Crown of Bitter Orange

by Laura Florand

  Sometimes, the temptation to hit Tristan over the head with one of his own perfume bottles was hard to resist. “I was talking about the Monsards and the Rosiers.”

  Tristan looked completely blank.

  Must be nice to be so obliviously secure in who you were.

  “Are you talking about seventy years ago?” Tristan asked warily. “Isn’t that a little before our time?”

  “You’re still living on your grandfather’s Resistance glory days, aren’t you?” The way Tristan had swelled with pride whenever his grandfather was asked to speak to their school. Malorie had had a slight preference for his grandmother and his Tante Colette’s talks—nice to see a woman’s heroism remembered and honored, too—but mostly she had stared at her hands on her desk for those events and wished to God she hadn’t been too stubborn to stay home sick.

  “My grandfather is his own special challenge,” Tristan said, with a softening of his mouth and a glint of laughter in his eyes that was exactly what was so irresistible about him. The open, amused affection which he bore for even the most difficult of the people he loved. “But I’m proud of him, yes.”

  “Yes.” Pride and a heritage of honor, versus a heritage of shame and dishonor. He couldn’t possibly get it, and she had nothing left to say.

  Tristan’s eyebrows knit, his face growing graver than she was used to seeing it. He looked back toward the great open doors of the building. Past the courtyard stretched a street she knew like the back of her own hand. The tall, close buildings painted in ochre and yellow, with their shutters in dusky blues and greens. The tiny lavender pillows being sold to tourists, who never seemed to realize that in April lavender could not possibly be fresh and local. The little café tables out in front of shops, to take advantage of the delicious spring.

  And the museum of perfume and fragrance, which the Monsards had not been invited to help fund and to whose collections they had not been invited to contribute. Their story from the nineteenth century was there, of course. It ended abruptly in the section on the 1940s with, “Upon the family’s disgrace at the end of World War II, the Monsards lost their influence in the regional industry and…”

  Nearly every single year their class had taken a field trip to that museum. She swore sometimes Tristan stood next to her on purpose in that exhibit, his shoulder brushing hers as she stared at that sentence and he clasped his hands behind his back and gazed at the black and white photos of his grandparents and great-grandparents with roses spread in a layer around them on the floor, the way they used to have to air the blooms before they opened their own processing facility.

  No overt reference in that particular museum to heroism, Resistance, collaboration. That was for the Musée de la Résistance. Another favorite school expedition.

  “That has nothing to do with us,” he said, slowly, like someone who knew as he said it that he wasn’t telling the truth. “It’s in the past.”

  Now he was just being a hypocrite. “So are we.”

  Entirely surrounded by medieval and Renaissance buildings. Even the modern monuments were in honor of the glory days of perfume and fragrance, attempts to keep that glory alive so that Grasse’s economy didn’t collapse. In the second half of the twentieth century continuing through to this day, the Rosiers had been a notable force in keeping Grasse central to the perfume industry, resisting that powerful pull of all things toward Paris and New York.

  The Monsards had not been a powerful force in Malorie’s lifetime. After her great-grandfather’s dégradation nationale, which had prevented him from serving as the head of La Maison de Monsard, and the disgrace through him of the whole family, their economic and social power had collapsed and no one had ever rebuilt it.

  Until now?

  “Is that why you’ve never liked me?” Tristan said, his eyebrows knit but a little ah-ha light in his eyes like Pasteur after he finally got the rabies vaccine to work. “That old history?”

  It was perfectly hilarious for someone who proudly traced his ancestry back to the Middle Ages to refer to something that had occurred within living memory as “old history”. Or it would be hilarious, if his oblivion wasn’t so infuriating.

  “I don’t dislike you, Tristan.” It would be like disliking a hot, half-naked guy who had just climbed up into a tree to rescue a piteous kitten and was cuddling it against his bare muscled chest. It just wasn’t possible. No woman could dislike Tristan.

  However, she could take a long, hard look at the effect charming men had had on the lives of the women in her family and everyone else and stay the hell away from his emotional clutches.

  He gave her a dark look. He didn’t even have to say Fugace. She’d seen that dark look enough to know what word was in his mind.

  “See, Tristan? This is what I mean about you being entitled. Whenever a woman treats you in a perfectly normal way—doing her job and making sure your perfumes don’t cost more than a trip to the moon, instead of falling all over you—you take it as personal dislike.”

  “The perfumes aren’t the only—” He snapped his mouth closed over the words. Those warm brown eyes were ablaze.

  Score another point for Malorie. The only woman in the world who could make Tristan, the ever-amused and unprovokable, lose his temper.

  An ability that made her skin skitter with energy and yet…she also wanted to sigh. Sometimes she wished she, too, like every other woman he knew, had just given herself up for Tristan’s smiles. Then she would still get them.

  Tristan gave a movement of his shoulders like a duck flicking water off its feathers, shaking his temper away, and cocked his head to study her. A gleam came into his eyes that she couldn’t quite interpret but that made her skin prickle again. “So you don’t dislike me, Malorie?”

  “I’m human, Tristan.”

  His eyebrows shot up. “You are?” His surprise sounded so genuine that her own temper flicked her.

  “Last I checked.”

  “Maybe you should let me check. I’m not sure your methods are accurate.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “What do you want to do, stab me to see if I bleed?”

  Tristan put his hand to his forehead. “Do you ever think of non-violent solutions? Ice water, stabbing. What did we talk about last time?” He lowered his hand, and that gleam in his eyes grew, wicked Tristan fully waking. “I don’t mean to be rude about your parents, Malorie, but I’m honestly not sure they raised you right.”

  Yeah. He might be right about that.

  “At least I know what to do with a sleeping princess. Or one frozen in crystal, in your case.” Those wicked brown eyes came to rest on her lips. And he drew his own lips just slightly in, as if he was tasting them.

  “And here I always thought the guy should have given that girl sleeping in crystal a good shake to free the apple, instead of kissing her like some pervert,” Malorie said sardonically.

  “You would,” Tristan retorted.

  “I hear the Heimlich maneuver works.”

  “Oh, bon sang.” Tristan rolled his eyes skyward.

  “Why don’t you just check my pulse?” she said dryly, holding out her upturned wrist.

  “You take all the fun out of things, Malorie.” But his fingers closed around her wrist, his hand cupping hers, and instantly she knew she had made a mistake. The rub of his callused index and middle finger as he sought her pulse. The warmth that enveloped her hand and ran up the inside of her wrist as if it was racing for her heart.

  Melting that little case of ice she tried so hard to keep cool around it to keep it safe.

  Tristan’s fingers rubbed gently, a shiver of callus and warmth, and his black lashes lifted suddenly. Their eyes met, his focused on her as if he was suddenly about to see right through her.

  Malorie twisted her wrist free before that race of heat could reach her cheeks and turned away, smoothing her jeans. She wished she was wearing one of those crisp pencil skirts she usually wore around him, in her office, in control. Her nape prickled with a sen
se that he was watching it. Don’t blush. Don’t blush.

  “Was there something you wanted, Tristan?”

  An odd, low laugh from him, not so much a laugh as a pained puff of breath.

  “Besides to see me melt at your feet,” Malorie threw over her shoulder acerbically, brazenly stomping on that idea.

  Tristan folded his arms. Temper tightened the corners of his eyes. It was hellishly unfair how hot Tristan looked when his temper pressed him. She didn’t find male temper attractive, generally, but Tristan’s charged her up every time. As if all the strength and energy he kept hidden under his carefree persona slipped out and focused on her.

  Hot, sexy, and very, very tempted to do something physical to her.

  “Trust me,” Tristan said astringently. “I’ve long since given up any hope of that.”

  Seriously? He’d had hope of it at some point? That she’d just fall at his feet like all the other girls? She gave him a dirty look.

  Tristan took a long, hard breath and tapped his fingers once against his arm. He pivoted, striding around the big room a moment, until his arms loosened back to his sides and his stride relaxed to a stroll. It took him about three paces. Damn, but Tristan had control of his temper. He flicked things off him as if they were nothing.

  And she was a terrible person, because it made her want to carry one of his perfumes with her so that she could hold it over a cliff in a threatening way to keep his emotions heated up with her.

  He turned back, perfectly relaxed now, his manner inviting her to relax, too. He toed the worn carpeting. “Is there still the original parquet flooring under here, do you know?”

  Malorie nodded. There was something provoking about how easily he could calm down, when she was still feeling aroused. (To anger. Aroused to anger. Right.) But there was something very easing about it, too. She might not trust Tristan with her heart, and definitely not with her finances, but her physical safety around him was absolute. His strength might be greater than hers, but his control was more than equal to that strength.

  “Merde, I’d love to rip this damn carpet up and refinish it,” he said.

  Malorie’s eyebrows went up. “That would be a lot of work.”

  “The belief that I don’t like to work is a misconception,” Tristan said idly. “Based, I suspect, on the fact that I also like to play.” He looked around some more. “Are the original display cases entirely gone? What happened, were they sold?”

  “They’re in storage downstairs, believe it or not.” These gorgeous, long displays, made with flowering curves of metal and iridescent glass. “Along with the Guimard chandelier.”

  “Merde,” Tristan whispered, arching his head back to gaze at the ceiling as if in a vision. “You still have that?”

  “We have Guimard and Lalique pieces that should be in a museum,” Malorie said, and couldn’t help glancing at the museum just across the street. To which the Monsards had not been invited to contribute. She looked back at her own space. If she could forge her own way, by herself, in big, harsh, indifferent New York, couldn’t she forge a way for the name Monsard again here in much smaller Grasse? Grasse wasn’t indifferent to the name Monsard, though. It was hostile. “And multiple two- and three-tiered marquetry tables by Gallé.”

  “Shit.” Tristan whistled. “Holy shit. And no one ever sold them or brought them out to show them off?”

  Her father had sold a lot of smaller pieces to support his gambling and womanizing, but her grandmother had locked this storage up and not given him a key, once she realized what was happening.

  “I guess not,” Malorie said.

  “I could help you carry some up,” Tristan said greedily. “Get a couple of my cousins in here to help with the cases.”

  Of course he could. No matter what the problem, Tristan always had a group of cousins willing to get together and help. What must that be like, to live a life where male strength surrounded you, could always be counted on for support?

  She shook her head. “Once the floors and walls are redone. I don’t want the Gallé to get chipped or paint spilled on them.”

  “Merde, non,” Tristan agreed. He eyed Malorie sidelong. “You say that as if it’s in the works. Are you planning on restoring this place?”

  Was she?

  Why would she even think of doing that? It would take months of work. It would take a lot of money—she’d have to sell her apartment in New York. Give up an important, high paying position in the New York perfume industry—a launching pad for becoming CFO somewhere next—to…what? Try to relaunch her own perfume house? A chasing rainbows kind of task in the best of circumstances, much less as a Monsard in a town where family mattered and the family that mattered the most, the Rosiers, still cursed her family name?

  And who would benefit? She had no kids. It wasn’t like her sisters were going to care. In fact, she’d probably have to get a loan to buy out their shares. She’d be relaunching a family house for a family of one.

  She’d have to be an idiot to think of doing that.

  She pressed her toe against the carpeted floor. Underneath which lay such gorgeous parquet flooring.

  That someone else could lay claim to, put their name on.

  “This staircase is absolutely gorgeous.” Tristan’s heat brushed her clasped hands as he came up behind her to rest his own hand on the slim iron railing. She loosed her hands, startled, and turned.

  He smiled at her, his body much too close now that she was facing him. But being Tristan, his need for personal space was minute. That guy could see five centimeters free on a bench in high school and cheerfully squeeze down in it beside her. How many times had she found herself in intimate little stances with Tristan at perfume launch parties in New York, when he didn’t even like her then, he was holding a grudge about Fugace?

  Of course, she’d spotted him in very similar intimate stances with famous actresses and gorgeous models more times than she could count. And all those gorgeous women had all looked very happy to be in that position of intimacy, too. The man had a gift.

  A gift that made her want to smack him every time she saw him leaning over an actress, teasing her, but Tristan was nothing if not generous in his largesse of himself to the female world.

  “I would love to see this place a showcase again,” he said, his whole body too close, so that she had to tilt her head back to look up into warm eyes and that inviting curve of his lips.

  She was tall, but so was he. The top of her head came just to his lips. It meant his breath always blew over her hair at this distance, tickling her roots and warming the top of her head. It meant she always had to look up at him, when he was in close, unless she wore ten-centimeter heels. And it meant that a kiss was literally only a careless sway of her body away. One lift onto her toes, and that supple, wicked, amused mouth was hers.

  “Could I talk you into showing me the Guimard and Gallé?” Tristan said, his eyes holding hers with that warmth and invitation that could talk a woman into doing anything. Could I talk you into inviting me up for a cup of coffee? Inviting me into your bedroom? Taking off all your clothes?

  Was he imagining owning this place already? Yeah, she bet he was. She could probably sell it to him before the afternoon was over.

  Cut loose. Go back to New York.

  A bleak void seemed to open right under her heart when she thought of doing that, just one big breath wrong and her heart would teeter into it and be lost forever. But—

  “Sure,” she said, because Tristan was Tristan. And even in her own defense, there was only so rude a woman could be to a hot, muscled, kitten-cradling guy.

  Chapter 5

  Tristan brushed in front of her as they started down the dark stairs to the underground storage areas.

  She frowned at the pushy rudeness—which was really not Tristan’s style—until she realized that it wasn’t rudeness. Tristan, drilled in manners in an extremely patriarchal family, just automatically led the way descending stairs, in case her poor little s
elf couldn’t handle them on her own.

  Stealing her right to lead her own adventure, into the treasure trove and dangers of her own past.

  Her father had done that kind of thing—performed elegant, I’m-the-man-of-the-family manners. In his case, though, he hadn’t really given a crap about all the real ways his wife and daughters could get hurt by him. It had been part of his vision of himself, of the man he thought he was, but he’d never really considered who they were, other than as props in his performance. She frowned more deeply at the back of Tristan’s head as he lifted his phone, using it as a flashlight to lead their way.

  The door into the great room where all the old furniture had been stowed was locked. She slid in front of Tristan to take back her leadership position in her own adventure and pulled out her key.

  He reached for it.

  She tightened her grip and angled her shoulder to keep him back.

  His fingers brushed over her wrist instead of the key and lingered there, as if he had to figure out what he was touching in the dark. The brush of calluses and warmth fell away as Tristan set his hand against the doorjamb and leaned in close behind her, holding his phone up to light the lock with which she fumbled. With her head bent and him leaning in so close, his breath brushed over her nape and sent little shivers of warmth all down her spine, shivers that spread out over her shoulders and down her arms all the way to her elbows. She curled her toes against them.

  Tristan didn’t say anything at all as she fumbled and fumbled with that stupid lock. He stayed silent in the dark just behind her, except for the soft sound of his breathing, felt more than heard, a cascade of warmth over her nape each time his breath released. He didn’t reach for the key again, either. It was funny that he could be so patient. He’d been such a restless boy. The only things that had ever settled him down were things like perfumes, things rich with sensory possibility, as if those were the only things he found compelling enough to go still. To think.

  He was still now. Her fingers just could not get that lock open, and Tristan’s phone shone quite mercilessly on that fumbling. But he never said a word. While all the warmth of his body soaked into her, while the brush of his breath kept shivering through her, until her body worked the way it was supposed to and everything…just…clicked.