Yves settled into his seat and ran his fingers over his silvering hair. “I paid Gustave a personal visit today to look over his findings. He didn’t discover much yet, as it could be anyone. But he did dig some dirt on Mayor Hill.”
I reached for the folder, understanding dawning upon me.
Ben frowned. “Why would Melrose do that?”
“Because Armel was Mayor Hill’s godson,” I replied, shaking my head at this new inconvenience. “She’ll want to bring justice to his family. If that means charging me for first degree murder, she won’t rest until I’m handcuffed and rotting in jail.”
“And that won’t happen,” Yves said smoothly.
It was a rite of passage for men of our stature to get thrown behind the slammer. If I wasn’t viewed as royalty in the underworld, going to prison would really drive the message home.
“So Gustave has blackmail on her, eh?” Ben asked. “How good is the ammo?”
So fucking good, it should be illegal.
Yves glanced at me with a knowing glint in his eyes, already having sifted through the information.
I scanned the thick file. Education records. Medical records. Hotel room bills. And a lot of fucked-up shit I didn’t see coming.
If these findings were ever to see the light of day, Mayor Hill’s reputation would forever be ruined.
It was worth mentioning I didn’t particularly like the woman. I met her multiple times over the last decade and was always courteous towards her. Five years ago, she caught me fucking a woman—a married one, but I didn’t know then—in the coat room during a business associates’ wedding. She’d proceeded to snap with a scowl, “Monsieur De la Croix. Vous êtesrepugnant.”
If insulting me wasn’t enough, the old witch proceeded to rat us out to the woman’s husband, who left the party heartbroken and died in a car crash that very night.
I wracked up another sin and Diane Hill played an indirect hand in killing the innocent man. Hence why we didn’t like each other and I didn’t foresee that changing anytime soon.
I continued thumbing through the file attentively.
As it so happened, she had a daughter.
Dacia Hill. Blond. Blue eyes. Twenty-nine. Lawyer. Like myself, she was a regular at Chaleur. But the catch wasn’t her healthy sexual appetite. No. It was a particular man she was rather fond of fucking.
Well, would you look at that. The Hills were just as tarnished as everyone else.
Diane Hill had another daughter.
I froze, my champagne flute halfway to my mouth.
Gustave’s loopy scrawl showcased a name that had me clenching my fist.
Darla Hill.
The square photo attached to the file looked straight from a social media outlet. She gazed at the camera with a flirty look and a pouty red mouth, toying with a glass of red wine, as the wind blew her black hair behind her shoulders. The backdrop was the Eiffel tower.
Mon angewas twenty-seven years old and a high schoolprincipal.
Not a teacher.
“You’ve gone pale.” Ben looked at me strangely.
The tightness in my chest couldn’t be conveyed into words. It felt beyond my comprehension, like an emotion I’d never grappled with.
Darla Hill was beautiful in an ethereal way, like an aged love poem penned in the countryside in Southern France on a hot summer day. A sizzle of ecstasy buzzed under my skin as I remembered how this innocent-looking woman came alive like a firecracker under her master’s skillful touch.
My fucking touch.
I was having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that the woman I’d had such a heady sexual experience with was uptight Mayor Hill’s virgin daughter—the virgin daughter I just couldn’t seem to get out of my head ever since I had the privilege of getting on my knees to eat her out.