Defying Her Billionaire Protector

* * *

Nico swung the sledgehammer high above his head and smashed it down onto the centre of the beam. The wood split under the force of the blow and he finished the job off with the heel of his boot. The violent sound of splintering wood was gratifying, as was the burn in his muscles—the kind of burn only hard physical labour could induce.

It was almost a month since he’d been back here on Île de Lavande. After sending Marietta to Rome he had set himself a gruelling work schedule of back-to-back meetings and international travel, which had, for a time, kept him focused on work and nothing else. But in the end, no matter how deeply he buried himself in work, no matter how many meetings and travel destinations he piled into his schedule, he couldn’t escape the simple truth.

He missed her.

‘Nico!’

He looked up. Luc stood a few metres away, surrounded by the detritus of his family’s boat shed. The storm had rendered the small building unsalvageable and the Bouchards had decided to knock down what remained and rebuild from scratch.

Nico had offered to help with the demolition. He needed the distraction. Needed to escape the house he had once valued for its privacy and isolation but which now felt curiously empty and too silent.

‘Break time,’ said Luc, gesturing with a thumb over his shoulder towards the bistro. Josephine stood at the entrance to the courtyard, waving to catch the men’s attention. Luc grinned and threw Nico a towel. ‘Let’s get cleaned up and grab a beer.’

Half an hour later the two men sat in the courtyard, along with Josephine’s father Henri. Chilled bottles of lager sat on the wrought-iron table between them and appetising smells wafted from the kitchen. A middle-aged couple dined in the far corner of the courtyard and a small group of locals drank inside, but otherwise it was a quiet afternoon at the bistro.

Luc cradled his beer and tipped his chair back on two legs. ‘How’s Marietta?’

Nico’s hand froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth. For appearance’s sake he lifted it all the way and took a swig he hoped wouldn’t choke him. ‘Fine,’ he said.

The younger man gave a couple of slow nods, exchanged a look with his grandpère, and then—to Nico’s profound relief—switched the subject to football.

Ten minutes later Josephine dragged Luc away to help his father unload some supplies, leaving Nico alone with Henri.

The old man regarded him. ‘You are troubled, mon ami.’

Nico tried to blank his expression. Henri might be long in the tooth but he was wise. Astute.

‘I am fine,’ he said.

Henri nodded slowly. ‘So...you are fine... Marietta is fine...but things between you are not so fine, oui?’

Nico picked up his beer, realised the bottle was empty and put it down. He folded his arms over his chest.

‘Things between us are...’

Over. Forgotten.

A peal of bitter laughter echoed in his head. Marietta forgotten? No. Far from it. She was in his mind every hour of every day, testing his resolve to forget. Only last week he’d been on the brink of flying to Rome. He’d travelled from New York to London for meetings and decided to spend the weekend at his penthouse in Paris. At the last minute he’d almost told his pilot to change the flight plan. Had entertained for a crazy moment the flawed notion that if he could have Marietta one more time, for one more night, he’d get her out of his system. His head.

Realising Henri was waiting for him to finish, he cast about for a suitable word and settled on, ‘Complicated.’

Henri slapped his thigh and chuckled. ‘Women are complicated, son.’ He sat back, studied Nico’s unsmiling face and grew serious again. ‘You do not strike me as the kind of man to fear a challenge,’ he said.

Nico’s chest tightened. Henri’s assessment of him was too generous. He feared a good many things—things Marietta had driven home to him, when she’d ruthlessly dished up a few unpalatable truths on that last night. Angry and offended, he’d accused her of labelling him a coward, but she was right. He was a coward. Because that night in Toulon during the storm, when he’d been out of his mind with worry, the truth of his feelings had struck with heart-stopping clarity.

He loved her—and the realisation had gripped him with unrelenting fear.

And instead of finding the strength to fight that fear he’d allowed it to control him. Had clung to his belief that loving someone again would make him weak because the fear of losing them would rule him, consume him.

But was it love that made him weak?

Or was it allowing the fear to win?

Mon Dieu. He had done exactly that. He had pushed Marietta away out of fear, to protect himself, and it wasn’t only cowardly, it was selfish.

He swallowed. ‘I have made a mistake, Henri.’