Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
H e’s more than twenty minutes late. From what little I actually know of him, this only reads as typical Damien. I’ve asked him to meet me at La Jolie Plage beach bar in Cannes, west of Nice and bordering Saint-Tropez. Little does he know, I brought Vivian too. She takes a seat a few stools down and wears a wide-brimmed sun hat that covers most of her face.
Damien had given me a follow on Instagram after the other night’s party, invalidating what the letters indicated about him keeping off social media. Makes sense why nothing came back when I searched for Damien de Dandeneau, given that this one features Dam Emmanuel. I scrolled through his timeline, finding numerous pics of him chugging Sidecars and Singapore Slings and clinging to half-naked women at this bar alone.
There I was for nearly two months thinking a distance of 500 miles separated us. Huh. More like fifteen. And that was when he or one of his cronies weren’t spying on us for dirt on the Chessleys. It gives me the creeps, and now, so does his voice and gelled-back hair, which he undoubtedly applied in excess today.
“Kat!” Damien waves from across the packed beach bar. A leftover plate of oysters sits in a tub of dirty dishes behind the counter. But it does a fantastic job of covering up his suffocating cologne. He goes in for a double bise, and I hold my hand up.
“Non, merci,” I say, leaning back.
He bounces his wrist on the counter and clicks his tongue. The pounding club music is not at all my cup of tea, especially not in broad daylight.
“Kat, I hope we can be friends. Why else did you ask me to come here, eh?”
“Well, I want to see if you have any intention of actually keeping the chateau you stole—I mean bought.”
Damien orders a rum and coke and presses his back against the counter’s rim.
“I mean this with complete respect. But why do you care?” he asks.
“Because, he doesn’t deserve this.”
“Jamie.” Damien scoffs and tosses in an eye roll. “Don’t tell me you’re in love with him.”
“I’m not telling you anything.” I squint at him. “ You don’t deserve to know.”
Damien slugs his drink. “Well I’m not giving it back.”
“Okay.” My voice lightens to an inquisitive tone. “Just out of curiosity, are you planning on selling or keeping it?”
He shrugs, adjusting his Rolex. “Don’t know yet. Pourquoi?”
I stir the lime in my seltzer. “Oh, it’s just impressive.”
Damien takes another long sip and wrinkles his brow at me.
“I can only imagine how hard it’d be to sell it again. Took fifteen years for the last owners to get someone like Jamie to make an offer,” I add. “I guess if you want to speed up the process, you can finish up the renovations if you’re willing to dish out a good chunk of change.”
Damien furrows his brow as he scans the ground before puffing up his chest. “Well maybe I’ll just keep it then,” he says smugly.
“That’s really honorable too. Willing to pay those added historic site taxes to the town.”
Thank you, Angela, for the intel.
It’s obviously the first time Damien’s hearing about this, given his deer-in-the-headlights, unblinking reaction. I hold back my grin.
“I see what you’re trying to do,” Damien says.
“Oh?” I tilt my head and take a sip of water.
He presses his glass on the counter, the condensation dribbling down the sides. “It’s not gonna work.”
“Well, that’s too bad. But I guess that leaves us with our only other option.”
“Quoi?”
I square my torso toward his. “Have you ever taken a tour of the Lavergne vineyard? The grounds manager is a real stickler for producing the best crop.” I don’t give him time to answer. “And apparently, he’s adamant about keeping rodents out of the grapevines.” My voice goes up a few playful octaves. “Did you know he even keeps little cameras hidden in every row to see if they turn up again?”
Damien’s face goes pale. A smirk plays across my face.
None of us had known this vital clue before. The vineyard manager had let it slip in his latest conversation with Angela just days after the party when he was assessing the latest footage and watched the group of us in a hushed quarrel between the grapevine trellises.
“We could erase the recording. Your demeanor was rather impolite and not very businessman-like. All that blackmail.” I slowly stir my seltzer with the straw. “Or maybe la police would like to see it too, hmm?”
Damien finishes his drink and curses to himself.
“C’est de la merde. It’s not worth it.” Fishing for something in his pocket, he whacks an aluminum key on the counter in front of me. “He can have it. But only if you all promise not to release that footage, okay?”
I lift my brows. Did that really just work?
Because Angela already gave her approval for me to make the deal on her behalf, I nod and say, “Bien.”
Damien’s anxious self-concern evaporates quickly, as he wipes his palms on his linen pants. “I like seeing you like this,” he says smugly, leaning on the counter space in front of me. “I always thought your eyes were blue?”
Noted. The man before me most definitely didn’t write a single letter this summer.
Damien can’t help but give me one last flirtatious grin and asks me to enjoy dinner with him this evening. Figuring he can tempt me with steak at the Ritz, he’s close to dangling his investigative service paycheck in my face.
“Thank you very much. But I’d rather not regurgitate my mushroom risotto.” I scrunch my nose into a forced smile and take the key. Turning to my right, I call out, “Vivian? Ready?”
Stupor fills Damien’s eyes as he and I watch Vivian strut toward us looking absolutely glowing in her lacy white sundress.
“More than ready,” Vivian concedes and gives a forced grin to Damien, whose cheeks are hollowed out in embarrassment. He rushes away. Looking over our shoulders just before the exit, we watch Damien bash right into a waiter who had zipped behind him carrying a plate of escargots. The cooked snails fall into his button-up shirt, staining his clothes and chest in garlicky slug juice.
Vivian and I interlock elbows and leave Damien to clean up his mess in the sea of partiers.