A Trail of Broken Promises

By Andrea Bellmont

**this book has been re-edited and has a new cover.

Charlene Harrison was no stranger to a broken heart. Her last heartache left her vowing never to love again. To compound her sorrow, her Great-Aunt Francine Harrison passed away. She was the only one who kept Charlene's hopes and spirits alive. Her aunt's beautiful Chateau in France belonged to Charlene now. Her Aunt had named Charlene as her sole heir.

When she arrived at the Chateau, its grace and beauty are precisely what Charlene needed to heal.

Charlene didn't believe in ghosts.

Then a handsome, mysterious stranger makes her a pledge, a promise of selfless true love. Will he promise her everything and deliver nothing but broken promises. Will he shatter her into pieces so he can take her soul for his own, or will he defy his destiny and fall deeply in love with the one means of ever redeeming his soul?

Imprisoned in the walls of the Chateau is the soul of Morgan LaPetre. He'd been waiting for centuries for her. He'd made a deal with the devil. Would Charlene be his redemption and his way back into the world of the living, or will love truly conquer all?

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bitten Press LLC
• Release date: Oct 11, 2013
• ISBN: 9781497733879

Andrea Bellmont

Andrea Bellmont is a writer of erotica and erotic romance. She dabbles in the paranormal end of the genre and loves her three muses. They're naughty muses whom she blames for her most erotic stories. She's a wife, a mother and still believes a woman should be at all times sexy and self confident. Journey with her, in an adult never land. Andrea Bellmont. Passions Iron Grip and Bonds (Kindle Locations 442-445). Bitten Press.

Book preview

Chapter One

The envelope

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CHARLENE HARRISON OPENED the envelope. She read the letter from the French law firm; it informed her that her Great-Aunt Francine Harrison had passed away. As she read on, Charlene had a hard time digesting the contents of the letter. She wondered if her great-aunt was even cognoscente when she amended her will.

She had inherited her great-aunt’s estate, a beautiful Chateau in Normandy, France. She looked up from the letter and swallowed. What was she going to do with a Chateau in France? She tried reading through all the legal mumbo jumbo, and it was confusing. However, the number of Francs left to her didn’t confuse her. Her great-great-aunt had left her a sizable amount of money, enough for her to take off a few years, go to France and stay at the Chateau before she made any decisions to sell it.

The letter mentioned a silver box and the key to a safe deposit box with the contents meant for her eyes only. She took the letter and put it against her heart, and her tears came slowly. She would miss her great aunt. They wrote to each other regularly, and she treasured their correspondence. It was a mode of communication that seemed lost to her generation and yet, for her and her aunt, very therapeutic.

She packed what she could fit into one large suitcase, booked a flight to France, and left the shattered pieces of her life behind.

Charlene was still nursing a broken heart. Her engagement to the love of her life had fallen apart. Her life was in shambles, and she was only twenty-seven.

Dylan was handsome and built like a Greek god. She’d always felt inferior to him. Not pretty enough, thin enough, or smart enough. Her five-foot-four height, average, her weight less than model thin, and her face too angelic. Long chestnut brown hair, dark brows, and stunning clear blue eyes all set off her heart-shaped face.

When he finally broke off their engagement, he told her that she could have been thinner, prettier, smarter, and far more interesting, confirming her insecurities. The day he left, he broke her heart and took her spirit. He left her a shallow, painful shell of a woman.

As she stood with the letter in her hand, her mind reeled. She’d be crazy to overlook such an opportunity. This was her chance to leave all the hate and bitterness behind. She sank to her knees and began to cry. Perhaps this was a new lease on her life because the life she currently was living was hell. Since Dylan left, she wallowed in self-pity. She was doing nothing to change her situation. It was a fault of hers, one she hated.

She held the letter then started to refold it when before her appeared a vision. It was of a tall man with the saddest eyes she’d ever seen. He reached out, and she backed away. When she blinked, he was gone.

She sank to the floor. Her tears blurred her vision, and her heart ached. Was she hallucinating? Did she want to be loved so desperately that her mind conjured up the image? She shook her head, how pathetic. Was she that afraid of never finding love again?

Memories of her love affair with Dylan were still fresh in her mind. Finally, she’d thought she’d found someone who loved her. His friends all told him what a lucky man he was, as did his family. His mother adored her and told her son what beautiful babies she’d give him.

At one Sunday dinner, his mother announced,

Dylan, marry this girl. She’s got a great set of hips and a realistic body."

Even his father praised her, telling his son she was beautiful, and he was lucky to have found her. The older man wasn’t kidding. She found him ogling her more than once.

However, Dylan wanted more. He was obsessed with movie stars and supermodels, and few normal women could compete with that. Perhaps it was his mother’s urging him to marry her and his father’s naughty glances that made Dylan decide to break it off.  

She’d given him her heart.

Dylan crushed her.

Now that she was at her dead great-aunt’s French Chateau, the tranquility of the French countryside seemed to put her at ease. Perhaps French men were different. Maybe she’d find happiness far from the shores of America. Fat chance, she thought, men were men no matter where you lived.

Charlene’s insecurities surfaced. Once again, she thought she wasn’t pretty enough, her body wasn’t perfect enough, and she was just too ordinary for any man to love or put a ring on her finger. Living out her life alone in the beautiful chateau was her destiny.

Chapter Two

Morgan LaPetre

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HE HEARD HER SOBS, and it wrenched at his heart. She was so much like Francine. He didn’t mean to scare her or upset her, and he hated to see a woman cry. Morgan LaPetre wanted to reach out, engulf her in his arms and soothe her pain. Her display of sorrow wasn’t good. He had to stay focused and contain his emotions because she wasn’t ready for another encounter.

Since Francine’s death, he’d found a new freedom, he was no longer bound to the walls of the Chateau. In an enlightening twenty-first century, he found himself in America and a country with little of France's ambiance.

He compared the Statue of Liberty to the Eiffel tower, designed and built by the French as a gift. He loved the East Village; he felt at home, the art, the people, and the narrow streets. But he had to remember why he was there and why he needed Francine‘s great-niece Charlene to come to France and not let an estate lawyer handle it all from America. He needed her in France because once there, he needed her to break his curse. Leaving subliminal messages worked beautifully. He had her where he wanted her.

Morgan LaPetre, in the past, lived his life as a Templar Knight. By the time he was twenty-two, he’d risen in the ranks, and his vow to serve God with a sword gave him power. At twenty-two, he was chaste, a virgin, never knowing carnal pleasures. He never thought impure thoughts; he was committed to the order. Then God and the holy lands beckoned him. Five hundred Templars from France and surrounding Christian countries left to join the crusades.

He loved the glory and never flinched at the bloodshed. As a Templar Knight, he swung his sword in the name of God. Morgan was the epitome of a holy warrior pure of heart, body, and soul. He guarded his virginity and punished those