Chapter Forty
After my heart-to-heart with Elliott the night before at Saint Orens, I called Bastien to come and meet us at the inn to strategize a game plan about how best to regain control of the finale’s narrative from Kate’s clutches. A little after 8:00 a.m., seated in the small breakfast nook of La Cigale Chantante, Elliott and I sipped on a fresh pot of English Breakfast tea while reviewing all the photos, notes, video clips, and articles we’d been gathering on Chateau Mirabelle over the past almost six weeks. Since it’d been done piecemeal, I hadn’t realized how many artifacts and tidbits we’d found on our quest at all the stops we’d made along the way. As I examined the images and collected materials, the small blonde hairs on my forearms stood on end. This was the story that needed to be told. I’d never been more certain of anything in my life.
Bastien slowly made his way into the dining room a little after eight fifteen, his eyes sweeping the space like he was about to be ambushed by a firing squad. Maybe he was. Though Elliott had promised to be on his best behavior and theoretically understood that Bastien’s understanding of the show had also been deluded, I couldn’t be certain that one ill-timed or overly flirtatious joke from Bastien might result in Elliott knocking him flat on his ass.
Odette greeted him at the doorway and guided him over to where we were sitting. She offered him tea or coffee, but he politely declined both. He pulled out the empty chair and eased into it, sighing as he sat. “Bonjour,” he mumbled, a bit reticent.
“Thank you for coming,” I said.
“Why would I not come? You two are my friends, are you or non?”
“Yeah, non,” Elliott jabbed.
I shot him a disapproving look, rested my forearms on the table’s edge, and folded my clasped hands on the paper place mat in front of me. I sat up a bit straighter and decided to just jump in. “I have given this a lot of thought since my talk with Kate. Between my contractual obligation to the show and the ultimatum Kate posed during our argument, I’m not left with many options. But if you are sorry—sincerely sorry—for your role in deceiving me and truly interested in making amends for your family’s past, then I believe I have come up with a way we can all get what we want. Well, all of us besides Kate.”
Bastien rubbed at his chin and squinted at me dubiously. “Yes, of course, I am truly and sincerely désolée—”
“Désolée, my ass,” Elliott muttered under his breath.
Bastien, oblivious to Elliott’s jibes, continued, “But I don’t quite understand what you need from me?”
“Here’s the thing: I could walk away, but Kate would still figure out how to finish her narrative by omitting me from the finale and just shooting you. Restructuring the story to paint me as the villain who broke your heart and trampled on your dreams of us living happily ever after in Chateau Mirabelle. I won’t lie to you, Bastien, you would come out looking great. You’d be the big hero—the one who restored the house even if you couldn’t restore me, and the audience would love you all the more for trying.”
Elliott looked up from his cup and directly at Bastien. I could tell he was trying to suss out if Bastien seemed allured by this version, but Bastien remained impassive—perhaps waiting to hear what was stashed behind door number two.
“Or we both threaten to walk away. No, we’d need to do both—not threaten—we’d need to actually leave, unless they play this our way. Sure, there’s a good possibility they then just scrap the whole thing altogether, which would mean everything you staked on this project as a way to redeem your reputation and family name might be for naught. But it has to be both of us in this together for there to be any chance for this attempt at collective bargaining to work.”
Now I was the one staring at Bastien, trying to make out if anything I was saying was registering. If he even cared? I believed him yesterday when he told me he’d been just as manipulated by Kate as I was, but with so much at stake for him, that didn’t necessarily mean he was willing to throw it all away.
For Bastien, Heart Restoration Project—where he played the handsome hero—was his chance to change everything. His life. His finances. His stability. And for me, on the outside looking in, this disaster was just par for the course. It wouldn’t help or hurt my reputation any more than every other fake ridiculous show I’d done before.
But for me, for real, telling the true story of Chateau Mirabelle and its history was the one chance I had to show the world who I was and what I had to offer, beyond my famous name and pretty face.
When his face remained unchanged, I continued, “Right now, they believe the heart of the show is our fabricated relationship because we haven’t given them anything else. They don’t know about all of this”—I gestured to the materials covering the table—“the Adéla?ses, Dutch-Paris, the occupation. They don’t know about your grandfather and how his one reckless decision changed the whole course of history for this region. They don’t know anything about how you’ve struggled to become a vintner and how every door’s been slammed in your face. Or how much it would mean to the people of Maubec if we could somehow bring the winery back to life again. They don’t know ... and if we can bring all the things they don’t know about to them as a beautifully touching narrative wrapped in a big, shiny, inspirational bow, then maybe we can finish this project by telling the story we want, the story the Adéla?ses deserve to have told, and the one Maubec can finally be proud of.”
Bastien nodded along as I spoke, taking in every word carefully. He sat silently for a few moments in deep contemplation before finally responding. “Plum, Kate has manipulated us at every turn to get what she wants for the show, and now that she has and managed to convince Claudine and Jack and everyone, what makes you so sure that they would ever trade a sure hit for a possible flop? What if no one cares about the history? About our story? About Chateau Mirabelle? Then what?”
“I know that is a very real possibility. But I really think we can make them see it, make them understand what all this is.” I gestured again to the photos and artifacts spread around us and then looked him in the eye. “But it has to be both of us. Throughout these past months, I placed my trust in you, and now, I need you to do the same for me. Can you trust me?” Now it was my turn to wait with a held breath.
He tilted his head and set his lips together before responding. “Do you remember that day in the garden at Chateau du Val d’été when I told you that you can honor a home by restoring it to its original state or you can honor it by restoring it to its original intention? You are right, if we let Kate win, Chateau Mirabelle will become nothing more than a cheap spectacle. If we stand together, we can make sure Heart Restoration Project is everything we intended for it to be.”
“You’re saying you’ll walk away from the show—with me?”
“Yes, ma cherie. Okay. D’accord,” he assented.
Even Elliott looked impressed with Bastien’s sincerity. I nudged Elliott playfully and whispered, “Can you see now how a girl could get a little swept away when a guy talks like that?”
“Yeah, yeah, that and the full lips that look like doughy pillows, I get it.” Elliott rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, what did you say about pillows?” Bastien asked, oblivious as ever.
“Don’t worry about it,” Elliott replied. “What you do need to worry about is how the two of you are going to convince Claudine and Jack to get on board with this new direction.”
“Oh, I’ll convince them,” I stated. “I just need you to help arrange the meeting without Kate finding out. And it has to be in the house. In the cellars preferably. For this to work, we need to take them straight into the heart of Chateau Mirabelle.”