MAËLLE
After landing at Charles de Gaulle the next morning, we took the train south to Dijon. Dagger collected the rental car while I saw to our bags, and we drove the last stretch into the C?te d’Or ourselves.
We stopped first at the cottage in Beaune. It sat off on its own, small and plain, with two bedrooms and a table big enough to work at. After checking it out, we continued on to Valais.
I’d grown up here and knew every slope of bare winter vines, despite not having seen any of it in years. The closer we got, the less I wanted to arrive.
“We should put this away until our announcement,” I said, removing the ring from my finger and handing it to Dagger.
“But not a moment longer.” He smiled and winked, but his tone sounded more serious than teasing. I pitied as much as envied the woman who would one day be his real bride. His easy charm was disarming even to me, who’d donned my metaphorical armor against it the first day we met.
When we came up the drive to my childhood home, my cousin, Rémy, was down the front steps before the car had fully stopped.
He gathered me into a hug, talking in French the whole time, noting how thin I was, how long it had been, and how my maman hadn’t slept since I’d called.
There was nothing in his voice but happiness.
My father had chosen Rémy, his nephew, to one day control the domaine instead of me. The land would still come to me, but the business decisions would be his. None of that was Rémy’s doing, and I’d never held it against him. We’d always been close.
When he finally let me go, he saw Dagger behind me and switched to English without missing a beat. “And who is this? Maelle, you never bring a man home.”
“Rémy, this is Killian Rourke.”
They shook, and Rémy looked between the two of us. Whatever he decided he was seeing made him grin wider. “There’s a story here, and I want all of it, but later. Meanwhile, welcome to Domaine Valais. Let’s go inside, before your maman comes out in the cold.”
My mother was waiting in the hall when we walked in.
I stopped where I stood.
She’d always been slim, but the woman coming toward me now was thin in a way that frightened me. Her face was gaunt, and her clothes hung off her like they were three sizes too big.
I put my arms around her, hating how little there was to hold.
“Maelle. Ma fille.” She held my face in both hands. “You’re really here.”
“I’m here, Maman.” I lowered my voice. “Tu es si mince—you’re so thin.”
“It’s nothing.” She waved it off. “I haven’t had much appetite lately. Now, introduce me to our guest.”
A door opened to the right of where we stood, and my father came out.
He looked exactly as I remembered—tall, polished, going silver at the temples in a way that only made him more handsome. He crossed the space with his arms open and a warm smile on his face. It was the kind of warmth I’d learned a long time ago not to trust.
“Maelle.” He kissed both of my cheeks. “Walking in with no warning. Why am I not surprised?” He held me out at arm’s length, then turned. “And you’ve brought someone.”
“Papa, this is Killian Rourke.”
“Other than my parents, most people call me Rourke,” he said as they shook hands. My father attempted to hide his wince at my fiancé’s powerful grip, but I caught it. Better yet, he knew I’d caught it.
“Welcome.” My father clapped him on the shoulder and steered us all toward the salon. “You’ll forgive the house. We had no warning that my daughter was coming home for Christmas, let alone that she was bringing a guest.” He looked at my mother. “Did you know about this, Chantal?”
“Maelle and I spoke yesterday,” my mother said.
Her English was lovely, the way it had always been.
“You must both be tired. Would you like to settle before dinner? Marthe made up your old room.” She stopped and looked between us.
“I’m sorry—we didn’t have time to ready a second room for your friend. ”
She looked at Dagger, then at me, clearly waiting for me to explain who he was.
“We’ll sort it after dinner, Maman.”
“It’s no trouble at all, Madame Valais,” Dagger said with the easy smile that worked on everyone but me. “I’ve slept in far worse places than a beautiful house in Burgundy.”
My mother smiled too, but tilted her head in my direction. I’d told her on the phone I had news, but she was too well-mannered to ask in front of everyone, my father in particular. She’d wait for it like everyone else.
Marthe took us upstairs. She’d run this house since before I was born and never used two words when none would do.
At the door to my room, she stopped long enough to look Dagger up and down before muttering, “And where is that one supposed to sleep?” in French. She left without waiting for an answer.
“I take it that meeting her is a bit like being given the once-over by the head of the family,” Dagger said after she’d gone.
“You’ve no idea.”
My old room was exactly the way I’d left it at eighteen. Dagger set our bags down and looked at the bed, then at the narrow sofa under the window.
“Maybe I’ll ask Marthe to prepare a second room, after all.”
He shook his head. “We’ve a cover to maintain, mon feu. I’ll be fine there.” He motioned to the sofa.
“You will not. You couldn’t fit on the one in your own camp. This one’s half the size.”
“We’ll sort it out,” he said with a wink. “However, it isn’t the bed that worries me.”
“Then, what does?”
“We’ll soon go downstairs and tell your family we’re to be married. We’ll need to be convincing.”
“What are you suggesting?” I asked.
“They’ll want to see me touch you.”
I raised my chin. “Then, do it.”
He stepped forward and put his hand on my hip. “This is the first, Maelle. I’ll do it whenever I want without asking.”
“Noted.”
“Second is this.” He wrapped his other arm around me and rested his hand on the small of my back, pressing against me so our bodies were flush together. “They’ll want to see our passion.”
“You’re enjoying this, Dagger.”
“Enormously. I’ll not lie about that.”
“How noble.”
“The third one will definitely give us away if we don’t get it right,” he said.
“What is that?”
“There are things I should know about you.”
I raised my chin. “Such as?”
“Which side of the bed you sleep on. Where you’re ticklish.”
“My parents will not ask about that.”
“What you look like after I’ve made you come.”
“How would that be?”
He put his thumb beneath my ear. “I can’t describe it.”
“Killian.”
“That’s the fourth thing. When you say my name in that voice, they’ll hear the same desire I do. Say it again.”
“I cannot.”
“You can. Say it again for me.”
“Killian.”
He bent his head to the side of my throat and stopped there, close enough that I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin when he spoke.
“This is where I’ll put my mouth,” he said. “When Rémy says something that makes you laugh. Not your cheek. Here.”
Rather than a simple kiss, he licked his way to my ear.
“Your father will look away. Your mother will not.”
I gripped the front of his shirt, so close to begging him to do more. “This is how you get women into bed,” I said instead.
“No.” He looked down at me. “Not other women, Maelle. Only you.”
I let go of his shirt and smoothed the fabric where I had creased it. “I don’t believe you.”
“I’ll prove it to you.”
I almost asked how, but stopped myself, knowing that if I did, he’d show me.
“My parents will be expecting us,” I said.
“I can’t think of a better way for them to see how much in love we are.”
“What do you mean?”
“Which would you prefer? Shall I keep you on the edge of desire, or should I make you come?”
I couldn’t speak or move a single muscle.
“Maelle?” He brought his mouth so close to mine that all I could think was how much I wanted him to kiss me. To give me one taste of the man who could seduce any woman into his bed.
Except me.
Until now.
“Neither.”
I pushed him hard enough that he removed his hand from between my legs and stepped back.
“We need to go,” I said, moving toward the door.
“Wait. There’s one more thing.”
“I think four is enough for tonight.”
“There’s this.” He reached into his pocket and took the ring out. “They’ll expect to see this when we make the announcement.” He slid it on my finger, then brought my hand to his lips. He turned my hand over and used his mouth on my palm like I’d wanted him to on my lips.
“What are you doing?” I tried to get him to release my hand.
“We need more practice.”
“We do not.”
“I disagree completely. Which means I have no intention of missing a single opportunity to put my lips anywhere I can on your body.”
“Dagger, please.”
The same expression he’d worn at the camp yesterday came over his face. “I’m sorry. I promised I wouldn’t—”
I raised myself on tiptoe and kissed his cheek. “Don’t be, mon chevalier.”
The smile that spread across his face was unlike any I’d seen from him before.
While my father made a point of apologizing too many times for the hastily thrown-together dinner, given my lack of notice, the meal was wonderful anyway. The kitchen staff had prepared a lovely roast and a gratin that were served with fresh bread, cheeses, and fruit.
“How long are you staying?” Rémy asked during a break in courses.
“Through Christmas, surely,” my father said before I could answer. “She has not spent the holidays at Valais in years. I will not hear of her leaving before it.”
“I’ll stay as long as you’ll have me,” I said, and meant it more than he knew.
My mother said little, but she watched me across the table as though she still could not quite believe I was there. I remembered the Christmases of my childhood, when the house was full and bright and my mother was at the center of it all. She hardly looked like the same person.
The two bottles of wine my father had brought up from the cellar were presented with the practiced flair he always showed when there was an audience. He’d opened the second when Dagger set down his glass, took my hand, looked around the table, and said we had news.
He told it far better than I could have.
We’d met through a client, he said, and he’d known within the week that he’d marry me.
He turned the ring on my finger toward the candles while he said it, so it caught the light.
My mother’s eyes filled, and she pressed her hands to her mouth.
Rémy stood and came around the table to clap Dagger on the back and embrace me.
My father stood too, raised his glass, and made a toast to the domaine, the future, and our family.
I barely heard a word of it. My gaze kept drifting to my mother.
I’d lied to her my whole adult life. She thought I booked travel for wealthy people.
She had no idea what I actually did or where I actually went, and I’d made my peace with that years ago.
This was different. I was sitting at her table, watching her cry with happiness over an engagement that wasn’t real, in a house I’d come to so I could investigate her husband.
No lie had ever been as big as that one.
We said good night soon after. We’d had a long day of travel, I explained. No one argued. We both looked exactly as tired as we were.
Upstairs, with the door shut, Dagger looked at the sofa, then at me.
“Don’t even think about it,” I said before he could speak. “We’ve already established you won’t fit. I’ll take it.”
“Maelle, you’re not sleeping on a sofa. I cannot allow it.”
“Then, we share the bed. I’m not lying awake all night, listening to you try to fold yourself onto that thing. We’re two grown adults. We’ll share, and you’ll stay on your side.”
He smiled. “And if I don’t?”
“Then, I’ll treat you the way any Frenchwoman treats a man who forgets himself, and you won’t enjoy it.”
He grinned, wriggled his eyebrows like a child, and I threw a pillow at his head. He laughed out loud, then bent down to take off his boots.
As I watched him, I closed my fist around the ring on my left hand and wondered if I’d been misjudging Dagger or if he was exactly the kind of man I thought he was.