Synopsis:
The de Vincent brothers are back—and so is the intrigue that
surrounds them—in New York Times bestselling
author Jennifer L. Armentrout’s sizzling new novel...
Nicolette Bresson never thought she’d return to
the de Vincents’ bayou compound. It’s where her parents work, where Nikki grew
up... and where she got her heart broken by Gabriel de Vincent himself. Yet
here she is, filling in for her sick mother. Avoiding Gabe should be easy,
especially when so much of Nikki’s time is spent trying not to be stabbed in
the back by the malicious hangers-on who frequent the mansion. But escaping
memories of Gabe, much less his smoking-hot presence, is harder than
expected—especially since he seems determined to be in Nikki’s space as much as
possible.
Gabriel spent years beating himself up over his
last encounter with Nikki. He’d wanted her then, but for reasons that were bad
for both of them. Things have now changed. Gabe sees more than a girl he’s
known forever; he sees a smart, talented, and heartbreakingly beautiful
woman... one who’s being stalked from the shadows. Now, Gabe will do anything
to keep Nikki safe—and to stop the de Vincent curse from striking again.
LINKS:
Moonlight Seduction by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Jennifer L. Armentrout Author Bio:
# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author
Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about
her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time
reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out
with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. In early 2015, Jennifer was
diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that
involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in
loss of vision, among other complications. Due to this diagnosis, educating
people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right
alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class,
where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her
dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction,
fantasy, and contemporary romance.
She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and
Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her Wicked Series has been optioned
by PassionFlix. Jennifer has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Reviewers
Choice Award for Wait for You, the 2015 Editor’s Pick for Fall With Me, and the
2014/2015 Moerser-Jugendbuch- Jury award for Obsidian. Her young adult romantic
suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction
by YALSA. Her adult romantic suspense novel TILL DEATH was a Amazon Editor’s
Pick and iBook Book of the Month. Her young adult contemporary THE PROBLEM WITH
FOREVER is a 2017 RITA Award Winner in Young Adult Fiction. She also writes
Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn.
She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
She is the owner of ApollyCon and The Origin Event, the
successful annual events that features over a hundred bestselling authors in
Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Fiction, panels, parties, and more. She is
also the creator and sole financier of the annual Write Your Way To RT Book
Convention, a contest that gives aspiring authors a chance to win a fully paid
trip to RT Book Review
s.
Chapter 1
Six years later . .
.
It took every ounce
of self-control for Gabriel de Vincent to stand back and do nothing. Just stand
there and watch him being led away, but that’s what he had to do, because
that’s what he’d promised and Gabe tried to be a man of his word.
Sometimes he failed
at that. Failed at that in ways that haunted him late at night, but he wouldn’t
go back on this.
He’d promised them
three uninterrupted months.
That’s
what he was going to give them.
His
jaw ached from how hard he was clenching it as the Rothchilds walked back into the
restaurant. He didn’t take his eyes off them, not until he couldn’t see them
anymore. Only then did he look at the slip of paper.
Looking down at the
drawing of puppy on a piece of blue construction paper, he felt the worst mix
of emotions. Sadness. Pride. Helplessness. Hope. Fury that he’d never tasted
before. He had no idea how one person could feel all of that at once, but he did.
A wry smile tugged at
his lips. There was definitely talent in the drawing. Real skill. The de
Vincent knack for the arts was still kicking around it seemed.
His gaze flickered
over what was written in a blockish handwriting. He’d already read in three times,
but couldn’t bear to read it a fourth time. Not right now. He didn’t want to
fold the paper and created creases in it, so he was careful as he carried it
back to where he was parked.
“Gabriel de Vincent.”
Frowning at the
vaguely familiar voice, he turned around. A man stepped out from behind a
truck. Dark, square sunglasses shielded half the man’s face, but Gabe
recognized him.
He sighed. “Ross
Haid. To what do I owe the honor of seeing you in Baton Rouge?”
The reporter for the Advocate gave
one of what Gabe assumed was a trademark half grin; the kind that probably got
him into a places and events he sure as hell didn’t belong in. “Headquarters
are here. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you work
out of the New Orleans office, Ross.”
He shrugged a shoulder
as he neared Gabe. “I had to come up to headquarters. Heard through the
grapevine that a de Vincent was in town.”
“Uh-huh.” Not for one
second did Gabe believe that. “And you just happen to hear that I was at this
restaurant?”
The smile kicked up a
notch as he ran a hand over his blond hair. “Nah. Seeing you here was just
luck.”
Bullshit. Ross
had been sniffing after his family for about two months now, trying to get to
one of them when they were out at dinner or at an event, showing up at nearly
every damn function one of them was attending. But back home, in New Orleans,
Ross had trouble getting near them. Well, he had troubled getting to the one he
really wanted to talk to which was Gabe’s older brother.
Didn’t require any
leap of logic to figure out what was going on. Somehow Ross had heard that Gabe
was here, and that’s why Ross conveniently ended
up here. Normally he could tolerate Ross’ incessant questioning. Hell, he sort
of liked the guy, appreciated his determination, but not when Ross was here and
something he didn’t want a reporter finding out mere feet away.
Lowering his
sunglasses, Ross eyed Gabe’s ride. “Nice car. Is it one of the new Porsche
911s?”
Gabe raised his
brows.
“Family business must
be going well. Then again, the family business is always going strong, isn’t
it? The de Vincents are old money. The one percent of the one
percent.” Gabe’s family was one of the oldest, linked all the way back to the
days the great state of Louisiana was being created. Now they owned the most
profitable oil refineries in the Gulf, coveted real estate all around the
world, tech firms, and once his older brother married, they’d be in control of
the one of the largest shipping industries in the world. So, yeah, the de
Vincents were wealthy, but the car and nearly everything Gabe owned, he bought
it with the money he worked for. Not the money he was born with.
“Some say that your
family has so much money, that the de Vincents are above the law.” Ross
straightened his sunglasses. “Seems that way.”
Gabe really didn’t
have time for this. “Whatever you want to say, can you stop beating around the
damn bush and get to it? I’m planning to head home sometime in the next year.”
The reporter’s smile
faded. “Since you’re here and I’m here, and it’s damn hard to talk to you all
any other time. I want to chat about your father’s death.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I don’t believe it
was a suicide,” Ross continued. “And I find it also convenient that Chief Cobbs,
who openly and publicly wanted your father’s death investigated as a homicide
ended up dead in a freak car accident.”
“Is that right?”
Frustration hummed
off Ross about as loud as the damn locusts. “Is that all you got to say to me
about this?”
“Pretty much.” Gabe
grinned then. “That and you have an overactive imagination, but I’m sure you’ve
heard that before.”
“I don’t think my
imagination is nearly vast enough to compete with all the things the de
Vincents have had their hands in.”
Probably not.
“Okay, I won’t ask
you about your father or the chief.” Ross shifted his weight as Gabe opened his
driver’s door. “Also heard some interesting rumors about some of the staff at
the de Vincent compound.”
“I’m started to feel
like you might be stalking us.” Gabe placed the drawing facedown on the
passenger’s seat. “If you want to talk about staffing, then you need to have a
chat with Dev.”
“Devlin won’t make
time to talk to me.”
“That doesn’t sound
like my problem.”
“It seems like it is
now.”
Gabe laughed, but the sound was without
humor as he reached inside, grabbing his sunglasses off the visor. “Trust me,
Ross, this isn’t my problem.”
“You may not think so
now, but that’ll change.” A muscle twitched along the man’s jaw. “I plan to
blow the roof of every single damn secret the de Vincents have been keeping for
years. I’m going to do a story that not even your family can pay to keep
quiet.”
Shaking his head,
Gabe slipped his sunglasses on. “I like you, Ross. You know I’ve never had a
problem with you. So, I just want to get that out of the way. But you have got
to come up with some better material, because that was cliché as shit.” He
rested his hand on the frame of the car door. “You’ve got to know you’re not
the first reporter to come around thinking they’re somehow going to dig some
skeletons out of our closets and expose us for whatever the hell you think we
are. You’re not going to be the last to fail.”
“I don’t fail,” Ross
said. “Not ever.”
“Everyone fails.”
Gabe climbed in behind the wheel.
“Except
the de Vincents?”
“You said it, not
me.” Gabe looked up at the reporter. “Some unasked for advice? I’d find another
story to investigate.”
“Is there where
you’re going to tell me to be careful?” He sounded oddly gleeful by the
prospect. “Warn me off? Because people who mess with the de Vincents end up
missing or worse?”
Gabe smirked as he
hit the ignition key. “Doesn’t sound like I need to tell you that. Seems like
you already know what happens.”
Nikki stood in the
center of the quiet and sterile kitchen of the de Vincent mansion, telling
herself that she was not the same little idiot that almost drowned herself out
in the pool six years ago.
She sure as hell
wasn’t the same idiot who had spent years making an utter fool out of herself,
chasing after a grown man. An act, which resulted in one of the worst ideas
she’d ever had in the history of bad ideas.
And Nikki had a
remarkable history of making not the brightest of all decisions. Her dad said
she had a bit of wild streak in her, taking after Pappy, but Nikki liked to
blame the de Vincents for the recklessness. They had this really bizarre talent
of making everyone around them stick one toe into Recklessville.
Her mother claimed
that most of Nikki’s bad decisions came from having a good heart.
Nikki had the habit
of picking up strays—stray cats, dogs, a lizard here and there, even a snake,
and humans, too. She was a bleeding heart, hating to see anyone she cared about
in pain and she was oftentimes a bit overly affected by the troubles of
strangers.
It was why she
avoided the TV around the holidays, because they always played those
heart-wrenching videos of freezing animals or children left to starve in
war-torn countries. She hated everything about New Year’s Eve because of that
and spent the week between Christmas and the first of January moping around.
There was a lot of
Nikki that was the same as she was the last time she walked through this house.
She still got emotionally invested in animals that didn’t belong to her—that
was why she volunteered at the local animal shelter. She still couldn’t turn
away from someone who needed help, and she still found herself in weird
situations but reckless? Wild?
Not anymore.
Not since the last
time she’d been in the house, right before she left for college. That had been
four years ago and now she was back, and nothing and everything had changed.
“You okay, hon?” her
father asked.
Turning to find her
father standing just inside the large kitchen, she pulled herself out of her
thoughts and smiled widely for him. Goodness, her dad was starting to look his
age, and that scared her—truly terrified her. Her parents had her late in life,
but she was only twenty-two, and she wanted another fifty years or so with
them.
Nikki knew that
wasn’t going to happen.
Especially now.
She forced those thoughts from her head. “Yes. I’m just . . . it’s
weird being in here after being gone so long. The kitchen is different.”
“It was remodeled a few years back,” he replied. The mansion was
constantly being remodeled it seemed. After all, how many times had this place
caught fire since it was built? Nikki had lost count. Her father drew in a deep
breath, and the lines around his mouth became more pronounced. He looked so
tired. “I don’t know if I’ve said this to you or not, but thank you.”
She waved him off.
“You don’t need to thank me, Dad.”
“Yeah, I do.” He
walked over to where she stood. “You went away to college to do something
better than this—better than cooking dinners and running a household. To become
something
better.”
Offended on his
behalf, she crossed her arms and met his weary gaze. “There’s nothing wrong
with cooking dinners and running a household. It’s good, honest work. Wok that
put me through college. Right, Dad?”
“We take great pride
in our job. Don’t get me wrong, but what your mother and I did all these years
was so you could do something else.” He sighed. “So, it means a lot that you
would come home to help us out, Nicolette.”
Only her dad and mom
called her by her full name. Everyone else called her Nikki. Everyone except a
certain de Vincent who shall remained nameless. He and only he called her Nic.
Her parents had
worked for the de Vincents, one of the wealthiest families in the States and
possibly the world, since long before she was born. It was weird growing up in
this house, being privy to a lot of strange stuff—things the public has no idea
about and would probably pay a large sum of money to learn. And personally? It
was like she had a foot in two different worlds, one absurdly wealthy and the
other middle working class.
Her father was
basically a butler, except she always had a small suspicion that her father had
. . . taken care of things for the de Vincents that no normal butler did. Her
mother ran the day-to-day functions of the house and prepared the dinners. Both
her parents loved working for the family and she knew both had planned to
continue to the day they died, but her mom . . . .
Nikki’s chest
squeezed painfully. Her mom was not well and it had happened so fast, coming
out of nowhere. The dreaded C word.
“Honestly, this is
perfect. I got my degree and this will give me time to figure things out.” In
other words, figure out what the hell she wanted to really do with her life.
Get to work or go for her master’s? She wasn’t sure yet. “And I want to be here
while Mom is going through everything.”
“I know.” His smile
wobbled a little as he brushed a strand of blondish-brown hair out of her face.
“We could’ve hired
someone else to step in while your mother—”
“No, you couldn’t
have.” She laughed at the mere thought of that. “I know how weird the de
Vincents are. I know how protective you two are of them. I know how to keep my
mouth shut and not see what I’m not supposed to. And you two don’t have to
worry about someone new not keeping their mouth shut and
not
seeing what they’re not supposed to.”
Her dad arched a
brow. “A lot of things have changed, honey.”
She snorted as she
took in the white marble countertops with gray veining. Mom had filled her in
on some of those changes during one of her chemo treatments.
After all, what else did they have to talk about while she was being pumped
full of poison that would hopefully kill only the cancer cells building in her
lung?
Things in the de
Vincent mansion that had changed.
For starters, the
patriarch of the family, one Lawrence de Vincent, had hung himself a few months
back. An act that had shocked her because she figured that man would’ve
outlived a nuclear bomb. And Lucian de Vincent apparently had a live-in
girlfriend and they were about to move into their own place. That was even more
insane, the idea of Lucian settling down.
The Lucian she
remembered put the play in player. He’d been an incorrigible flirt, leaving a string of
broken hearts across the state of Louisiana and beyond.
She hadn’t met his
girlfriend yet since they were away on some kind of trip; the rich rarely
seemed to have much of a schedule. She just hoped whoever his girlfriend was,
she was nice and nothing like Devlin’s fiancé.
Nikki might not have
been around the de Vincents in four years, but she remembered Sabrina
Harrington and her brother Parker.
Sabrina had just
begun seeing Devlin the year before Nikki had left for college and that had
been a year’s worth of snide comments and rather impressive disdainful looks.
Nikki could deal with Sabrina though. If she was the same woman as she was
before, she could be as mean as a cornered rattlesnake, but Nikki normally
didn’t even register on her scale of people to pay attention to.
Parker though?
Nikki suppressed a
shudder, not wanting to worry her father who was watching her like a hawk.
Parker had often
stared at her the way she’d wanted Gabe to look at her, especially when she had
grown brave enough to move from a one-piece bathing suit to a two-piece.
And Parker . . . he
had done more than look.
She drew in a deep
breath. She wasn’t going to think about Parker. He wasn’t worth a single
thought.
What happened to
Lawrence, and Lucian’s new romance weren’t the only things her mom had told
her. She filled Nikki in on the whole sister reappearing and then disappearing
again thing. Something that she knew the general public had no idea had even
happened. She didn’t know the details around it, but Nikki knew that in typical
de Vincent fashion, it had to the most drama-llama-est thing possible.
And she also knew
better than to ask questions about it.
Her
father stepped back. “The boys are all out.”
Thank God
and baby Jesus.
“Devlin
should be back this evening for dinner. He likes dinner to be ready at six. I
believe Ms. Harrington will be joining him.”
Well,
thanking God and baby Jesus lasted all of five seconds. She resisted the urge
to roll her eyes and make a gagging sound. “Okay.”
“Gabriel is still in Baton Rouge, or at least, that’s the last I
heard,” her father continued, ticking off the brothers’ schedules while she
wondered what Gabe was doing in Baton Rouge. Not that she cared. She totally
didn’t care whatsoever, but she wondered if it had anything to do with his woodworking
business.
The man was talented
with his hands.
Really talented.
Her cheeks flushed as an unwanted memory of how his calloused
palms felt pierced her straight through the chest. Nope. Not going there.
Absolutely not.
There were examples
of Gabe’s skill all around the house—the furniture, chair rails, and trim, even
in the kitchen. All of the woodwork was designed and created by Gabe. As a
little girl, she’d been fascinated with the idea of picking up a piece of wood
and turning it into something that was truly a work of art. That fascination
had turned into quite the hobby for Nikki.
It had started one
long, fall afternoon when she was ten and she’d found Gabe outside, whittling
away on a piece of wood. Out of boredom, she’d asked him to show her how he did
it. Instead of shooing her off, Gabe had given her small scrapes of wood and
showed her how to use a chisel.
She’d gotten pretty
good at it, but she hadn’t picked up a chisel in over four years. Nikki
refocused on what her dad was telling her.
“We’re
a little understaffed right now,” her dad continued. “So there’s a lot of
dusting in your near future. Devlin is very much like his father.”
Great.
That was not a
compliment in her book.
“Is it the ghosts?”
She half joked. “Scaring off the staff?”
Her
father shot her a look, but she knew damn well that her parents believed this
house was haunted.
Hell, they wouldn’t even come here at night unless it was a dire emergency.
None of the staff would and everyone in town knew the legends about the land the
de Vincent mansion sat on. And who hadn’t heard about the de Vincent curse more
than a time or two?
Being in this house
as much as she had been in the past, she had seen some weird things and heard
some stuff that couldn’t be explained. Plus she grew up within minutes of New
Orleans. She was a believer, but unlike her friend Rosie, whom she met in
college, she wasn’t obsessed with all things paranormal. Nikki operated on the
whole if- you-don’t-acknowledge-ghosts-they-can’t-bother-you theory and so far
it had worked so far wonderfully.
Then again, Nikki had
only come here at night once in her life, and that had not turned out well at
all. So maybe ignoring ghosts didn’t work, because she liked to think
she was possessed by
one of ghosts that supposedly wandered the halls, and that was what provoked
her to do what she’d done that night.
Nikki was well aware
of how the house was run because she’d spent most of her summer vacations in
the house watching her mom, so she got to work pretty quickly once her father
left her.
First thing first was
tracking down what staff they did have at the house. Understaffed
her butt! The only staff they had left was her dad; the landscaper who was
constantly mowing grass it seemed or re-mulching; the de Vincent driver; and
Mrs. Kneely, an older woman who’d done the laundry services since Nikki was a
little girl.
Beverly Kneely
actually owed her own laundry business and only came to the house three times a
week to take care of the linens and clothing.
According to Bev, whom
she found in the large mudroom at the back of the house, packing up clothing
that needed to be dry-cleaned, over the last couple of months, nearly everyone
had quit.
“So, let me get this
straight.” Nikki smoothed back a few strands that had escaped the knot she’d
pulled her hair up in. “The waiters are gone, as are the maids?”
Bev’s buxom chest
heaved as she nodded. “It’s just been your parents for the last three months. I
think all that work was wearing poor Livie down.”
Anger flashed through
Nikki. Hadn’t the de Vincents noticed how thin and tired her mom had been
getting? How quickly she got out of breath? “Why didn’t the de Vincents hire
someone to help?”
“Your father tried,
but no one around here wants to come close to this place, not after what
happened.”
She frowned. “You’re
talking about Lawrence? What he did?”
Bev tied up the bags.
“Not like that wasn’t bad enough, but that wasn’t the straw the broke the
camel’s back around here.”
Nikki had no idea
what she was talking about. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve been updated on all
the crazy. What else happened?”
Looking around the
room, Bev arched her brows as she headed toward the side door. “Walls got ears.
You know that. You want to know what’s been going on here, you ask your father
or one of the boys.”
Her lips pursed. She
was so not asking the boys.
Bev stopped at the
door and looked back. “I don’t think Devlin is going to be happy when he sees
what you’re wearing.”
“What’s wrong with
what I’m wearing?” It was jeans and a black tee shirt. No way was she going to
dress like her mom or her dad. Her willingness to help her parents did not
extend to wearing uniforms.
She looked down at
herself and saw the hole just below the knee.
Nikki
sighed.
Devlin was probably going to have a
problem with the hole, but what Nikki wanted to
know was what the
hell had happened in this house to drive almost all the staff away?
It had to be something.
Not
just because the de Vincents paid extraordinarily well, but also because her
father hadn’t told her.
And that meant it was
something really bad.
Moonlight Seduction is out June 26th,
2018!
Marriage of Inconvenience by Penny Reid
