Chapter 2: Léonie - Crushing His Mountain Flower

My breath still caught in my throat every single time I saw him, butterflies fluttering low and dirty in my stomach to remember that he was mine.

Étienne was wearing a white shirt that seemed molded to his body, that accentuated every ridge of his muscles and his coiled, tense power.

But his dark brows were drawn together and he looked livid with anger.

“What the hell are you doing in this room with my brother?”

“Étienne, I—nothing, of course!”

For a minute, I foolishly wondered in my innocence what in the world he could be talking about.

Then, as Mano only leaned back against the wall and didn’t say anything, I realized in our half-dressed states that my husband thought this looked—incriminating.

“Nothing happened here!” I cried. “Your brother was in here when I came in.”

“So naturally you undressed in front of him,” Étienne retorted, his hard eyes flicking between the both of us.

“Of course not—I mean, I didn’t see him right away! Not until only a few seconds before you came in.”

“Oh,” he said coldly. “Of course. That seems likely.”

He stalked into the room and I shrank back against the door.

“How long has this been going on?”

“Nothing is going on! You can’t possibly think anything is going on!”

Other people were in the doorway, I realized. Placidie. Faustine. In my panic I couldn’t see who else.

Please, don’t let my family hear until I can get this straightened out!

“Come on,” Faustine said, her overlined lips curving up at me. “You didn’t think you could hide him forever from your husband?”

“Hide what?”

Étienne looked at the unmade bed and flicked the covers aside, where I saw—a torn condom wrapper!

“Wh—what could that be from?”

“I don’t know,” Étienne said coldly. “Why don’t you tell me why I found you undressed with my brother.”

“You can’t—possibly believe! You aren’t seriously suggesting⁠—”

Always shy and awkward, now I was almost inarticulate with confusion.

To my horror, I began to see my family fill the doorway too.

The whole Pinoteaux family was different shades of red—from deep silvery auburn, to light strawberry blonde, and the bright flaming red of my brother.

What were they all going to say now?

I had been so incredulous and in shock the day my father had told me Étienne wanted to marry me.

“You must—be mistaken,” I had protested.

Da had little patience, and none for his only daughter.

“Don’t be an empty-head. Can’t you see he’s crazy about you?”

But I couldn’t see that. Had never seen that. It didn’t matter. I would have married him even if he’d hated me.

That’s why my brain was slow to accept what Étienne was accusing me of.

“I think it’s pretty clear from this condom wrapper what was going on,” he snarled.

“No—absolutely not—Mano⁠—”

But my brother-in-law only shrugged.

“I didn’t think anyone would come in.”

With an inarticulate roar of fury, Étienne tore his brother away from the door and closed big fingers around his throat.

“What has happened?” I heard the voice of my brother Réjean calling out. “We are outside waiting for the gifts to be opened.”

Étienne turned around, his movements sleek, predatory, deadly.

There was complete and utter silence as I desperately tried to cover myself up.

“When I made a marriage agreement with the Pinoteaux family, I was promised a faithful wife. Not a slut.”

“What?” Réjean thundered. “She has not been unfaithful. I’d vow on the ancestors she hasn’t been.”

“Your sister Léonie is pregnant. But I no longer know if I’m the father.”

“Impossible.”

“I just caught her here in my brother’s arms.”

“No—” I choked out, but he ignored me.

“The Pinoteaux family name is shamed. I went into this marriage with good faith and a good name. You have wronged me. You have shamed my family with this deception. It is an insult I must respond to or lose status.”

The silence was crushing, the guilt seeping into my soul.

Even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. Couldn’t have been my fault.

In our culture, honor and family name were everything. And Étienne had just humiliated my brother and, by extension, the whole Pinoteaux family.

Réjean could not let this go, or lose even more face.

“I didn’t do it—” I burst out.

“Silence,” Étienne snarled.

Réjean’s nostrils flared.

“Perhaps we should have given her to Mano instead,” my brother said. “Perhaps he would have taken a firmer hand with her.”

Wait, what? Mano wanted me?

I was so shocked I could only stare at Étienne’s brother, and, to my discomfort, Mano was looking at me, too, with an expression on his face that I couldn’t figure out.

But Étienne was already lunging at Réjean, my brother’s jaw moving under his ginger beard.

They met with a crash, Mano and the other Bastides shifting back and forth, watching the Pinoteaux.

Was this going to turn into open warfare?

Réjean might outweigh Étienne by forty pounds, but I had never seen my husband defeated in a fight. Ever. He did not fight for fun. Even at the fair. He fought for status, for his name, for honor.

Réjean took a swing, aiming for my husband’s jaw, but the blow only glanced off as Étienne barreled into him.

Réjean’s arms windmilled, attempting to dislodge Étienne, but my husband brought his knee up and drove Réjean’s face into it.

My brother staggered and, despite his much greater size, Étienne was able to knock him off his feet and send Réjean crashing to the ground.

God’s blood, my heart was pounding as my husband stood victorious over my fallen brother.

Étienne spat in Réjean’s face, and put a big boot on his throat, just for a moment, but long enough for everyone to see. Then he wrote it with the tip of his boot.

Léger

Weak, loser

He prowled toward my other family like a powerful panther as Réjean rolled away.

“I didn’t make an agreement over a slut. What will you give me now?”

He spread his arms wide, his shirt slick with sweat, the long lean lines of his arms deadly, powerful.

Margot’s eyes were wide and shocked as she stared at me.

“We can’t do anything without my father here,” Réjean said, shooting me a look of cold loathing as he got heavily to his feet.

Étienne made a noise of disgust.

“That is not necessary.”

“Nevertheless, the arrangement was between our fathers. It will wait until then. But you would certainly be within your rights to turn her out of the house if she is a whore. Simply turn her out of your home and let the mountain take care of the rest.”

Prickly panicky heat broke out on my skin.

I opened my mouth to speak.

My own brother. Proposing that Étienne leave me in the worst part of the mountains, out exposed to the elements and wild animals.

"You think I should leave your sister to die?”

Réjean shrugged. “Or leave her here and I will turn her out the other side of the mountain.”

He made a move like he was going to grab me, and I instantly shrank back.

How had things spiraled out of control like this?

Étienne scoffed, and wrapped his own hand around my arm, pulling me back from my brother, but there was no kindness in it, or in him.

He turned my face toward him, then grabbed a pen from a cup on my side table.

“No,” I protested. “Please don’t do this. I’m innocent, I swear⁠—”

But with my face trapped under his hard fingers I could feel what he wrote on my forehead.

Légère

Weak, shameful

“You’d like the problem to go away that quickly, wouldn’t you?” my husband asked Réjean. “Unless you want the truce to be over today, the marital agreement will stand until I can speak to your father.”

“If you wish to raise a bastard, that is entirely your choice,” Réjean retorted.

My husband’s spit was still sliding down Réjean’s face, and he was too proud to wipe it off. His status had already been damaged; he could not risk it further.

“You will pay for what you have done,” Étienne said coldly. “Leave this property, you and all your family.”

As frightening as the red-hot flame of his anger had been, his cold granite face was worse, as my husband escorted me with hard, tight fingers into his SUV.

“Pinoteaux family are dogs.”

What was he going to do with me? He hadn’t handed me over to my brother to be left on the side of the mountain to fend for myself. Did that mean somewhere, deep down, he still had doubts about what he had seen? That deep down, buried below all the bullshit someone had been feeding him, he still loved me?

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“Come with us,” Placidie said, putting a hand around my arm, the tips of her sharp nails jabbing into my skin.

“Where? I don’t want to,” I said, feeling tears prickle my eyes. “Please, Étienne, just give me five minutes. I don’t understand what you are even accusing me of.”

Faustine’s lip curled up at my obvious distress.

“Shouldn’t it be obvious? Cheating.”

“I would never⁠—”

But Étienne had his fingers firmly on my arm and there was no option but to follow.

I was placed into the back of the SUV, my palms slick with sweat, and we set off down the windy mountain roads, with Étienne at the wheel.

“Stepping out on Étienne?” Faustine asked coolly. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d dare to face his temper.”

I gasped. “Is that what you all think happened? Étienne, tell them. Tell them how much I love you. The very idea is. . . ridiculous. I’m nine months pregnant!”

“Don’t talk to me about the baby. Now get out.”

I looked around, bewildered to find myself at the small, brown-brick building.

“Where are we going? Why are we at the hospital?”

Faustine smiled at me. “Can’t you guess?”

But I couldn’t. I just thought they must be concerned about my baby, making sure he was all right.

I was hooked up to the monitors, my heart in my throat until I heard that reassuring thump thump thump of his tiny strong heartbeat.

There you are, I thought, smiling at the screen as he came onto the ultrasound feed, his little feet kicking like crazy.

Oh, you’re just like your daddy. Restless and full of energy.

Étienne had gone to get a doctor, and I was left alone in the cold sterile room with Placidie and Faustine.

“You just could not keep your legs together, could you?” Placidie said, her mouth in a thin line. “I warned him. I warned him how it would be.”

Tears were rolling down my cheeks now, and I couldn’t stop them.

“You know how this looks for him?” Faustine demanded. “To have a slut for a wife?”

“I am not a s-slut!” I protested, feeling that familiar relief when my husband came back in the room.

But it didn’t last for long.

“Étienne, please, they’re saying such awful things to me,” I whimpered, nausea rising in my throat.  I felt like I was going to vomit, and my forehead seemed to burn knowing what he’d written there.

But it was like I hadn’t even spoken. The man with him wasn’t my usual doctor, an unfamiliar older man with gray hair and a white coat.

“Doctor, has she been with any other men?” Étienne demanded, and the shame and confusion filled me until I wanted to sink to the ground.

The idea that I would have brought shame to the Bastide name--

“What—monsieur—we can’t—” he protested.

“Has she been with any other men?” Étienne raged, his big hand slapping a glass jar on the side table against the wall shelf, where it landed with a shattering crash.

“I want a clear answer. Yes or no. It shouldn’t be that fucking difficult to tell me. Has there been another man’s cum in that pussy or not?”

I began to tremble.

I had seen him angry, of course, but never like this. Never at me.

“Please,” I begged again, feeling my throat go dry, afraid the words wouldn’t come out. “Étienne, you know I have never been unfaithful to you! I never would!”

He looked coldly at me. “That’s not what I have heard.”

“Who told you that?” I wailed, feeling pieces of my heart splintering off at the look on his face. It was like he hated me. How could this be possible?

How could his feelings turn so quickly?

“Who told you I was unfaithful? It is a l-lie!”

If I could only get the words out, he would see that this was just a tragic misunderstanding. Surely he could never dream it of me. Me, who had been his ever since the first moment I saw him!

“Never mind who has told me,” Étienne said. “What matters is that I have been told. I’m not raising your bastards, Léonie. If you think I will do so out of kindness, you’re wrong. I’m going to find out right now who is lying to me and who is not.”

His eyes slid over to the side of the room. Was he looking at his informant? At the person who had told him these awful things?

But I couldn’t tell who he was looking at. Was it Placidie or Faustine? Who?

Faustine held up something to my husband and a look of absolute loathing crossed Étienne’s face, so dark and forbidding that I began to tremble.

I twisted to see a packet of cigarettes in her hand, their fingers brushing as she passed it over.

“I found this on your private balcony.”

“I don’t know whose that is!” I protested. “I’ve never seen it before in my life!”

Étienne only glared at me. Those arms had been around me so many times. But right now they were crossed across his muscular chest, and he was giving me the kind of look usually reserved for everyone else but me.

“You have to believe me,” I pled.

None of his family liked me. But who would have filled his ears with lies?

“What have you been doing?” Étienne gritted out, crushing the cigarettes in his fingers. “Have you been bringing men to our bedroom, fucking them on the balcony? Who the fuck have you been letting in your pussy?”

“No one!” I cried, shrinking back on the table, curling my legs protectively under me. “I swear on my Gran’s life. On all my ancestors’ graves. No one at all! I love you so much. You know that!”

“We are here for a paternity test,” Placidie interposed. “They will compare your blood samples with a swab from Étienne’s cheek and then we’ll know for sure.”

“This is ridiculous,” I protested, “Étienne, you cannot think for a moment I would ever be unfaithful to you.”

I reached out for him, but he brushed my hand away.

“Then where did that condom come from?”

“One of the security guards, maybe? Someone on patrol?” I asked timidly.

“Do you really think any of the men under my command would dare go into my personal quarters without permission?” Étienne asked.

“But—”

I could not understand it.

“Why are you being like this?” I cried, trying to be brave but everything was so scary and upsetting and I kept getting painful Braxton-Hicks contractions all over my belly.

Everyone in the room was staring at me.

“Étienne you know I—have been in love with you ever since I was—18!” I said, unable to control the tremble in my voice.

Faustine made a little noise of derision in her throat, and I wanted to cry you were too!

“Have you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. “Or maybe you’re just a liar. I guess we’ll see what the paternity test says.”

He snapped his fingers at the nurse, who unwrapped a little cotton swab.

“Do it,” my husband said, his fingers tapping impatiently on the examination table. And I watched with a sickening lurch in my stomach as the nurse swiped his cheek. Tight, barely-controlled anger rolled off him in waves.

“Your father assured me you were a virgin. Was that a lie, too?”

“No, of course it wasn’t!” I cried. “I’ve only ever been with you.”

“Why should I believe you? You’re at home by yourself plenty.”

“Because you’re always away working!”

“I’ve been told you act inappropriately with men, too. Flirting, getting close. Touching them.”

“That’s also a lie! Who told you that?”

The tears were streaming down my face now. Because this was insanity. He could not possibly believe these lies over his own wife’s word!

“Be quiet, woman. We will get the results soon and then we will see if you’re telling the truth or you’re a little slut.”

I subsided into silence, trying to quiet my sniffles.

At least the paternity test would reassure his mind. And then maybe we could move past this, figure out why he had believed someone else, and fix it.

Because not only had I never been unfaithful, but I’d never even looked at another man.

Even the thought of another man was repulsive to me. Étienne had my whole heart and he always had.

But when the doctor strode back in his white coat, he looked at the two of us, and he said something I knew must be impossible.

“Mr. Bastide, you are not the father of your wife’s baby.”