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His shoulders lowered a degree, his eyes less cold than before as he searched her expression, clearly attempting to see if she was in earnest or not before he finally nodded.
“Thank you,” he mumbled. “I appreciate that.”
A weight began to shift off Winnie’s shoulders. “You see? I can apologize.”
He gave her a knowing look. “But only when you believe it’s warranted.”
“Exactly.”
They swapped small smiles, and the weight lifted even more.
“I suppose I ought to say my own apologies, then,” he said, averting his gaze. “And be more sincere than last time.” He cracked his knuckles in front of him. “I am sorry for being rather…inattentive during your meeting. And for being less than supportive. I will behave better next time.”
“I appreciate that,” she said, her heart softening.
Sure, he was mostly a pill, but really, he was just a guy who’d lost his figurative baby. She should be a little more considerate of that.
“For the record,” she began, “I don’t blame you for being so upset about this whole thing. I would absolutely have the same reaction as you, were our roles reversed. But I just know that if we could find a way to work together, we could make the festival even better than it was before. We just need to focus on what we can agree on first.”
His shoulders lowered. “I suppose you’re right. The difficulty will simply be in finding things to agree on.”
“On the contrary,” she said. “I already know something we feel the same about.”
“And what is that?”
“Two words: cabbage chowder.”
A smile broke out on his lips. “You’re right about that.”
“Cat’s meat and hot wine would be better.” They shared a laugh before she continued. “But there’s more than that. I’m sure we both feel the same about getting Mr. Fogg a new microphone. And his need to be more enthusiastic. Not Geoffrey-Chaucer-level, but just a little more passion.”
Again, Matthew relented with a nod. “Yeah, I can agree with you on that, as well.”
“You see?” she said, feeling lighter than a lance looked in Matthew’s hands. “This is only the beginning. I just need to be more tactful, you need to believe in me, and together, we can create something amazing.”
For the first time since the start of their conversation, Matthew’s eyes met hers and remained. A storm seemed to be raging within him as he watched her before he finally spoke aloud.
“I do believe in your abilities,” he said, much to her surprise. “My dad wouldn’t have hired you otherwise. The problem is believing in my own.”
She waited, tipping her head to the side as she listened intently to what she could only assume was a very difficult confession to make.
“The truth is,” he continued, “I’m at a loss. I don’t know how to make the festival profitable again. Everything I try to do just brings more failure, and I don’t know what to do anymore. No one has more to lose than myself, which is why…” He paused, his blue eyes focusing even more intently on her. “Which is why I need you to understand something.”
Winnie sobered further, nodding as she waited in silence for him to continue.
He drew a deep breath. “While you may know business, and while some of the changes you’ve suggested will do the festival good, some of them will take away the heart of what we’re trying to do here—which is to share our love of the medieval world with those around us. Without that beating heart in the center, there is no amount of quid, success, or prestige that will comfort us if this fails. I know I speak for the entire staff when I say, if our passion is no longer there, if our heart isn’t in this project any longer, we will lose the desire to make it succeed. I’m sure you and I can both agree on this as well—that if there is no heart or passion involved in what we do, then why would we do it at all?”
His words were like an ax to a tree, cutting down Winnie’s defenses and chopping her to the ground. He’d taken her whole existence, summed it up in one sentence, lit it on fire, and now watched the branches burn to ash, just to prove that she’d been wasting away the last decade of her life.
Of course he had no idea what he’d done. How could he have any clue as to how miserably she’d lived her life, coasting from job to job, trying to find passion and heart but always out of luck? And what sort of hypocrite would she be if she agreed with his words—that there was no purpose to the last ten years of her life because there had been no passion in the last ten years of her life?
“So what do you think?” Matthew asked, completely unaware of the turmoil raging within her.
Winnie scrambled for a response. His words were sound. But they weren’t hers. Nor were they a part of her plan or her research. How was she supposed to keep the passion and the heart at the center of the festival when she couldn’t even do that in her own life? If she agreed with him, she would render herself completely useless for the job, and she’d fail. Again.
Be like Fort Knox.
Dad’s words snuck through her mind, reminding her once more to be blunt. To stick to her guns. She couldn’t flop this time. She couldn’t waste the money Mr. Wintour had entrusted her with. She couldn’t disappoint their family and allow the faire to fail.
