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Instead of his armor or his t-shirt and jeans, he wore what she could only assume was authentic period clothing—layered pants that looked like chaps and a flowing shirt that amplified his level of attractiveness to a point where she was no longer looking at him, but staring at him.

She had to admit it. In this one regard, authenticity was really working for Matthew. The man embodied the rugged-medieval-knightly look to a T.

Obviously unaware of her stares, he walked past her, reached forward, and opened the door without a hitch.

Winnie gaped. How the heck had he done that? No matter how hard she’d tried before, the door would not budge for her. She didn’t care to admit how long she’d been struggling with the blasted thing.

Fine, five minutes. Five flipping minutes. And now this guy just waltzed in and opened it in a split-second?

Resting a hand on her hip, she quirked her head to the side, refusing to feel any sort of embarrassment, as there was obviously some special way to open the dang thing.

“Okay, what’s the trick?” she asked.

“No trick,” Matthew replied, staring at her with those gorgeous, cobalt eyes of his. “You just simply have to know how to open a door.”

She pulled in her lips at his snippy response, though ultimately, she chose to ignore it. She’d be better off giving him the benefit of the doubt. He’d just lost his festival to her, after all. She owed him a little grace.

“I don’t know,” she responded. “I’m not convinced you didn’t use some sort of wizardry or something to open it. You know, like Merlin or the man Harry Potter himself.”

He eyed her, no doubt to see if she was teasing, which she totally was. She couldn’t help herself. His knowledge of Harry Potter had been kind of adorable. It made him more human.

He made no move to respond to her joking, which produced another question in her mind. “Can I ask you something, Matthew?”

“I don’t know, can you?”

Winnie had often been forced to work with condescending people. So if she had to do the same with Matthew, she at least was grateful he was as nice to look at as Chris Hemsworth in that Disney+ show.

And no, contrary to what everyone thought, she hadn’t just watched the series because he took his shirt off in every episode.

That was merely a bonus.

Choosing to ignore Matthew’s words once again, she continued, clearing her throat. “I think we got off on the wrong foot. Well, we got off on the right foot, then swapped to the wrong foot after that.”

“That’s not a question.”

Very observant of you, Matthew. “No, it’s not,” she said. “My question is, can we start over?”

Matthew shifted, folding his arms. As he did so, the scent of his cologne wafted toward her. He didn’t smell like the men in New York with rich and overly powerful scents. Instead, his cologne was more earthy. More natural. And there was the distinct smell of leather about him. Was that authentic? Either way, she wasn’t about to complain.

He waited a moment, clearly thinking over her proposition before shrugging. “I suppose.”

Clearly, that was all he was willing to give. “Great. Then I’ll⁠—”

“I take it that’s as close to an apology as I’m going to get from you,” he interrupted.

“Sorry, what?” she questioned.

“Ah, so you can say the word.”

She was about to blow out a breath, but if there was one thing she’d learned from dealing with difficult people, it was that she should never let them know they were getting under her skin.

That gave them all the power.

“Oh, I can say the word,” she said with a calm smile. “When it’s warranted.”

He watched her carefully. “So you don’t believe an apology is warranted after you criticized my home yesterday?”

Ah, so that’s what he was talking about. “For the record, no,” she began, “I don’t believe I need to apologize for speaking the truth about Foxwood. I wasn’t criticizing it. I was pointing out areas that could do with some improvement. And,” she paused, debating on whether or not to continue before throwing caution to the wind. “I hate to break it to you, but I’ll be saying much worse than that in the coming days about the festival. I hope you’re ready for it.”