At first,as the helicopter lifted him from the property, he fumed. He fumed about his grandparents’ old-fashioned ways, their dictates that he must marry in order to be happy, their ongoing requirement that he ‘settle down’ and stop working so hard. He even fumed about Clare, and the relationship he’d walked away from even when doing so had nearly broken him, just seven nights before their wedding, all the bad press that had followed him only added an extra layer of torture because he’d walked away from the love of his life. He fumed as the ground beneath him grew small, just a patchwork of greens with the ocean glinting in the distance.
But as the helicopter grew nearer and nearer to Paris, other emotions began to run through him. Sadness at his grandfather’s obvious ill-health. A desire to please the old man. And even to please his grandmother, despite the fact she’d just delivered a callous ultimatum. He had known her long enough to believe it came from a good place, even though it was completely unreasonable.
They really wanted him to get married?
Didn’t they understand that they were part of the reason he’d shied away from it? Sure, the breakup with Clare had been brutal, but long before that, he’d seen the way marriage had destroyed his mother, all because of Anais and Lucien. They’d hated his mother from the day they’d met her and they’d set themselves up in opposition to her at every opportunity. His father, instead of defending his wife, had backed down, throwing her to the wolves rather than defending her.
They’d hated his mother because she was different to what they’d wanted for their son. Though he’d only been a boy, he could remember the stories she’d told him, how she’d spoken of Lucien and Anais’s treatment of her, how she’d cried when she’d recalled what they’d said to her, how they’d threatened her, tried to bribe her to leave Henry.
Matthieu ground his teeth together, his childhood filled with dark memories he preferred not to revisit. But they pulled on him now, and he felt them flood his body with sadness and impotence.
The idea of falling in with their plans now and returning with some kind of Stepford wife wannabe made his blood run cold. But he’d do it, for his grandfather’s sake.
Unless…
The idea came to him fully formed. Unless he didn’t return with a Stepford wife. Unless he returned to their home engaged, but to the kind of woman just like his mother had been: someone who broke right through the mold of elegant trophy wife? Someone who was beautiful and smart in her own way, fiercely independent and totally different to what they expected? What if he met their criteria but drove them crazy with his choice, all at once? Wouldn’t that teach them not to interfere? This was his life, damn it, and he wouldn’t march it to anyone else’s tune.
A cynical smile tilted his lips as he pressed the button of his earpiece, so that he could speak directly to the pilot. “Change of plan, Armand. Take me to the winery in Champagne.”
* * *
It wasn’tunusual to be covered in dirt, but this was the first time since starting at the winery that Skye had been plastered, head to toe, in mud.
“You look worse than something the cat dragged in,” Ashton Rivera—a seasonal worker from the States with a Californian suntan and deep, drawling accent—laughed, as she skirted the edge of the cellar door, looking for a place to wipe down before going inside to wash up properly.
“I got into an argument with a puddle,” she responded wryly.
“And the puddle kicked your butt, by the looks of it.”
She grimaced. The truth was, Skye hadn’t completely been paying attention. She shrugged, smiled, then kept walking. Around the back of the winery were the old stables, now used for storing vats. She pushed through the doors and made her way to a trough sink. A rag was on the side. She dampened it, and began to wipe down her arms, and her legs, but the more she wiped, the worse it seemed to get. There was nothing for it but a proper shower.
With a grimace, she rinsed off the rag and replaced it on the edge of the sink before striding towards the barn doors and pushing through them, slamming into something hard and unforgiving, and very much alive.
“Merde. Are you –,” The voice was immediately familiar, and sure enough, when she looked up, it was into the eyes of Matthieu de Garmeaux. She didn’t need to glance downwards to know that his immaculate suit jacket, crisp white shirt and fashionable jeans were now covered in dark black mud, nor that she’d been the cause.
“I’m so sorry!” She sprung back from him, heat flooding her cheeks when she saw that it was so much worse than she’d realized. “I didn’t see you.”
“You couldn’t have,” he responded wryly. “There was no time. It’s not your fault.”
“But you’re filthy,” she murmured, mortified.
“No, you’re filthy. What happened?”
“I—fell in a puddle,” she dropped her gaze to the floor, embarrassed to admit her clumsiness to this suave picture of perfection.
“How?”
“How do you think? I just…fell.”
“Did you trip?”
She frowned. “I must have. There was a root, an old vine.”
“Ah. Then this is my fault. I should help you get clean.”
She stared at him, mind boggled by that suggestion. “I—I can manage.”
“I’m sure you can.” There was an intensity in his gaze that took her breath away. She tried to focus, but there was a ringing in her ears she couldn’t silence. “But I wanted to speak to you anyway.”