Oh, for God’s sake. That’s what a man got for letting his family get a glimpse of his heart: invasive curiosity and pressure about the most delicate and powerful feelings it held.
“I’ve only known her for four days, Pépé,” Matt growled, turning away as Raoul came up through the fields. After fourteen years of harvests without Raoul, it was still strange to have him there so much. To be able to see how deeply Raoul wanted to be a part of this land again.
To have Matt’s own heart feel open enough to allow him back in.
Matt took a deep breath. “I see you did a decent job without me yesterday,” he allowed.
No sense getting effusive with praise, after all. There was “opening up” and then there was acting like an idiot. He wasn’t some damn oyster on a half shell.
Raoul slanted him a dry glance. All Raoul’s glances had a slightly feral gleam to them, ever since he’d headed off to Africa. A wildness that had gotten in him that could maybe never be entirely appeased, unless Allegra was there. “You don’t know how relieved I am to hear that you approve.”
Matt bit back a grin. See? At least Raoul didn’t go forcing a man to expose his soft insides recklessly. He knew how to keep up a tough front. Knew the importance of it.
He sighed in relaxation, oddly reassured. Glad that to this day, all he and his cousins had to do to mend a rift was some version of punching each other on the shoulder.
Damien’s car pulled in from the main road, and he got out and came up to them. Matt knew right away that something was wrong, maybe with some business deal for Rosier SA. Damien had that look on his face that he got whenever he might have to assassinate someone. Metaphorically speaking, of course.
At least, he was pretty sure Damien hadn’t ever literally assassinated anyone.
Damien looked at them all for a moment, squinted briefly at the sky, and then handed Matt his phone.
Raoul made a sudden movement, as if to grab for it, before he stopped himself. “Damn it, Damien,” he snapped. “I told you—” The supreme frustration of the eldest cousin whose younger cousins still weren’t doing what he told them to do.
Matt looked down at the screen. It showed a celebrity website that was all too familiar to him after his stint with Nathalie Leclair. The photo was of him kissing Layla in jasmine the night before in Sainte-Mère, edited so that it looked as if a tragically beautiful victimized Nathalie was looking on. His mouth tightened. Was his stupidity in dating Nathalie going to taint his life forever? Were those damn sites still obsessed with his private life, even when he was dating a perfectly ordinary girl next door?
He looked at the caption: “Did the Beast find his Belle?”
Bastards. He glanced down at the article despite himself. “Seems as if Belle Woods has replaced Nathalie Leclair in her peasant’s heart. We’ll have to see if she handles the beast better…”
Matt lifted his head. Something began to ring in his ears, all the air in the valley pressing in tight to his head, squeezing his brain. “Who’s Belle Woods?”
Damien sighed sharply, sent a reluctant glance toward Raoul who was frowning at Damien in stern disapproval, and then reached to swipe a thumb across the phone screen. Another web page appeared, this one of Layla in an elegant evening dress, clutching a little purse in front of her, and posing for the camera. Belle Woods arrives for the Grammys.
The valley was going to crush Matt’s head. What the hell was going on?
“I thought—I thought she gave guitar lessons and bartended and played little gigs wherever she could find them.” The words tasted all funny on his tongue, as if he’d been to the dentist and half his mouth was still numb. He’d thought she needed him. Hell, when she’d talked about bartending, he’d had to bite his tongue not to rush ahead and say, I’ll keep a roof over your head for you. I know how to do that.
“Maybe she used to,” Raoul said. “Damn it, Damien, I thought we agreed—”
“Somebody was going to tell him today,” Damien said. “With those photos all over the web. I preferred to control the circumstances.”
“She’s been lying to me?” When he had thought she was trusting her whole self to him? That sweet, incredible trust, as if she knew he would be worthy of it?
She hadn’t even thought he was good enough to know who she really was. She’d just been…what? Fooling around with the farmer boy for a few days? Getting her groove back?
“Maybe she’s not mentioning the parts she doesn’t want to talk about,” Raoul said. “That’s not the same as lying.”