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“Hello?” I called again, and a muffled groan answered me from beyond the closest doorway. I followed the noise and found a man sitting on a sofa, his head in his hands.
“Jean Boucher?” I phrased his name like a question, but of course it was fucking him. I’d observed him in La Petite Mort often enough.
He looked up, and his eyes widened. His face paled and he covered his mouth with his hand. “I didn’t think you’d come.”
He inched away from me until he was almost at the edge of the chaise, and fear radiated from him, turning the air in the room thick and cloying.
I moved aside some dirty glasses on a low coffee table and set the paperwork down so he could see it. He swayed a little and his face paled further.
“What’s going on?” A voice spoke from the doorway, and I didn’t even need to turn to know it was the woman whose scent seemed to have become part of my DNA, however impossible.
“I… I called Nicolas. This is Nicolas Dupont. We need his help.” Boucher’s voice was shaky, but I shook my head.
I hadn’t gotten those messages, beyond Benedict’s brief mentions. “That’s not why I’m here.”
Boucher tried again. “There are some things I need to explain, Leia.” His eyes pleaded with the woman I still hadn’t looked at, and I held myself stiff as I tried not to glance at her. “I’ve made a mistake,” he whispered.
“You’ve made a lot of fucking big mistakes, Dad,” Leia—her name was Leia—said. “But what have you done this time?”
“I used the house.” Boucher closed his eyes and groaned. “I used the house and the bar as collateral. I wanted… I wanted Mr. Dupont to extend my line of credit, but it looks like he’s come to call in my debt instead.”
I nodded then clucked my tongue and shook my head slowly. “Ah, Jean,” I said, trying to look as though I was considering a problem when I’d already worked out my next play. “I have come to call in what you owe me, but I might have a more favorable solution.”
“Anything.” He almost reached for me as desperation lit his bloodshot eyes.
I fanned the paperwork over the table, then drew his attention to the relevant subclause. “Do you remember this addition you made?”
He looked at me, his eyes widening as he slowly shook his head. “Not that,” he whispered.
I nodded. “Oh yes, you’ve got something of great value that I’d like very much indeed.”
I looked over my shoulder and allowed myself a small smile at Leia’s surprise as she met my gaze.
Chapter 3
Leia
Holy fuck. Those gray eyes, that full mouth. I’d know those lips anywhere. I could still feel them on my own. I lifted my hand and pressed my finger to my mouth briefly as the memory washed over me, and Nicolas Dupont’s pupils flared as he watched the movement.
My skin heated as I remembered dreams that had ended with me tangled in my sheets, odd half-thoughts of this man’s tongue skating across my skin still echoing in my mind.
But right now, fury overshadowed sexual desire, repressing any crazy urge I’d had to sleep with him. No. Now, I wanted to karate chop him to the throat or knee him really hard in the balls.
What the hell, right? The man who’d sent insane awareness and desire whirling through me, stealing my self-control and making me want to forget myself, had just turned up in my home.
Apparently to take my home. I shook my head and glanced toward the staircase that had been ornate once upon a time. Maybe I was still asleep. Dreaming. Something.
“Dad?” I didn’t do a whole lot hesitantly in my life—taking care of Dad and The Pour House had taught me I had to mean it or no one would take me seriously, but I couldn’t help the tentative note in my voice now. “What’s going on?”
“Miss Boucher.” The man who didn’t belong here stood and offered his hand. “I’m Nicolas Dupont.”
“So my father said.” I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes, even though the French pronunciation he gave his name sent a flutter of excitement through me.
After a moment of awkwardness that I was determined not to make any easier, Nicolas Dupont retracted his hand and sat down, reaching for the paperwork he’d laid out for Dad. “The terms are all in here. Your father has accumulated significant debt at La Petite Mort—”
I gasped. I recognized the name of the casino, but there was something strangely erotic about the phrase on Nicolas Dupont’s lips. I wandered to the other side of the room because there was something magnetic about him, and I clearly needed to avoid his pull.
Dad held his head in his hands, not meeting my gaze, and I swallowed against the lump of anxiety lodged in my throat.
