Chapter 1 - The Trauma Doctor Found Her Missing First Love Bleeding in Her Emergency Room—But the Mafia Boss Looked Straight Through Her as If Their Past Had Never ExistedThe emergency room at St. Ambrose Hospital did not forgive shaking hands.
Dr. Nadia Fontaine’s hands had not shaken once in six years of trauma work.
They were shaking now.
The man sitting on the gurney in Bay Four had arrived at 11:40 p.m. with a gunshot wound beneath his left ribs, bruising across his back, and two armed men walking beside the stretcher as if the hospital belonged to them.
Nadia had been summoned because she was the best trauma physician on duty.
She had walked through the curtain expecting blood.
She had not expected a ghost.
The man turned his head.
Pale gray eyes met hers.
Five years disappeared.
Lucien.
The same man who once played piano in a little jazz bar on Tchoupitoulas Street.
The same man who had saved tip money for two weeks to buy her dinner on her twenty-sixth birthday.
The same man who had kissed her beside the Mississippi and promised he would find a way to build a life worthy of her.
The same man who vanished three weeks later.
No goodbye.
No explanation.
Nothing.
Now his shoulders were broader.
His face was harder.
And when he looked at Nadia, there was no recognition in his expression.
“If you can’t hold your hand steady,” he said, “send someone who can.”
The cruelty worked.
Her hand stopped shaking.
“Lie down.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’ve been shot.”
“Barely.”
“And something hit your back hard enough to bruise three ribs.”
“Occupational hazard.”
Nadia pulled on gloves.
When she touched the skin near his wound, Lucien caught her wrist.
Fast.
Absolute.
“I don’t like being touched without warning.”
Their eyes met.
Something moved behind his.
Gone almost immediately.
Nadia pulled free.
“The man I knew used to play piano three nights a week because the owner let him eat for free.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened.
“He had forty-three dollars in his bank account when he bought me birthday dinner.”
Silence.
“He had a mole beneath his left shoulder blade.”
That got him.
His eyes changed.
Nadia leaned closer.
“If you aren’t that man, Mr. Marais, then who exactly are you?”
He released a slow breath.
“Lucien Marais.”
“I know your name.”
“No. You knew another name.”
Nadia’s stomach tightened.
Lucien looked toward the curtain.
“I head the Marais family now.”
Everybody in New Orleans knew that name.
In four months, Marais interests had purchased shipping terminals, warehouses, security companies, riverfront properties, and enough influence to make old families nervous.
Lucien had returned wealthy.
Powerful.
Dangerous.
And apparently determined to pretend Nadia had never existed.
She stitched his wound.
Neither spoke.
When she finished, she removed her gloves.
“One question.”
Lucien remained still.
“The man I loved.”
His eyes finally met hers.
“What happened to him?”
A long silence.
Then:
“There was no such man.”
Nadia felt something break quietly inside her.
She turned.
“Nadia.”
Her hand stopped on the curtain.
It was the first time he had said her name.
She waited.
Nothing followed.
Nadia walked away.
She made it around the corner before her knees weakened.
Five years.
She had survived five years.
She would survive tonight.
She thought about Margot.
Four years old.
Curly dark hair.
A stubborn little mouth.
Pale gray eyes.
Lucien’s eyes.
“He came back tonight,” Nadia whispered beside her daughter’s bed hours later.
Margot slept through the confession.
“He doesn’t know about you.”
Nadia touched her daughter’s hair.
“And I don’t know whether I should tell him.”
From the doorway, a man spoke.
“Tell whom?”
Nadia turned.
Rémi Deslandes stood there.
Her fiancé wore a perfectly fitted suit despite it being nearly three in the morning.
He was handsome.
Cultured.
Wealthy.
And incapable of entering a room without making Nadia feel as though she had been caught doing something wrong.
“No one.”
Rémi looked at Margot.
Then Nadia.
“You’re late.”
“I’m a trauma surgeon.”
“Doctor.”
“What?”
“You’re a trauma doctor. You never completed the surgical fellowship.”
Nadia stared.
Rémi smiled.
Small corrections were one of his favorite weapons.
“You’re right.”
“I usually am.”
He kissed her forehead.
Nadia resisted the instinct to step backward.
The diamond on her finger felt heavier.
Rémi had rescued the Fontaine family after Nadia’s father died.
Cedric Fontaine left behind debts nobody knew existed.
Rémi paid them.
He saved Nadia’s mother’s home.
Protected her younger brother’s business.
Stopped creditors from taking nearly everything.
Six months later he asked Nadia to marry him.
Nadia had said no.
Then her mother received another foreclosure notice.
Rémi made another payment.
He asked again.
Nadia eventually said yes.
Two years had passed.
The wedding was now three weeks away.
“You should sleep,” Rémi said.
“I will.”
He looked at Margot.
“She needs to begin sleeping independently.”
“She’s sick.”
“She’s four.”
“She had a fever.”
“You’re too protective.”
Nadia’s voice cooled.
“She’s my daughter.”
Something unreadable crossed Rémi’s face.
“Yes.”
He left.
Nadia waited until she heard the front door.
Then breathed.
The next morning, Lucien sat inside a warehouse office overlooking the river while Thierry Beaumont placed a hospital report on his desk.
“You should have stayed overnight.”
Lucien ignored him.
Thierry had been his closest friend for twelve years and therefore possessed the dangerous habit of speaking without permission.
“You saw her.”
Lucien’s hand stopped.
“Who?”
Thierry stared.
“You’re insulting both of us.”
Lucien looked toward the river.
“I saw Dr. Fontaine.”
“You looked like someone stabbed you with the bullet they missed.”
“Enough.”
Thierry sat.
“Five years, Lucien.”
“I said enough.”
“You came back to this city knowing she was here.”
“I came back because Deslandes is moving weapons through medical shipments.”
“And Nadia marrying him is coincidence?”
Lucien’s expression hardened.
“Yes.”
Thierry did not believe him.
Neither did Lucien.
He had known about the engagement for eleven months.
He had seen photographs.
Nadia beside Rémi at charity events.
Nadia wearing another man’s ring.
Nadia smiling.
Lucien had memorized every photograph and hated himself for it.
“What happened at the hospital?” Thierry asked.
“She treated the wound.”
“That isn’t what I mean.”
Lucien looked down.
“She asked what happened to the man she knew.”
“What did you say?”
“That he never existed.”
Thierry swore in French.
Lucien’s eyes snapped toward him.
“What would you have preferred?”
“The truth.”
“The truth would put her in danger.”
Thierry leaned forward.
“She’s marrying Deslandes. She’s already in danger.”
Lucien stood.
“Find out why Rémi is using St. Ambrose shipments.”
Thierry didn’t move.
“Lucien.”
“What?”
“There’s something else.”
He slid a photograph across the desk.
A little girl leaving a preschool beside Nadia.
Dark curls.
Pink backpack.
Gray eyes.
Lucien stared.
“Who is she?”
Thierry watched him carefully.
“Margot Fontaine.”
Lucien picked up the photograph.
“How old?”
“Four.”
The room became silent.
“How old?”
“Four years and three months.”
Lucien calculated automatically.
Then stopped.
“No.”
Thierry said nothing.
Lucien looked closer.
The child had Nadia’s mouth.
But those eyes—
“No.”
“You disappeared five years ago.”
“I can count.”
“Apparently.”
Lucien’s hand tightened around the photograph.
“Find her birth certificate.”
Thierry remained seated.
“Careful.”
Lucien looked up.
“With what?”
“With whatever happens inside your head if the answer is what you think it is.”
Lucien looked again.
Margot.
Four years.
Gray eyes.
His daughter?
Impossible.
Nadia would have told him.
Except he had disappeared.
He had changed numbers.
Changed names.
Erased himself.
He had made certain she could not find him.
Lucien sat.
For the first time in years, his hands shook.
Across the city, Nadia was having lunch with her mother when Rémi’s assistant delivered the wedding schedule.
Church rehearsal.
Reception.
Security.
Press.
Guest seating.
Nadia stared.
“Press?”
Her mother, Evelyn, looked uncomfortable.
“Rémi’s family is important.”
“It’s a wedding, not an election.”
“Nadia.”
“What?”
Her mother lowered her voice.
“He saved us.”
There it was.
The sentence that had governed Nadia’s life for five years.
He saved us.
Rémi paid the debt.
Rémi saved the house.
Rémi protected the family.
Rémi deserved gratitude.
Apparently gratitude came with a wedding dress.
Margot climbed into Nadia’s lap.
“Mommy?”
“Yes?”
“Do I have to call Mr. Rémi Daddy after the wedding?”
Nadia froze.
Her mother looked away.
“No.”
Margot smiled.
“Good.”
“Why good?”
“I don’t want to.”
Children could say things adults spent years avoiding.
That evening Nadia returned to the hospital.
At 9:15 p.m., a nurse approached.
“There’s a man asking for you.”
Nadia’s stomach tightened.
“Rémi?”
“No.”
She walked into the consultation room.
Lucien stood beside the window.
No guards.
No jacket.
Dark shirt.
Healing wound.
Nadia stopped.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“I need to ask you something.”
“No.”
“Nadia.”
“You lost the privilege of appearing after five years and demanding answers.”
Lucien absorbed that.
“You’re right.”
The admission surprised her.
He reached into his pocket.
Placed the photograph of Margot on the desk.
Nadia went cold.
“Where did you get that?”
“Answer one question.”
“Who gave you permission to photograph my daughter?”
“Nobody.”
“Then whoever did it needs to stay away from her.”
“Is she mine?”
The room stopped.
Nadia stared.
Lucien’s composure was gone.
Not entirely.
But enough.
“Is Margot my daughter?”
Nadia folded the photograph.
Slowly.
“Yes.”
Lucien closed his eyes.
When he opened them, something had changed permanently.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nadia laughed.
The sound was furious.
“How?”
“You could have—”
“Called what number?”
Lucien stopped.
“Sent a letter where?”
Silence.
“Looked under which name?”
His face tightened.
“You disappeared.”
“I know.”
“You made yourself impossible to find.”
“I know.”
“I found out I was pregnant seven weeks after you vanished.”
Lucien sat down.
Nadia had never seen him sit because his legs failed him.
Until now.
“Seven weeks.”
“Yes.”
“You went through the pregnancy alone.”
“Yes.”
“The birth?”
“My mother.”
“Was it difficult?”
Nadia looked away.
“Emergency C-section.”
Lucien went pale.
“She was premature.”
He stared.
“Was she—”
“She survived.”
His eyes closed.
Nadia hated the pain on his face because some treacherous part of her still wanted to comfort him.
She didn’t.
Lucien whispered, “I have a daughter.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the photograph.
“I have a daughter.”
Then Nadia said the thing he needed to hear.
“She isn’t something you can claim because you discovered her.”
Lucien looked up.
“She is a child. She has routines. Friends. A bedroom. A favorite stuffed rabbit. She hates peas and loves strawberries. She gets scared during thunderstorms but pretends she doesn’t.”
His expression softened painfully.
“You don’t walk into her life as a mafia boss and decide she belongs to you.”
“I wouldn’t.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I know enough.”
Nadia stepped closer.
“Then prove it.”
Lucien nodded.
“I will.”
The door opened.
Rémi stood there.
His gaze moved from Nadia to Lucien.
Then to Margot’s photograph.
For one fraction of a second, Rémi Deslandes looked afraid.
Lucien noticed.
So did Nadia.
Rémi smiled.
“Mr. Marais.”
Lucien stood.
“Deslandes.”
Nadia looked between them.
“You know each other?”
Neither answered.
May you like
That was the moment Nadia understood the two men had been keeping secrets from her.
And whatever those secrets were, her wedding was standing directly in the middle of them.
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