by Serena Janes
Luc was Jo’s perfect fit—his Yang to her Yin—but a tragic loss causes her to leave him without a word.
Separated by each other’s silence, half a world apart, they both search for solace through travel, and in other lovers. But the Black Virgin won’t rest until she sees Jo and Luc reunite.
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Revenge of the Black Virgin
Copyright © 2013 Serena Janes
ISBN: 978-1-77111-651-0
Cover art by Carmen Waters
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.
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Smashwords Edition
Revenge of the Black Virgin
Black Virgin Series, Number 2
By
Serena Janes
To George, for his untiring support, and for letting me get on with it.
Chapter One
That’s the trouble with cults…
Joanna Clifford smoothed her short ruffled skirt and straightened her sweater for the fiftieth time. You’d think you could just run off to the other side of the planet and be done with them. But no…this one’s not going to let me go easily.
She stepped out from behind a pillar at the Vancouver International Airport arrivals hall, unconsciously licking the last of her lipstick away as she watched the automatic doors open and close, open and close, disgorging the bedraggled remnants of a Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong.
Air France passengers would be out next. According to the board—which she’d checked repeatedly—the plane had landed on time. Luc was probably stuck in a line-up, waiting for either Customs or his luggage, she guessed, as she bounced up and down on her toes, glancing at her watch one more time.
It won’t be long now. And then I’ll see him, finally. And he’ll see me, and then…what?
A familiar nausea gripped her as she imagined the expression he’d be wearing when he saw her face. Would there be any love in his eyes? Would there be any longing in them?
Or just fury?
She knew she deserved his fury, for what she’d done. But he was coming all the way to Vancouver to see her. That had to mean something.
Didn’t it?
With trembling fingers Jo took a compact and lipstick out of her bag yet again, and carefully reapplied her pale lipstick. Although the automatic doors weren’t in her sight line, she jumped every time she heard them glide open. Then she would force herself to peek around the edge of the pillar, too frightened to feel embarrassed for hiding like a child.
No. Not yet. A few more minutes of agony. Only a few. And then…what?
Suddenly the atmosphere in the hall swelled with the murmurs and cries of the small crowd of people waiting, like Jo, for their loved ones. She ventured another look and saw a rush of families, lovers, friends coming together—embracing, shaking hands, kissing, pulling luggage in every direction.
Her gaze darted from face to face frantically. No Luc. Not yet. She gulped air and went back to lean against the cool pillar for support, crushing her little suede clutch bag in her damp hands.
She wondered, again, if he’d like the way she looked. She’d chosen every detail of her outfit carefully—the sexy knit dress, the tiny fuzzy sweater, the soft leather sandals. Yesterday she’d had her long hair conditioned and trimmed, and a French mani and pedi. Today she’d suffered waxing, threading, exfoliation and a two-hour yoga class before jumping into the car and driving to the airport.
My head might be a mess but my body’s ready for him. Any minute now…
She had to go to the bathroom. Again. But there was no time. She’d have to wait it out.
Any minute now…And then it will all be good. Just like before.
Maybe…
* * * *
Lucien LaPlante struggled against the restraint of his seat belt and groaned in discomfort. He hated flying. The roar of the engines was too loud to let him empty his mind, and the lack of leg room prevented him from relaxing his body. Anna, his ex-wife and confidante, had booked his flight at the last possible minute, too late to choose a better seat.
Although he was exhausted, it was impossible to doze. But he wasn’t surprised. He hadn’t slept for more than a few hours at a stretch since the night Joanna walked out on him over three months ago. He’d been beating himself up ever since.
Thirty-five years old and I’m a bigger idiot than I was in my teens! How could I let this happen to me?
He began grinding his teeth, a new habit he’d developed. When he was interrupted by a pretty flight attendant asking if he wanted something more to drink, he just shook his head. No.
Only an hour to go. And then…what?
He had no idea.
Loving Joanna had ruined everything good in his life. He’d lost Simone, of course. Who could blame her? After almost a year, he and Simone had been preparing to move in together. She would have made a good wife, and a good step-mother to his son, Daniel. He knew she was anxious to start a family of her own, too, and it had to be soon. Like him, she was in her mid-thirties. But all that was over now.
And his relationship with Daniel had suffered. Against his will, he’d become a distracted and impatient father. He mourned, helpless, as he watched the sensitive eight-year-old grow confused, then silent.
When he couldn’t sleep, he tried whatever he could find to occupy his mind. He couldn’t listen to any type of music because it evoked strong emotions, but he could read. Fiction annoyed him so he turned to history, natural science, and field reports. When morning light distracted him, he went jogging. When the weather was poor, he swam laps at the community center pool.
His only goal was to tire his mind and body enough for sleep. Only sleep could make him forget about Joanna. But sleep evaded him.
His motorcycle trip to Morocco had done little to distract him. Even that crazy Dutch girl, despite her best efforts, couldn’t exorcize Joanna from his heart.
And so here he was, on his way to Vancouver, more frightened than he’d ever been in his life. At the mercy of that damned American woman. The one he’d intuited would be trouble the minute he met her.
I should have trusted my instincts, he told himself one more time.
In addition to the terrible aching in his chest—pain so severe it eclipsed the physical pain of his worst athletic injuries—he was embarrassed at being victimized by his own emotions. It had never happened before. Why now? How could he have been so blind? At the time he was in Joanna’s thrall he would have bet his life she was his.
“Fucking idiot!” He chastised himself again as he heard the pilot announce their descent into YVR.
The old woman sitting beside him gave him a startled look, frowning, and he realized he’d spoken aloud.
“Pardon moi, s’il vous plait,” he mumbled, annoyed with his lack
of control, and wiped his damp palms on his denim thighs.
He wondered again why he was on his way to see the woman who’d crushed him like an ant underfoot. Was it because he still loved her? Or was there revenge in his heart? Did he want to hurt her?
He didn’t know his own motive for throwing down everything to fly halfway around the world. His uncertainty frightened him almost as much as the prospect that she was still lying when she said she loved him. I loved you then, and I love you still, her letter said.
Unconsciously, he raised a hand to touch the folded piece of paper inside his shirt pocket.
Could he believe her? Did he want to? What did he want, really?
He didn’t know. Nor did he know what he would do when he saw her again. Embrace her? Kiss her? Hurl abuse?
All he knew with certainty was that he was compelled to cross the ocean to try to ease the pain in his heart and piece together what remained of his sanity. And then maybe he could get on with the rest of his life.
* * * *
Somewhere in the middle of obsessing, Jo sensed that the crowd in the arrivals hall had thinned. The room was noticeably quieter. She stuck her head out from behind the pillar and scanned the room.
Where is he? He should be…
Her heart recognized her lover before she did. It jammed upwards into her throat, causing her to stumble as she stepped away from her hiding place. Only then did her brain register that her French lover was real, and standing in the middle of the room, looking abstractedly around him.
He was wearing a dark wool sports jacket over a pale shirt. Jeans. Loafers. He hadn’t shaved and his dark hair was longer than she remembered, and rumpled. He looked amazing, her body told her with a spike of adrenaline.
But he wasn’t alone. A stylish blonde with a trolley of luggage stood beside him, talking, searching for something in her over-sized purse. She found what she was looking for—a business card, it seemed—and thrust it at a bewildered-looking Luc.
Jo could hear the woman’s words, now. “If your friend doesn’t show up, give me a call. I’ll be in town for the week.” Batting her lashes she smiled up at him as he fidgeted with his laptop bag. He didn’t seem to know what to do with her card.
Automatically, Jo snapped into action and charged towards them, stopping a few inches short of Luc. He and the blonde turned to look at her. The woman’s face showed fear, Jo smugly noted. Luc’s showed nothing.
Nothing!
Jo stared into his beautiful dark blue eyes. She saw no love there. She saw no longing. But she didn’t detect any fury, either, and without thinking she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and roughly jerked him towards her in a clumsy embrace. Her face burrowed into his chest, and she breathed in the scent that had the power to pull her right back into the cult’s grip. The power to destroy her world all over again.
It was exactly where she wanted to be.
Then she felt his arms wrapping around her, tightly. She heard his suitcase fall onto its side. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the blonde silently melt away. She felt lips kiss the top of her head and tears sprang into her eyes.
She was home.
Chapter Two
Three months earlier. Martel, France.
Joanna thought she was in a taxi. But as the car left the lights of Martel behind and began speeding through the French countryside, she realized it couldn’t be a regular taxi.
“Where are we?” she mumbled against James’ collar as she tried to lift her head and look out the window.
“Shh. Never mind. Try and sleep, darling.” He stroked her hair gently. “We’ll be there soon.”
“Where are we going?” Her head felt so heavy.
“Home, darling.”
These were the last words she heard before falling into a dark hole where nothing mattered anymore.
She remembered almost nothing of the Air France flight to Seattle. Nor did she remember walking into her condo by the harbor, nor James undressing her, tucking her into her own bed and crawling in beside her to hold her through the first long night of terror.
In the morning she awoke in James’ arms, uncomfortable and confused. She didn’t want him in her bed. But she didn’t want to be alone, either. She felt like she should cry, but she couldn’t. Every part of her felt numb, except for her head, which was throbbing. Slowly, she figured out why she was home.
She disentangled herself from James as the weight of two terrible facts hit her full in the face.
My father is dead. I’ll never see him again. And then I left Luc, the man I love, without so much as a goodbye note. I’ll never see him again, either.
Her body began to shake and a terrible nausea welled inside her, making her want to retch. She ran into the bathroom and spewed up some bile. Dry heaves bent her double with pain—there was nothing in her stomach.
Then—finally—she could cry.
She soon discovered why there were such big gaps in her short-term memory—she’d been purposely sedated. It was after she’d managed to eat a bit of yogurt for breakfast, when James tried to get her to swallow another little yellow pill, that she realized what was happening. She thought he’d been feeding her Gravol tablets as they made their way back from France. But Gravol wasn’t yellow, she realized now.
Once she understood what he’d been doing, she stumbled to her feet so quickly that her chair fell over behind her. “You’ve been drugging me?” Her voice rose alarmingly as she grabbed the edge of the table and leaned over him, eyes wide. “You’ve been keeping me drugged so I’d be complacent and follow you home like a good little girl?”
James recoiled slightly.
Jo knew he was shocked at her outburst. She never raised her voice, and now she’d done it twice in two days.
He looked at her steadily, keeping his own voice calm. “It was for the best, sweetheart. I’m protecting you. I know how much you loved your father. I didn’t want you to suffer, and I had to get you home in time for the funeral.”
Jo awkwardly pushed away from the table, spilling her tea, and began to pace in the small dining room, chin thrust out. “Bullshit it was for the best! You misled me. It was wrong, James. Can’t you see that I know that?”
“It was expedient,” he retorted with steely precision. He sat very still, watching her carefully. “You had to get home as soon as possible and I made that happen. I think I deserve a thank you, at least. And maybe an apology.”
Breathing heavily, head pounding with pain, she stopped and looked at him. The intelligent, attractive, successful businessman who crossed an ocean to find her and bring her home in time for her father’s funeral. Who still wanted to marry her—despite how badly she’d behaved.
Maybe he’s right—maybe I’m losing it. Can’t I tell the difference between right and wrong anymore?
For a spilt second she did feel gratitude for everything James had done. She opened her mouth to say so but then immediately remembered the deal-breaker.
He’s also the man who took me away from Luc!
She turned on her heel and ran into the bathroom, slamming the door, too confused to continue. Besides, she knew she’d never win an argument with James. She grabbed a hairbrush and started to run it through her tangled hair.
“Bastard!” she hissed under her breath. But then she felt guilt.
Maybe that’s not fair. But what else can I call a man who’s deliberately denied me my own feelings? And prevented me from making my own decisions?
And that, she knew now, had always been the crux of the problem with James. His need for control.
She had to let him go.
Breaking up with James wasn’t going to be easy. He’d barely left Jo’s side since he followed her up to her room at the gîte in Martel, packed her bag, and rushed her into a hired car to the airport and then onto a plane to Seattle. He considered her his prized possession, she knew, and he never willingly let go of anything. She’d have to be strong.
And, at the moment, she was a mess.
First of all, there was the shock of losing her father—the person she loved and admired more than anyone. Even more than James, it turned out.
So suddenly, too. She couldn’t help thinking that while she was celebrating a physical and spiritual union with Luc, a strange man in a foreign country, her father’s heart had just stopped beating. And to make things worse, Jo felt that it was somehow her fault. If she hadn’t thrown her sanity out the window to join the Cult of the Black Virgin, maybe she wouldn’t have been punished like this.
She knew it was ridiculous to think this way, but then her brain hadn’t been working properly since she took up with Luc.
It wasn’t until she was halfway over the Atlantic that it even registered the terrible thing she was doing. She’d made a serious commitment to her French lover, only to disappear four hours later without a word. She couldn’t imagine how Luc would feel. If only I’d left him a note, she’d told herself a hundred times. If, if if…But it was far too late for that sort of thinking.
Her brain still scrambled by grief, drugs and jet lag, she decided her only chance of regaining Luc’s trust was to contact him as soon as possible. Then she might have a chance of explaining what had happened. And, if she was very, very lucky, he might forgive her.
But that call would have to wait, she told herself as she rifled through her bathroom for some Tylenol. There were too many other things to deal with. Foremost was something too awful to contemplate.
Her father’s funeral.