¡Espero que todos estén muy bien en este comienzo de semana!
Les vengo a traer el primer capítulo del segundo libro de la trilogia De Vincent Brothers de Jennifer L. Armentrout más una oferta para preordenar el libro y llevarse una escena extra!
Ahora, el primer capítulo está en inglés, pero si alguien quiere traducirlo y aportar a la causa (ya que no cuento con el tiempo para traducirlo yo misma) se los agradecería mucho, mucho!
****
Nicolette Bresson jamás pensó que regresaría a la mansión de los De Vincent. Es donde sus padres trabajan, donde ella creció...y donde el mismísimo Gabriel De Vincent le rompió el corazón. Pero allí está ella, llenando el lugar por sus madre enferma. Evitar a Gabe debería ser fácil, especialmente cuando la mayoría del tiempo Nikki solo está evadiendo a personas que quieren apuñalarla por la espalda, personas que frecuenta la mansión.
Pero escapar de las memorias de Gabe, y mucho más cuando su presencia se siente en todos lados, es más difícil de lo que ella pensó. Incluso ahora que él está determinado a estar en todos lugares en los que ella se encuentra.
Gabriel ha pasado años reprochándose a si mismo por su último encuentro con Nikki. Él la quería entonces, pero por razones que eran malas para ambos. Ahora las cosas han cambiado. Gabe ve más que la chica que ha conocido desde siempre; él ve a una inteligente, talentosa, y maravillosamente hermosa mujer...una que está siendo acechada entre las sombras. Ahora, Gabe hará lo que sea para mantener a Nikki a salvo- y detener a la maldición de los De Vincent de atacar otra vez.
***
Les digo la verdad. N O P U E D O E S P E R A R M Á S P A R A L E E R L O.
***
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.
***
Les dejo los links para que lo pre- ordenen y así pueden tener una escena extra del libro!
***
Para participar de la oferta de pre-orden del libro, solo tienen que pre-ordenarlo en cualquiera de los links o paginas que usen y llenar la forma en el último link que les dejé.
Háganlo, no se van a arrepentir!!
***
Escritora bestseller americana, Jennifer L. Armentrout, alcanzó el éxito gracias a sus libros de género paranormal, fantástico y de jóvenes adultos, especialmente sus sagas Lux y Covenant han hecho que se posicionara en lo más alto de las listas de autores más vendidos en todo el mundo, varias de sus obras han estado en el lista de bestsellers del New York Times y desde entonces cada libro que publica es un éxito.
Siempre deseó convertirse en una escritora de éxito, comenzando a escribir cuentos cortos en su clase de álgebra en el instituto, algo que le causó unas notas un tanto bajas en matemáticas. Alcanzó el éxito en el año 2011 con la publicación de dos de sus libros más exitosos Obsidian y Mestiza, ambos son los primeros de la saga Lux y Covenant respectivamente. Desde entonces no ha parado de escribir y publicar libros.
Su género predilecto es el Young Adult con toques de romance y fantasía, donde mezcla criaturas paranormales (ángeles, demonios, zombies…) en nuestro mundo con la finalidad de salvar la humanidad, pero también se ha adentrado en la novela juvenil contemporánea, romántica, de misterio, ciencia ficción y adulta, alcanzando éxito en cada una de ellas.
Decidió publicar unas series de novelas más adultas de romance contemporáno bajo el seudónimo de J.Lynn, separándolas de sus novelas más juveniles.
Ha sido galardonada con numerosos premios por sus obras en los diferentes géneros, Reviewers Choice Award (2013), Editor’s Pick (2015), nominada al Best in Young Adult Fiction (2014) por YALSA y al RITA Award (2017) por su última novela.
Actualmente vive en Martinsburg, Virginia Occidental, con su marido y sus perros, con los que comparte su tiempo libre cuando no está escribiendo.
Sus series más reconocidas son la saga Lux, Covenant, Frigid, Elementos Oscuros,Cazadora de hadas y sus novelas autoconclusivas Cursed, Te esperaré, Cuidado, no mires atrás o Nunca digas siempre.
***
¡Gracias por leer!
