Chapter 2
HE WATCHED HER DISAPPEARING because he found it almost impossible to look away. From the minute she’d come rushing up to him, hands on her hips, cross little face all dusty and smudged by dirt, he’d found it hard not to look at her. She’d accused him of trespassing, and he’d loved that she hadn’t known who he was—for a man who was recognized wherever he went, that had been a rare and appealing novelty. But very quickly, his enjoyment in spending time with her had gone beyond the novelty and morphed into something else.
He was attracted to her, pure and simple, and it caught him off guard. In the two years since his engagement had crashed and burned, he’d slept with a small handful of women. All of them meaningless one night stands, to avoid any risk of emotional entanglements, all of them a very specific type—the polar opposite to Skye Smith. She was…unsophisticated and…wild. There was nothing glamorous about her, and while she was attractive, it was in a very natural way. She looked completely at home in these fields, with soil under her nails and mud tracked across her cheek.
So why was he staring at the way her shorts hugged her butt as she strode off, clearly pissed with him? Why was he fighting a ridiculous urge to chase after her? Because Etienne was there, and despite the fact Matthieu didn’t care what anyone thought of him, he felt an urge to protect Skye from unwanted speculation.
“Is she any good?” Matthieu asked, his curiosity about her something he wasn’t able to ignore.
“She came highly recommended.”
“By whom?”
“Clarence Godfrey-Hayes. She worked for him over the summer. He told me he’d never met someone with quite her work ethic.” Etienne turned to look over his shoulder, but Skye had disappeared into the vines. “He’s not wrong.”
Matthieu’s silence was an unspoken encouragement for Etienne to continue. They began to walk towards the winery and Etienne said, “Every morning this week, she has already been in the vines before me. As you know, I generally tour the grounds at seven, with my first coffee of the day.”
Matthieu frowned. “She is working too hard.” Again, that strange protective instinct. “There are labor laws in place to protect staff.”
“She only writes a standard day on her timesheet,” Etienne said with a shrug. “And I have told her that she need only do her contracted hours.”
“What did she say?”
“That she loves to work. Just like Godfrey-Hayes said.”
Matthieu couldn’t say why that seeded displeasure in his belly, but he knew better than to ask any more questions. At least, not of Etienne.
* * *
Skye sippedtea from her flask before replacing it at her feet, the inky dark sky twinkling with stars, so she paused for a moment to look up, stretching her neck at the same time. There was magic in the air at dawn. She pitied the fools all curled up in their beds rather than here, with the dewy grass beneath her feet, the world silent save for the birds and the slight rustle of the leaves as a warm breeze whispered past.
“Good morning.”
She startled, spilling some of her tea down her shirt, spinning guiltily at the intrusion. “It’s you!” She hadn’t meant for the words to sound so accusing but nor had she expected Matthieu de Garmeaux to ambush her in the vines well before the sun had arrived.
“Yes.”
She clamped her lips together, breathing in only to be met by the most tantalizing smell. Sugar and almonds and coffee and something far spicier and more intriguing, which she suspected to be Matthieu’s aftershave.
“What are you doing here?”
“We were interrupted yesterday.”
“That’s not how I see it.” She turned away from him on the pretense of pruning a leaf from a vine. “You came here to meet Etienne. If anything, I’m the one who interrupted you.”
“Have coffee with me.”
She angled her face towards him, appraising his symmetrical features in the early morning light.
“Why?”
“Why not?”
“I’m working.”
“Your shift doesn’t start for another three hours.”
Her lips parted. “That doesn’t mean I’m not busy.”