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| A de Vincent Novel Book2 |
Moonlight Seduction by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Release date: June 26, 2018
The de
Vincent brothers are back—and so is the intrigue that surrounds them—in New
York Times bestselling author Jennifer L. Armentrout’s sizzling new
novel...
Nicolette Bresson never thought she’d return to
the de Vincents’ bayou compound. It’s where her parents work, where Nikki grew
up... and where she got her heart broken by Gabriel de Vincent himself. Yet
here she is, filling in for her sick mother. Avoiding Gabe should be easy,
especially when so much of Nikki’s time is spent trying not to be stabbed in
the back by the malicious hangers-on who frequent the mansion. But escaping
memories of Gabe, much less his smoking-hot presence, is harder than
expected—especially since he seems determined to be in Nikki’s space as much as
possible.
Gabriel spent years beating himself up over his
last encounter with Nikki. He’d wanted her then, but for reasons that were bad
for both of them. Things have now changed. Gabe sees more than a girl he’s
known forever; he sees a smart, talented, and heartbreakingly beautiful
woman... one who’s being stalked from the shadows. Now, Gabe will do anything
to keep Nikki safe—and to stop the de Vincent curse from striking again.
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Check out the first chapter of Moonlight Seduction here!
Chapter 1
Six years later . . .
It took every ounce of
self-control for Gabriel de Vincent to stand back and do nothing. Just stand
there and watch him being led away, but that’s what he had to do, because
that’s what he’d promised and Gabe tried to be a man of his word.
Sometimes he failed at that.
Failed at that in ways that haunted him late at night, but he wouldn’t go back
on this.
He’d promised them three
uninterrupted months.
That’s what he was going to
give them.
His jaw ached from how hard
he was clenching it as the Rothchilds walked back into the restaurant. He
didn’t take his eyes off them, not until he couldn’t see them anymore. Only
then did he look at the slip of paper.
Looking down at the drawing
of puppy on a piece of blue construction paper, he felt the worst mix of
emotions. Sadness. Pride. Helplessness. Hope. Fury that he’d never tasted
before. He had no idea how one person could feel all of that at once, but he did.
A wry smile tugged at his
lips. There was definitely talent in the drawing. Real skill. The de Vincent
knack for the arts was still kicking around it seemed.
His gaze flickered over what
was written in a blockish handwriting. He’d already read in three times, but
couldn’t bear to read it a fourth time. Not right now. He didn’t want to fold
the paper and created creases in it, so he was careful as he carried it back to
where he was parked.
“Gabriel de Vincent.”
Frowning at the vaguely
familiar voice, he turned around. A man stepped out from behind a truck. Dark,
square sunglasses shielded half the man’s face, but Gabe recognized him.
He sighed. “Ross Haid. To
what do I owe the honor of seeing you in Baton Rouge?”
The reporter for the Advocate gave one of what Gabe assumed was a trademark
half grin; the kind that probably got him into a places and events he sure as
hell didn’t belong in. “Headquarters are here. You know that.”
“Yeah, but you work out of
the New Orleans office, Ross.”
He shrugged a shoulder as he
neared Gabe. “I had to come up to headquarters. Heard through the grapevine
that a de Vincent was in town.”
“Uh-huh.” Not for one second
did Gabe believe that. “And you just happen to hear that I was at this
restaurant?”
The smile kicked up a notch
as he ran a hand over his blond hair. “Nah. Seeing you here was just luck.”
Bullshit.
Ross had been sniffing after his family for about two months now,
trying to get to one of them when they were out at dinner or at an event,
showing up at nearly every damn function one of them was attending. But back
home, in New Orleans, Ross had trouble getting near them. Well, he had troubled
getting to the one he really wanted to talk to which was Gabe’s older brother.
Didn’t require any leap of
logic to figure out what was going on. Somehow Ross had heard that Gabe was
here, and that’s why Ross conveniently ended up
here. Normally he could tolerate Ross’ incessant questioning. Hell, he sort of
liked the guy, appreciated his determination, but not when Ross was here and
something he didn’t want a reporter finding out mere feet away.
Lowering his sunglasses, Ross
eyed Gabe’s ride. “Nice car. Is it one of the new Porsche 911s?”
Gabe raised his brows.
“Family business must be
going well. Then again, the family business is always going strong, isn’t it?
The de Vincents are old money. The one percent of the one percent.” Gabe’s family was one of the oldest, linked all the
way back to the days the great state of Louisiana was being created. Now they
owned the most profitable oil refineries in the Gulf, coveted real estate all
around the world, tech firms, and once his older brother married, they’d be in
control of the one of the largest shipping industries in the world. So, yeah,
the de Vincents were wealthy, but the car and nearly everything Gabe owned, he
bought it with the money he worked for. Not the
money he was born with.
“Some say that your family
has so much money, that the de Vincents are above the law.” Ross straightened
his sunglasses. “Seems that way.”
Gabe really didn’t have time
for this. “Whatever you want to say, can you stop beating around the damn bush
and get to it? I’m planning to head home sometime in the next year.”
The reporter’s smile faded.
“Since you’re here and I’m here, and it’s damn hard to talk to you all any
other time. I want to chat about your father’s death.”
“I’m sure you do.”
“I don’t believe it was a
suicide,” Ross continued. “And I find it also convenient that Chief Cobbs, who
openly and publicly wanted your father’s death investigated as a homicide ended
up dead in a freak car accident.”
“Is that right?”
Frustration hummed off Ross
about as loud as the damn locusts. “Is that all you got to say to me about
this?”
“Pretty much.” Gabe grinned
then. “That and you have an overactive imagination, but I’m sure you’ve heard
that before.”
“I don’t think my imagination
is nearly vast enough to compete with all the things the de Vincents have had
their hands in.”
Probably not.
“Okay, I won’t ask you about
your father or the chief.” Ross shifted his weight as Gabe opened his driver’s
door. “Also heard some interesting rumors about some of the staff at the de
Vincent compound.”
“I’m started to feel like you
might be stalking us.” Gabe placed the drawing facedown on the passenger’s
seat. “If you want to talk about staffing, then you need to have a chat with
Dev.”
“Devlin won’t make time to
talk to me.”
“That doesn’t sound like my
problem.”
“It seems like it is now.”
Gabe laughed, but the sound was without humor as
he reached inside, grabbing his sunglasses off the visor. “Trust me, Ross, this
isn’t my problem.”
“You may not think so now,
but that’ll change.” A muscle twitched along the man’s jaw. “I plan to blow the
roof of every single damn secret the de Vincents have been keeping for years.
I’m going to do a story that not even your family can pay to keep quiet.”
Shaking his head, Gabe
slipped his sunglasses on. “I like you, Ross. You know I’ve never had a problem
with you. So, I just want to get that out of the way. But you have got to come
up with some better material, because that was cliché as shit.” He rested his
hand on the frame of the car door. “You’ve got to know you’re not the first
reporter to come around thinking they’re somehow going to dig some skeletons
out of our closets and expose us for whatever the hell you think we are. You’re
not going to be the last to fail.”
“I don’t fail,” Ross said.
“Not ever.”
“Everyone fails.” Gabe
climbed in behind the wheel.
“Except the
de Vincents?”
“You said it, not me.” Gabe
looked up at the reporter. “Some unasked for advice? I’d find another story to
investigate.”
“Is there where you’re going
to tell me to be careful?” He sounded oddly gleeful by the prospect. “Warn me
off? Because people who mess with the de Vincents end up missing or worse?”
Gabe smirked as he hit the
ignition key. “Doesn’t sound like I need to tell you that. Seems like you
already know what happens.”
Nikki stood in the center of
the quiet and sterile kitchen of the de Vincent mansion, telling herself that
she was not the same little idiot that almost drowned herself out in the pool
six years ago.
She sure as hell wasn’t the
same idiot who had spent years making an utter fool out of herself, chasing
after a grown man. An act, which resulted in one of the worst ideas she’d ever
had in the history of bad ideas.
And Nikki had a remarkable
history of making not the brightest of all decisions. Her dad said she had a
bit of wild streak in her, taking after Pappy, but Nikki liked to blame the de
Vincents for the recklessness. They had this really bizarre talent of making
everyone around them stick one toe into Recklessville.
Her mother claimed that most
of Nikki’s bad decisions came from having a good
heart.
Nikki had the habit of
picking up strays—stray cats, dogs, a lizard here and there, even a snake, and
humans, too. She was a bleeding heart, hating to see anyone she cared about in
pain and she was oftentimes a bit overly affected by the troubles of strangers.
It was why she avoided the TV
around the holidays, because they always played those heart-wrenching videos of
freezing animals or children left to starve in war-torn countries. She hated
everything about New Year’s Eve because of that and spent the week between
Christmas and the first of January moping around.
There was a lot of Nikki that
was the same as she was the last time she walked through this house. She still
got emotionally invested in animals that didn’t belong to her—that was why she
volunteered at the local animal shelter. She still couldn’t turn away from
someone who needed help, and she still found herself in weird situations but
reckless? Wild?
Not anymore.
Not since the last time she’d
been in the house, right before she left for college. That had been four years
ago and now she was back, and nothing and everything had changed.
“You okay, hon?” her father
asked.
Turning to find her father
standing just inside the large kitchen, she pulled herself out of her thoughts
and smiled widely for him. Goodness, her dad was starting to look his age, and
that scared her—truly terrified her. Her parents had her late in life, but she
was only twenty-two, and she wanted another fifty years or so with them.
Nikki knew that wasn’t going
to happen.
Especially now.
She forced those thoughts from her head. “Yes.
I’m just . . . it’s weird being in here after being gone so long. The kitchen
is different.”
“It was remodeled a few years
back,” he replied. The mansion was constantly being remodeled it seemed. After
all, how many times had this place caught fire since it was built? Nikki had
lost count. Her father drew in a deep breath, and the lines around his mouth
became more pronounced. He looked so tired. “I don’t know if I’ve said this to
you or not, but thank you.”
She waved him off. “You don’t
need to thank me, Dad.”
“Yeah, I do.” He walked over
to where she stood. “You went away to college to do something better than
this—better than cooking dinners and running a household. To become something better.”
Offended on his behalf, she
crossed her arms and met his weary gaze. “There’s nothing wrong with cooking
dinners and running a household. It’s good, honest work. Wok that put me
through college. Right, Dad?”
“We take great pride in our
job. Don’t get me wrong, but what your mother and I did all these years was so
you could do something else.” He sighed. “So, it means a lot that you would
come home to help us out, Nicolette.”
Only her dad and mom called
her by her full name. Everyone else called her Nikki. Everyone except a certain
de Vincent who shall remained nameless. He and only he called her Nic.
Her parents had worked for
the de Vincents, one of the wealthiest families in the States and possibly the
world, since long before she was born. It was weird growing up in this house,
being privy to a lot of strange stuff—things the public has no idea about and
would probably pay a large sum of money to learn. And personally? It was like
she had a foot in two different worlds, one absurdly wealthy and the other
middle working class.
Her father was basically a
butler, except she always had a small suspicion that her father had . . . taken
care of things for the de Vincents that no normal butler did. Her mother ran the
day-to-day functions of the house and prepared the dinners. Both her parents
loved working for the family and she knew both had planned to continue to the
day they died, but her mom . . . .
Nikki’s chest squeezed
painfully. Her mom was not well and it had happened so fast, coming out of
nowhere. The dreaded C word.
“Honestly, this is perfect. I
got my degree and this will give me time to figure things out.” In other words,
figure out what the hell she wanted to really do with her life. Get to work or go
for her master’s? She wasn’t sure yet. “And I want to be here while Mom is
going through everything.”
“I know.” His smile wobbled a
little as he brushed a strand of blondish-brown hair out of her face.
“We could’ve hired someone
else to step in while your mother—”
“No, you couldn’t have.” She
laughed at the mere thought of that. “I know how weird the de Vincents are. I
know how protective you two are of them. I know how to keep my mouth shut and
not see what I’m not supposed to. And you two don’t have to worry about someone
new not keeping
their mouth shut and not seeing what
they’re not supposed to.”
Her dad arched a brow. “A lot
of things have changed, honey.”
She snorted as she took in
the white marble countertops with gray veining. Mom had filled her in on some
of those changes during one
of her chemo treatments. After all, what else did they have to talk about while
she was being pumped full of poison that would hopefully kill only the cancer
cells building in her lung?
Things in the de Vincent mansion
that had changed.
For starters, the patriarch
of the family, one Lawrence de Vincent, had hung himself a few months back. An
act that had shocked her because she figured that man would’ve outlived a
nuclear bomb. And Lucian de Vincent apparently had a live-in girlfriend and
they were about to move into their own place. That was even more insane, the
idea of Lucian settling down.
The Lucian she remembered put
the play in player.
He’d been an incorrigible flirt, leaving a string of broken hearts across the
state of Louisiana and beyond.
She hadn’t met his girlfriend
yet since they were away on some kind of trip; the rich rarely seemed to have
much of a schedule. She just hoped whoever his girlfriend was, she was nice and
nothing like Devlin’s fiancé.
Nikki might not have been
around the de Vincents in four years, but she remembered Sabrina Harrington and
her brother Parker.
Sabrina had just begun seeing
Devlin the year before Nikki had left for college and that had been a year’s
worth of snide comments and rather impressive disdainful looks. Nikki could
deal with Sabrina though. If she was the same woman as she was before, she
could be as mean as a cornered rattlesnake, but Nikki normally didn’t even
register on her scale of people to pay attention to.
Parker though?
Nikki suppressed a shudder,
not wanting to worry her father who was watching her like a hawk.
Parker had often stared at
her the way she’d wanted Gabe to look at her, especially when she had grown
brave enough to move from a one-piece bathing suit to a two-piece.
And Parker . . . he had done
more than look.
She drew in a deep breath.
She wasn’t going to think about Parker. He wasn’t worth a single thought.
What happened to Lawrence,
and Lucian’s new romance weren’t the only things her mom had told her. She
filled Nikki in on the whole sister reappearing and then disappearing again
thing. Something that she knew the general public had no idea had even
happened. She didn’t know the details around it, but Nikki knew that in typical
de Vincent fashion, it had to the most drama-llama-est thing possible.
And she also knew better than
to ask questions about it.
Her father
stepped back. “The boys are all out.”
Thank God and baby Jesus.
“Devlin should be back this evening for dinner. He likes dinner to
be ready at six. I believe Ms. Harrington will be joining him.”
Well, thanking God and baby Jesus lasted all of
five seconds. She resisted the urge to roll her eyes and make a gagging sound.
“Okay.”
“Gabriel is still in Baton
Rouge, or at least, that’s the last I heard,” her father continued, ticking off
the brothers’ schedules while she wondered what Gabe was doing in Baton Rouge.
Not that she cared. She totally didn’t care whatsoever, but she wondered if it
had anything to do with his woodworking business.
The man was talented with his
hands.
Really talented.
Her cheeks
flushed as an unwanted memory of how his calloused palms felt pierced her
straight through the chest. Nope. Not going there. Absolutely not.
There were examples of Gabe’s skill all around
the house—the furniture, chair rails, and trim, even in the kitchen. All of the
woodwork was designed and created by Gabe. As a little girl, she’d been
fascinated with the idea of picking up a piece of wood and turning it into
something that was truly a work of art. That fascination had turned into quite
the hobby for Nikki.
It had started one long, fall
afternoon when she was ten and she’d found Gabe outside, whittling away on a
piece of wood. Out of boredom, she’d asked him to show her how he did it.
Instead of shooing her off, Gabe had given her small scrapes of wood and showed
her how to use a chisel.
She’d gotten pretty good at
it, but she hadn’t picked up a chisel in over four years. Nikki refocused on
what her dad was telling her.
“We’re a
little understaffed right now,” her dad continued. “So there’s a lot of dusting
in your near future. Devlin is very much like his father.”
Great.
That was not a compliment in
her book.
“Is it the ghosts?” She half
joked. “Scaring off the staff?”
Her father
shot her a look, but she knew damn well that her parents believed this
house was haunted. Hell, they
wouldn’t even come here at night unless it was a dire emergency. None of the
staff would and everyone in town knew the legends about the land the de Vincent
mansion sat on. And who hadn’t heard about the de Vincent curse more than a
time or two?
Being in this house as much
as she had been in the past, she had seen some weird things and heard some
stuff that couldn’t be explained. Plus she grew up within minutes of New
Orleans. She was a believer, but unlike her friend Rosie, whom she met in
college, she wasn’t obsessed with all things paranormal. Nikki operated on the
whole if- you-don’t-acknowledge-ghosts-they-can’t-bother-you theory and so far
it had worked so far wonderfully.
Then again, Nikki had only
come here at night once in her life, and that had not turned out well at all.
So maybe ignoring ghosts didn’t work, because she liked to think
she was possessed by one of
ghosts that supposedly wandered the halls, and that was what provoked her to do
what she’d done that night.
Nikki was well aware of how
the house was run because she’d spent most of her summer vacations in the house
watching her mom, so she got to work pretty quickly once her father left her.
First thing first was
tracking down what staff they did have at the house. Understaffed her butt! The only staff they had left was her
dad; the landscaper who was constantly mowing grass it seemed or re-mulching;
the de Vincent driver; and Mrs. Kneely, an older woman who’d done the laundry
services since Nikki was a little girl.
Beverly Kneely actually owed
her own laundry business and only came to the house three times a week to take
care of the linens and clothing.
According to Bev, whom she
found in the large mudroom at the back of the house, packing up clothing that
needed to be dry-cleaned, over the last couple of months, nearly everyone had
quit.
“So, let me get this
straight.” Nikki smoothed back a few strands that had escaped the knot she’d
pulled her hair up in. “The waiters are gone, as are the maids?”
Bev’s buxom chest heaved as
she nodded. “It’s just been your parents for the last three months. I think all
that work was wearing poor Livie down.”
Anger flashed through Nikki.
Hadn’t the de Vincents noticed how thin and tired her mom had been getting? How
quickly she got out of breath? “Why didn’t the de Vincents hire someone to
help?”
“Your father tried, but no
one around here wants to come close to this place, not after what happened.”
She frowned. “You’re talking
about Lawrence? What he did?”
Bev tied up the bags. “Not
like that wasn’t bad enough, but that wasn’t the straw the broke the camel’s
back around here.”
Nikki had no idea what she
was talking about. “I’m sorry. I don’t think I’ve been updated on all the
crazy. What else happened?”
Looking around the room, Bev
arched her brows as she headed toward the side door. “Walls got ears. You know
that. You want to know what’s been going on here, you ask your father or one of
the boys.”
Her lips pursed. She was so
not asking the boys.
Bev stopped at the door and
looked back. “I don’t think Devlin is going to be happy when he sees what
you’re wearing.”
“What’s wrong with what I’m
wearing?” It was jeans and a black tee shirt. No way was she going to dress
like her mom or her dad. Her willingness to help her parents did not extend to
wearing uniforms.
She looked down at herself
and saw the hole just below the knee.
Nikki
sighed.
Devlin was probably going to
have a problem with the hole, but what Nikki wanted to
know was what the hell had
happened in this house to drive almost all the staff away?
It had to be something.
Not just because the de Vincents paid
extraordinarily well, but also because her father hadn’t told her.
And that meant it was something really bad.
Moonlight
Seduction is out June 26th, 2018!
Jennifer L. Armentrout
# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author
Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about
her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing. she spends her time
reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, hanging out
with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki. In early 2015, Jennifer was
diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a group of rare genetic disorders that
involve a breakdown and death of cells in the retina, eventually resulting in
loss of vision, among other complications. Due to this diagnosis, educating
people on the varying degrees of blindness has become of passion of hers, right
alongside writing, which she plans to do as long as she can.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class,
where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her
dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction,
fantasy, and contemporary romance.
She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and
Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her Wicked Series has been optioned
by PassionFlix. Jennifer has won numerous awards, including the 2013 Reviewers
Choice Award for Wait for You, the 2015 Editor’s Pick for Fall With Me, and the
2014/2015 Moerser-Jugendbuch- Jury award for Obsidian. Her young adult romantic
suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction
by YALSA. Her adult romantic suspense novel TILL DEATH was a Amazon Editor’s
Pick and iBook Book of the Month. Her young adult contemporary THE PROBLEM WITH
FOREVER is a 2017 RITA Award Winner in Young Adult Fiction. She also writes
Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn.
She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
She is the owner of ApollyCon and The Origin Event, the
successful annual events that features over a hundred bestselling authors in
Young Adult, New Adult, and Adult Fiction, panels, parties, and more. She is
also the creator and sole financier of the annual Write Your Way To RT Book
Convention, a contest that gives aspiring authors a chance to win a fully paid
trip to RT Book Reviews.
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