Moonlight Scandals by Jennifer L. Armentrout

“What in the world were you doing with a de Vincent?” That was the first question Lance asked when Rosie met up with him at Jilly’s place. He’d been sitting out on the porch, waiting for her.

Lance was a couple years younger, and with his head full of auburn hair and big brown eyes, he had a perpetual baby face. The man would probably still look like he was in his early twenties even when he was in his forties and he really was a good guy.

A good man who’d had a rough run of things after returning home from a tour in Afghanistan. It wasn’t a topic he talked about often, but Rosie knew he’d done something along the lines of emergency medicine when with the army. Knowing that, she figured the man had seen things that no human should ever have to witness.

His girlfriend of several years had apparently gotten involved with someone else without telling him. It hadn’t been exactly easy for him to adapt to civilian life and finding a job had been even harder. Combined with everything he’d experienced overseas and the life that seemed to have moved on without him once he returned home, he’d had a tough go at things at first.

But Lance was proof of human resilience. He got knocked down several times, but he picked himself up and he here was.

Rosie shifted the strap of her purse as she slowly climbed the steps. “You remember Nikki, right? My friend from the University of Alabama? She’s dating one of the brothers—Gabriel. She was over at their house and I was visiting her,” she said, leaving out most of the details since it wasn’t widely known that Nikki had been involved in what happened with Parker. Not that she didn’t trust Lance. What happened wasn’t her story to tell. “And Devlin was there. He’s bit of a . . . dickhead, so I was arguing with him.”

Lance’s reddish-brown brows lifted. “Okay. First, I cannot believe you were at the de Vincent house, and second, you were arguing with Devlin de Vincent.”

Rosie shrugged like she didn’t care, but it felt forced. As stupid as it sounded because Devlin was a virtual stranger to her, but she did care, because she couldn’t fathom how or why someone would be such an ass for no good reason. Sure, she wasn’t particularly nice to him when he came to her apartment, but he’d acted like he hadn’t known who she was and he’d been rude to her the moment he stepped through her door. The man she’d met in the cemetery, while distant, had been polite. That wasn’t the Devlin she had now seen twice.

It was like the man wanted people to hate him.

“Believe it,” she said, pushing thoughts of Devlin aside as the strap of her purse started to inch down her arm again.

“What was the house like?” he asked, and Rosie knew why he was asking. Like her, Lance knew all about the legends and rumors that surrounded the de Vincent place.

“I didn’t get to see much of it, but there was something super weird.” She told him about the ivy growing everywhere. “I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.”

“All over?” Interest filled his brown eyes.

“All over the entire exterior,” she confirmed.

“Hell, that is insane.” Lance scratched his fingers through his messy, curly hair. “So, do you think you can get us access to the house? Or Nikki could?”

Rosie barked out a short laugh. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

“Why not?” He frowned.

She caught the purse before it slipped right off her arm. Jesus, she hated this purse with its short straps, but damn it, the patchwork fabric was so cute. “Besides the fact that the de Vincents are notoriously private, I’m pretty confident Devlin loathes me.”

“Loathes you? How in the world can anyone hate you?” He rose as she reached the top step and draped his arm over her shoulders. “You’re fucking awesome.”

Rosie laughed softly. “I know.” She didn’t want to spend another moment thinking about Devlin. “So, what’s the update with the Mendez family?”

Sliding his arm off her shoulders, he opened the door for her. “I’ll let Jilly give you the details.”

Jilly was in the narrow living room, on the phone with her girlfriend by the sound of the one-sided hushed argument and her brisk pace in front of the leaning tower of books. Those two argued over everything, from what they were having for dinner to if a residual haunting counted as a real haunting or not, and the only thing they both agreed on was the fact there was no one else for them. They were complete opposites, from the way they looked and dressed, all the way down to Jilly being a vegetarian and Liz considering herself a meat connoisseur.

But Rosie doubted she knew two people who loved each other more than them.

She dropped into the old armchair as Jilly turned, throwing up her free hand. “You know I love you, babe, but I have to get off the phone. Rosie and Lance are here—yes.” Jilly rolled her eyes. “Liz says hi.”

“Hi,” Rosie replied, grinning at Lance. “Is she working?”

“Yes. She’ll be here soon. What?” Jilly whipped around and picked up her glass of wine. “Liz will be here in forty minutes. I’m hanging up.” There was a pause, and her face softened. “You know I miss you. I always miss you, now shut up and get back to work so you can actually get off work on time for once.

“Do you guys want anything to drink? No? Perfect.” Jilly tossed her phone onto the couch, where it bounced off a fluffy chenille throw. “Glad to see you’re still alive, Rosie.”

Rosie arched a brow. “I miss a few phone calls and you guys assume I’m dead?”

“It’s New Orleans.” She tucked short dark strands behind her ear. “Anything is possible.”

“That’s a wee bit of an exaggeration,” Rosie commented.

“Gonna have to agree with Rosie on that.” Lance sat on the arm of her chair.

“Of course you do. You love her.” Jilly smiled sweetly.

Rosie stiffened while Lance flipped her off.

Jilly ignored him. “Anyway, I did speak to Preston Mendez, and like he’d asked of us, I haven’t showed his wife what we caught on camera yet.”

Preston had wanted to vet anything we caught on film before it was showed to his wife, and their team had respected that even though Rosie felt Maureen should know. She got that he didn’t want to upset his wife, but she was eventually going to have to see the film.

“Needless to say, he was quite disturbed by what was caught on film Saturday night,” she continued, taking a drink of her wine. “He didn’t hear the bang, but he did wake up when the baby started crying.”

“Is he going to let us stay the night in there?” Lance asked.

Jilly shook her head. “He’s still talking it over with his wife, but I think they’re going to let us. I’ve only explained a hundred million times to him why we’d be able to gain more evidence if we were able to do an overnight.”

“In the meantime, he should at least let us set up a couple of EVP recorders in the house,” Rosie suggested.

“Agreed. But people are weird when it comes to knowing there’s something in their house recording their conversations. You know this.” Jilly sat on the couch. “But kiddos, it’s time for me to tell you something really weird. Something I discovered while talking to Preston earlier, and it’s either a really bizarre coincidence or it’s fate.”

Rosie glanced at Lance. “Do you have any idea of what she is talking about?”

“Not really.”

“He doesn’t know, but when he came over earlier, he said when he talked to you on the phone, you were with a de Vincent. Is that true?” Jilly was practically trembling with excitement or she’d drunk one of those five-hour energy drinks again.

Her brows knit together as she exhaled heavily. The last person she wanted to think or talk about was a de Vincent. “Yeah, I was, but what does that have to do with anything?”

Jilly laughed. “Here is where things get either super coincidental or get really weird. As you know, the Mendezes didn’t have any activity in their home until they brought the baby home. We of course assumed that was the cause of the activity.”

Rosie nodded slowly. “Yeah. . . .”

“But come to find out, at the same time they introduced the baby to their home, the house next door to them, which had been empty, was sold to a lovely young couple.”

Rosie really had no idea where Jilly was going with this, and she wondered if she’d smoked some pot before they had come over.

“The house next door to them eventually went under an extensive renovation that has lasted months and is still currently undergoing renovation,” Jilly explained, tipping her wineglass at them before placing it on the coffee table. “And what is the number one thing that stirs up ghosts?”

“Renovations?” Lance answered.

Jilly clapped. “Correct!”

Sitting forward, Rosie crossed one leg over the other. “Okay. There have been cases of renovations in one house stirring up activity in another house. And if that’s the case, then that’s good news for the family. Usually activity simmers down once the renovations are done.”

“Or the spirit will make its way back to the house it originated from,” Lance added.

“Either way, what does this have to do with the de Vincents?” Rosie asked.

“Because who do you think bought the house next door to the Mendez family?” Jilly bit down on her lip as she looked between the two of them. “Lucian de Vincent.”

Rosie’s jaw dropped.

“What?” Lance stiffened.

Jilly nodded. “Yep. Preston met him over the weekend. He happened to be out in the yard while Lucian and his girlfriend were there checking on the renovations. Now, you tell me, is this just a bizarre coincidence that someone who just happens to live in one of the rumored most haunted locations in all of the United States is moving in next door to the family who reported strange activity in their house around the same time?”

Rosie had no words.

“Ghosts can sometimes follow people—you know, the whole person is haunted versus the house or property, but . . .” Lance dragged his hand through his hair. “But man, what a small world.”

Jilly grinned as she lifted her brows at Rosie. “So, since you’re apparently now best friends forever with a de Vincent,” Jilly said, and Rosie opened her mouth to correct that horrifically wrong assumption, but she kept talking. “You need to get us into the house next door to the Mendezes.”

Rosie snapped out of her stupor. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”

Across from her Jilly met her gaze and her grin turned downright demonic. “I’m willing to bet my entire signed first-edition set of the Twilight series that it will happen.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

Dev lifted his gaze from the glow of his computer to where Gabe stood. It was late, damn near midnight, and the columns of numbers—deposits from banks in China, Russia, and Uzbekistan—were giving him a fucking headache. Deposits from banks in countries were Dev knew damn well they did not do enough business to warrant seven-figure deposits.

It had taken the forensic accountant months to peel back layers of fake accounts and transfer numbers and all the false information provided by some of Lawrence’s lawyers and financial advisers, then to ferret out where the deposits had originated from, and these banks were confirming the worst of Dev’s suspicions.

So, at the moment, he really didn’t have the patience for whatever Gabe wanted to talk about.

“I’m not quite sure what you’re referring to, but I’m not exactly in the mood for this conversation.” Dev minimized the spreadsheets before he sat back in his chair.

“You’re never in the mood for anything, at least anything good.” Gabe strolled on into the office and planted his hands on the backs of the two chairs seated in front of Dev’s desk. “But I’ll give you a refresher.”

“Of course.”

Gabe’s jaw hardened. “The way you spoke to Nikki’s friend today? That was unacceptable.”

Tension crept into Dev’s neck. “Unacceptable to whom?”

“To any decent fucking human being,” Gabe shot back. “You made her go move her car and for what? You normally don’t give two shits about your truck being parked outside the garage.”

That wasn’t exactly untrue, and to be honest, Dev wasn’t sure why he’d demanded that Rosie move her car. The request was . . . immature and asinine. Even he could admit that to himself. He’d done it because he knew . . . he knew it would get a rise out of her and for some reason he wanted to do that. “You waited until midnight to have this conversation?”

“I waited until Nikki was asleep and wasn’t going to have a goddamn nightmare to come to talk to you.” Gabe pushed off the chairs. “Right now Nikki needs to be surrounded by her friends and family and people who give a damn about her. And if that means Rosie is going to be here to visit her, you need to get the hell over that.”

“I don’t care if Rosie comes to visit her,” Dev replied.

“Really? You don’t? Sure didn’t seem that way. The moment you knew someone was here, you made her feel about as welcome as a cat in a room full of dogs.”

Contrary to what his brothers believed, he didn’t have a preternatural sense that told him when people were in the house, nor did he waste time worrying over what they were doing when they were there. As long as his brothers’ guests didn’t roam around and stayed the hell out of his line of sight, he couldn’t care less.

His gaze lowered to the glass of bourbon on his desk. Gabe had no idea just how much of an asshole he had been to Rosie. Shit. Even Dev felt a stirring of . . . guilt. The woman, though, she pushed every single one of his buttons—buttons he didn’t even know he had—but he had been unreasonable and uncouth toward Rosie. What he’d said to her . . . ?

Not only had that been completely uncalled-for, it also had been a lie.

Not the part when he said she’d be begging him to stop and pleading to keep going. Or the part where he promised no one would fuck her harder or longer. That was the truth. Saying that the mere idea of him ever fucking her was laughable was the lie.

There was nothing funny about that, and he’d thought about it a lot since Saturday morning. Enough that he was already convinced that she’d be . . . Exhaling roughly, Dev picked up the glass of bourbon and took a drink. Rosie would be like no other. He already knew that.

“Is that all you wanted to talk to me about?” he asked, lifting his gaze to Gabe.

His brother was silent and then he asked, “What in the hell did that man do to you?”

Every muscle locked up. Dev didn’t even twitch a finger. “What man?”

“Don’t play that game with me. You know I’m talking about Lawrence. What in the hell did he do to you to make you this miserable?”

For a moment he couldn’t believe his brother had asked him that question, but then he remembered Gabe didn’t know. Neither did Lucian. He stared back at his brother, wishing he would go back to Nikki. Not because he wanted Gabe to get the hell out of his face. But because he didn’t want his brother digging up fresh skeletons.

“What did he do, Dev?” Gabe wasn’t leaving. Not yet. “I need to know, because with every day that goes by, you’re becoming more like him, and that fucking terrifies me.”

Dev’s jaw locked down as his right hand tightened on the glass. He couldn’t even speak.

Gabe stared at him for a long moment and then barked out a harsh, short laugh as he shook his head. “Whatever. Good night, Dev.”

He sat there and watched his brother walk out of his office, closing the door behind him. The glass was heavy in his hand as Gabe’s words cycled over and over. “You’re becoming more like him.” Dev would never become Lawrence. Never.

Dev’s body reacted without thought.

Standing, he cocked his arm back and threw the glass across the room. It smashed into the closed door, shattering upon impact. Liquor and glass sprayed the hardwood floors. He stood there, still, for several moments and then he drew in a deep, slow breath. He fixed the cuffs of his shirt and sat back down, turning his attention back to the evidence of what Lawrence de Vincent had been involved in.