Once Upon a Rose(47)
He’d grabbed her up drunk and kissed her, he’d scared the hell out of her by trying to fix her kitchen sink, he’d probably terrified her into imagining her body buried in the rose fields, and he’d gotten in a damn fight in front of her. He was, in theory, her enemy, even if he had no clue how to fight her invasion into his valley. He was twice her size.
And yet…she seemed to be turning to him for reassurance.
And just for that second, with her hand on his, he wanted to offer her one of his roses every day for the rest of his life to see if she would react, every single time, as if he had given her something precious.
He turned his hand over and covered hers. His hand didn’t fit hers at all. It was too big. And yet inside his hold, he could feel the tension relax out of her hand, feel the way it nestled into his as if he’d made it feel safe. A quiet eased through him, and he forgot his cousins. Forgot even his grandfather.
For the weirdest moment, he forgot about his valley. He was just…him. You’ll never get lost with me here, sweetheart. I can make sure you never get lost again.
“No, of course not, Bouclettes.” He squeezed her hand. A smile softened her face as if he had done exactly the perfect thing. And for a moment, he felt as if he fit in her world just right. “I wouldn’t mind at all.”
Chapter 10
“We’ve got a problem,” Damien said as soon as Matt and Layla were gone and Pépé had left the lunch table to go take that nap he wouldn’t admit he needed. Damien thrust back in his chair, lounging like a panther stuck too long in a cage.
“And you haven’t solved it yet?” Tristan raised his eyebrows. “What is it, a comet headed toward the earth?”
“A comet headed toward Matt,” Damien said, and Tristan and Raoul both sat up straight and then leaned forward, a surge of energy running through them.
“What’s going on?” Tristan asked. “Is it Abbaye? Did those damn accountants of theirs finally convince them they had to buy their roses from Bulgaria and fuck quality and a hundred-year reputation?”
Damien made a little slashing motion with his hand. In a James Bond film, that motion would have hit some evil super villain in the neck and knocked him out. Although Tristan personally kind of preferred to imagine Damien as Bagheera taking out his prey. “Not yet.”
Tristan drew a breath. There were very few people he hated more than accountants. They were like alien octopus invaders, getting their ugly tentacles into everything good and saying it cost too much, and their invasion fleet always loomed on the edge of the valley, menacing, held back only by that thin wisp of extravagant arrogance that said, No. We don’t care whether the ordinary person can smell the difference or how much it cuts into our bottom line. We, the Top Perfume Houses in the World, get our roses here. Not from much, much cheaper non-France places. Or synthetics.
Sometimes Tristan actually considered abandoning Rosier SA and opening his own niche perfume house so he wouldn’t have one more beautiful idea ripped to shreds by those damn accountants.
But Damien…Tristan sighed a little. Yeah, he couldn’t abandon Damien like that. It might break that secret heart of his.
The same way they couldn’t abandon Matt, no matter how damn grumpy he was.
“So what is it?” Raoul demanded. He had that hunting-wolf look in his eyes that would make a rabbit cower in the snow, and it eased Tristan’s own heart a little. He liked having their oldest cousin back and still, apparently, quite willing to beat the crap out of anyone who messed with his younger cousins. Four against the world was better than three. And—a wistful twinge—five would be best of all. If Lucien ever came back.
Damien thrust his phone at him. Raoul looked at the screen a moment and raised his eyebrows, then passed it to Tristan. It showed a photo of Matt’s curly-haired girl, only she wasn’t wearing shorts and a tank top and picking roses with a borrowed hat on her head and looking up at Matt with sparkling, fascinated teasing every time he got anywhere close. She was sleeked out in some evening gown, a little, elegant purse clutched nervously in front of her, her eyes very big and her smile carefully posed. Belle Woods arrives for the Grammys, the caption said.
Tristan’s stomach sank.
“Well, shit.” He looked up to meet his cousins’ eyes.
Raoul looked thoughtful but not much alarmed. But Damien definitely got it, his expression grim, like James Bond when he realized the first woman he’d slept with in that movie had once again turned out to be using him in her plans for world annihilation.
“Damn it, I liked her,” Tristan said. “Hell. She’s already got him wrapped around her little finger. You know, you could have slipped me your phone before I encouraged Matt to take off with her for the afternoon so he could fall even harder for her.”