“Rosier SA nearly lost the contracts for his roses over it,” Colette said. “Since that spoiled brat is the face of the main Abbaye perfume that uses the absolute from those roses. That contract accounts for half the revenue those roses bring in.”
“What a bitch,” Layla said, furiously.
“And it hit him close to home here in terms of what people thought of him, too,” Jolie said. “I mean, most people around here know him too well, you know? And they know the perfume industry, too, and how anything is good for a media blitz. But there are still people who look at him suspiciously, wondering if anything she hinted at might be true. It did wonderful things for her, of course—her name was everywhere, beautiful and brave, exactly the way she likes it. But Matt was always one of the pillars of the community here, the next Rosier patriarch, and it shook that.”
“Don’t get us wrong,” Colette said. “Matthieu has always tried to play the tough, growling man and make sure nobody, most particularly not his cousins, tries to mess with him. But now he tries even harder to keep his heart covered.”
Allegra smiled. “Until you. Of course, I guess you’re not famous enough to draw more media down on him.”
Layla pressed her fingers over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she said. “I’ve got to tell him.”
“You know, of all your cousins, you’re the last one I would have thought would choose the seduction method,” Pépé said thoughtfully as Matt paused to flex his shoulders, toward the end of the afternoon. Pépé was back, refreshed from the nap he didn’t like admitting he took after lunch. “But as long as it’s working for you…”
This was one of those times when Matt liked to fold his arms across his chest when dealing with his family, but for some reason, his arms didn’t want to cooperate. It was as if his muscles had gone all floppy. Or as if his heart was taking over, and that insane suicidal organ didn’t want to hide behind a strong line of defenses.
It wanted to come out and play.
“I’m not trying to seduce that property out of her, Pépé.” They stood near the truck by the fields, watching the field workers, the trailer bed filling with the sacks from the harvest. It was a good harvest this year. A harvest that a family could have depended on, back in the old days, when this valley was truly the center of the family wealth and power and not just the symbol of it.
“It backfires, you know,” Pépé warned. “If you seduce a woman and something goes wrong and she gets mad, she’ll do the thing that will hurt you the most.”
Matt thought about those slim, strong arms of hers trying to hold her weight off his, in case she was applying pressure to his wound. He looked down at the line of stitches that she’d insisted on re-wrapping with gauze even though, twenty-four hours out, there was really no need to keep them covered. “No, she won’t.”
“You don’t think so?” That assessing blue gaze.
“She won’t,” Matt said quietly. It wasn’t a question of his opinion. She just wouldn’t.
His grandfather gave him a disgusted look. “So you didn’t learn any lessons about women from that last girlfriend of yours?”
“Not any lessons that apply to Layla.”
Sometimes his grandfather had a way of looking at him that made him feel as if he had an apple on his head, and his grandfather was deciding whether his aim was good enough to shoot it off to protect his valley. “You’re sure about that?”
“Look, I know better than to get involved with someone famous now, Pépé. Layla…she’s human, you know. Fame hasn’t gotten into her brain and messed with who she is and how she relates to people the way it did Nathalie.”
Pépé gave a frustrated shake of his head. “You’re willing to risk the heart of this valley on some girl you like? How are you going to feel when one of her descendants sells that land to a hotel?”
“Maybe the same as I’d feel if one of my descendants sold some of this land to a hotel.”
Pépé sent him a sharp, searching glance. Matt wished his arm muscles would start working. But instead of locking over his chest against that glance the way they were supposed to, his hands stayed in his back pockets, his chest wide-open and exposed to everyone around him.
It felt—big like that, his chest. It felt broad. It felt as if he could breathe deeply.
“I still say,” Pépé said slowly, eyes keen on Matt, “that the land needs to be kept in the family. Of course, there is more than one way of doing that.”