Paradise: The Masters of The Order Novel Two (33 page)

Nicolai knelt over her. “Just breathe, Isabella. Don’t move or open your eyes.”

As if I could.

His firm hands came to her again, arranging her limbs, her hair, loosening the ropes that bound her and laying them over her skin.

When he stepped away, Jacques’s voice, sultry and deep, deeper than she’d ever heard it before, said, “Look at me,
Paradis
.”

Her dazed eyes filled with copper fire as she stared up from her position on the floor.

The camera began to click.

22

Full Circle

The men stopped talking. Stopped moving as Jerard stepped into the room. He looked at each one, noting the cast on their faces. Grim. One step over the threshold and he knew it.

This was not Jacques’s bachelor party.

His brothers moved in around him. Well not his brothers yet. He had to survive his initiation first.

“Jerard Antoine Gagne. You are unworthy.”

The truth in Darion’s proclamation shook him, but he swallowed the shame and dropped to his knees. “I am, my Lord.”

“Yet you request initiation into the Order?”

He bowed his head. “I do, my Lord.”

“You accept our honor code and vow to live according to it?”

A hand went to his heart. “I swear, my Lord.”

“And you are willing to submit to make amends for the wrongs you have committed against yourself and the brotherhood?”

His gaze rose to meet Jacques’s eyes. “Yes, my Lord.”

The deep concern etched in Jacques’s expression filled the space between them. The message written there was something to be felt, not seen. Jacques’s love was as strong as his regret for what was about to happen.

Oh, crap. This is gonna hurt.

Jerard corralled his determination, pulled that shit up from somewhere deep in his unworthy soul, the same way he’d done on the day he dropped the needle into the toilet. He wanted to earn this honor. Winning back the respect of the men in this room wouldn’t bring back his respect for himself, but it was a start.

He shifted his eyes from Jacques to Darion, then Nicolai and the others. For these men, pain meant repentance and he welcomed what was coming. Continuing to carry the hurt he’d caused them and the women they represented would be more unbearable. To be on the receiving end was much better.

Darion lifted a heavy whip from the table. Its wooden handle was inlaid with silver; its length, well over four feet. The weapon looked ceremonial and Jerard wondered whether it had been used on the others in this room until Darion gave him the answer.

“As the leader of the Order, I am responsible to uphold its honor and the disgrace you have brought upon yourself has tarnished it. I levy a high price on you, Jared, one that is higher than any other in this room has paid for inclusion. Are you willing to pay this price?”

Darion had spared nothing in his choice of implement for Jerard’s initiation, nor would he in the way he put it to him. To give leniency would be to demean the integrity of the Order and the penance Jerard wanted to offer in exchange for a true chance of cleansing.

“More than willing, my Lord.”

Darion laid a hand on his shoulder. This man sat as judge and jury over his worthiness and could have chosen to reject him. Instead, he chose to cleanse him, saying, “Earn your forgiveness, Jerard. From these men and from yourself.”

Jerard blinked hard, fighting tears at the love he saw momentarily reflected in Darion’s eyes before Darion regained his countenance as a true Master. “Bare yourself to your brothers.”

Jerard undressed.

“Will it be the back or the chest?” Darion asked.

Jerard pressed his bare back to the wall and raised his arms to grip the chains hanging overhead, wrapping each around his wrists for support. “The chest, my Lord. I offer my broken heart to the Order.”

Jacques’s face was drawn into deep grooves as he took the whip from Darion and came forward first. He swung it back and forth to build the momentum, finally extending his arm high above his head. Jacques would spare nothing either and the thought filled Jerard with hope. This was his beginning.

The leather hissed as it sliced through the air. “I forgive,” Jacques shouted as the hard fire scorched across Jerard’s chest. Despite the burning agony, he smiled.

“Isabella forgives.”

The second blow landed with vicious precision, splitting the skin and knocking the air out of his lungs. He twisted his hands to re-grip the chain, keeping his eyes up while his vision dimmed, then returned.

Nicolai was next. “I forgive.”

Nicolai’s blow kicked the remaining wind out of his lungs and his knees sagged. The moment they accepted his weight and he regained his bearing, the whip swung again.

“Julianne forgives.”

Nicolai handed the whip to Sabin, who stepped into his sight line with a determined look and repeated the punishment. Each man in the room followed suit. Darion was the last.

Each time, Jerard met their eyes as a sign of his respect for the honor code of the Order and the man enforcing it. But as Darion turned away, he could no longer support his head. He let it fall on his shoulders and caught the sight of blood running down his chest, over his thighs, all the way to his feet. The red rivulets made him woozy. His knees gave out and he tried to clutch the chain only to find his sweat-soaked palms impotent to hold on. He dropped to his knees, but at least it was over. He took long breaths, determined not to pass out.

“Rise and face your brothers,” Darion commanded.

He struggled to his feet, weaving from side to side until Jacques’s firm grip steadied him.

“Jerard Antione Gagne, your blood has made you worthy. Welcome to the Order, brother,” Darion declared to the group and offered their solemn pledge. “For our integrity and common benefit, from this day onward, we are brothers, honor bound by the precepts and traditions of the Order and loyal to one another until death. I pledge my fealty to you, brother mine, as I would to my own blood so that you shall do the same for me. Wrongs done to you shall be mine to avenge. Should I betray my pledge, let the justice of the Order reign over me. With a faithful and devoted heart, my constancy is sworn.”

Jacques repeated the oath as he pulled Jerard into an embrace. Jerard collapsed against Jacques as the rest of the men gathered in a circle of brotherhood and spoke the same heady words.

Jerard was ecstatic, but there wasn’t a smile to be seen. He met the pained eyes of his brothers in the hope of easing their anguish, but the collective mood remained heavy.

“Some group of Doms you are. You call that a punishment?” he joked as the pain coursed through his bent body. “It didn’t hurt a bit. And man, what a bunch of old ladies. This is supposed to be a party.”

He caught Darion’s eye, hoping the older man hadn’t taken his words seriously. The subtle grin that skimmed Darion’s lips said he didn’t.

“Watch it,” Darion quipped. “I can think of more than a few ways to humble your arrogant ass.”

Jerard wasn’t the only one who saw the mirth. The room let out a collective sigh of relief as the weight of what they’d just experienced broke. Darion grabbed his head and kissed him firmly on each cheek.

“Yeah, whatever,” Jerard shrugged despite his skyrocketing emotion. “But the rest of them are still a bunch of pussies.”

The room exploded into a burst of hoots.

Let the party begin.

*****

The salt air rushed across her face as the convertible sped along the coastal road, winding its way up the hillside to the mansion at the top.

Jacques’s childhood home.

Jacques handled the hairpin turns in the Porsche 911 like a grand prix driver, completely at ease with the speed and the danger; Isabella, not so much. She had to keep her cheek pressed to the headrest to avoid looking at the drop off, but who wanted to look at the Mediterranean anyway. Her view was better. There was something about a man in a Porsche.

Her driver was hot. As in
muy caliente
.

Jacques ran his thumb over the rings on her finger. “Thank you for marrying me.”

“You’re welcome, but you have to stop thanking me or I’m going to get the wrong idea.”

“What do you mean?”

“If you feel like you have to thank me all the time, maybe there’s something I’ve missed about you.” She narrowed her eyes, playfully interrogating him. “What are you hiding,
Monsieur
Meszaros? You’re not an axe murderer, are you?”

Jacques laughed with her teasing. “No. No axes in the closet. Lots of skeletons, but no axes.”

“An arsonist then?”

“Well, I do like fire, but no.”

“A drug dealer, mafia hit man, loan shark?”

“No, no and no. You’ve been watching too many American movies, my love. Time to cut back on the pulp fiction.” A smile crinkled the corner of his eye behind his sunglasses.

“Then I guess I’m stuck with you.” She leaned back to run a suspicious look over the length of him. “Unless your parents are international spies and this is all a big conspiracy to lure the innocent virgin into their lair so they can blackmail her husband into giving up the secret to world domination.”

He raised both hands in surrender. “You got me. How did you figure it out?”

“Jacques! Don’t take your hands off the wheel!” she squeaked.

“You mean like this.” He raised his hands higher with a devil of a smile.

“
¡Ten cuidado, Jacques!
”

Replacing both hands, he chuckled, “Scaredy-cat.”

“Know what really scares me? Your parents. What if they hate me?”

“Impossible. They’ll adore you, especially my father. He’s a sucker for beautiful women.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles.

They pulled into the circular drive in front of the house and Jacques cut the engine. Isabella gasped as she looked up the towering white columns that stood proudly above the sea.

“
This
is where you grew up?”

“It’s something, isn’t it,” he said as he looked at the house. “My father built it for my mother.”

Before Isabella could pick her chin up off the gravel, Jacques’s mother, Melina, rushed through the front doors and down the stairs. She threw her arms around Jacques, stroking his hair and cheeks like he was a child, and looking at him with the adoration only a mother could have for her son.

Isabella imagined herself doing the same thing one day and pressed a protective hand over her belly.

Jacques hugged his mom, grinning with embarrassment at her gush of affection, then turned and put his arm around Isabella.

“Mama, this is my wife, Isabella,” he said in Greek. “Isabella, this is Mama.”

Melina put a hand on each cheek and looked at her with joy sparkling in her eyes. Then she opened her arms and spoke.

Isabella didn’t move until Jacques translated, “She said welcome, daughter.”

Isabella smiled and fell into the embrace.

“
Su casa es espectacular
,” she managed through her full-on gawk as Jacques’s mother led her through the center foyer to the terrace at the back. Even though she didn’t speak Spanish, Melina smiled politely as if she got the gist.

Isabella wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but felt silly when confronted with Melina Meszaros. Jacques inherited his elegant mannerisms from her. She was slender, very graceful and at ease in her own skin. Long black hair similar to Jacques’s was pulled back from her sculpted face. Talk about perfect bone structure. Jacques got that from her too. The white pantsuit and gold jewelry exuded the simple sophistication of a woman bred to wealth. They were worlds apart, but the way Melina beamed at her son made her hard to dislike.

When they stepped outside, an endless expanse of blue spread out below them. Jacques’s father sat at the edge of the terrace, facing the sea. Despite the fact that he was seated in a wheelchair, he shared the same commanding presence as his son. He turned to greet them.

And the same copper eyes.

She liked him immediately. He held out his hand to her. She moved next to him and leaned in for a kiss.

“You are even lovelier than my son said. Welcome, Isabella.” Mikalos spread both hands wide as if trying to hold the horizon. “Welcome to Greece.”

Despite their grace and manicured fingertips, she knew those hands had clawed him to this perch at the top of paradise.

Jacques joined her at his father’s side and went down on his knees to embrace the man he’d described as his inspiration. “You look well, Papa.”

“Liar,” Mikalos joked with humor sparkling in his eyes.

“Never,” Jacques feigned insult, “my father taught me better than that.”

Both men laughed as Jacques stood.

The setting and the small family may be different from what she was used to, but the warmth of their love for one another was comfortably familiar.

“It’s been too long, my son.”

“Yes, it has. I apologize, Papa, I’ve been preoccupied.”

“Ah, yes, preoccupied with courting your beautiful wife.” Mikalos looked at her. “Anything he’s done to make you happy, Isabella, I taught him. Anything else, he learned from someone else.”

The playfulness in Jacques’s father was a stark contrast to what she’d expected. Jacques had a sense of humor at times, but more often than not he was ridiculously serious and focused. He said his father’s intensity made him look like a slouch, but that was before the stroke. She assumed he’d meant that his father’s condition made him unable keep up with work. She hadn’t realized he meant it brought out a nature more like her own. She felt instinctively bonded to Mikalos somehow.