Chapter 18: Léonie - Crushing His Mountain Flower

The last days of a mountain summer were always hot, like summer didn’t want to let go, didn’t want to stop baking the earth to a fine, crispy finish.

A thunderstorm rumbled in the distance as Hugo and I sat on the front porch, my nose resting on the milky-sweet scent of Ciel’s head.

The most beautiful baby in the whole wide world, we all agreed, as Tilly brought out cups of tea and Armand and Hugo consulted about some security measures.

With Hugo and his big brain now in charge of Savatier business interests, they were already nipping at Bastide heels, trying to figure out how to undercut Étienne with his suppliers, wondering if there was a direct route they could bring some motorcycle parts through.

I was learning so much more about French family business than he had ever told me before.

It was a risk to go against the Bastides, but if anyone could do it and keep his hands clean, it was Hugo.

Without even missing a beat, he took Ciel from me and burped him gently, carefully.

“Oh, Hugo, you’re the best uncle Ciel could ever have. You rock him when he’s fussy, you bring me food when I’m nursing him. I’d do anything for you. I only wish I could help make right what was taken from you.”

“It’s enough to be able to help you, sister. And my nephew.”

But no, it wasn’t, I insisted to myself. I could never repay Hugo enough. I would find some way to get him what he deserved.

It was so bittersweet to know that if Étienne had truly been fooled into believing I was unfaithful, that one sight of this perfect baby and he couldn’t have denied it. They looked so alike, both with the same dark hair, the same shape of their eyes and lips.

My sweet Ciel represented the best of my love for my husband.

But it was a love that hadn’t been returned. Not really.

Maybe with how hard I had loved him, this was always going to be the result. It meant finally I had to face the disparity in our emotions.

My husband thought he could win me back, and with what?

Power, control, manipulation.

He had manipulated all my reactions, made sure they were genuinely broken-hearted and sincere. That was only because his arrogant ass knew how I felt about him.

Étienne had known exactly how much I adored him, and played me for a fool because of it.

He had been to our front gate many times since Ciel’s birth, begging to be let in, pacing back and forth until Hugo had to shoot over his head to get him to leave.

But I would never allow it.

He really thought once he had blackmailed that bride-price out of my family that we could have gone right back to how we were. That a few kisses would have smoothed weeks of heartache over.

That was how he saw my love. Instead of protecting it, or treating my heart like something precious and fragile, he treated it like his due. Something he had paid and purchased so he’d own it forever.

Cocky, arrogant bastard.

Tilly had said he acted very broken-hearted to discover my body. That he’d even cried.

But I felt unmoved by his emotion. By the léger on his forehead.

He was sorry for what? Sorry that I wouldn’t wait around in the hopes he’d someday change his mind?

The part of me that had an endless reservoir of patience, endurance, and love was empty.

He claimed he always loved me, but what did that even mean to someone like him?

I wasn’t the woman he had married anymore. I didn’t know what had changed, or when it had changed, but I wasn’t her.

Just as Ciel began to stir⁠—

We smelled smoke.

Hugo immediately got up to make sure none of it was on Savatier property. After all, we didn’t know when my family might be back for more, we didn’t know how deep their commitment to murdering me was.

And there was no way I could relax my vigilance with Ciel here now.

Although of course he still used a cane, Hugo had grown in so much strength and power since we had escaped. It made me wonder if my mother-in-law hadn’t kept him weak on purpose.

But the fire wasn’t in the house. And it wasn’t along the grounds.

Ciel slept on, with cute little baby half-snorts in my ear as I rested my cheek gently on his head.

Smoke began to plume over the treetops and my eyes were glued on it.

What the hell?

“There,” I said. “It’s coming from over there.”

“What’s that?” Odilia gasped in surprise, adjusting her old-fashioned opera glasses. “What has happened?”

“Isn’t it coming from the Pinoteaux lands?” Tilly asked, darting a sideways glance at me.

“Yes,” I replied. “Yes, I think it is.”

I forced myself to stay calm as thunder rumbled, Ciel still sleeping soundly nestled on my neck. No worry or fear, just total trust in his mother and uncle to always protect him.

But that fire. Who would set a fire in the mountains? Who would take on the Pinoteaux compound, protected with high gates, guards, and bars?

That fire could only be one person. One reckless, dangerous, wild person.

One person who would have timed a dangerous, violent raid right before a thunderstorm so the fire didn’t spread. . .

I forced myself to eat normally, try to act normally. After all, I didn’t know what had happened for sure.

After lunch, a few Savatier scouts came back to report that the Pinoteaux compound was on fire, the grounds covered in Bastide men leaving destruction in their path.

Ciel and I watched the rain from the porch, as it soaked the billowing smoke. But had it extinguished Étienne’s burning revenge?

He had timed it right. He had kept the fire contained.

But what had happened back on my homeland?

“I think that’s your husband now,” Hugo put in, nodding at the road as SUVs began to descend the muddy driveway.

“Coming to buy my forgiveness with blood,” I said, although my emotions felt chaotic and unstable.

“Want me to order him chased away?”

“No,” I said. “I want to see what he has to say, or he’ll just keep coming back.”

Who had been killed? And why should I congratulate him for adding my family’s lands to his own?

Snuggling Ciel in his wrap, I picked up an umbrella and walked slowly down to the gate.

Étienne was pacing back and forth, and every time he passed the entrance, he gripped the bars, the tendons in his arms standing out starkly as the rain soaked his skin.

“Léonie,” he breathed as soon as he saw me. “I have a present for you. I’ve conquered the Pinoteaux lands for you.”

He held out his hand and in it was my Da’s heavy gold ring.

There my husband was, stretched tall and arrogant, his eyes ordering me to open up the gate.

To jump into his arms and forgive him for everything.

“Here it is. Some of men are combing through the bodies. Making sure we’ve killed anyone who could be a threat to you. I’ve taken all their lands away, I’ve destroyed their dominance. They don’t deserve any of it for what they were they were willing to do to you.”

“I can’t believe you’re here wanting praise for expanding your own lands.”

I stepped closer, and he looked hungry. Like a man who hadn’t had nourishment in a while.

He even looked like one thing I’d never imagined.

Desperate.

“I didn’t do it for me.”

“You never do anything that doesn’t profit you.”

“It’s for you. To do whatever you want with these lands.”

“What?”

“The lands are yours. They belong to you. It’s your choice what happens to them. They won’t be added to Bastide territory.”

I glanced back at Hugo, but his eyes were full of the same confusion I felt.

“I refuse your bargain,” I said.

“What bargain?”

“I will not take these lands in return for forgiveness. My forgiveness is not for sale.”

“They are yours anyway,” he said. “The compound has been burned to the ground. Your father has been killed. I’ve avenged the threat to your life.”

The intensity rolled off him in heated, urgent waves.

My husband wanted to have that power over me again. The power I refused to give him.

“Please, Léonie,” he rasped. “I’ll give you anything. Anything you want for forgiveness. Any land on the earth. I will make sure you get it.”

“I don’t want a thing you could murder to get,” I almost snarled, stepping closer as the sun began to break through the clouds, and me matching him beat-for-beat, wild, untamed emotions spilling from me like feral things.

“You don’t even begin to understand what you’d need to do.”

“Then show me!” he groaned, pressing his body through the bars. “Show me what I'd need to do.”

“I have no idea.”

“I have a proposal for you—you and Ciel come back to the Bastide compound.”

I laughed.

“No. I can’t think of anything you could bargain with that I can’t get myself. I have everything I want.”

His eyes watched me hungrily. How sharp his cheekbones looked. Like he hadn’t been eating.

“My brother doesn’t. And I think you’ll bargain to get him what he wants.”

Oh shit

Hugo was beside me. “It’s already a no, brother. Why don’t you worry about your southern supply route?”

“If you come home with me, Léonie, and give me an opportunity to earn a second chance, I will strike a deal that would make the Savatier family, and my brother, wealthy beyond their wildest dreams.”

“No deal,” Hugo said instantly. “We will grow our business without you.”

“That’s not all. In return for you coming home, I will tell him how to find his lost love Romy.”