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“Ah, there he is,” Mom said, her voice barely audible. “The man behind the voice.”

“You can turn up the volume now,” Matthew said quietly in Winnie’s ear.

Her skin prickled, and she jumped forward to the volume control, if only to try to dissuade her ever-present blush and the effect his proximity had on her.

“Winnie,” Dad said first, “aren’t you going to introduce us?”

She blinked. “Oh, yeah. This is Matthew Wintour, Mr. Wintour’s son. Matthew, this is my family.”

Matthew leaned closer, resting his left hand on the table next to the laptop as his face drew level with hers. She’d been close to guys before this. She’d kissed guys closer than this. So why did it feel as if she was a new teenager, being attracted to a boy for the first time?

“Hello, everyone,” Matthew greeted, his voice close to her ear. “Lovely to meet you all.”

Nothing good was going to come from this. She just knew it. Matthew was far too comfortable appearing in front of a bunch of strangers. It was almost as if he was trying to make her uncomfortable.

She should have turned the dang computer off the second he’d appeared. She’d just been so flustered, her brain entirely addled.

“Nice to meet you,” came the response from each of her family members.

“I love your accent!” Sarah said with an easy smile.

“Oh, thank you,” Matthew responded. “But I can’t take credit for it. My parents gave it to me.”

Winnie’s family laughed again, and Matthew responded with a grin. She hadn’t seen him smile in more than a week. She’d truly sucked the life out of him, so what was bringing him back now?

“So you’re Arthur’s son,” Dad said, his eyes calculating. “I don’t know if he’s told you, but he and I have been good friends for a long time.”

“Yes, sir,” Matthew responded. “He’s told me how much your friendship has meant to him over the years.”

His cologne drifted under Winnie’s nose. She parted her lips to breathe through her mouth instead, then shifted a degree to the right to create more distance between them.

“So you’re the one who rescued my Winnie?” Mom asked next.

Matthew shrugged with a modest chuckle. As he did so, his shoulder brushed against Winnie’s, sending shoots of warmth across her skin.

“I suppose I am,” he replied, apparently unaffected by their touch.

Winnie shifted in her seat again. “It wasn’t really a rescue,” she said, hoping to maintain some shred of dignity with her family. “I could’ve gotten out of the mud eventually.”

“Not in those heels,” Matthew retorted.

Her family laughed, and Winnie peered at him in the screen. She could’ve sworn he was looking directly at her, the small smile on his lips driving her crazy.

She hadn’t seen the two of them like that before, side-by-side, a smile on Matthew’s face and a forced smile on hers. It was like staring at one of those moving Harry Potter portraits, but way more engaging. Way more…appealing.

Harry Potter portraits. Matthew would certainly appreciate that reference, wouldn’t he?

“So are you one of the jousters there, then?’ Spencer asked, interrupting Winnie’s thoughts.

“Yes, I am,” Matthew responded.

In her ear, so close to her senses, his deep voice was far richer, his accent far more delicious, than she’d ever realized.

“Must be quite the easy gig, playing dress-up for a living,” Spencer continued.

Winnie caught sight of her brother’s smirk, followed by Scott’s stifled laugh, and she frowned. She may have squashed all of Matthew’s hopes and dreams a few days ago, but she wouldn’t allow her own family to make fun of him for those dreams.

To her surprise, however, Matthew didn’t need defending. In fact, he hardly even looked offended.