He stood, indicating the meeting was over. It wasn’t Celeste’s refusal to help him that made him angry, but the reasoning behind it. As usual, she was trying to manipulate him. Nothing gave her greater joy than playing her children and grandchildren like pawns on a chessboard in the belief that her actions were for the greater good.

But he knew better than to let his temper show. Celeste was his benefactor. If not for her, he would have no job and no place to live, and he had no idea exactly how much power she wielded with his probation officer.

He didn’t want to find out.

“I’ll go call on Melanie, then,” he said. “Thanks for the tea.”

“You didn’t drink the tea,” she said with a slight smile. As if she’d known he wouldn’t.

CELESTE WATCHED Luc go, her smile fading. She knew her grandson thought she was a mean old lady. But she had her reasons for not interceding on his behalf.

She had to accept at least some of the blame for the events eighteen months ago that had very nearly destroyed her daughter’s hotel. Luc Carter was his father’s son, and his father-well, she hadn’t done right by him.

For years, she’d been expecting Pierre to reenter their lives like the bad penny he’d turned into. She’d never expected it would be his son who came instead.

What Luc had done was reprehensible. But she’d seen something in him, some indication that he was not yet lost. She’d believed him when he’d claimed to have grown fond of the family he’d never known as a child. She’d believed him when he said he was deeply sorry for having tried to ruin the hotel’s reputation so his disreputable partners could buy it cheap.

But she’d been worried there was too much of Luc’s father in him. Thrusting the B and B on him had been her way of testing him in a situation where he couldn’t do too much harm. She figured that if the hard physical labor required to renovate the place was too much, he would take off to some part of the world where U.S. authorities couldn’t touch him, and that would be that.