LITMIR.BIZ

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to stop her, for her driving was atrocious. They never made it down the mountain.”

      She winced, pinching her eyes shut. “And your sister?”

      “I learned later that Edouard was waiting to whisk Suzette away to America.” To the Chateau Mystique. He stared at her, letting her see the anguish and torment he’d lived with for years.

      “What happened to you after your parents died?”

      “I was shipped off to a distant relative.”

      “Then you were raised by family?”

      André laughed—the sound as cold and calculating as his mother’s conniving cousin. Only by the grace of God and his own determination had he survived.

      “They didn’t want me, ma chérie, but they gladly accepted the monthly allowance they were given to keep me.”

      “I know how difficult that kind of life is.”

      “You can’t begin to guess. While you were taking your lessons at an elite boarding school, I was working when the local school wasn’t in session.”

      He glanced out the window at the bloated moon, the pain of being shuffled off to strangers still festering under the service. He’d had a roof over his head, a small closet-like room with a cot to call his own, and food that had been better fitted for the swine raised on the farm.

      “Who provided your allowance?” she asked, her voice small.

      “Edouard Bellamy. He paid them to keep me out of his and Suzette’s way.”

      André had counted the days until he could escape that hell. Marked time toward the day he would ruin Edouard Bellamy.

      “I’m so sorry,” she said.

      “Don’t be.” He didn’t want her pity. Nor would he admit how deep those scars cut—how much he blamed himself for telling his father what his sister had done. “Suzette made her choice. I made mine.”

      How ironic that Edouard and Suzette had died after a horrible car wreck. Poetic justice? Perhaps.

      “Why can’t you give up your vengeance?” Kira asked.

      “Pride. Le code d’honneur,” he said, and when she slid him a questioning look added, “My honor demands I avenge those who have wronged my family.”

      She shook her head, looking rather appalled. “That’s it? You vowed to ruin Edouard because your sister willingly became his mistress?”

      Mon Dieu, she made it sound trivial. “There is more to it than that.”

      He drove his fingers through his hair, loath to talk about his parents. They’d been spoiled and rich, living for the moment in whatever spotlight shone on them. They had been ill suited to raise a family or manage their wealth.

      André reasoned it had been only a matter of time before his parents made a powerful enemy. Not surprisingly, it had been his mother who’d played a dangerous game with Edouard Bellamy—all to make her husband jealous enough to cease his wanderings.

      He doubted either parent had realized Edouard Bellamy was vindictive to a fault. That when Bellamy realized he’d been played for a fool he’d ruthlessly lured André’s father into bankruptcy and André’s sister into his bed.

      “André?” she asked. “What happened? Tell me.”

      “My father built the Chateau Mystique for my mother,” he said. “His gift to her. Before it was completed Bellamy set out to acquire it by dubious means. I am merely reclaiming what belonged to my family and restoring our honor.”

      She stared at him for the longest time, then lifted her hands and clapped, the sound obscene in the tense stillness. “Bravo, André. You have accomplished what you set out to do in the name of honor by employing dubious means—just like Edouard.”

      He bristled, hating the comparison. Hating that she was right. But at least he wasn’t alone.

      “Look in the mirror, ma chérie. You came here to do Peter Bellamy’s bidding. You are the one enceinte. Or have you so quickly forgotten the role you played for him three months ago?”

      She scooted from the bed, her face ashen. “I’m going to my room to sleep. The ghosts in here make it too crowded.”

      André took a step forward to stop her, then stilled the urge. The timing was bad. He’d only dig a bigger hole for himself if he pulled her back to him as he longed to do. If he kissed her. Loved her. Sought comfort in her arms.

      His emotions were too raw. Tomorrow, he thought, as she left the bedroom without looking back.

      Tomorrow he’d have total control of Bellamy Enterprises—and of Kira Montgomery.

       CHAPTER EIGHT

      KIRA curled in a ball on her bed, too heartbroken to cry. What good would tears do now?

      Her father hadn’t just crushed André’s family. Edouard had ripped André away from everything he’d known. Everyone he’d loved. He’d somehow acquired the Chateau—the hotel André’s father had built for his mother—and he’d ensconced André’s sister there as his mistress.

      She understood André’s agony, his rage, for she’d lived with something similar herself. Only it had been her own mother who’d abandoned her to Edouard’s care, and his brand of accepting responsibility had been to ship her off to boarding school in England.

      From the day she’d first met Edouard he’d referred to her as his “shameful obligation.” She’d believed herself inferior to his legitimate family. Insignificant. And always unwanted.

      To think she’d tried so hard to win Edouard’s favor, his attention, as a child hungry for affection. To think she’d been so desperate for love that she’d agreed to keep her paternity a secret all her life. That she’d never gone against Edouard’s wishes and contacted his “real” family.

      Yes, she and André had both suffered at Edouard Bellamy’s hands, though she feared André would not view her experience the same way. Because she was a Bellamy, and there was nothing she could do about that.

      A man like André did not forgive deceit. And she’d deceived him. Was still deceiving him.

      Her hands glided over her belly, cradling the life that grew there. She should’ve told him the truth from the start. Gotten it out in the open before she lost her heart to him. Let her ghosts dance and rattle their chains along with his.

      But she hadn’t, because postponing the inevitable was easier than facing the truth. Because she was afraid to trust that he’d do the right thing. Because she didn’t want anything to throw a pall over their passionate tryst on this island. She wanted to prolong the inevitable.

      Now she was too tired to think straight—too exhausted from spent passion and from the tangled dreams she’d spun of her and André and their child. She was simply too heavy of heart to risk seeing the thin thread binding them snap in two.

      She’d seek him out in the morning and tell him everything, for the guilt of lying to him was tearing her apart. She had to believe that love was stronger than hate.

      André had been hunched over his desk since dawn, gaze fixed on the computer screen. The work he’d hoped to immerse himself in this morning stared back at him. The latest financial report was a jumble of words, none making sense. The spreadsheet might as well be random figures.

      All he could think about was Kira and the stricken look on her face when she’d left his bedroom. He’d shocked her by admitting he was Suzette’s brother, and shocked himself by revealing so much about his family’s connection to Edouard Bellamy. None of his contemporaries knew. Not one. So why had he trusted Kira with the truth?

      He

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