Her Inconvenient Groom by Niomie Roland

Sienna: Chapter One

“I told you you were out of your damn mind, didn’t I? I said, girl, you must be tripping. But did you listen? Noo!”

Sienna Trinidad was speaking out loud, but the truth of the matter was that the person she was berating with such vitriol was none other than herself. Because two days ago, herself had gotten it into her head to fly into France via Calais, rather than flying directly into Nice or Marseille like any normal sane person would have.

And herself had decided to drive all the way from the north-west coast of France down to the south-east. Reasoning that since she had been to France innumerable times because her best friends lived here, she’d only ever done so on one of their jets. She wanted adventure this time around and chosen to fly commercial and make her journey a road trip.

“Rent a car,” she mumbled mockingly. “Make it a road trip. See the countryside.” Ugh. Now she and herself were standing at the side of the road in a little village called Malijai, in the Provençal Alps, giving a flat tire the stink eye.

Great. Now she was stuck here, without an inkling as to how to get herself unstuck.

Not that she had anything against Malijai, mind. Sienna was sure it was a perfectly nice little town if you had literally nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon, and figured you’d take the kids out for a spin. Maybe get ice cream and gaze into the depths of the Bléone river. Visit a château or two, take lots of photos and post them to your Insta.

You could do anything here, she figured, but use your cell phone, because this entire area seemed to be a dead spot. Maybe it was so boring that not even the cell phone signals felt like hanging around. Because her phone was registering exactly zero bars, so she couldn’t even call for roadside assistance.

So there she was, a busy woman with things to do and places to be and now here she was staring at a goddamn flat tire, wondering what the hell she was supposed to do now.

Arguing aloud with herself like a lunatic.

This was supposed to be a stress-free vacation. This was supposed to be her moment of escape from the mess she’d made of her personal life. Two breakups in one year was more than a woman could stand. Not to mention the pressures of being your own boss, of running your own boutique companies and becoming reasonably successful as a vlogger on YouTube.

Exhausting.

When she’d discovered that she’d sunk back into her teenage habits of gnawing on her nails and getting up at midnight to snack on Oreos, she realized she needed a few days off.

Hence this hare-brained escapade.

Hence this damn stupid blankety-blank flat tire.

She kicked it in a fit of temper, and then realized too late that 1) she was wearing open-toed high heels, so the tire had kicked back and her toes were not happy about that, and that 2) these were damn expensive shoes, probably worth more than the tire on this piece of crap hunk of rental.

She put her hands on her hips and looked up and down the quiet country road. So far, only one car had passed her, and for some reason the driver had thought it would be neighborly to give her an encouraging little honk rather than stop and offer to help.

Cussing like a Viking, Sienna prepared her tools and equipment to try to change it herself. And by ‘tools and equipment’, she meant her camera and tripod. She was, after all, a vlogger, and if there was one thing she knew how to do, it was to turn her every misfortune into a click-worthy event.

Once that was set up and focused on the offending tire, she proceeded to drag out the tool kit, listening to the clanking of the metal objects inside and contemplating to herself that they might as well as be tattoo equipment or dental tools, for all she would know how to use them.

“You’re a warrior, girl,” she reminded herself. “And warriors wage war. Even if it is just against a goddamn tire.”

She discovered to her chagrin that the spare tire was under the floor of the trunk, rather than stuck to the lid or nailed to it or chained or bolted or whatever car designers with a lick of common sense did. Because now it meant she would have to drag her full set of designer suitcases out of the trunk. Rest them down in the dirt, of all places, to get at the tire.

Which set her off cussing again. The cussing grew louder when she discovered that as she dragged the tire out of the gaping depression in which it was nestled, it had brushed against her butter-colored pantsuit, leaving a grimy black mark she doubted even the best dry cleaner in Aix would be able to remove.

Well, shit.

She put on her game face and began engaging her invisible audience via the camera, briefly describing her predicament, rolling her eyes extravagantly and bravely setting about her task.

She laid out all the metal doohickeys in a row, some long stick-shaped things with pointy edges or flat edges or rounded edges. Another contraption she was sure that people who knew about cars called a ‘tire jack’, and many more items.

All she had to do was put them together.

No biggie.

Question was, did she jack the car up before or after she began loosening the lug nuts? And in what direction did you turn them? What did they say, righty-tighty, loosey-goosey? And once you had them off, what did you do?

Sienna unleashed a stream of words that would have gotten her banned off several social media platforms. She gave the camera an apologetic look. She’d have to edit that out later.

“Ça va, madame?”

She almost jumped out of her skin, looking around, startled, to discover a pair of booted feet standing right behind her. Those booted feet were stuffed with a pair of very nicely shaped, black-jeaned legs, upon which balanced some neat, taut, masculine hips, with a waist encircled by a black leather belt and—

“Madame?” the voice came again. The southern French accent was musical, the voice low and timbered.

At first she bristled mildly at being called ‘madame’, because as far as she was concerned, a woman who was barely into her thirties surely deserved at least a courtesy ‘mademoiselle’. But she realized the man was asking if she needed help, and that was more important than wondering if she needed to step up her age-defying skin care regime.

Three years of French classes flew out of Sienna’s head like a mist. “I... uh… Je ne sais pas how to… Comment changer le …” What the hell was French for ‘tire’? And why wasn’t it just ‘tire’? For that matter, why didn’t everyone in the world just call it a ‘tire’ and be done with it? Wouldn’t that make life easier?

“Pneu,” he said helpfully.

“Pardon?”

“The French word for ‘tire’ is ‘pneu’. That’s what you were searching for, no?”

“Thank God you speak English!” she sighed in relief.

And then the man squatted onto his haunches in front of her and immediately Sienna decided she didn’t care if the French word for tire was ‘supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’. Because this man literally snatched her breath away.

She got the impression of skin the color of a buttered almond dessert, the kind so delicious she’d definitely have to lick the spoon. A thatch of straight black hair, expertly cut, with a shag softly falling over his brow. Eyes the shape of almonds. Again, those damn almonds! His dark eyes held a bit of humor, but seemed intelligent at the same time. A long, strong nose, and full lips that were curved in a half-smile. An angled jaw and a clean-shaven chin that held just the hint of a dimple. 

Sienna realized she was staring and dragged her eyes down toward her array of tools. “Uh … yeah. Thanks. I am having problems changing my… pneu.”

He gave her a smile that damn near melted the elastic in her thongs, and then rolled up his sleeves, revealing a complex design of interconnected tattoos.

Better and better, she thought.

The man rooted through the tools, selecting what he needed without hesitation. Then he began changing the tire with expert, practiced ease, as if he’d been handed the secret scrolls of roadside maintenance by the elders the moment he had come of age.

Realizing that her cameras were still rolling, she waggled her brows at her unseen audience, telegraphing to them, O.M.G.!

She wasn’t exactly timing how long it took him, but it was definitely quicker than the time she took to make herself a soft-boiled egg. Sienna watched as he repacked his tools, put away the flat tire, and hefted her luggage back into the trunk, despite her half-hearted protests.

“You will do well to have that tire repaired at the nearest shop, madame,” he said. “Not a good idea risking two flat tires on a lonely road like this.”

“Sienna,” she blurted. Because the ‘madame’ thing was killing her. She held out her hand.

He lifted his apologetically, to demonstrate that they were now black with tire muck, and with a hurried Oh she bustled to the front seat, pulled out her handy pack of wipes, and returned. Without realizing what she was doing, she took his hands in hers and carefully wiped them clean, as if ministering to a naughty little boy who had come in from playing football in the yard. His hands were broad, warm, and solid.

When she released him, she looked up in time to catch his mocking, amused smile. Then, hands finally clean, he introduced himself, shaking hers. “Maxim.”

If that isn’t the sexiest name I have ever heard, she thought, I don’t know what is.