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“I know,” he pleaded, gritting his teeth together. “And I’m so goddamn sorry about that. But we can still have all the future moments together.”

But I turned away.

“Why should I have them with you?” I asked as he made a low, anguished noise.

“If you were a good man,” I told my husband, “you would have just given Hugo that information about Romy without any conditions.”

“You know I’m not a good man,” he countered. “The only thing I care about is getting my family back. And I told you I was willing to do anything to get that.”

A good man? Certainly not. Had he ever been. . .

That night I’d gotten pregnant we’d been up in the mountains with a picnic and a deer had stumbled into the clearing. Étienne’s hand had instantly gone to his bow. You didn’t waste perfectly good meat, and my husband was an excellent hunter.

But something about the doe’s face made me pause, put a hand on his arm.

“Wait,” I said, and Étienne glanced over at me.

“Why?”

I didn’t have a reason at all.

“Please,” was all I said as his dark eyes scanned my face. Then, with a twist of his lips, he lowered the bow.

“How could I deny you anything with that sweet face?”

His hand was on my throat, pulling me closer, because we were like two magnets, and it was easy and it was beautiful and each evidence of his desire was precious to me, but when another animal came shyly into the clearing I gave a crow of triumph.

“Look! Her fawn! I’m so glad you didn’t shoot her.”

“How did you know? Mountain witch,” he said affectionately, gathering me in his arms and we watched as the mother and baby ate a few bites of sweet mountain grass, then pranced away with elegant little leaps.

Then my husband flipped me onto my belly and entered me with long, sweet thrusts and I was mewling with eagerness and desire, gripping the ground to keep from being pounded under the earth.

Now Étienne had our son on his shoulder and he put the other arm around me, caging me against him, his eyes imploring me to give in.

“You were willing to do anything anything except put me first,” I retorted, crossing my arms across my chest.

Étienne blinked for a moment, then a slow, seductive smile spread across his face.

“Who are you, Léonie Bastide?” he marveled, stepping closer, his legs brushing mine, his shirt clinging to the lines of his chest and down to the pants that hung low. “I want to know this side of you.”

“I’m not the woman you thought you knew.”

“Then show me. I want to know you in every lifetime and every form you take.”

Amazing that even with the potent cocktail of my hate and his animal magnetism that my hands still stayed firmly at my side.

“What’s one thing you want more than anything else in the world?” he asked. “Besides the best life for Ciel?”

I hesitated, but there was no harm in telling him. Because he couldn’t do anything about this.

“I want to find where my Gran is. I haven’t seen her in years, and now I suspect either my father or brother killed her. I want to know where she’s buried.”

Even the thought of her being dead made a lump rise in my throat, but I had vowed not to look away from anything that was the truth.

I wasn’t that girl who was sheltered from everything brutal. I refused to do that again.

My husband’s hands tightened around mine.