Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Luc
M y grandfather arrived at the Silverton Regional Airport by private jet exactly on time. Dutiful grandson that I was, I stood waiting on the tarmac when he did. Fortunately, so was my dear pal and excellent buffer, Kenny Carmichael.
“Jean-Luc.” My grandfather nodded regally at me, then extended his hand.
I accepted it, a hint of marvel gliding through me with the first contact between us in years. His hand was dry but the shake firm, despite the fact that he’d aged over a decade since we’d last touched.
“ Grand-père. Bienvenue à Silverton .” There was so much to say, but this would be a starting place.
He nodded again, his three security personnel hovering at a distance, then turned to Kenny.
“Kenny Carmichael, sir. I work with your grandson at Saint Security and we served together in the Army.” Kenny extended his hand.
My grandfather accepted it and shook, eyes snagging on Kenny’s left hand. He scowled and said, “You’ve lost your fingers.”
Kenny’s eyes danced and he gasped, clutching that hand to his chest. “I hadn’t realized.”
I cleared my throat to stifle a laugh, and my grandfather’s scowl deepened. Behind him, his assistant tapped on a tablet and stopped at his right without ever looking up. She spoke softly in French, but too quietly for me to hear.
Grand-père nodded, then turned his silver gaze to mine. “We’ll take a car to the resort now. Odette will arrive tomorrow.”
My teeth ground together at his mention of the woman he had chosen for me.
“I hope she’ll enjoy her stay,” I said, unwilling to seem interested in her arrival or anything about her. She was undoubtedly a lovely person, but not someone for me.
His jaw flexed and his nostrils flared slightly. “Aurelie has told me of her plan for dinner tomorrow. Will you be in attendance?”
He meant the family dinner Aurelie had arranged for me, Elise, my grandfather, and her and Michele. No Odette, and no one else. “We will.”
He might not have wanted to ask about Elise, but he’d be meeting her. In a small group with Aurelie and Michele to help defend and protect her, there would be no easier time to make the introduction.
My grandfather’s eyes fell away, and he bid me a quiet farewell as he walked past us to a waiting black Land Rover SUV. The airport staff, all too used to wealthy flyers arriving and never so much as touching their luggage, hustled to load his and his assistant’s bags into the back with the help of the driver. The security team had checked the vehicle, guided him in, and waited for him and his assistant to load in before also sliding in. Kenny and I watched as they pulled away within three or four minutes of exiting the plane.
“Well, he’s warm and fuzzy. I see where you get your kindness and that unflagging commitment to sunscreen.”
A laugh tripped out of me at his unexpected insults. My grandfather’s skin was weathered and deeply tanned thanks to his propensity to spend his time working from a property on the French Riviera.
“He views sunscreen as a generational choice. I guess we’ll see whether skin cancer is, too,” I said, a familiar frustration with him rising.
His dismissal had been absolutely no surprise, but I still found his stubbornness to be most irritating. He wouldn’t buy into the supposed sham of sunscreen, nor did he believe in marrying for love despite having done exactly that himself. He looked down on people without wealth and status similar to his even after his own son married a poor waitress from the States.
And yet, he’d extended his hand. That was something. And it gave me a modicum of hope that maybe all of this would work out. We’d left la bise —the French cheek kiss of greeting—behind a long time ago, but the handshake, it meant something.
“Wish I could be a fly on the wall at the old family dinner tomorrow. That sounds fun,” Kenny said, steering my focus back to the here and now.
“Yeah. It’ll be a blast. I just hope Elise will be okay.”
We walked toward the car I’d driven to get us here, and once we were tucked inside and navigating to wrap up the day at work, Kenny circled back.
“I know you’re set on convincing Gérard you’re engaged to Elise. I fully support not getting engaged to some rando you don’t know whose main goal is to develop her portfolio.”
I could feel a but coming, so I waited, curious to see what kind of wisdom he might lay on me.
“But, if you’re that worried for Elise, maybe you need to call it. You need to put her first if you care for her at all. Sit down with your grandpa and see if you can reason with him about the trust instead of pushing this.”
The engine hummed as we rode along as though he wasn’t accusing me of using Elise. The worst part was, I couldn’t deny it. She wouldn’t either. I was using her. That was the entire premise of the agreement.
But.
I did care for her. I’d always liked her and noticed her, but the more time we spent together, the more compelled I felt to be around her. The more I wanted from and with her.
The more I wished maybe this wasn’t all just a ruse.
But she didn’t want that. And I wouldn’t forget it.
“She’s not going to get hurt. Anything that happens is about me and my grandfather, not about her. She knows I think the world of her.”
But my words were false.
She didn’t know what I thought about her at all. We’d spent our time checking boxes on lists of get-to-know-you questionnaires and practicing holding hands.
At the memory of her hand in mine and her head on my shoulder as she slept during the movie last week, my heart clutched. Her exhaustion weighed on me, as did the reality that she was choosing to spend her precious time with me instead of resting or doing other things she needed. I didn’t take that lightly.
“Yeah, that’s the thing, though. It is about your grandfather and you, but it’ll also be about her. If she’s standing in his way of you being with this other woman, he doesn’t strike me as the kind of man who’s going to tolerate her, let alone be welcoming or kind.”
Guilt and dread swirled in my gut. “I know. I’ll talk to her.”
I’d more than talk to her. I’d make sure she understood that anything coming out of his mouth reflected on him and not her. Based on his complete refusal to acknowledge my engagement, which I’d told him via text had occurred last week, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a Class A jerk. Of course he’d be technically well-mannered, but he hadn’t traveled all this way to be diplomatic.
Kenny kept me distracted with colorful commentary on my grandfather and his assistant all the way back to Saint. I managed to stay focused on my own work prepping for the busy week of celebrities in town for the gala this weekend, and reminded myself that in just a few hours, my sister would be here.
Maybe it made me weak for needing my big sister, but I did. I needed her and Michele as reinforcements and to stand with me.
* * *
Aurelie’s dark hair hung in razor-sharp sheets down either side of her head. She looked fresh-faced and ready for the day when she opened the door to her suite and hauled me in for kisses on each cheek, then a hug.
She squeezed me and did her obligatory lean back and lift, though she could only get me an inch off the ground since I outweighed and had at least five inches on her.
“Did you get bigger since I saw you last?” she asked, tapping her chin.
I chuckled, my heart bursting to see her in person. “It’s been almost two years, so it’s possible.” I certainly hadn’t gotten taller, but being out of active-duty life meant I’d put on some muscle now that I didn’t need to be quite as fast or ruck march forty miles at a time.
“Is that him? Is it our baby brother?” Michele threw the door wide and caught me in a signature Michele embrace complete with lung-compressing squeeze.
I cringed against his hold for show, then laughed outright when he kissed my head like I was a small child and not a man who was taller than him. When he’d married Aurelie four years ago, he’d dived in with more enthusiasm than I could ever have anticipated. He was my biggest fan—I was second only to Aurelie in his mind.
Honestly, he was like the Italian version of Kenny in more than a few ways.
Michele released me and cupped my face in his hands, shaking me a little bit. I wouldn’t have been shocked if he’d kissed me full on the lips in his enthusiasm, but today he just looked like a proud dad as he gazed at me.
“Alright, love. Let him go and let’s talk,” Aurelie said, taking her husband’s hand and leading him to the sitting area in the suite.
I followed behind and sat in a comfortable, stylish chair. The room was full of forest and sage greens and creams and golds. It was all very classy and crisp while somehow managing to be comfortable and not stuffy.
“So we meet her tonight? Have you prepared her?” Aurelie asked, already onto business.
“I’ll pick her up a bit early and make sure she doesn’t have any questions.” We’d spoken about the situation enough that Elise understood my grandfather had an agenda for his visit. I’d need to make sure she also knew he might be quite rude.
“We’ll do what we can, but he’s very upset at you, you naughty boy,” Michele said, winking at me as though he relished my disobedience.
“Are you enjoying this?” I asked him, leaning back in my chair and watching as they each filled small plates of fruit and pastries from a silver tray set on a low table in the sitting area.
“How could I not?” He balanced his small plate on one of his trouser legs and rested his arm along the back of the small sofa, grazing Aurelie’s shoulder.
“He’s only enjoying that you’ve told Grand-père no. It happens so rarely, it’s something to note.” She bit into her croissant, brows raising as she looked down to inspect the pastry. “ Ooh, c’est bon, ca .”
“It’s a pleasant surprise when Americans know their pastry,” Michele added, shoving almost an entire croissant into his mouth.
“Anything else I need to know? Do you know Odette at all?”
I hadn’t investigated my would-be bride because I hadn’t wanted to. But now that the time had come, I’d realized this was short-sighted. I could use the Saint resources to dig deep, but ultimately, I didn’t need dirt on her. I didn’t need anything from her except for her to accept that she wasn’t meant to be with me.
And Elise is?
The thought slipped in, poking at something I couldn’t quite name. Of course Elise wasn’t. I had no plans to marry for real, and neither did she. We were on the same page with that decision.
“She’s a lovely girl. A bit young, if you ask me, but that would be Grand-père’s choice, wouldn’t it?” She held a fork aloft, a small strawberry speared on its end, and added, “As you can tell by the name, they’ve got deep French roots but immigrated a generation or two ago. They’ve got business holdings Grand-père is interested in now, so…”
It always came down to business. Well, business and family. But for my family, those two were intertwined and messy, and maybe they were for this Odette as well. I pitied her, because she wasn’t about to make the match that would uphold her family’s origins or whatever it was they hoped to gain here.
We sat and chatted a while longer before I had to get to work. I’d begin personal security detail for a client tomorrow and maintain that for fairly long days right up until the gala, so I had a few things to do before meeting with Elise this evening.
I bid my sister and Michele goodbye and gave them a few suggestions for what they could do with their time, then headed out. I’d formulate a way to tell Elise just how bad it might be, and I’d hopefully manage to make it worth her pain and suffering.