“Well, that’s the thing, Plum. Do you want to believe it, or do you actually believe it?”

I stood up to gather my thoughts, but instead my eyes darted up to Saint Orens and down to the ice-cream shop and back up to the church again. I blinked hard. Wait, was this the same place where my dad proposed to my mom!? I did a full circle in my spot and muttered, “I think this is it.”

“You think this is what?”

“I think this is the exact spot my dad proposed to my mom forty years ago.”

“Wait, really?”

“Before I left for France, he told me about a trip he and my mom took to Provence. He talked about a gorgeous church on a hill, delicious lavender ice cream, and a small park where he got down on one knee to ask her to be his forever. This has to be it.”

He chuckled. “I have news for you, Provence is practically made up of gorgeous churches and quaint little ice-cream shops.”

“No, I know this is it,” I said resolutely.

“So what happened? I guess she accepted, right?”

“No, she didn’t actually. The timing wasn’t right. They needed to live a little more, learn a lot more, and let some things go before they were ready to settle down to make a life together.”

“There’s a good lesson there. Do me a favor, Plum, just don’t rush into anything with Bastien. You deserve better.”

“And by ‘better,’ do you mean . . . ?” I lifted my brows, expecting him to understand my implication without me having to say it.

“I mean, better.” Elliott shifted his bag onto his shoulder. “I can’t believe how late it is. I need to check in at the château to see if we’re on schedule to resume filming tomorrow. Want the van to drop you back at the inn?”

With the seeds of doubt I already had about Bastien and Kate now having been watered by Elliott, I said, “Actually, I think I’ll go with you.”

To say that the château was in a state of chaos when we arrived was a gross understatement. René had walked off the job about an hour earlier, and the general mood of panic and stress among everyone who was left on-site was almost palpable.

“Bastien, what on earth is going on here?” I asked, trying not to allow my horror to overtake my voice. “Where’s Kate?”

He ranted in French, of which I could understand nothing. He railed and hollered, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when he grabbed one of the samples of decorative stone we were looking at for the fireplace and hurled it across the room to put a hole in the already damaged Sheetrock.

“Okay, we’re leaving,” Elliott announced, stepping next to me. “You need to calm down and get your shit together, man. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Bastien stepped toward Elliott, their size difference ever apparent, and he stuck a finger to Elliott’s chest. “Stay out of it. You don’t know anything about anything!”

For as escalated as Bastien’s blood pressure was growing, Elliott’s face and voice remained even and clear. “As production director, actually, I kind of do. And I think you’re acting like an asshole right now. Unprofessional. Hostile. And a little unhinged.”

“Va te faire foutre!” Bastien spat back. I wasn’t exactly sure what that translated to, but if the vein popping out of his neck was any indication, I had a feeling I knew the meaning.

Elliott grabbed for my hand and started pulling me toward the door. “C’mon, Plum, Gervais is waiting out front. Let’s head back to the inn, and we can sort this out with Kate tomorrow.”

I was pinned, trapped between the two of them, and the metaphor of the whole situation was not lost on me. Who the hell was this guy throwing rocks through walls and screeching like a banshee? This wasn’t the Bastien I had come to know and fall for over these past several weeks. I stood there suspended in indecision and saddled with confusion over the utter mess in front of me. The château was in disarray. My beau was acting like a horse’s ass while also possibly carrying out a torrid love affair behind my back.

And all I knew for certain was that my sanity was hanging on by one very rapidly fraying thread.

Chapter Thirty-Three

Gervais had barely pulled the van in to park in front of the inn when Elliott, still fuming from his fight back at the château with Bastien, threw the door open and beelined inside, his heavy footfall as he stomped up the stairs practically shaking the inn’s already unsteady foundation. Odette’s head snapped up from some papers she was holding behind the front desk, her eyebrows slumped with concern as her gaze trailed Elliott up the steps. Agnès, startled by the sound, hurried into the salon from the dining room clutching a pot of tea with the edge of her apron to see what all the noise was about.

“Ah, Prune, it is you,” she sighed with relief as she eyed the now-empty staircase. “I thought perhaps a stampede of truffle hogs had broken loose and made their way into the inn,” she joked.

“Not so much a hog . . . more like a bull in a china shop. But it was just Monsieur Schaffer. He’s um . . . not in a great mood.”

“Really? But M. Schaffer is usually so bubbly and full of smiles,” Agnès teased again. “Not to worry, he just needs a bit of tea and some cookies, I believe. That always seems to do the trick.”

I nodded and moved to make my way up the stairs as well, but Agnès placed the teapot on the desk and said, “I wasn’t expecting you until later tonight. I haven’t quite fixed anything for our dinner yet.”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about us. Elliott and I can fend for ourselves.”

“But I am just about to rustle something up. If you can wait for a bit, we’d love for you to join us.”

“Yes, please do. It will be so much more lively that way,” Odette said, coming out from behind the reception desk.

“Oui, go shower and clean up and come back down in fifteen minutes. I will have at least a petit amuse-bouche for you both,” Agnès said. “Pascal was hoping you might be home a bit early tonight for your lesson. He found some of Odette’s old books from l’école primaire, or how you say in the States . . . elementary school? He thought they might be useful.”

“I know Pascal has refused, but you must let me start paying for my lessons. He has already given up so much of his time.”

She leaned in close to me. “He would never admit this, but I think he is enjoying playing the role of teacher. There is so much around here that he cannot improve—the foundation, the roof, the pipes. But your French? With that, he can make much improvement.”

Agnès and Odette shooed me upstairs to wash up while they shuffled off to the kitchen to prepare some light snacks. I couldn’t hear the shower running anymore, so I figured Elliott had finished and I could hop in for a quick rinse. I quickly shimmied out of my clothes, wrapped a fresh towel from the stack on the bed around me, grabbed my toiletry caddy, and headed down the hall to the bathroom.

The door had been left ajar, and grabbing for the handle, I burst in—and straight into a still soaking, half-naked Elliott who was shaving in the mirror. His back muscles were impressive, and my mouth fell open as my eyes trailed all the way down to his—

“Excuse me! What are you doing?!” he yelped.

I picked my mouth up off the floor and swallowed. “Um . . . what are you doing? The door was half open! Seems reasonable to have thought you’d finished.” I shrugged with a bit of sass, but the motion caused the towel to start to slip and my edge quickly gave way to mounting embarrassment.

He held up his razor and continued to eye me through the still mostly fogged-up vanity. “I had to let some of the steam out so the mirror would defog and I could see what I was doing. The light in here is bad enough as it is, I didn’t want to cut my face to shreds . . . again.”

I put a hand up in retreat. “Okay. Okay. Finish up. I’ll wait.”

He grimaced at me from the mirror and said, “Well, actually, I think you’d need to wait anyway. There’s um . . . no hot water. Sorry about that.”

Throwing my head back, I groaned. “Ugh!” I turned on my heel, making an effort to nudge Elliott with my caddy as I left and not ogle the broadness of his shoulders . . . again. Returning to my room to change back into some clothes, I resigned to just shower before bed, once the hot water was restored.

When I came back downstairs to the dining room only about ten minutes later, Agnès and Pascal were busy setting up a small buffet of assorted cheeses and canapés paired with pieces of warm crusty baguette while Odette set a round table in the back of the dining room. Along with the cheeses, Agnès set out a small plate of pâté and a bowl of fat green olives rolling around in their golden oil, which was flecked with herbes de Provence.

“Hmm . . . these look incredible. What are they?” I asked, my mouth watering at the different scents of thyme, rosemary, and citrus as I scanned the savory dishes.

Agnès slid a few more items around the table to make sure they were evenly spaced and nodded with satisfaction at her work. “Oh, you must try. This here is salmon rillettes, a creamy dip made of smoked salmon, cream cheese, lemon juice, and dill served with slices of cucumber. It is very fresh, the fish. I just bought everything at the market this morning.”

I plucked a cucumber slice from the serving platter, used the small knife to plop a dollop onto the round base, and took a crunchy bite. She was right. Not only was the fish bright with flavor, the lemon a prominent contrast to the salty salmon, but the cucumber—which was equally fresh—brought a clean crunch to the whole profile. If I wasn’t careful, I was certain I could eat the whole plate! A few minutes (and a handful of cucumber slices) later, Elliott clomped down the stairs, freshly showered, shaved, and looking (and smelling) like a million francs.

Pascal grabbed a bottle of wine with a nondescript label and five glasses and said, “Let us first feast and then immerse ourselves in study, for no one can truly learn on an empty stomach.”

We eagerly heaped our plates with delectable morsels and settled into our seats at an intimate table tucked away at the room’s far end, removed from the lone remaining guest who was leisurely sipping an after-dinner cup of tea. Pascal, with an inviting smile, poured us each a generous glass of the wine, urging both Elliott and me to taste.