by Caro LaFever
Knight in Black Leather
International Billionaires XI: The Latinos
Caro LaFever
ViVaPub
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Prince so handsome, prince so charming, Change into a Bear, hairy and alarming.
El Principe Oso
Chapter 1
Lucas Miró Porras gritted his teeth.
It was something he did a lot lately.
“Stop doing that. It makes you look like a freaky bear,” his sous-chef said, in her usual mild tone.
Eulalie Vincent majored on mild, so he could major on mad.
He grunted, keeping his focus on the fetid, lewd piece of crap that had invaded his neighborhood. The youngest girl was talking to that hippie boyfriend of hers. The one who wore a scarf in the middle of a New Orleans summer and drove a mini-motorbike he thought made him look cool.
Idiot.
“No amount of growling or grinding your teeth changes the facts.” Lali pointed out something she’d been pointing out for the last two months. “The fact is your father—”
“I know.” Swinging around from the piece of crap, he strode away from the full-length window he’d had installed in his restaurant only two weeks before the crap had ruined the view out onto his street.
His street.
Del Bosque Street lay in the center of New Orleans’ French Quarter. The entire street, both sides, had been owned by either the Miró family or the Porras family since the city was founded three hundred years ago. His popa’s ancestors had arrived with its first French governor and his mami’s Spanish forbearers came soon after. Smartly, both families had gobbled up large tracts of land on the Mississippi river, as well as in the burgeoning city itself. When his mami and popa married and were blessed with only one child, all that property had passed down and down and down to him.
All of it. Every last piece of it had been deeded to him on his thirtieth birthday.
As it should have been.
Except for one slice of Del Bosque Street.
One piece of the Miró Porras kingdom his popa had stupidly let go in a fit of friendship. It had been bad enough when he’d been told about the sale to some con artist Cajun. His popa had assured him, though, that Mr. Blanchard would keep leasing to the regular tenants. Plus, Luc didn’t like fighting with his father. That never went well. So, he’d gritted his teeth and made semi-peace with the whole situation for the last five years.
However, his dear, deluded popa had been wrong.
As soon as Karl Beuze, a man who’d been a family friend and a tenant in good standing for thirty years, decided to close his bookstore across the street, Mr. Cajun-ass Blanchard had leased the store to…
His three crazy granddaughters.
Trois Sœurs, announced the ugly sign above their new shop. A shop that sported crap like herbal lotions and voodoo dolls and other assorted atrocities. Strange lights blasted from the display in the front window, crossing his street to muck up his sophisticated restaurant storefront.
Trois Sœurs.
Three sisters straight from hell.
“They aren’t that bad, Luc,” his perpetually cheerful sous-chef said from behind him. Although she was at least a half a foot shorter than him, she still managed to follow right on his footsteps as they entered the center of his kingdom.
The kitchen at El Porras was his masterpiece.
It was also the one place he felt at home.
His mami said it was his cave. And the way she said it made it clear she didn’t think that was a positive thing. But he’d gotten good at ignoring his worried mother for years.
“They seem nice, actually,” Lali suggested, from the swinging doors leading out of the dining area. “Especially the youngest one.”
He grunted his disgust before disappearing into the large walk-in cooler.
Steel racks lined both walls, filled with King Snapper, Crevalle Jack, marbled grouper, Coho salmon—all delivered this morning from the fish market. Tonight, he planned on an all-fish menu in honor of the hundredth anniversary of his gra-mèere’s birth. The woman wasn’t here on earth anymore, but since this restaurant wouldn’t exist without her influence on him, he figured it was appropriate to remember. Gra-mèere had always enjoyed her fish.
The door popped open, just as he began to inspect the various cuts.
“Luc.” His sous- chef’s voice had gone high. Which meant that she was excited about something.
He grunted.
“There’s someone here to see you.”
The mullet didn’t look fresh. That pissed him off, because he insisted on getting only fresh. He needed to call his supplier. The man should know better after ten years.
“Luc.”
“Tell them to go away.”
“It’s your new neighbor.”
At that announcement, his head swung up in surprise. After the first and only confrontation two months ago, he’d assumed the three crazy sisters got the message. He wouldn’t have to deal with any of them until he’d figured out a way to get their lease broken, or buy the entire property, bringing it back to the true owner—himself. His lawyers hadn’t had much success so far in negotiating with the cussed Cajun grandfather, but Lucas wasn’t worried. Everyone had a price. And what his popa didn’t know, wouldn’t hurt him.
“The youngest one.” Her white teeth contrasting with her dark skin, Lali beamed. As if this was a good thing.
“Tell her to leave.” He turned his attention to the fish once more, yet a niggle of curiosity wormed its way into his brain. That made him frown.
“She looks pretty determined, if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask.” Brushing away the curiosity, he noted the oysters looked fantastic. Perhaps he’d start tonight’s special with his cornbread and red onion recipe, fried with these.
“Your mami is going to be so disappointed.”
He glanced at his friend. Wearing her typical garb of airy cotton shirt, khaki cargo pants, and clogs, Lali oozed lazy ease. Although she was six years younger than he, Luc had pegged her as an old soul the moment she’d stepped into his office to apply for a job. She lounged in the cooler’s doorway, her expression wry, her gaze wise. Like his mami, Eulalie Vincent had witnessed the debacle five years ago, and the aftermath as well. Like his mami, she’d seen him fall apart and then, slowly piece himself back together. And like his mami, she still insisted he needed to go further, push himself out of his cave.
He liked his cave. “I don’t know why my mother should care if I talk to a crazy woman.”
“I’m not crazy.” A light, amused voice wafted from the kitchen.
Luc went taut. “You let her in?”
“She knocked on the back door. What else was I supposed to do?”
“Tell her to leave?” He could see, though, he’d lost the battle by the look in Lali’s eyes. She wasn’t going to throw the woman out, so he had to. The thought made him growl.
“Don’t do that. It makes you sound like a nasty bear.”
Sweeping past her, he strode into his kingdom with a scowl, ready to dismiss this intruder with several sharp words.
He came to an abrupt stop.
In the last two months, from his restaurant’s front windows, he’d observed all three sisters. The tallest one must be married, because she often had a blond kid in tow, and she wore comfortable clothes designed to dash after a child. The second one tended toward the pearls-and-linen type of wear, the kind of dress his Aunt Marli favored. Yet his gaze, much to his disgust, had mostly landed on the youn
gest. He knew she was the youngest because Lali had told him so, but also because she chose the typical clothing of a college student. Tight jeans or baggy sweat pants. Hoodies combined with a T-shirt or tank top. Ragged-looking tennis shoes, with not a high heel in sight.
Right now, however, she had on high heels.
In the few short minutes since he’d seen her outside, she’d changed. Everything.
“Hi,” she piped.
The shoes were bright pink, like the salmon he planned on cooking tonight. The shoes matched the cardigan she’d put on over the dress. A dress. This girl never wore dresses. Not in the entire two months he’d observed her.
“What’s the occasion?” Folding his arms, he leaned against the granite counter. “Getting married?”
She made a low sound in her voice. It was a mix of merriment and sex. A combination and a noise he’d never heard. To his utter exasperation and complete disbelief, his cock stirred.
That hadn’t happened in front of a woman in years.
The realization turned his irritation at this girl and her sisters and her shop into pure anger. “This kitchen isn’t open to outsiders. You need to leave.”
At his bark, her eyes widened. During their first altercation, he’d noticed they were an odd color, but he’d been too busy yelling to care. Now, though, he grudgingly identified them as a blue-gray. Striking against the pearly cream of her skin.
Pearly. He sounded like some adolescent writing dreadful poetry.
Mierda.
“Get out,” he grumbled. “The door’s right behind you.”
Nina Blanchard believed most people were wonderful. Almost all. They might have their bad moments and their quirky ways, yet at the core, most people had good hearts.
Except for this guy standing before her.
Jeanie said it must be something he was eating to make him so disagreeable, and he needed to change his diet. Heni thought he might have psycho tendencies, and needed a psychiatrist. Paw-Paw said the man was aggressively nasty because his father had sold the property to him instead of giving it to his son. The man had a right to his feelings, her grandfather added, and he just needed some time to get over it.
They were all wrong.
What this man needed was his very own voodoo doll that she’d cheerfully stick pins in.
“We need to talk.” She clenched her teeth in a smile because she was desperate enough to play nice.
“Nothing to talk about.” His lounging body told a story of supreme indifference, yet the expression on his face told her he hadn’t changed his opinion of her since they’d met that fateful day two months ago. He hated them and their shop with a passion because they carried dirty, disgusting wares. She remembered the words he’d thrown.
Dirty, disgusting. Fetid crap.
As if he had standing to talk.
Such a saleau, this man. Such a sloppy, surly beast of a man.
His black hair hung around his face in loops of curls that could be deliciously sexy if combed. Except they weren’t, so he looked like he’d just climbed out of bed. His jaw was covered in whiskers that again, had potential. Still, he hadn’t trimmed them, and so they were wasted. Those dark-brown eyes could dazzle if they didn’t constantly glare. His height and heft were a pleasure to gaze at and, she had to admit, she’d caught herself spying on him a time or two. Still, the way he held himself, so tight and angry…the body, too, was a waste on this man.
Such a waste.
A saleau. Definitely.
Straightening, Nina reminded herself about why she was here. She wasn’t here to judge this man. She was here to charm him into agreement. Her sisters had chided and scolded and teased her as she’d dressed and prepared at the shop. But a proper pouponer was needed and she’d learned from her mama how to look nice. Heels. Powder on the face. An appropriate dress.
All for this saleau.
Who didn’t appreciate it, apparently. Yet.
Widening her smile, she smoothly eased onto one hip and tilted her breasts his way. These were skills she’d absorbed from a very young age. Skills her mama insisted every woman needed. Skills she’d discarded when she’d gone to Tulane and realized they didn’t work when a girl wanted to be taken seriously. But she never forgot a lesson.
A short gust of a laugh came from his assistant.
She liked the woman. They’d run into each other on the street several times and Lali was always pleasant. Why she would work for a man like this—a peunez, a porro, a stinkbug wart of a man—Nina had no idea.
The scowl on his face turned into an expression of pure evil. His dark brows fell into a glower, and his mouth went grim and tight. Then, the porro growled.
At her. At her Sunday best dress and powdered face.
Truly, she needed a voodoo doll.
“You need to leave, right now.” He growled again.
Nina could see this was a hopeless cause, but she was the queen of hopeless causes, and never gave up. “I think we should have a street festival.”
Her words bounded into the room like little fawns, ready to be gobbled up by a big, bad wolf.
Which is exactly what he did. His mouth opened and he chewed her idea to pieces. “Del Bosque Street is mine. There is no way I will allow you to dirty it up with your profane wares.”
“Profane wares?” Dirty and disgusting she could handle—perhaps the man needed only to learn. But profane was an entirely different accusation. Profane meant he’d made a harsh judgment, something no fair person would do without a hearing. Her temper, something she rarely experienced, rose. “What does that mean?”
He tensed and took a step toward her. Since he had extra-long legs, something she’d noticed with reluctance, he entered her personal space with the one stride. Nina wasn’t terribly short, though she wasn’t terribly tall, either. Consequently, he overshadowed her, his broad shoulders cutting off the light. His chest, covered in a simple, navy-blue T-shirt that emphasized his pectorals, loomed in front of her, making her catch her breath.
The saleau smelled good. Like sweet custard and toasted pecans.
At the thought, she reared back.
“Excellent,” he snarled. “Keep going.”
Her temper simmered to the boiling point, not only because he was a jerk, but because she suddenly realized she was attracted to said jerk. “You are a horrible man.”
“Yes, I am.” Taking another step toward her, his lips turned into a grimace, as if the man were attempting to smile and couldn’t because she was in his kitchen. “You’d be wise to stay away from me and mine.”
“I can have a street festival without your permission.” She gulped in a breath, this time from her mouth, not her nose, to avoid his scent, and stood her ground. As her Maw-Maw had often said, it was always an excellent idea to give a person more than one chance. “Except I thought if all the shops participated, it would be better.”
“Better for whom?” he said, the brown of his eyes glittering with irritation. “For you and your lewd shop?”
“Lewd?” The shop’s stock might be avant-garde, but so what? It didn’t mean she was out to offend. In one second, she lost a temper she’d never lost before. Stepping into his space, she jabbed an unpainted finger into his chest.
It was quite hard, that chest.
Distracted for a moment, she stared at her finger pressed into the soft cotton of the T-shirt, and his solid wall of muscles.
“Lewd,” he muttered above her.
Thankfully, that brought her brain back to reality. She poked him again. “Are you claiming my store is lewd?”
“I’m not claiming.” His words were rough and tough, but he retreated from her poke. “I’m telling you it is.”
“How would you know, capon?” she said. “You’ve never entered the place.”
His brows rose. “What did you call me?”
“Like you don’t know, you coward,” she spat at him, all thoughts of making nice gone.
“Let’s calm down, shall we?” Lali co
unseled.
“I am calm.” Swiveling, he showed Nina his big, broad back. “I’m also done with this conversation. Get her out of here.”
With that grand announcement, he disappeared into the kitchen’s cooler.
His assistant eyed her, her mouth in a moue. “Maybe try later. I think it’s a good idea.”
“He is une bête puante, a saleau,” she grumbled under her breath. “I hate him.”
“He can be difficult, but he’s not hopeless.”
Nina humphed, crossing her arms and trying to think of a Plan B. Plan A had been a desperate gamble, she’d known that coming here. She should have also known a pretty dress wasn’t going to impress Del Bosque Street’s resident grouch. Everyone along the street seemed resigned to his endless grumbles and growls. They accepted him as is.
Why?
Mrs. Williams had advised offering him one of the oil paintings from her art gallery as a gift to soothe him. Mr. Touslare, who owned the bakery next to her shop, agreed that Luc Miró was a man to stay clear of, although it was understandable why he acted the way he did. Ms. Faulkner, hunkered on the stool in her coffee café, mumbled darkly about cruel happenings and bitter realizations. The vague curiosity she’d felt at the time of these conversations now returned with a vengeance. “Why is he so angry? Why can’t he get along with people?”
Lali gazed at her, her brown eyes solemn. “It’s a long story, and he’d kill me if I told you.”
Frustration ran through her, and with it, her belief in people. Most people were good at heart. Why wasn’t Luc Miró? “Something needs to be done.”
“Correct.” The other woman grinned, a quick flash of glee. “And I believe you’re exactly the woman to do it.”
Chapter 2
“Well, Boo.” Her oldest sister, Jeanie, sighed. Pushing her blonde hair behind her ear, she sunk her slim body into the nearest chair. “We knew it was a long shot.”
“I haven’t given up,” Nina protested, pacing around the small sitting area they’d assembled in the back office, her rare temper still boiling. “There’s got to be some way to get him to agree.”