Impulsive Ever After SAMPLE (Book 4 of The Conquest Series)

3. Mostly Mattie

“Mimi, Mimi, Mimi!” Little Lizzie squealed as she jumped beside the cute little yellow car her honorary grandmother had rented for the entire 2 weeks in Hawaii. She loved it. So cute and small and yellow. She loved bright, primary colors almost as much as pink and purple.

Constance looked almost aghast as she wondered how Harry actually fit into the car without some severe spinal injury occurring.

She wondered if the Fairmont Orchid also had chiropractic services for those men with short-sighted wives who favored ‘cute’ cars over actual functional ones.

She also wondered where they were going to put all their shopping and if Mathilde was going to need a whole new set of luggage by the end of the two weeks. It was quite possible that they would leave Hawaii with more baggage than they came with.

At least in Mathilde’s case.

“Hello, my darling.” Mattie knelt down and scooped up the bouncing 6-year-old with the long blond curls and crystal-blue eyes. She favored Constance in every way but those eyes, which were as crystalline and just as alluring as her father’s.

“Have fun, angel,” Aiden came up and wound his arm around Constance before begging a kiss from his daughter. At first, she giggled and shook her head vehemently, denying him. Out came Aiden’s newly-found pouty face, and he pretended to weep tears of utter heartbreak behind his cupped hands. Lizzie was won over finally when he started to look downtrodden, hanging his head and pretending to walk away. Very, very slowly.

He would be staying at the hotel with RJ, the 3-year old. Lizzie was just starting to be old enough to listen to Mimi Mathilde’s quirky fashion sense and sneaking away to steal Constance’s heels before nearly tumbling down the steps in them. Or over the cat they’d decided to adopt when it ran into their house and decided it liked it there. The poor thing didn’t have a name for the longest time and instead went by ‘cat’. When Aiden suggested—under his breath, mind you—that they name her p***y, Constance decided to get the damned furball a flea collar and some shots before naming him after the first road sign on the way to the vet’s office.

She hoped the critter liked the name Ralston Avenue as a moniker. That’s the name she gave at the vet’s office, much to the amusement of the front office staff. The vet talked her out of adding the ‘avenue’ part to his records, claiming most pets didn’t need a middle name. Constance thought Ralston Avenue Kinsley had a nice ring to it, but agreed it was probably a bit much.

Aiden always complained that the cat shed and smelled funny, but Constance had spied them napping together too many times to think the hatred toward the feline was anything but sour grapes. Aiden had wanted to get a dog only a few months earlier. His pleas had miraculously waned once Ralston had scampered in out of the pouring rain that one January afternoon. Aiden claimed he only allowed the animal to stay because the name they had selected was so doggish. Constance called bull when she caught him grabbing a can of whipped cream and allowing Ralston to lick the treat off his fingers in the dead of night.

She wasn’t buying any of his cat-hating diatribe. There was far too much evidence pointing in the opposite direction, thanks much in part to the CCTV security cameras that were placed sporadically around the home.

Lizzie waved goodbye as they drove away in the tiny Mini Cooper, Constance clutching the arm rests and her seat with a death grip every time Mathilde pointed in the direction of something she found either amusing or quaint and jerking the wheel in the direction of her most recent distraction. They barely made it to Queen’s Marketplace with her sanity intact.

Requesting a quick trip to if Starbucks, Constance treated her daughter to a hot cocoa and Mattie to a Caffe latté before they drank them out in the middle of the plaza under the shade of a coconut tree. Or a palm tree—she wasn’t quite sure of the difference. If it wasn’t currently ripe with fruits or nuts, she wasn’t honestly all that interested.

There were cute little home décor stores where they window shopped to their hearts content, a boutique or two with fine jewelry made on site, and, of course, some places to buy clothing.

Holding up a deep purple muumuu to her body and posing, Mathilde asked Constance, “How do you think this would look on me?”

Constance scrunched her nose. “Like a shapeless shift dress.” There were no lies told between these two women, and she definitely wasn’t loving the dress style.

“Really?” Mattie looked doubtful, but then again, she was always a little more eager to try out a new design or designer.

Maybe a little too eager, in this case.

“You start wearing that and I’ll teach RJ how to call you Nana instead of Mimi.”

Mattie’s eyes widened like she had called her a two-bit trollop, and she dropped the hanger back onto the rack where she’d gotten it. “No, thank you.”

Constance smiled into her palm and looked away to hold back her laugh. Honestly, just because something was new and exciting, it didn’t mean you had to try it out even once. She didn’t need to try escargot to know it was not going to be on her top-five menu list when she decided to renew her wedding vows.

Smirking, she shot off a text with a photograph to Harry. It was of the purple muumuu that Mattie hauled ass away from.

Constance: You can thank me later that your wife didn’t purchase that today.

Harry: Dear, blessed…

He added a surprised emoji, one where his head was erupting in flames, and hands held out in prayer.

Harry: I owe you one.

They stepped into another store after purchasing a few items at the clothing boutique and started looking at some jewelry, much of it made with shells and dried mini starfishes and looking so tropical it was an absolute cliché.

Lizzie was very excitable, and Constance let her select an anklet that looked sturdy enough to survive a 6-year-old and her rambunctious younger brother.

She hoped. Lizzie would weep tears for days if RJ somehow found a way to destroy her precious Hawaiian anklet. She’d been inconsolable after he’d accidentally dropped her junky old unicorn necklace down the toilet and flushed. RJ had been delighted with his new talent of making the water in the bowl disappear, but Lizzie had told her brother she hated him for three days, and Aiden and Constance had had two sobbing, arguing children on their hands for far longer than was good for their mental health.

Constance had never gone back to work after leaving Bettina’s employ at the temp agency, but she was busy nonetheless. Aside from being a stay-at-home mom to Lizzie and RJ, she’d help found a Rape Crisis Center and held meetings for women—and, yes, some men—at a church in a neighboring town in San Mateo County. It was run like usual AA and NA meetings, and everyone was sworn to secrecy unless the meeting was ‘open’ and anyone could attend. Once a month, the open meetings brought in younger and younger women, some returning for future meetings and sharing their stories of molestation and assault, some of them never returning.

Constance always wondered what happened to those young women. If they’d just been curious, or had really been in need of help. She tried to get them to open up a bit after coffee and desserts had been served at the end of the meeting, but she never pushed them. She wanted them to come back, get the help they needed—if it was needed—and feel comfortable enough asking for help.

“Ja’dore!” Mattie squealed and pointed at a mother of pearl necklace and matching earrings set.

She gestured excitedly to one of the women who was manning the shop, a short, Polynesian woman with a toothy grin who told her she’d made the necklace and earrings herself and offered to show her a similar bracelet that would go well with the set.

Mathilde walked over, Lizzie following on her heels as the rotund jewelry designer showed her a dazzlingly bright wristlet that looked too delicate for Lizzie to touch. The girl’s eyes were as wide as saucers as light glinted off the mother of pearl.

“Don’t touch, Lizzie. Let Mimi—”

“Mimi? Are you sure that’s your name?”

A man with a distinct French accent called them to attention. They all whirled around to see who was speaking, and then Mathilde’s eyes did a stunning interpretation of Lizzie’s as they widened to cartoonish proportions.

“Luc?”

Constance did a double-take. She knew she’d heard that name before—could’ve sworn it on her life, but for all that…

Oh.

Oh, God.

It had to be Luc from Paris, France, Mathilde’s old beau—almost a fiancé before Harry and his proposition had come along, the way Mattie told it.

Oh, this could get awkward. Really, really awkward.

“Mathilde?” The man stepped forward. Constance had to admit, the man was dashing in a foreign type of way, though obviously much older and careworn with the years. He must have still looked like enough of the younger Luc Marchet for Mathilde to have recognized him.

And Mathilde couldn’t believe her eyes. It was almost as if no time had passed since she was at Sorbonne. The young woman behind him soon grabbed her attention, and she smiled, wondering who the girl was. She certainly wasn’t old enough to be Luc’s wife. At least she certainly hoped not. She knew some women had daddy issues, but the two weren’t holding hands or anything strange like that.

Maybe a daughter?

“Mathilde, meet my daughter, Malorie. She’s just graduated secondary school and wanted a vacation instead of a car before going to university. Sorbonne, just like where you and I met.”

It made sense, and Mattie shook hands with the girl before Lizzie tugged on the bottom of Mimi’s long, flowing, chiffon tank top.

“Mimi, who’s this?”

Mathilde knelt down and stage whispered her answer into the little girl’s ear. “Lizzie, this is an old friend of mine from when I lived in France. His name is Luc.”

Luc bent over politely and reached his hand out to shake hers. “Please to make your acquaintance, Miss Lizzie.”

The child giggled as being called ‘miss’ anything and hid behind Mattie’s voluminous skirts.

Luc straightened and raised his brows. “Grandchild?”

That’s when Constance stepped forward. “My child, actually. Mattie’s just a friend, but all the little ones call her Mimi, so Lizzie does too. I’m Constance.” She stretched a hand out and shook with both Malorie and Luc.

Lizzie took offense to that and mumbled, “but she is my Mimi,” from behind Mattie’s slim build.

“Constance is as close as a sister to me, right?”

Constance bit the inside of her lips. She knew exactly what the older woman was playing at. It was the same reason she didn’t want to be called Grandma or Gran or Nana. No one wanted a name to age you, especially prematurely—which Mattie felt this would be. She had a good twenty years before she felt she’d be old and weathered enough to wear the moniker of a ‘grandmother’.

The two old friends started talking a bit, and Constance pulled Lizzie away so that they could chat in private. She didn’t know if Malorie spoke English, but she distracted Lizzie long enough with shiny trinkets that she’d forgotten that they were even there after a while.

***

“My wife and I divorced several years ago,” Luc explained, shrugging. “It was best. We hadn’t seen eye to eye for ages.”

Malorie had gotten bored with the conversation and walked off to check out friendship bracelets for some of her friends from school, thinking they would make excellent souvenirs. Luc and Mathilde had walked outside after she’d made her purchases.

“I’m so sorry, Luc. But if you’re happier now, then that’s what counts. You are happy, aren’t you?” She looked doubtful. She couldn’t imagine being anything but depressed apart from Harry. It seemed outlandish that anyone that had been married could fall out of love or become so embittered that it just made them fall apart.

It seemed utterly ridiculous.

“I think we’re both happier apart. Didn’t marry for the right reasons, to be honest. Got her pregnant. Was nearly 30 by then, and my parents suggested I marry her before she had the baby. Figure, why not? We’d been together for two years already and I thought that’s where we were eventually heading. Never loved her, but I thought I would one day. That day never arrived.” He looked over to the gazebo in the middle of the plaza like he was reliving old times. “Made us both bitter. She said she loved me, but I couldn’t reciprocate. After a while, I was happier alone or when it was just Malorie and I.”

Mathilde frowned. His life was so very different from hers. Where he had never grown to love his wife, she had unwittingly fallen in love with a man she’d known only a couple of weeks before marrying.

It was remarkable how different their paths in life were. She was half-tempted to ask him if he remarried again or ever fell in love.

Instead of prying like she normally would, she decided to ask some innocuous questions and lay off the heavy. “So, where are you staying on the island? For your vacation?”

“Ah, at the Fairmont Orchid north of here. It’s lovely.”

Mathilde brightened. “That’s where I’m staying as well.”

Luc smiled. “We should all have drinks one night and catch a coffee one of these mornings. I’m not much for outdoor things, but if there’s a bar nearby, you’ll see me there.”

Constance strode out of the building just as Mattie was making plans to meet up for coffee the next morning. Lizzie had needed to use the ladies’ room and then they were going to head back to hotel. RJ was probably already napping, and Lizzie was yawning and would probably doze off on the way back.

“You ready?” Constance called out.

“Ah, a Mimi’s work is never done,” she chuckled, standing up.

“We’re on our way back, too,” Luc said. “We’ll follow you and maybe we can catch up a little more at the hotel before you sneak off to get a mani-pedi or a seaweed wrap.”

Constance’s eyes widened, and she shot off a surreptitious and quickly tapped out text to Harry.

Constance: That guy she was with before you? Luc? He’s here and staying at the same hotel.

Harry: What???

Constance: He’s coming back to the hotel with us. I’ll text you when we’re closer.

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