Moonlight Seduction

by Jennifer L. Armentrout

  Sabrina sat down, but she glared up at Nikki. “The cost to clean these pants should be taken out your paycheck.”

  “Dev already said he’d buy you a new pair,” Gabe interjected. “They’re just pants.”

  Sabrina gasped. “They’re not just pants. They’re Armani. They don’t even make these pants any longer.”

  Across the table, Devlin sighed once more. “I will buy you an entire closet’s worth of Armani pants if you will stop talking about those pants.”

  Sabrina’s lips thinned, but she was quiet as she picked up her napkin and blotted at the wet spot.

  Because Nikki couldn’t help herself, she asked, “Would you like me to get you another glass?”

  “No,” snapped Sabrina, her pale cheeks flushing pink.

  “As you wish.” A quick glance across the table told Nikki that the brothers did, in fact, know what had happened was no accident.

  Apologizing once more, Nikki crept back from the table, fighting the laugh bubbling up in her throat. As she left the room, she couldn’t help but notice that Gabe wasn’t grinning as he watched her from under his thick lashes.

  Oh, no, the man was smiling that smile that had gotten her in trouble all those years ago, and her stupid, stupid reckless heart jumped in her chest.

  After the worst first day on a job, Nikki couldn’t get out of the de Vincent compound fast enough. Slipping out the back entrance, she hurried to where her nearly decade-old Ford Focus was parked next to the garage that housed who knew how many cars.

  Turning on the car, she immediately cranked up the music and an old eighties song blared out of the speakers. Immediately, she recognized the song. It was “Jesse’s Girl.”

  Man, she loved that song.

  For some reason, she loved songs from the eighties. Maybe it had to do with her parents listening to it as she grew up, but she hated most of the music of today, preferring to sing along to David Bowie or Talking Heads than whoever was currently popular.

  Though, she did go through a One Direction phase at one point in her younger years.

  Like she always did when she was restless, she started to sing along, bobbing her head. “Where can I find a woman—blah, blah—Jesse’s girl!”

  God. She sucked, but she kept on, following the curve of the road as she drove past ancient oaks. That way, as she focused on not butchering the lyrics, she didn’t think about her craptastic day as she drove down the winding, tree-lined road that led to the main highway. She didn’t think about how she was going to have to face Gabe again and again.

  Reaching the end of the private road, she slowed and leaned forward. No cars coming. She pulled out, hanging a right—heading back out into the real world, where people didn’t have someone waiting in the wings to refill their champagne glasses or—

  Bright light suddenly poured through the back window of her Focus, startling her. Glancing in the rearview mirror, her brows pinched as headlights appeared. Strange. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. No one had been on the road when she pulled out. There was no way someone would get behind her that quickly unless they’d . . . they’d pulled out of the de Vincent road.

  Her stomach dipped.

  That would be impossible, because who would’ve been on that road? No one else was there, and wouldn’t she have seen a car sitting along that road? Her gaze flipped back to the rearview mirror. The car was still there, not on her ass, but it was close. There was a good chance that a car could’ve been parked between any number of the trees or on one of the dirt access roads used by the landscapers.

  But who’d be sitting there?

  No one would dare loiter on the de Vincent property.

  Unease blossomed as she continued down the highway, slowing down as traffic picked up around her. She kept looking in the mirror and each time she did, she saw the car right behind her. All she could make out in the fading sunlight was that it was a dark-colored sedan. When she turned off to take one of the streets to her parents’ house, the car—holy crap—the car made the same turn.

  Nikki’s heart lurched into her throat as she hit the button on the steering wheel to turn the radio down. She needed to concentrate.

  Was she being followed?

  That . . . that would be ridiculous.

  She glanced up. The car was still there. Her throat felt funny as she thought of her phone. It was in her purse. She started to reach for it, but then stopped. Who was she going to call? The police? And tell them what? Possibly some car was following her? Again, that sounded ridiculous.

  Pressing her lips together, she focused on the busy street and houses practically stacked on top of one another. The street to her parents’ house was coming up, in two blocks. If the car turned . . .

  Nikki would call the police. No matter how stupid it sounded, she would call them.

  Nearly holding her breath, she turned and sped up, hastily looking in the rearview mirror. The car slowed at the intersection, causing her to suck in a sharp breath. She was wrong. The car was a two-door—a coupe of some sort, but she couldn’t make out the model.

  The car sped up, clearing the intersection.

  It did not turn.

  Nikki let out a rough breath as she neared her parents’ house, waiting for the relief to kick in—the laughter to spill out of her, but it didn’t come and the unease didn’t go away.

  Chapter 5

  “How was it, being back there?” Livie Besson asked as she shuffled over to the kitchen table. Despite the warm temps outside that the old central air could barely beat back, she was bundled up in her robe. It swallowed her thin body as she sat down.

  Sipping her coffee, Nikki watched her mom try to get comfortable. The treatments were pretty aggressive, taking her hair and then her strength. Even the days when her mother wasn’t spending eight hours getting chemo and fluids through an IV, she was still exhausted. She’d be more at ease in her recliner, but her mom wanted to keep to old habits. Although she’d switched out her coffee for some kind of tea that was supposed to be better for her.

  “It’s weird,” Nikki answered, pushing past the concern and the seed of fear steadily growing in her stomach, the one that whispered, Would Mom get better? “Some things are the same. Like Devlin. And parts of the house, but it . . . feels different. I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “How is Devlin doing?”

  “Okay, I guess? He didn’t like that my jeans had a hole in them.”

  A fond smile graced her lips. “Devlin likes things to be a certain way.”

  She rolled her eyes. Only her mother could feel fondness for Devlin. “I haven’t seen Lucian yet, but . . . Gabe came home yesterday.”

  Her mom took another drink of her tea. “Was he in Baton Rouge?”

  “Yeah.” Curiosity filled her. “What’s he been doing there?”

  “I believe tending to some personal business,” her mom answered in a way Nikki couldn’t be sure if she knew more than what she was saying or not.

  A weird, uncomfortable burn lit up her chest nonetheless. Was the personal business a girlfriend? He had to have one. Probably several. He’d gone a little wild after he and his college girlfriend broke up. Emma. God, just thinking her name was like a throat punch. Nikki barely knew the woman and she’d been crazy jealous of her.

  Not anymore.

  Because Nic didn’t exist anymore.

  Nikki dragged her fingers along one of the deep scratches on the kitchen table. “What happened to all the staff?”

  Her mom glanced at the clock and then straightened the colorful floral scarf she was wearing over her head. “There have been some incidents at the house that have made the staff very uncomfortable.”

  “Bev made it sound like it was more than what happened with their father.” Which was a big deal. Knowing that they’d found the man hanging in his office was horrible. She couldn’t imagine what the brothers felt. “That it was something else. Was it their sister reappearing?”

  Nikki had never spent any amo
unt of time with Madeline de Vincent when she was younger, considering Madeline disappeared when Nikki was twelve, vanishing into thin air the same night the de Vincents’ mother threw herself off the roof.

  Things had been rough for many years after that for the brothers, and before that, Nikki was simply never around Madeline. But she was dying to know where Madeline had been for ten years, where she was now, and why everyone had kept it quiet.

  A moment passed. “There are things that have happened in the last couple of months that are not my story to tell.”

  “Mom—”

  “You know I would, if I could.” She reached across the table, placing her cool hand over Nikki’s. She squeezed gently. “You know how their family is. Things just happen to them. Bad things.”

  Bad things happening to the de Vincents was, like, the understatement of the year. After all, it was believed that the de Vincents were cursed. Like seriously. That was how bad the bad things that happened to them were.

  “What I can tell you is that there was another death there recently,” her mom said. “It was in the papers, so I’m not breaking any confidence by telling you.”

  She hadn’t seen anything, but then again, she’d purposely ignored all things de Vincent related. “What death?”

  “Do you remember their cousin Daniel?” When Nikki nodded, her mom continued. “Well, he broke into the house one night, threatened Lucian and his dear girlfriend. Was going to kill them. Devlin . . . Devlin defended them.”

  “What?” Nikki gasped. “Devlin killed Daniel?”

  “In self-defense,” her mom stressed. “And there was some speculation about Mr. de Vincent’s suicide—that it wasn’t one. That someone had hung that man up there and framed it as a suicide.”

  Nikki’s jaw was practically on the table.

  “One of the detectives thinks it might’ve been Daniel’s doing.”

  “Why?”

  “He was out of money. Needed some, and you know what money does to people.”

  Nikki was stunned. She hadn’t known Daniel that well either. He was always with Madeline. “What does Daniel have to do with Madeline’s reappearance?”

  Her mother sat back. “Well, that goes to a place I’m not comfortable talking about, but I’m sure you remember how close he and Madeline were?”

  She started to open her mouth, but an understanding flared, and she snapped her jaw shut. Was her mom insinuating that Madeline had been with Daniel this whole time? And if she had been, were they like together together?

  What in the hell?

  They were cousins! Nikki almost spit up her coffee. She’d been right with her earlier assumption. Whatever happened with Madeline had to be utterly dramalicious.

  “How was seeing Gabriel again?” her mom asked suddenly.

  This time Nikki almost choked on her coffee. “Um, it was okay.”

  A knowing look settled into her mom’s face. “Hmm . . .”

  Uncomfortable with the change in subject, Nikki shifted in the chair. She had no idea if her parents had known how bad her crush on Gabe had been, but they weren’t blind, and according to Devlin, everyone had seen it. She did know that they had no idea what happened that night before she left for college—Gabe was right about that.

  The de Vincents weren’t the only ones in that house capable of murder.

  Her parents would’ve straight up killed Gabe and locked her ass away for an eternity if they knew.

  It was too damn early for Gabe to be awake, but there he was, eyes open and staring at the damn ceiling.

  His temples throbbed.

  And his dick was so hard he could hammer a damn nail with it.

  Hell.

  He’d drunk too much last night, not stopping after he knew Nic left. And he knew exactly when she had left in her older Ford, because he’d been out on the porch when she drove down the winding driveway.

  Watching her like some kind of creep.

  He didn’t even know why he’d gone out there and watched. No clue. He was going to blame the damn alcohol for that one.

  An unwanted grin tugged at his lips as he recalled last night’s dinner. He’d sworn to himself that he wasn’t going down there, but that’s where he found himself.

  Fucking scotch.

  As expected, Sabrina had acted like a bitch toward Nic, and Gabe knew in his core that Nic was only going to take so much from Sabrina before she did something.

  Nic had a recklessness in her that was the size of Lake Pontchartrain. Didn’t he know that? Probably didn’t help that he’d also been messing with her throughout dinner.

  He wasn’t even sure why he’d been such an asshole. Actually, that was kind of a lie. He was angry with her and he was—hell, he wasn’t finishing that train wreck of a thought process.

  But Nikki had definitely spilled that champagne on purpose.

  A hoarse chuckle rumbled out of him as he closed his eyes. Aw Christ, he could still hear Sabrina’s horrified shriek. One would think Nic had punched her or something.

  Fucking Nic. What a . . .

  There were way too many adjectives to describe her and why was he lying in bed thinking about her? Shit. Lifting his hands, he dragged his palms over his face. She was the last person he needed to be worrying about.

  Things between them were clear. He’d told her to stay away from him, and as long as he kept his ass away from her, then it was done. He’d said his piece to her. She’d heard him.

  It was time to close that chapter of his fucking life.

  Besides, he had a bigger chapter that had barely started. When he left Baton Rouge, he promised he’d give the Rothchilds three months without him coming by. He promised that, and he’d be damned if he’d go back on that even if it felt like a part of him was there.

  A part of him actually was there.

  He had three months. That would give him time to find a place up there so he could go back and forth, so that he wouldn’t be coming into their lives like a damn wrecking ball.

  Three months.

  Lowering his arms to the bed, he figured he might as well get the hell up and do something productive. Head to his warehouse in the city. He had work to do.

  But he was going to have to take care of his throbbing dick first.

  Shoving at the sheets twisted at his hips, he reached down, fisting himself. Closing his eyes, he dragged his hand up and down the thick length. In his mind, the woman was faceless, but she was riding him, and what was between her legs replaced his hand.

  He kept that fantasy going. A fine sheen of sweat broke out across his forehead as he stroked himself, faster and harder. Wasn’t long before he felt the familiar coiling at the base of his spine, the tightening in his sac.

  “Christ,” he grunted.

  His hips punched up as he gripped his cock, squeezing tight. In an instant, the nameless, faceless woman in his mind disappeared, replaced by blondish-brown hair and big, brown doe-eyes. The body was a mystery to him, but before he could stop it, the face pieced together out of the wisps of his consciousness. Tiny nose. Wide, expressive mouth. High cheekbones.

  Nic.

  A deep moan rumbled out of Gabe. Release powered down his spine, so intense it felt like it was frying the shit out of his nerve endings as it made its way to the head of his cock. He couldn’t even push the image aside. It was too late. Within seconds, it was Nic riding his cock, it was her clenching and dragging him under. He came, his back bowing as he spilled into his hand, onto the sheets in a powerful rush of sensations.

  Gabe fell back to the bed, his chest rising and falling heavily. When was the last time he’d jerked off and it felt like that?

  Not since he was a goddamn teenager.

  At least it was the twenty-two-year-old Nic he was jerking off to and not the eighteen-year-old version. There was that, right?

  No.

  That wasn’t any better. Not at all.

  “Shit,” he growled, heart racing as he let go of his dick and dropped his hand to the she
ets. He stared at the ceiling.

  This . . . shit; this was going to be a problem.

  Fresh flowers arrived Tuesday afternoon, like they had for years. It was something the de Vincents’ mother started and after she’d passed, Nikki’s mother continued the tradition, personally picking out the arrangements.

  Ten large bouquets were delivered, all identical. The crisp white lilies were seated among white cushion and bronzed, disbudded chrysanthemums. They were arranged in mercury glass julep vases that belonged to the de Vincents.

  Nikki snapped a quick picture and sent it to her mom, knowing she took great pride in the bouquets. Then she went about placing them throughout the designated areas. The flowers were heavy, but the ones downstairs were easy. She carried one to each of the dining rooms and seven more went to various sitting rooms on the main floor.

  Only one had to go upstairs, thank God. Her arms were already starting to ache from having to carry the heavy bouquets. Dev liked one in his office, so she took the back staircase and headed upstairs.

  She was feeling a little out of shape when her legs started to burn as she reached the second level. Maybe she should run for something other than beignets, because goodness, she felt like she needed to sit down.

  Shifting the vase into the nook of her arm, she turned the knob. It didn’t budge. “What the hell?”

  Nikki tried it again, but it was locked. She stood there for a moment, as if it would magically unlock or an explanation would come out of the thin air as to why the door was locked.

  She even tried it again.

  Nothing.

  Groaning, she turned and looked up the third flight of stairs. She could try that door and then access the second floor from the outside stairwell. Her gaze dropped to the pretty flowers.

  “Ugh.”

  Nikki climbed to the third level, and hallelujah, that door was unlocked. She entered the third floor, keeping her gaze on the beams of sunlight streaming through the door at the end of the hall. When she passed the open archway to the right, she didn’t look. That was the hall that led to Gabe’s apartment.