“You know, that is the first intelligent thing you’ve said all day,” Monsieur Grenouille mumbled.

I whipped my head around at him. “Excuse me?”

Elliott tugged on the arm of my shirt. “Leave it, Plum.”

“No! He doesn’t get to just insult me like that.” I turned to face Monsieur Grenouille. “Sir, you don’t even know me.”

Monsieur Grenouille humphed with annoyance, clearly devoid of any remorse. “I’ve seen the things you’re willing to put your name on, Mademoiselle Everly. And if our little town’s going to be dragged through the mud, I’d rather it not be on one of your sleazy television programs. We have been through enough.”

Elliott zeroed in on his last sentence. “What do you mean by that?”

Monsieur Grenouille folded his arms over his chest. “Why don’t you ask Monsieur Munier?”

“Bastien? What could he possibly have to do with any of this?” I asked.

Madame Archambeau touched Monsieur Grenouille gently on the forearm. “Remy, leave it. The boy’s not to blame for the sins of the past.”

Monsieur Grenouille pounded his fists into the table. “They are all to blame! Monsieur Munier most of all.” He reached for his cane. “C’est ridicule. Pourquoi remuer le passé? Ces Americains . . . pfft,” he mumbled and spat as he ambled back behind the counter.

Elliott looked up at me. “Care to translate?”

“My French isn’t that good yet, but I am going to take a guess and say he more or less just told us where we could stick it?”

Elliott agreed. “My French isn’t good at all, and he definitely told us where we could stick it.”

Madame Archambeau rose from her seat. “I should get back to the shop. The bride and her maman are coming by very soon to look at centerpieces.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

After Madame Archambeau left the patisserie, we gathered our belongings and followed her out to the street to head back to the inn. As soon as we stepped outside, Monsieur Grenouille slammed the door closed behind us and flipped the sign on the window to read FERMÉ. CLOSED.

“Well, that was a colossal waste of time,” I said, glancing back.

“Was it?” Elliott snapped. “We learned your little boy toy is somehow entangled in all of this.”

I shot him a dirty look. “Don’t call him that. Besides, Bastien already told me his grandfather worked for the Adélaïses.”

“There’s more to that story,” Elliott said, pacing in circles.

“Admit it, you just don’t like him.”

He stopped dead in his tracks. “Okay, fine, I admit it, I don’t like Bastien. I think he’s a pretty face devoid of any real substance. I’m sure half of the things that I say would sound sexy and charming if they were said in a French accent too.”

“I sincerely doubt that.”

“Whatever, either way, I just think he’s vapid. Shallow. Get real, Plum, nobody is that perfect.”

“Well, I do like him. Unlike you, he hasn’t given me any reason not to.”

“Yet,” Elliott smirked. “I have no doubt that it’s just a matter of time before one or both of you does something to blow this whole project up in the name of good television drama.”

“Why do I still feel like even though you are insulting Bastien, the person you’re really annoyed with, for God knows what reason, is me. I don’t know what I ever did to piss you off so badly, but I can’t figure out where I stand with you. We had a nice day, some actual nice moments between us, and then poof, the switch flips and I’m back to being Plum Everly, the diva you can’t stand.”

He rolled his eyes like I just didn’t understand, as if I was misunderstanding the entire situation. “You think a whole lot of yourself, Ms. Everly,” he said, turning my name into some sort of insult. “I have news for you, not everything in this world is actually about you. But you can’t stand that. You can’t stand for anyone else to take center stage. You know what they say, don’t you? People who shine from within don’t actually crave the spotlight.”

My anger was replaced by hurt and deep sadness. How many people out there hated me or had such a wrong idea of the real me because of my public persona? Did everyone think I was nothing better than an attention whore putting myself on show after show because I needed the constant validation, when in truth I was so lost I was just grasping at anything to stay afloat? “You’ve got it so wrong, you know. That person you keep referencing, she isn’t me. This isn’t the life I want. Not really.”

“Which life are you talking about here, Plum? It’s hard to keep track—you’ve pretended to have so many.”

Just as I went to fire back, the almost comical meep meep of Bastien’s small Peugeot tooted up the drive.

“Plum! Elliott! Venez, come, I have something I want to show you both,” Bastien called, pulling up beside us. “I know we have not been able to film much these past few days with all the troubles with the construction, but I think this is something you will both want to see.”

I glanced at Elliott and, without a word, jumped into the front seat of the car. He stood unmoving, as if weighing how badly he needed the footage against how badly he didn’t want to spend time with me and Bastien one-on-one.

I leaned out of the passenger side and said, “Kate’s gonna be pissed if you don’t have enough content for the dailies and testing audience, so get the lead out of your shoes and just get in the damn car. Stop being so obstinate.”

Muttering to himself about “wasting time” and “this damn shoot,” Elliott begrudgingly climbed into the back seat to wedge himself between Bastien’s large soccer duffel and the camera and boom, which we had to stick the top of out the window—again, Elliott the Grouch was less than pleased.

Bastien eased off the clutch and shifted into first gear to set off toward Château Mirabelle just as the pastel sunset began to settle across the rolling vineyards. Small pulses of light flickered across the horizon as a scattering of fireflies floated in the slight breeze, and I rolled the window down to breathe in the warm evening air. Bastien zipped up the long drive and threw the car into park right beside the stone staircase leading to the wooden front door of the château.

“Bastien, where are we going? What are you up to?” I eyed him and smirked, and my stomach fluttered at the sight of his wink.

“Elliott, you’ll want to start filming, non?”

Elliott half-heartedly lifted the camera to his shoulder and turned his back to the entryway so that the camera was focused on me and Bastien making our way up the front stairs.

“Come with me, Plum, I have a little surprise for you,” Bastien said, as if scripted, and led me by the hand inside. I tried to ignore Elliott, and the camera, and the fact that Bastien was probably doing this all for the TV show and not necessarily as a personal romantic gesture.

He led me through the main floor, which, while still in ruins, was in better shape than before. Bastien began to speak as we tunneled through the halls. “I know that you have been très stressée with this project, and I know it has been difficult these past few weeks with the construction. But I am a perfectionist, what can I say?”

Elliott snorted from behind his camera.

“Are you alright?” Bastien asked.

“Just dusty in here,” he fibbed.

“Ah, oui. Dust is very common in an old house. Come, follow me this way, ma cherie.”

Bastien smiled, and a flush warmed my cheeks. He paused at the doorway to a large, windowed solarium, letting Elliott go past us so that he could capture our arrival on film. He pulled back the rich, heavy dark-green velvet drapes, using the decorative tassel tieback to secure one at each side. Almost instantly, the sherbety oranges and pinks of the sunset flooded the room with a warm wash of color. It was like stepping into a fever dream, the setting immersive and vibrant, positively magnificent.

“Oh wow, Bastien. This view is just . . . wow.” My eyes could hardly take in the surreal panorama.

“Is it, how do you say, ‘awesome’?” he teased and pulled me close. His hands wrapped around my waist, and he drew me back against his chest in a reverse hug. He rested his chin on my shoulder as we both watched out the window as the sun slipped away to the hypnotizing hum of the cicadas singing in the distance.

“I must say, this was a wonderful surprise. And a much needed one,” I said, hoping Elliott would catch the implication. I turned into Bastien’s arms and drew my lips to his, softly weaving my hands up through the soft curls at the nape of his neck.

After kissing me back (and turning my legs to Jell-O), he laughed and said, “This isn’t even the half of it. Oh, I have more.”