My Cherie Amour

CHAPTER SEVEN

Diego sighed as he looked out over the seemingly endless blue sea. If the winds prevailed, they would arrive in New Orleans in a week. It could not be soon enough for him. Étienne Barbin was proving to be a far more worthy opponent then he had first believed and an all around nuisance. The little interlude in his study meant to send the little shit a message seemed to goad the pup. Instead of exiting gracefully the boy had only removed himself as far as the parlor, to wait until Diego had put Cherie to bed.

"I would think you would have gotten the point," Diego drawled as he strolled into the parlor, pouring himself a healthy drought of brandy without offering the younger man any refreshments. It was unpardonably rude, but the boy was there to steal the one thing that meant a damn to him. He completely dismissed that Cherie had been the boy's long before he had ever met her.

Étienne regarded in the infamous Capitán Diego Esteban de Aguilar, Duque de Suárez as he tried to sort through the multitude of emotions coursing through him. He certainly looked the part of his reputation, tall, dark, dangerous and completely uncompromising. When Christine L'Amour had first told him Cherie was with this man before him, Étienne had felt like his heart was being ripped from his chest. The duke was relatively young and unmarried, richer than most men could ever hope to be, and he had more power than any territorial governor; the only thing Étienne had to offer that was comparable to any of that was his hand in marriage. He had walked to the duke's midtown mansion hoping that his willingness to make Cherie his wife regardless of where she had been or who she had been with would be enough for him to woo her back home to him. What he had witnessed in the duke's study tore ripped that small hope to shreds.

The things was, instead of feeling anger or jealousy at the erotic scene he had witness, Étienne felt excluded. He did not boil in anger at seeing Diego's hands on his fiancée, he felt left out somehow. He did not want to tear them apart, he wanted to join them. Étienne had waited for Cherie for half of his life and he had never failed to be infuriated at the sight of her smiling at any other man that was not one of her fathers or her brothers. He had lurked at every ball she had attended quietly warning off all of the young bucks, relying on Claude or Luc to warn off the older gentlemen. Never had he felt to urge to share her, or worse to be shared by her.

Of course he knew of her parents three-way relationship just as she knew his father lived with his long-time male lover. That was part of the reason they were so perfect for each other. Étienne had long ago accepted his father for who he was, but he had never been attracted to another male, until now. Diego had been magnificent! His body had excited him every bit as much as Cherie's. As much as he knew Cherie would not walk away from the duke, he was very much afraid he would have a most difficult time walking away from either of them.

"I got the point," Étienne said quietly turning away from Diego to stare out the bay windows.

Diego frowned. "Then why are you here?"

Étienne shrugged, "Would you be able to walk away."

That made Diego pause. If Cherie decided she wanted to return to life she had been torn away from and leave him, could he let her go? The question brought Diego up short. No, he would never let her go. Yet he fully expected this boy to do just that.

"I understand the way you feel," Diego began. "But you are young..."

"Yes, I am young," Étienne whirled back to face the man sleeping with his lost love. "But I will not grow out of it. I will not love again. That is what you were going to say was it not?"
Diego was taken about by the vehemence in his voice. Damn, that was exactly what he was going to say.