening.” Her arms folded around her, and Luc realized she was trembling.
The urge to reach over and pull her into his embrace was almost undeniable, but the simmering anger he’d nursed for three days stopped him.
Her brows furrowed, as if she understood the morass of confusion and rage inside him, and wished it wasn’t so. Her hands tightened on her arms. “I’m not using this as an excuse. I’m only telling you in hopes you’ll understand.”
“Keep going,” he snarled.
Her chin lifted and her eyes blazed with sudden bravado. “He and mama came to the shop the morning of the festival.”
“I remember.” The memory of the pinched face and the sour look returned. He had the grace to acknowledge that if he had to grow up with those parents, he might have issues to deal with, as well. His parents had their quirks and quarrels, but their love for him was solid, and their acceptance of anything he wanted to do assured.
“Papa has never believed the shop would be a success,” she continued, her mouth tightening around the words. “He didn’t think the festival would help.”
Nina’s drive to make the shop a success became clearer. Not only did she want it to be her career, she wanted a talisman to defend herself against her father’s contempt.
A part of him eased, relaxing into her presence, something he never thought to experience again. “Your shop is going to be a success.”
“Yeah,” she drawled, her mouth still tight. “I know. Except it doesn’t seem as important now. Not important at all, honestly.”
Her gaze latched onto his and he finally saw the wealth of pain and anguish swimming in the smoke. If he were a forgiving man, this would be the moment he’d capitulate.
However, he wasn’t that man.
Hadn’t been since five years ago.
Guilt rumbled inside, a galling emotion to feel in front of this woman who’d betrayed him.
“Papa provoked me that day.” She kept staring at him, letting him see her misery. “He said I wasn’t good enough for you.”
The words trembled on his tongue…
You’re not.
But they didn’t come out. Not even when he tried to force them to.
“So I told him your secrets.” Regret slipped across her face like a curtain of despair. “I used your secrets to prove myself.”
Luc stood silent. He supposed she might well take his stance to be one of condemnation and rejection, because he still was stiff with rage and still angry enough to scream. Yet, all his powerful emotions had swung to a different target.
Not Nina.
Someone else. Someone who should have protected her, instead of punishing her. Someone whose duty to his little girl was to be kind and encouraging, not castigating. Someone who didn’t deserve the title of papa.
“Anyway.” She glanced at him before focusing out, toward the churning water of the bayou and the sheets of rain pouring down. A fragile shrug of her slender shoulders signaled she’d given all she had. “I’m sorry, Luc. I wasn’t the woman you deserved.”
The last word echoed in his mind. Growing up, he’d been told by his loving mami he deserved the best. His papa hadn’t said the words, yet everything he’d communicated throughout Luc’s childhood was a sense of entitlement, a sense of following in a long line of illustrious ancestors who expected only the finest and knew they were the best.
In essence, he’d grown up proud of who he was and where he’d come from.
Not until Genia’s death had he ever questioned that central promise—that he deserved the best.
What he’d done, he realized, was gone in a completely different direction. A path that led him into depression, and a constant willingness to believe the worst. About events, but even more importantly, about people. About himself. Only with his restaurant had he kept a remanent of his prior belief in his supremacy. During the last few years, he’d come to expect nothing. Come to expect he’d only get the worst.
Nina had changed that, though. In a fundamental way he hadn’t understood until this very moment.
She brought him joy again.
She brought him hope.
She’d taken the twisted hunk of ugliness Genia had left in him and uncoiled it, allowing him to breathe. Allowing him to believe again. In the best. In deserving the best. And because of this, the shock of her not being her best had been too much for him to handle in the moment.
“But I’ve learned,” she broke into his thoughts. “I’ve learned a lot just in these past few days. Papa isn’t going to bother me again or get me to lose my control.”
He saw the scene clearly in his head. Her father’s sour stare and bitter words. Her mother’s silence, her sisters’ avid attention. And his Nina, in the middle as she usually was, trying her best to be the best.
His Nina.
A solid sense of rightness slid into place in the center of his heart. His anger washed away, like a cool rain bathing his soul with freshness. He knew going forward she’d still rush into things and say things he might not want her to reveal. But she wasn’t a baby, she was a young woman growing into herself, becoming a woman he respected.
His hands un-fisted at his side.
He did respect her. Even though she’d broken his trust, he understood her, understood what had happened. What had happened was her fault, yet it was just Nina being Nina.
The Nina he’d fallen in love with.
“Mais.” Her shoulders drooped. “I was hoping after you knew, you’d forgive me.”
This time with her grandfather had given him moments of clarity he didn’t realize he’d achieved until now. The man hadn’t once mentioned his granddaughter, but the way he maneuvered Luc into staying, so subtle of a scheme he’d missed it, sank into him.
He’d come to respect Bade Blanchard. He’d come to understand the way the man thought.
He’d come to know what the man would do in the name of love.
He’d also taken in Nina’s past, her present, the slow, solid way of her ancestor. She might be young, yet she came from Bade, she embodied much of the man he’d found here on the Louisiana bayou. He forgave her because he understood her. Like the old man sleeping inside this house, she didn’t have a mean bone in her body. She might scheme, she might beguile, but at heart, she wouldn’t waver from her love.
Certainty settled in his gut.
Trusting Nina was worth the risk.
“I guess…” Her words were thick with tears. “I guess there’s nothing else to say except I love you. I’ll always love you.”
The sound of her shuffling withdrawal shocked him out of his brooding thoughts. It struck him suddenly that his silence had likely delivered the wrong message to the love of his life.
“Wait.”
She turned and a flash of lightning crossed her face, showing the trail of tears on her cheeks. “What?”
Striding to her side, he grabbed her elbows and tugged her to face him. “I understand.”
A wary gleam of hope flickered in the smoke of her eyes. “You do?”
He did understand. So much more than he had for years, perhaps in his entire life. He understood that love wasn’t about expectation, it was about acceptance. Genia had dug a hole in his heart, but he realized now, he’d been hollow and entitled and proud far before she sauntered into his life. His life with Nina wasn’t going to be about judging and finding fault. Not like he and his first wife. His life with this woman standing before him was going to be about forgiveness and the true reason for loving someone.
To be forgiven and loved in return.
“I understand why you told my secrets.” He leaned closer, almost touching his mouth to hers. “I forgiv
e you.”
“You do?” Wonder replaced the wariness, bringing a shine to her eyes. “Really?”
“Yeah, really.” He gazed into those blue-gray eyes, knowing he’d be looking into them for the rest of his life.
Through thick, through thin, through happiness and pain.
He fully expected he’d be mad at her a time or two, and she’d be the same with him. But now, he appreciated the wisdom that had soaked into him during these last days with a canny old man.
Love wasn’t about one thing, or one time, or one moment. Love wasn’t about hanging on to guilt or grudges. Love wasn’t about keeping a count of wrongs and rights. Love was about endless moments blended into a kaleidoscope of pain and pleasure, joy and sorrow.
“Hey, Creole Man.” Nina cocked her head, her top-knotted hair flipping across one shoulder. “What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking no nicknames at a time like this.” He didn’t have a ring. Still, he didn’t think this woman would mind. Because unlike he’d been a moment ago, she understood the essence of what love was all about. “I’m thinking we need a new name for both of us.”
Her dark brows furrowed. “What’s that?”
His confidence and new-found belief in love wavered, then stood firm. Because he knew in his heart, this woman belonged by his side. “Mr. and Mrs. Miró sounds good, doesn’t it?”
Shock rippled across her face and her mouth dropped open. But before he could take in that response, she gave him another.
“Yippee!” she screeched before jumping into his arms. “You love me!”
“If you scream any louder, granddaughter, the ’gators are going to come out of the bayou to see what the hell is going on.”
Swinging around, his love in his grasp, Luc grinned. “Guess I should probably ask you for her hand before I ask her.”
“Guess so.” Bade Blanchard leaned on the doorsill as if he had not a care in the world. “Except you’ve been asking for her from the moment you arrived, boy.”
Guess he had, come to think of it. Why else would he have stuck around this cottage and put up with this old man’s orders if he hadn’t unconsciously wanted back in Nina’s life and wanted the man she respected more than any other to approve of him? “Is that a yes?”
“Hey.” His woman squirmed in his arms. “I’m the one who decides.”
Luc switched his grin to her. “Then give me an answer, Miss Nina.”
“No nicknames.” She grinned back. “And the answer is yes.”
Epilogue
“Papa.” Her youngest daughter’s voice rose, filled with the usual demanding tone. “Find me.”
“I’ve looked everywhere, Ella.” Her husband, the once proud and arrogant Luc Miró, crouched by the bottle tree she’d given him almost ten years ago, now. They’d had to replace some of the bottles, but the tree was one of their daughters’ favorite things about the courtyard.
Even though their papa often grumbled at it as he walked by.
“You’re not looking hard enough.” Ella’s round face popped around the gnome, a dark frown furrowing her brows and her brown eyes glaring. Unlike her two older sisters, Kim and Viv, who resembled herself, Ella was a female replica of her father. “Try harder.”
A gusty sigh escaped her husband. “You hide too well, pumpkin. I can never find you.”
“She’s right there,” Kim whispered into Nina’s ear. Superiority rang in her words, due to the fact she had two years on Ella. “Why can’t Papa see her?”
Wrapping her arm around her six-year-old, she whispered back, “He’s playing a game with her.”
“I don’t get it.” She didn’t ruin her youngest sister’s fun, though, as she often did. Instead, Kim snuggled into her mother’s side.
Nina lay on the sun bed, content to let the early-spring weather warm her skin and lighten her heart. She’d take these few minutes of calm because she knew, within the month, they’d have a squawking infant disturbing any attempt at peace.
Kim patted her flat tummy, peering at her mother’s round one. “Does it hurt?”
“No, cher, not at all.” She brushed a finger along her child’s pointed jaw, thinking about when she’d been a baby. After the arrival of Viv, both she and Luc had thought they were old hands at parenting. A bout of Kim’s colic, and then another, told them they still had things to learn. “But I am looking forward to having your brother come out.”
Her little girl eyed the round stomach again. “It’s going to be weird having a brother.”
“Is it?” Nina chuckled. “I think it’s going to be fun.”
“You think everything is going to be fun.” Her second daughter pouted at her before laughing.
It was true, however. She did think their life was mostly fun. What wasn’t fun about having a sexy, loving man coming home to her every day? What wasn’t fun about having amazing, astounding children to experience life with? Fun also included trips to New York City and Atlanta to buy new wares for her thriving shop, knowing Luc was perfectly content and able to handle the girls while she was away.
The kitchen door blew open, an enraged Viv silhouetted in the opening.
“Uh-oh,” Kim said. “She’s trying to cook again.”
Being nine years old, their oldest had decided she needed to do what her papa did. Nina had suggested she might want to try something simple, like her great-grandmother’s recipe for coush-coush, but Viv had insisted on conquering Luc’s famous Crawfish Étouffée.
“Papa!” Her enraged daughter screeched. “Come right now!”
Luc slowly rose from his crouch behind the bottle tree, throwing a wry grin toward the sun bed. “But you told me you could do it yourself.”
“He’s playing hide-and-go-seek with me,” their youngest roared from behind the gnome. “Go away, V.”
“Come right now, Papa.” With an impatient wave, the frustrated chef stormed back into the kitchen.
“I’m in demand.” Ambling across to the sun bed, her husband wrestled a laughing Kim into his arms before leaning down to place a kiss in the center of a round tummy. “Hello, son. Please come out and help me with all these women.”
“Papa!” Another screech from behind the gnome.
“Papa!” A second one echoed from the kitchen.
“Should I demand something too, Papa?” Kim arched dark brows at her father, her blue-gray eyes smoking with a tease. “Maybe a pony?”
Luc and Nina groaned in unison at the request they’d heard a thousand times.
Kim chortled before rolling out of the strong arms that held her. Running across the courtyard, she pointed at her sister. “Here she is, Papa.”
“Papa!” Ella jumped up from her hiding place in a rage. “She cheated.”
Viv appeared once more in the doorway, a stricken look on her face. “Papa! I started a fire on the stove. Come quick.”
Nina glanced at her husband, but she knew what she’d see. Instead of the grumpy man who, ten years ago, would have reacted to this chaos with a growl and a scowl, now she found something entirely different.
The light of pure joy turned his brown eyes to honey and his expression was filled with happiness.
And then, Luc Miró threw his head back and laughed.
Just click on the book itself to get your free copy!
Thank you!
Thanks for reading Knight in Black Leather. I hope you enjoyed it!
I would appreciate a review if you have the time. You can click here to leave one. Reviews help other readers find books. Any review is welcome, whether positive or negative.
What's next? Would you like to know when my next book is available? You can sign up for my new release email list at www.carolafever.com, follow me on Pinterest at https://www.pinterest.com/carolafever/, or like my Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/CaroLaFever.
Lend the book. This book is lendable, so please share it with a friend.
Check out the rest of the series. There several other books within the Intern
ational Billionaire Series. All of them are standalone and all of them have happily-ever-after endings. Happy reading!
The Italians
Mistress By Blackmail
Wife By Force
Baby By Accident
The Greeks
A Perfect Man
A Perfect Wife
A Perfect Love
The Scots
Lion of Caledonia
Lord of the Isles
Laird of the Highlands
The Latinos
Knight in Cowboy Boots
Knight in Black Leather
Knight in Tattooed Armor - coming end of December 2016!
Knight in Tattooed Armour
International Billionaires XII: The Latinos
by Caro LaFever
Coming out in December 2016!
Slouching on the door, Riq stared at the girl. Like father, like daughter. It was all about appearances and not about substance. He wasn’t surprised, yet he was still intent on teaching this ethereal creature a hard reality.
But how?
She shifted on her heels making the shimmering dress swing across her thighs.
Speaking of hard…
The idea sparked inside him. It was stupid and juvenile, but this girl made him feel stupid and juvenile.
He grunted.
Her pink mouth moued in disgust. “You’re such a—”
His hand shot out and grabbed her arm again. Before she could fight back, he had her secure in his arms. His hard arms.
His hard cock pressed into her soft belly.
To her credit, she didn’t turn into a weeping, wheedling woman. Her narrowed gaze met his, and those shiny, pretty lips twisted.
“So big and tough,” she scoffed. “Should I be afraid?”
“Up to you.” He dived right in, like the good SEAL he was and always would be.
The princesa tasted like spicy sugar. Like a zest of sweet feminine allure he couldn’t get enough of. Surprising him again, she didn’t fight or faint. She stepped right to the plate of lust he was offering and took her share.
