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But now, I had less unpleasant things to turn my mind to.
They still weren’t pleasant.
This was because Guillaume had come to stand outside the side door.
He was tall and straight and remarkably handsome, even in his eighties.
And it was an odd sensation to intensely dislike a man who looked so like three I adored.
But there it was.
“You good, Sah?” Remy murmured before he opened his door.
“I won’t tackle him and punch him in the face, if that’s what you’re asking,” Sabre answered.
My eyes again darted to the back.
“He’s good, Dad,” Manon threw in, her gaze on me.
She nodded to me.
She’d keep her brother in line.
But I knew the children I’d raised, and I knew she wouldn’t have to.
He might not ask the man for a game of catch, but Sabre would be civil.
I still nodded back to my girl because she was being sweet, looking after her dad.
We got out, and although Guillaume came down the steps and allowed his fond gaze to linger on all of us, his arms didn’t open to anyone but Remy.
I felt my hands clench into fists.
Remy walked into those arms, and that was when I felt my daughter’s fingers close around my tightly balled ones.
I shifted so I was holding her hand.
Perhaps noting that Remy did little more than pat his father on the back before he started to pull away, he wasn’t going to push it with an audience, so Guillaume let him go and turned to me.
“Ma belle Wyn,” he murmured, his voice throaty, his eyes soft with shimmers of wet, openly and unabashedly overcome that Remy and I were back together.
“Guillaume,” I replied, letting my daughter go and walking to him.
I kissed his cheek and suffered my own hug.
He then turned right to Manon like Sabre nor Yves were standing there and gave her the biggest smile imaginable.
“And how is the most beautiful girl in the world?” he asked.
“I’m good, Pépé,” she muttered, jumping forward to give him a quick hug and a peck on the cheek.
I stiffened when he corrected her, because when he did that, it always rankled me.
“Je vais bien,” he said. “Où ça va, merci, Pépé, et toi?”
He was constantly on all the kids to speak French (especially Manon), something they were all haltingly fluent in because their father spoke it and we’d been to France often.
“Ça va,” she forced out trying not to show she was forcing it out. “Et toi?”
“Bien, ma chérie. Surtout maintenant que tu es là,” he replied. (Good, my darling. Especially now that you’re here.) Then he turned to the boys. “Mes beaux petit-fils!” he cried.
“Pépé,” Yves greeted, coming forward to get his brief hug before popping back.
“Granddad,” Sabre said, and Guillaume’s head ticked because he was stringent about being Pépé, or if necessary, but it was not preferred, Grand-père.
Their hug was swift and awkward, and Guillaume’s gaze was on Remy when it was over.
“We’ve had a long flight. We need to get in and settled, Dad,” Remy made a pass at explaining his son’s behavior.
But now I had an understanding why Guillaume demanded his grandchildren use his native language, one that was not native to them, when they referred to him, and Remy steadfastly called him “Dad.”
It was the same insolence that Sabre just demonstrated.
I wondered if Remy ever called him Père or Papa.
“Bien sûr,” Guillaume murmured. “There are no surprises. The boys are in Velvet. You and Wyn are in Silk. And you, my darling,” he turned to Manon, “are in Matelassé.”
I clenched my teeth because the Velvet Room was a large room with a king-sized bed, and it was the only dark, clearly masculine room in the house.
It had been Remy’s, and the painstakingly treated walls that were awash in violet and shimmering champagne were gorgeous, as were the drapes, which were acres of iridescent purple satin with a green sheen. The armchairs were covered in a bright blue-purple velvet, with the bed covered in black of the same fabric.
But there was one bed.
And my sons were no longer boys. They were grown men who hadn’t slept in the same bed since they were, if memory served, in single digits.
They probably wouldn’t mind.
But they weren’t children anymore and shouldn’t be treated like they were.
“Thanks, Pépé,” Manon replied.
“Boys, get the bags, yeah?” Remy ordered, hitting the button on the fob to open the back of the truck.
The boys moved to the car and Guillaume looked to Remy.
“It’s getting late, and your mother isn’t feeling sprightly. But she wishes to see you, and once you refresh, she’s waiting for you in the mural room.”
Remy nodded, and as Sabre and Yves got close, he said, “One of you take the Gold Room.”
“Remy, this room hasn’t been prepared,” Guillaume stated.
“If it isn’t, I can put sheets on a bed, Dad. So can my boys. But my sons are grown and they’re not sharing a bed.”
