Scoring a Fake FIANCÉE: Mr. Match Book 2 Page 14

  "Of course," I said, surprised at his graciousness. It was clear he hadn’t come here to convince me to marry him. Relief swept through me. Now I just needed to handle my mother. "I thought maybe you could both rest this afternoon, and I'll come back and cook dinner? We can stay in tonight and just catch up, let you get adjusted to the time."

  "When do we meet your fiancé?" my mother asked suddenly, stepping into the kitchen and managing to fill the space with her tiny frame and dominating presence.

  "Tomorrow," I said. "I have invited him to join us to go wine tasting at a few of the wineries around the valley. I thought Henri would enjoy meeting Adam, the winemaker where I work. And tasting some of the local wine."

  "Yes," Henri agreed, smiling. “It is part of why I came.”

  The answer didn't seem to satisfy my mother, who pressed her lips together tightly. "Very well." I couldn’t tell if she was still hoping to change things, or if she was accepting the situation as I’d presented it to her.

  "I'm going to check in at work," I told them. "Get some rest, and I'll be back at four o'clock."

  I kissed my mother goodbye and stepped outside into the sunlight with relief. For now, it had gone as well as I could have hoped. I didn't really need to go to work, but I found I wanted to be in a place where people understood me, where I wasn't explaining myself at every turn.

  Dinner that night was more of the same—interest in everything from Trace to the local wine from Henri, and cold disapproval from my mother. She was quiet, which was unnatural, and I sensed she was simply rearranging her strategy to get what she wanted. I'd never been able to convince my mother there were worldviews other than her own, paths to success and happiness that didn’t match her map. I wished this visit could serve to move our relationship forward, but worried that it would just be something to endure.

  I said goodnight to them, wishing things could be different between us.

  Chapter 28

  The Secret Agent

  Trace

  Magalie texted me late on Monday night as I was getting ready for bed. Her mother, she said, knew about our engagement.

  That was good, I figured. I hadn’t been excited about being sprung on her suddenly. This way at least, the fierce-sounding Maman would have had some time to prepare.

  As predicted, Magalie said she was also not pleased about it.

  I wasn't especially surprised.

  Magalie went on to warn me about her mother's cold personality and to suggest that she might try to weasel information out of me and catch me in our lie.

  Trace: Is your mom some kind of secret agent?

  Magalie: If she is, she's very good. I don't know about it.

  Trace: I have watched a lot of spy movies. It'll be fine.

  Magalie: Just be careful.

  I swallowed hard, wanting to tell her that the only thing her mother would see would be the way I felt about Magalie. But I had only just begun to be honest with myself about the feelings I was beginning to have.

  Trace: If I'm honest with her about what I think of you, we should be fine.

  Magalie didn't answer for a long minute.

  Magalie: Okay. Thank you for doing this, for everything. I’m sorry again.

  It wasn't quite what I'd hoped for, but I guess maybe I hadn't actually admitted as much as it felt like I had. Magalie didn't know what I thought of her, not really. I had hardly even admitted to myself how much I liked her, how much I enjoyed her company. She had admitted more to me than I’d allowed myself to tell her. We needed more time. We needed to get through this farce, I needed playoffs to end, and then we could figure everything out.

  Me: I'll see you tomorrow at the winery at one.

  Magalie: Perfect. Looking forward to seeing you. Apologies in advance for my mother.

  Me: It will be fine. You'll see.

  I hoped my text seemed confident because I didn't feel confident myself. I wanted Magalie’s ruse to succeed because it felt like maybe if it did, her mother would go home and things would stay on the same path. Maybe we wouldn’t be engaged, but we could be something. If the plan blew up, I was certain things would be over.

  I plugged my phone in and went to sleep, wondering just how terrifying Magalie's mother might actually be.

  Chapter 29

  Mouse Nest and Elderberries

  Magalie

  Tuesday morning I went to pick up my mother and Henri, and found Henri waiting and ready, an apologetic smile on his face. My mother did not seem to be ready to go.

  "Where is she?" I asked him.

  Henri sighed and pointed to the back patio, where my mother sat in a lounge chair, her arms and ankles crossed in the morning sun.

  "She is appreciating the fine weather?" I asked hopefully.

  "I don't think so," Henri said, gazing out to where she was.

  "She is angry with me." This wasn’t a surprise.

  He lifted a shoulder as if to say, can you blame her?

  "Are you angry with me as well?"

  We stood in the middle of the living room, the couch between us and the glass doors leading to the patio where my mother was waiting. Henri sighed and lifted one shoulder, leaning into the couch. I sensed fatigue—but not defeat or disappointment—in his posture.

  "I am not angry, Magalie." He looked down at his hand on the back of the beige couch. "If I’m honest, I was sad at one time. At first. I do care about you, but I knew as soon as you arrived in Avignon that we were not a match. Your mother refused to listen when I told her this.”

  “So why are you here now? I thought she brought you because she still thinks we should get married."

  He lifted a shoulder. “She may think that. I have told her it won’t work, but you know she hears what she wants to hear.”

  “Then why?”

  “Your mother is a good friend. I have known her long enough to know the generous parts of her as well as her more difficult side, and she is in a complicated place right now, I think. She needed a friend. She asked me to come. I wanted to help her, and I thought maybe if she saw us together she would understand that it won’t work between us. Not the way she hopes.”

  “What do you mean, complicated place? Is it Emile?” I’d wondered more than once why my mother’s husband hadn’t joined her, but she hadn’t given me a straight answer.

  “I don’t know if it’s my place to say, but yes. I think they are struggling.”

  I pursed my lips, thinking about that. Maybe marriages based on things besides love could be just as difficult as romantic entanglements. Maybe my mother was changing her opinion?

  I nodded, grateful understanding dawning.

  “Also, I wanted to see the wine country here.” He grinned, and a happy relief made me feel better.

  The morning light caught the side of his face, and though I'd never seen him that way before, I realized Henri was not an unattractive man. He had a strong jaw, sympathetic eyes, and full soft lips. He had a good heart and would be a great catch for someone. I was just sorry he'd wasted so much time on me.

  "Magalie," he said, turning those soft eyes on me now. "You are truly happy here? With the football player?"

  Even the offhanded mention of Trace made my stomach do a quick flip. "Yes," I said. We might not really be engaged, but I was hopeful about whatever did lie between us, and eager to explore it.

  “Good. I’m happy to hear it.”

  I smiled at him and touched his arm gently as I walked around him to approach my mother.

  The sliding screen door made a little screech as I pushed it open and shut, and I walked out to Maman in the warm morning sun, taking a chair next to her. "What a beautiful day," I said.

  She made a noise that made it clear she wasn't going to agree.

  "Is everything all right, Maman?" I spoke in French, hoping to find a level of familiarity with her, but she turned and narrowed her eyes at me.

  I steeled myself for the talk we had to have. Maman was nothing if not dramatic. It wasn't until I wa
s a teenager that I realized we had never played the typical mother-daughter roles. As soon as I was old enough for rational thinking, Maman had flipped us. She was the toddler, she was the teen. She was the dramatic and irrational one, and I was left to play the adult. It might not have been fair, but it had given me a lot of practice in diplomacy.

  “For what it's worth, it's nice to have you here. I'm happy you decided to visit.” It was true. As exhausting as she was, Maman was my only family, and I was still glad to see her. “Now go ahead and tell me what you are angry about."

  "That," she said, jabbing a finger at me. "I did not come to visit. I came to make you see reason so you would come home. But now you are entangled with this football . . . idiot." She spat the last word.

  A spot of anger flared inside me and I doused it quickly. "He is not an idiot," I said, keeping my voice smooth and calm. "And I am an adult, Maman. You can't make me come home unless I decide to move back. But I have a career here now. I have a life."

  "One that does not include your mother."

  I closed my eyes for a moment and let the warm rays of the sun soothe me, pushing away the words I might have said. "I think," I said slowly. "That you know I didn't come here to escape you, but rather to escape a situation and to find my own path. I think you see that I am happy here, and maybe it makes you sad that I found happiness without your help?"

  She blew out a breath as if this was the most ludicrous thing I'd ever said, but she didn't argue.

  "And I hope that I can show you my life here, share my happiness with my only family in the whole world—my maman." She didn't move to respond, so I went on. "I love you, Maman, but I am a grown woman and I needed to find my own way."

  "On the other side of the world?"

  "In a wine-growing region that had room for me to learn, yes."

  "This is not about wine."

  "It is," I corrected. "For me, it is. It is about learning and growing and—"

  “And ruining any plans for happiness by becoming engaged to someone I have never even met."

  "Only you would see an engagement as someone ruining their plans for happiness.” I felt truth in my next words “I think I can be happy with Trace, Maman.”

  She sniffed but didn't answer, and my patience shredded.

  "Maman," I said, my voice becoming a plea.

  She stood, brushing herself off and seeming to reassemble her more formal, proper countenance. She faced me with a false smile. "Very well. Let's see your life today, Magalie. Show me what is so wonderful here that you had to leave home without even saying goodbye."

  I knew she was hurt about the way I left, and if I owed her an apology for anything, it was that. "I am sorry, Maman. I felt trapped. I shouldn't have gone so quickly, without talking to you."

  "Thank you," she said.

  "I love you, Maman," I told her, and reached for her.

  Though the hug was a little stiff, my mother allowed me to hug her and eventually wrapped her arms around me too, softening a bit.

  For all her foibles, Maman was not a bad person. She was a woman who wore the scars of being abandoned by her own parents when she needed them most, and being abandoned by a man she thought loved her. I understood these things, and that was why I should have thought harder about the way I left. I saw now how my own abandonment just reopened the wounds my mother carried within her, and why she might have worked so hard to keep me near, not realizing she was pushing me away.

  "Let's go have breakfast," I suggested.

  "Oui," she agreed, and as we walked inside to meet Henri, she squeezed my hand, making my heart lighten in my chest.

  Even though I felt as though Maman might have accepted what I’d told her, softened just a bit, I knew she would still look for reasons why I should move back. And though pretending to be engaged might have been an over-the-top way to demonstrate my independence, it was the only way to definitively convince her that my life was here, that I was truly settled here. I was not going home with her.

  * * *

  At one o'clock, we were pulling into Chateau Le Sec, and I found there was a swirl of anticipation in my stomach at the thought of seeing Trace. There was a secondary, less pleasant feeling growing as well, as I thought about the lie which seemed almost pointless now. But it was out there and we had to go forward with it. Would we be able to pull it off?

  And what would it do to the fragile relationship we had begun to build?

  "Here we are!" I told them, parking in the big lot outside the low sprawling winery building. I felt like I saw the low buildings and sprawling vineyards with new eyes as we made our way to the tasting room. The low Spanish style buildings were a soft yellow, and broad red-paved patios with low stuccoed walls jutted out on various vistas overlooking the lines of vines marching up and down the hills. A twinge of pride made me look to them with a smile—I wanted them to love it as much as I did.

  "This is beautiful," Henri told me, looking around with appreciation glowing in his eyes.

  "Familiar a bit, non?" I asked him. The chateau at Avignon was also built in a Spanish style, and the sun that washed through the brown rows undoubtedly made Henri feel as at home as it had made me feel when I'd first arrived.

  "Oui," he said, leaning in almost conspiratorially and taking my elbow in happy acknowledgement as we walked through the arched doors into the tasting room.

  Trace was there already, and his eyes found mine for a brief second, and then they landed on the spot where Henri held my arm, and narrowed slightly. I pulled my elbow gently from Henri’s grasp.

  "There she is!" Chloe called, coming around the counter. "We were just boring Trace with wine talk. He'll be happy to have you here to make him feel more welcome." She turned to my mother and Henri as Adam and Trace came to join us near the door. "Welcome," she said.

  "Maman, Henri," I turned toward my guests. "Please meet Chloe and Adam Tennyson, and this is Trace Johnson."

  "Your fiancé," my mother added, not very helpfully.

  "Ma'am," Trace said, sticking out a hand that looked enormous next to my mother's small frame. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

  He was so very American, so very big and imposing and just . . . there. I loved that about him—his comfort in the world, in his own skin—but I could see how his very hugeness was like a confrontation to my mother, who shrank back a bit.

  "Mr. Johnson," Henri stuck a hand out to shake. "I am so honored to meet you. I follow your team."

  Trace grinned at Henri, clearly delighted to be recognized. "Maybe you could come catch a game while you're here."

  Henri nodded. "I'd like that very much."

  Adam was almost immediately at Henri's side as we continued pleasantries and moved farther into the open tasting room and toward the counter. "We went Sunday," he gushed. "It was incredible."

  "Shall we taste some wine?" Chloe asked, waving us toward stools.

  I moved to go around the counter, but Chloe waved me back toward Trace. "No, today you are a guest."

  I took a seat at Trace's side, between him and my mother, and he smiled down at me. I felt happy to be next to him again, wishing I could kiss him. I leaned into his warm side instead.

  "You ready to be impressed?" he asked.

  "I told you, I'm already impressed," I whispered to him, and I couldn't help the giddy smile that I knew was radiating out of me. Trace projected a kind of strong solidity I knew I could draw from. If I wasn't feeling strong—he was right there, big and sturdy and dependably himself.

  Adam was on the other side of the bar, and he pulled a few bottles from beneath the counter as Chloe lined glasses up in front of us. "In honor of our special guests," he said, "I've brought out a few things we don't normally taste."

  My mother sighed, as if being forced to endure something, and I turned to her with a smile I hoped might be contagious. I was going to find a way to make my mother have fun. These people were too important to me to allow her to ruin the day.

  Henri, for his part, did
look excited.

  Adam explained the first pour, talking about the terroir and the blend, and Henri leaned closer, listening to his explanation with rapt attention. Trace was listening too, but where Henri nodded now and then in understanding or appreciation, Trace was pressing his lips together and wrinkling his nose with confusion.

  "Just taste it," I suggested, bumping his shoulder. “It’s less about what you know and more about what you like.”

  "I will taste it, but he didn't say go yet," Trace whispered back.

  I laughed, imaging Adam calling out, “go” and all of us downing our tastes at once. "Have you ever been wine tasting?" I asked.

  "If you count today," he said, looking up thoughtfully and then pretending to count on his fingers. "I've been once."

  I laughed, and my mother cleared her throat. I turned to look at her.

  "You are being rude," she said, whispering in my other ear. "The winemaker is talking and you are carrying on a private conversation." I swallowed down my response and forced a smile.

  "Please, go ahead," Adam said, lifting his glass.

  We all swirled and sipped, and I listened as Henri and Adam discussed the way the wine had been harvested, fermented, blended and aged, while also appreciating the comical faces Trace was making. I felt my attention divided, though, and I turned to my mother. "What do you think?"

  "It tastes American," she said.

  I rolled my eyes, feeling my patience wearing thin. I was French, and I could appreciate that there were very good wines made in other places, but it seemed my mother was looking for a battle today. I wasn't going to give her one if I could avoid it.

  "So?" I asked Trace.

  He smiled down at me. "Tastes of elderberries."

  "No it doesn't!" I laughed.

  "Okay, I've never had an elderberry, so I don't know. Tastes red."