A Wish Upon Jasmine

by Laura Florand

  He just stared at her a moment. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nathalie Leclair—the model? She used to date my cousin Matt. It was a disaster.”

  Jess called up the painful image again. It had definitely been him and not one of his cousins. She wouldn’t mistake him for anyone. “You had one hand braced by her head, and you were leaning into her. You might have been arguing. The two of you appeared pretty intensely engaged. Then you took her arm, and the two of you left together.”

  Damien’s lips pressed tight. “And that was all it took?”

  Well…Nathalie was so beautiful and glamorous. Exactly the kind of person who fit with Damien Rosier, unlike Jess herself. And everything had seemed so hard then. Grief and loss drowning her at the bottom of a well. Of course the one beautiful, magical night had turned out to be a grasp at a straw.

  Damien had that steel look again, except for the tic of a little muscle along his jaw. “I was always trying to damage control Nathalie back then. That would have been not too long after Matt broke up with her. She was a loose cannon, and he had no idea how to defend himself from her style of attack. I don’t really remember that party, since I had to deal with her so often, but I certainly never left with her. You might have seen me leading her into another room, away from cameras.”

  Oh. This stupid garden must be stealing all her strength, because Jess wanted to cry again. Had she destroyed something that truly could have been, so stupidly?

  “You know what I would have done, if I’d seen you with another man leaning into you at the next night’s party?” Damien asked.

  She shook her head.

  “Stabbed him and smiled over his corpse.”

  She blinked.

  “Or in some other way cut him out of that picture. I sure as hell wouldn’t have watched you walk out with him and not said anything. We have a very different approach to life.”

  Indeed. How did one manage that—so much ruthlessness, so much self-assurance? She knew perfume, but even with that, every start of a new fragrance was its own kind of anguish, that whole blank page of scent to fill and so many ways to never quite succeed with what was so beautiful in her head. And when she worked on perfume, it was in spaces of quiet, where she didn’t have to impose herself on other people. That self-confidence that could cut through other people like a knife—no, she didn’t have that.

  “But most of all, I wouldn’t have believed it,” he said. “I would have thought, ‘What’s going on? Picking up another man twelve hours later doesn’t fit with what I know of her.’ And I would have made sure I did know what was going on, before I made any decisions to ditch you from my life.”

  He’d tried to get through to her multiple times, after that boardroom meeting that Monday when he saw her again and realized he’d taken over her company. He’d tried to figure out what was going on. She’d had to shut him out repeatedly, his eyebrows drawing more deeply together each time she pushed him back.

  “I wasn’t feeling very strong back then,” Jess said, low. “I already felt as if my whole world was crumbling down, before I saw that.”

  Damien looked down at the fig he held in his hand, rubbing his thumb over its skin. He didn’t say anything, but for the first time since she’d seen him in Grasse, his lips weren’t pressed in a firm line. Softened, they looked incredibly sensual, his eyes brooding, his eyebrows drawn very slightly together. She wanted to ruffle his hair, to make that brooding look complete.

  “And, you know, you’re a little bit out of my league,” she said roughly.

  His eyebrows went up. “What do you mean by that?”

  A flush started to climb up her cheeks. She should have kept her mouth shut. “Come on. You know what I mean.”

  “No.” His eyes lifted from the fig and met hers. “I don’t.”

  Her cheeks heated painfully. Of course ruthless Damien would make her spell this out, pin her mercilessly well outside her comfort zone the instant she accidentally stepped beyond it. “You’re gorgeous and sexy and powerful and wealthy, and…I’m just me.”

  “One of the top perfumers of our generation?”

  She dropped a fig into her basket and pushed her freed hand across her forehead, shoving strands of hair back from her flushed face. “Besides that. I’m just…me.”

  “Underneath who you are to the rest of the world, you’re just you?”

  She nodded. He was holding her eyes as if she was supposed to understand something, and almost, almost…she thought about him as a sweetheart of a seven-year-old, trying to catch the moon. And she thought about that ruthless steel surface of his, that casual I’d stab him and smile over his corpse. And she thought about the way his skin was revealed that night as he slowly unbuttoned his shirt, watching her. Kissing her. Running his hands up her arms in this stroke of reassurance and seduction…

  She picked another fig quickly, too ripe.

  The wasp that had been feasting unnoticed on its split flesh buzzed around her hand angrily. Damien reached out and offered his hand to the wasp instead, distracting it toward him. It buzzed around his fingers a moment and then flew off to another fruit. Damien took the over-ripe fig from her—calluses on his fingertips brushing her palm—and tossed it into the corner of the garden.

  “Which of those things that you just said about me do you care about?” Damien asked. “Gorgeous, sexy, powerful, wealthy?”

  None of them, that was the thing. Sure, a couple of them had been nice little pluses, but what she had cared about, actual care, was the way they talked, like a tale out of time, the gentle, quiet, sexy care in him.

  She wished she could just plunge into some icy pool and hide her hot cheeks. But she’d already been enough of a coward with him, hadn’t she?

  “I liked the gorgeous and sexy,” she finally admitted. Kind of. Except that it was like sleeping with a movie star. Hard to believe it was real. If he’d been a little more geeky, a little more ordinary, he would have made sense. She could have still believed in her luck the next day. “The powerful and wealthy are a little unsettling.”

  He was silent a moment, turning a fig in his palm with a little stroking motion of his thumb that was bringing back far too many memories. “I’m quite comfortable being powerful. And the wealth protects my family. Plus, it’s essential to power.”

  Of course.

  A one-sided curve of his mouth. “I find you thinking I’m gorgeous and sexy a little unsettling.” The French layered over the British in his accent, roughening the R in gorgeous, softening the G.

  Her skin prickled at the thought of unsettling him.

  This faint gleam in those sea-green eyes of his as they flicked over her body, and…was that a hint of color on his cheeks again? Surely not. “But I might be able to get used to it.”

  She turned hastily with her basket toward the table where Colette Delatour sat waiting for them.

  “Not comfortable with it, no,” Damien said in her ear as he followed her, the French-on-British accent rubbing all up and down her spine. “But I might enjoy it, just the same.”

  Chapter 12

  It was shadowy and quiet in the back room of the little perfume shop. Damien closed his eyes, breathing in the aromas of dust and shade, the forgotten scents that layered with the bright, pushy ones that had just been awoken. If he followed the threads of scents, if he took his time, he could piece together what Jess had played with that day, after she’d left Tante Colette’s house. Tristan, who had finely trained his Rosier nose, would have already known. Damien had been destined for business so young he’d never had that training.

  He’d chosen that destiny, of course. Yes, it had pleased his father, but it had deeply disappointed his mother, who would have whole-heartedly backed him if he went into an artistic career like Tristan. It was just that…Tristan thought what was vital to Rosier SA was the perfume he made. Matt thought it was the valley and the flowers he grew. But Damien had always known that it was the money, the business deals, the knowledge of behav
ioral economics, the control. That was what determined their lives. That was where the real power lay.

  He could hear Jess shifting around, shoes forgotten again, her feet making almost no sound. Slouching in this chair while she was on her feet working felt oddly intimate. Like a man might stretch out on a couch after a hard day and not come to his feet when his wife entered the room but just smile at her and maybe form his lips into a kiss to invite her to come to him, to bend down, to brush his lips with happiness.

  I’m here. You’re here. It’s been a long day, but now we’re together.

  But at the core of that shadowy, quiet intimacy, his stomach knotted. He kept his breath calm, his eyes closed, his body slouched. No need to let anyone else see his nerves as he waited to see what fragrance she had made for him this time.

  He almost hadn’t come, he’d dreaded the moment of truth so much. The slap when every raw ripping open of himself at lunch was thrown back in his face. He’d gotten to the shop so late that she’d been visibly surprised to see him, coming down from upstairs where, apparently, she had been making the bed with the pressed sheets Tante Colette had given her after lunch.

  He thought about helping her spread those lavender-scented sheets. Thought about looking at her across the bed as their hands swept over cotton, tucked it under corners, made that bed ready…

  He tried to channel gorgeous and sexy. So sexy that the next time she walked near him in that damn wannabe-a-model red skirt she had put on sometime that afternoon, he could just catch her by the waist and pull her down astride him, shove that tight skirt up and find her panties…all…wet. Oh, yeah, and he’d—

  A scent wafted under his nose, the strip brushing his lips, and he jerked, his eyes flaring open.

  “Sorry.” Jess drew back. In French, her accent was almost perfect, thanks to her father, but America slipped into it in the stretch of certain vowels. “Were you falling asleep?”

  “Of course not.” Because this wasn’t an intimate moment full of trust, this chair wasn’t a couch at the end of a long day, the brush across his lips wasn’t a kiss, and so he couldn’t do that. He couldn’t relax.

  “Do you want something for your head?”

  Yes. He did. He wanted her to dampen a cloth with cold water, he wanted her to fold it and lay it over his eyes and rest her hand on his forehead, he wanted to just sit there, like that, with the cold on his eyes and the gentle, shaded warmth of this room in the hot August, the scents stirring while she moved around him, letting him soak up the peace. “I’m fine.”

  His head didn’t hurt at all, in fact. He just wanted that cloth anyway.

  “Did you take that Advil?”

  “My migraines have been greatly exaggerated,” he lied, and took her wrist, bringing the scent strip back to his nose.

  He braced just a second before he breathed. Titanium again.

  God damn it.

  He started to release her wrist.

  “Wait,” she whispered. “Wait for it.”

  His jaw set. But he brought the strip back to his nose, forcing himself to learn this salutary lesson on opening up.

  And then…his hand slowly relaxed on her wrist, his thumb stroking her pulse unconsciously, as his head cocked. And then his stomach tumbled, and something vulnerable tried to escape, as this sweetness reached him, politely hidden by that titanium. This elusive, dancing breeze of sweetness, like the whisper of coolness in the shade on a hot Provençal day, protected by walls.

  “Is that fig?”

  “Maybe a tiny bit.” Her eyes were large in the dim room. He hoped to God he didn’t look as vulnerable as she did.

  “Lavender?”

  She smiled a little and didn’t answer. Merde, her mouth looked so sweet when she smiled. It made his own lips so hungry.

  He couldn’t figure out all the scents. But the heart notes of the perfume were starting to come out, and unlike that titanium head note, it was this rich and yet simple heart, this gorgeous pure dappling of sun and shade, with steel still running through it like a sword plunged into dirt after a battle, and it made his throat tighten. He fought his own vulnerability, wanting to yank that sword out of the dirt and hold it up to ward everyone off.

  “It will take a good thirty minutes for the base notes to come out,” she said. “Can I try it on your skin?”

  His stomach clenched, at the thought of what the base notes might reveal, some deep-rooted betrayal of this moment of peace, and yet…he might be able to risk it. He held out his wrist for a spritz, tilted back his head for another, there at the vulnerable base of his throat. “Push-ups again?” he asked ironically.

  Her gaze flickered to his torso and arms in a way that surged slow and hot through his blood.

  His voice went deeper. He held her eyes. “Or shall we go straight to the arousal test?”

  Yes. I want to do the arousal test. Pull you down astride me right here, shove that skirt up your waist, push your legs wide with my body, leave you all exposed to me.

  Let’s go back to what we were good at.

  Sex. Naked. When everything seemed possible and everything seemed true.

  “We could go for a walk,” she said, soft and rapid.

  It came from so far outside the box of his thinking that he stared at her. “A walk?”

  A little flush touched her cheeks. She turned to neaten up her workspace. “Around town.”

  A walk. Around town. Around his town—his beautiful, happy, stubbornly defended town. “Together?”

  Her jaw set a little. She looked down at the bottles on her counter.

  Come here, even that hint of wounded vulnerability immediately made him think. It’s all right. Come sit on my lap.

  Preferably astride. Preferably with his hands insi—

  “A walk.” His stomach eased. His head eased. Maybe even his heart. Slowly, his lips relaxed and even curled upward. He rose. Oh, thank God. She still had to tilt her head back to look up at him. He still could cling to that primitive, desperate power of being born a man. “It’s a nice evening for a walk.”

  ***

  He was doing it again. Seducing her. With these exquisite manners and this quiet care, as if he was picking a jasmine flower, trying to hold the flame on a candle without putting it out, cupping a dandelion without knocking away all its seeds before the wish could be blown.

  As evening fell, the old Renaissance streets of Grasse were quietly active, shops shutting up while restaurants spilled their life and warmth into the street, everyone dining at the outside tables. No, not dining yet, Jess realized, except for a few tourists. Mostly hanging out with drinks or coffee with friends, before it was time to shift to meals.

  People collected around a stand that served gelato-style ice cream of all flavors, including the flowers and herbs of the region—jasmine, lavender, rose, thyme. Damien glanced at her and opened a hand toward the stand, but her stomach felt full of flickering candle flames, tickling and scary, and she shook her head. Her heels and little skirt were hard to walk in, the skirt shortening her stride, the heels wobbling on cobblestones. She half wished she had worn a knit sundress and sandals and half wished she could just carry off sexy and sophisticated like one of his models, even when strolling on paving centuries old. Sexy and sophisticated required so much work and attention to unimportant things, like how much you ate and how you fixed your hair. It was a particular skill, requiring a certain amount of luck in your genetics and then, exactly like most other accomplishments, at least seventy-five percent hard work, practice, and persistence.

  And she’d chosen to practice something else, something that mattered to her more. Those models who looked so great as they marketed her perfumes to the public could no more have made a perfume than she could have looked that sleek and alluring. They worked in symbiosis, she and those models, but she was the secret element of that symbiosis, the elusive magic, and they were the glamorous show.

  So naturally, it made sense to assume that the elegant Damien Rosier might prefer
the glamor.

  And yet…here they both were. Together.

  A couple of times, Damien caught her arm as she wobbled. His fingers would curve, warm and strong, around her upper arm or her elbow, for just one moment, holding her up. And then, always, they dropped away.

  His hands slid into his pockets, where they could never accidentally brush hers.

  People sat at tables under plane trees along the great Cours Honoré Cresp, children riding on a merry-go-round. Damien led them down the long esplanade to stop at the parapet, and they stood there, looking down at the more modern town, the great spill of lights toward Cannes.

  The memory of standing on a terrace above New York, leaning against a railing as they talked, looking down at the dazzle of city lights, came back vividly. Yes, she thought. Let’s go back to what we were good at.

  Talking. Quiet. Care. Two strangers slowly offering each other sincerity.

  Sex, also. She had to admit that they’d been really good at sex. Or Damien had, at least. Maybe she’d seemed pretty ordinary to him. A star or two above a one star rating, but nothing phenomenal.

  The lights below were beautiful against the pink and dusk blue of the sky over the sea some ten miles away. Their arms on the parapet braced that careful distance apart, just like that night in New York, when they were strangers. Damien gazed toward the horizon, his profile so perfect he could have been built by Disney, except that there was too much real strength to that jaw, to the scar on his chin, the straight black lashes, the strong cheekbones and the way his lips seemed to default to a firmness that left those little lines at the corners. As if allowing them to soften was what took conscious effort.

  No tension at the corners of his mouth that night in New York. None at all.

  “It would have been like believing in magic, to believe in you,” she said suddenly.

  “Yes.” His breath released roughly. “I know exactly what you mean.”