A Wish Upon Jasmine

by Laura Florand

  ***

  Damien did not get migraines. Migraines shut people down, making it impossible for them to do anything but try to survive the agony. Damien got headaches. Something he could keep working through. Keep making perfume launch party conversation through. Keep doing whatever he had to do, until he finally got to go home and turn off all the lights.

  And by Monday, if his head hurt much more, he’d put a damn bullet through it just to improve the situation. He finally even ducked out of the Paris office at noon, to go lie down at his apartment for an hour in the hope that he would die and someone would bury him in a cool, dark place free from the excruciating pain.

  He could barely grit his teeth to be polite to the concierge as she handed him an express envelope on his way in. No, he did not need to deal with anyone’s urgent problems right now. And—oh, crap, he could feel the vial shape in it. Some damn perfume he was supposed to give an opinion on, all he needed. Probably from Tristan, otherwise it would have been sent to the office.

  He made it out of the elevator to his bed and dropped flat on it, the envelope beside him.

  Fuck. He wished to God he had never bought this damn glass-walled penthouse apartment, so that he could at least shut out all the light. If he survived and his head ever stopped hurting, he was buying something in a basement. To hell with the long-term real estate investment and the need to impress everyone with Rosier power.

  He rolled to the side, reaching for the nightstand drawer and Jess’s little bottle of Advil, with the memory it held of her handing it to him in the garden, that moment of care slipping through their hostilities, as if he still mattered even when she was hurt and angry and they were fighting.

  As he reached across the dropped envelope for the drawer, he saw the return address. J. Bianchi.

  His breath hitched and wanted to stop there, poised between hope and fear. One of his trials? What had she done with it this time? He’d been gone for a week now. There was always so much work to do when he was in Paris, and every single bit of that work felt safer than pulling out his phone and calling Jess. Plus, she could have called him, damn it. He was the one who had told her that he loved her and had her stare at him as if he was a member of an alien species who could not possibly have fallen in love.

  It didn’t surprise him, though, that Jess would have needed to give her reply with a perfume rather than words. He was just…deeply afraid of what those perfume-words might be.

  Had she damned him to hell or maybe…made a leap of faith?

  Slowly, not sure he could deal with either possibility right now, he pulled the strip to open the envelope.

  A brown vial rolled into his palm, a card sliding after it. It was the first time he had ever seen Jess’s handwriting, other than glimpses of her notes strewn across the counter in the perfume shop. It didn’t say: I love you, I’m sorry. It didn’t say: You jerk for walking off like that right in the middle of an important conversation. Don’t come back. It didn’t say: I was an idiot, I agree, and so were you, let’s talk.

  It said: If you get a headache, try this.

  And for some reason—it must be his fucking head—that made his eyes sting.

  He uncapped the vial, and the scent of lavender hit him immediately, spicy, fresh, optimistic. The scent of a bee sting easing. The scent of a field on the plateaus, high up, away from the world, with a wind rippling waves of purple. The scent of an afternoon making love in a small, shadowy room above an old perfume shop.

  He held the vial to his nose, his eyes closed, and his breathing slowing and deepening. That tight pain eased the minutest degree at the first breath, and then a little bit more with the second, and a little bit more, like a guitar string close to snapping being slowly, slowly adjusted back to proper tightness. It eased until he almost forgot about it, his lashes growing heavy, his face muscles relaxing.

  He actually fell asleep that way.

  When he woke, it was pitch black outside and the vial had slipped from his hand to spill a few drops across his sheets.

  His thousand-euro silky fine Paris sheets smelled of lavender. Just like the embroidered sheets carefully ironed and handed down for generations back home.

  And his head didn’t hurt at all.

  But his heart still did, in this anxious, demanding way, like, Get your butt up and go home.

  ***

  He got back to his Grasse office at eleven that morning, a short flight to Nice and the kind of driving from Nice to Grasse that his Aston Martin had been built for.

  He dropped paperwork off with Fréd and stepped into his office, impatient to be gone again. To go see a woman who didn’t believe in him, but she cared for him just the same. I’m sorry I stayed so long in Paris. Merde, that was one of his own father’s techniques for dealing—not dealing—with emotional issues. I’m back. I’m trying again.

  He hung up his coat and turned toward his desk, scrubbing his forehead at everything that awaited him on it. No matter where he went, there work was. “Fréd. What are these bottles on my desk? Did Parfumerie need my opinion on something?”

  And could it wait? He knew it was eleven on a Tuesday, but…he had something important to do.

  Fréd poked his red head in through the office door. “Jasmin Bianchi said you had commissioned a fragrance from her. She’s been leaving things for you to test when you get back. She finally talked your address out of me and overnighted the last one, didn’t you get it?”

  Damien’s heart lightened so fast. Like the whole room had been filled with that lavender oil. He moved toward the bottles as if they’d reached out and lassoed his waist, pulling him toward them. “Did she ask for me?”

  He ran his fingers over the stoppers, coming to rest on that exquisite whimsy of a crystal bottle he had once set down on a counter between them just before he walked out. His thumb caressed the bottle. Once, twice, thrice. I wonder if I ever get to make wishes.

  “Of course she did,” Fréd said. “But you didn’t tell me when you would be back.” Clear, subtle reproach. A good assistant hated not knowing the schedule. “I kept telling her you would probably be in the next morning.”

  “Thank you, Fréd,” he said, and Frédéric gave him a stern look just to make sure that reproach had come through properly and then disappeared, pulling the door closed.

  Damien gazed at the bottles a moment. Then he slowly removed his cufflinks and turned up his sleeves, unbuttoning a button on his shirt, flexing his shoulders. He brought his bare left wrist to his nose and took a tension-easing breath of lavender. Then he picked a bottle up.

  There was no note this time. Just two plain sample bottles and two elegant vintage bottles from the collection in the old shop.

  He found some strips—ever present on a perfume executive’s desk—and tested the first one.

  Him again. The titanium and hardness. But this core of…what was it? It had this cold, far-off quality that made him think of a star out of reach. His mouth twisted, and he set the strip on his desk and tried the next one.

  Him still. Titanium, hardness. The sense of time that relaxed his muscles. The sword plunged in the dirt in the shade. But there was…what was this? In that shade where the sword rested, jasmine was growing up an old wall of stone.

  He smelled that one again, and then again, taking a long time before he set it aside to try the next bottle, a beautiful bottle from the Art Déco period.

  His head cocked. What was this? It smelled…it made him think of impossible things. This clear, glimmering purity of hope, like the birth of a baby star. He loved it. It had this chest-tightening emotion packed into it, like standing beside a cradle in the dark, looking down at your firstborn child.

  It took him forever to recover from that one. He couldn’t keep smelling it—it was too much—but he had to pace and pace his office and go stand at the door to his balcony, clutching the jamb and gazing down the street toward her shop, before he was ready to release whatever was held in that last crystal bottle. The one he had on
ce set on a counter precisely halfway between them.

  His heart stopped. It was her scent. The wishing scent from New York. The almond and vanilla and jasmine, the sweetness, the hope, that naked longing for happiness. His throat tightened. His hand closed around the bottle, and he slipped it into his pocket, where it could be safe.

  He went back out on the balcony, gazing toward the shop. And then…he’d been rock-climbing since he was a kid. And for his entire career at Rosier SA, he had taken the stairs inside to his office, cutting up them in cool, long strides, carrying power with every step. He shook his head, and then just went over the balcony, catching the bars, swinging himself down to the street below in one jump.

  Bursting free.

  Chapter 24

  So many dusty corners and shelves, in a shop like this. When Jess couldn’t focus, when she didn’t know what to do, she cleaned a few more of them and hoped, maybe, to encounter secret, ancient treasures.

  But the magic was all in the bottles. She set a box of dusty ones on the counter and began to wipe them down.

  A shadowy shape moved in the doorway, and her heart leapt. But the man stepped forward, and although the lean, muscled body and the bones of his face were the same, his hair was a gold-streaked, sun-kissed texturing of blond to golden-brown.

  “You must be Lucien,” she said.

  The man checked in the doorway, his face blanking. Then he got control of himself, in a way that reminded her very strongly of Damien, and moved into the room with that same prowling grace. He was of a height, with that same long, lean strength and control to his movements.

  “Antoine Vallier.” His voice was rather clipped.

  Ah. The lawyer behind all the emails and communications and phone calls during the process as this heritage was passed to her.

  “I apologize,” he said. “I didn’t realize you were coming at this time, and I was on vacation. Have you run into any problems with the Rosiers?”

  “No, they’ve been very kind,” she said, and his eyebrows shot to the top of his head.

  “Damien’s been in Paris the whole time, I take it,” he said dryly. “Maybe that latest model of his is softening him.”

  A hitch of her heart. “No, he was here until a few days ago.” Don’t react to the model, don’t react, don’t react. “What latest model?”

  “I can’t really keep them straight. Kendall something, maybe? The one he took to the Abbaye launch Saturday night.”

  It felt as if she’d been punched in the stomach. For a moment, she could only stare at him. A deep breath. Another. Another. Think this through.

  “He’s not dating a model,” she said. “You must have misunderstood.”

  Antoine Vallier looked faintly puzzled as to why she would care, then pulled out his phone, typed something, and slid it across to her. Photos from the perfume launch. Damien, standing beside a beautiful dark-haired woman, his hand at the small of her back, her smiling for the camera and him not smiling, but both of them unreadable in their ways. Giving a surface.

  Jess fought physical sickness. No, but—

  No.

  That’s not right.

  Don’t do this again, to yourself and to him.

  Another breath, slow and careful.

  “But most of all, I wouldn’t have believed it. 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.”

  What fit with what she knew of him? That he was socially and professionally savvy and had not only exquisite manners but a bone-deep, true-to-the-heart courtesy where women were concerned. That he was highly photogenic, and models were highly photogenic, and cameramen were always looking for the good shot. That if he was speaking to someone and suddenly they found themselves being photographed, he would hardly shove her away or humiliate her, but would pose calmly, used to that kind of thing.

  She shook her head and pushed the phone back across the counter. “He’s dating me,” she said firmly. “That’s why the Rosiers haven’t given me any trouble. That’s why they’ve been very kind.”

  Because they really love Damien quite a lot, even if he’s at some stage in his life where it’s hard for him to understand that.

  She picked up a bottle, rubbing the dust free from it in that automatic worry motion that reassured her so much. One, two, thr—

  “Damien Rosier is dating you,” Antoine Vallier said, startled. His green eyes flicked over her once. “Damien is,” he repeated, as if to confirm she knew which cousin was which.

  “Damien is,” said a voice behind him, and relief and happiness just seemed to burst wide open inside her and fill the shop, as if she’d dropped another bottle of bitter almonds.

  Antoine Vallier moved quickly to the side, turning, not like a man alarmed, but like a man who definitely didn’t want Damien Rosier standing right behind him. He didn’t want that kind of enemy at his back.

  Damien’s gaze held hers just for a second, his own somber, intent, and…and joyful. And then his eyes zeroed in on Antoine Vallier and went cold as ice.

  Oh. Wow. And she’d thought Damien had been cold with her. She’d had no idea. All this time, every time, no matter how mad he was, he’d never taken out his full ruthlessness on her. “Antoine Vallier,” Damien said, water-under-ice dangerous. “Are you trying to stir up trouble between me and my—Jasmin?”

  “I didn’t know there was trouble to stir.” Cool green eyes held gray-green. “You work fast.”

  “It’s none of your fucking business.”

  “Your emotional issues aren’t,” Antoine agreed, with a little bored moue that was exactly like Damien’s. He inclined his head to Jasmin. “But if you need legal advice on how best to protect your ownership of this property, how to sell it, or how to set up a business in France, let me know.”

  “She’s got me,” Damien said, hard. “If she wants to establish a business. And an entire phalanx of Rosier SA lawyers I’m happy to let her consult.”

  “The Rosiers have infinite resources, of course,” Antoine Vallier said with a thin, cool smile. “All of which are devoted to Rosier interests. No stranger to the family would come out of that kind of little favor stripped of everything, would she?”

  “Are you sure the two of you aren’t related?” Jess asked suddenly. The resemblance in the two profiles as the men faced off against each other was striking.

  Antoine’s face blanked. Poker face. Exactly like Damien’s.

  “What?” Damien recoiled. “No.” He stared at Jess a second, then glanced once, sharply, at Antoine, then frowned.

  Antoine’s face was as unreadable as it was possible to be, a faint, cool smile on his lips as if everything in this room now bored him.

  “Look, I appreciate the offer,” Jess said to him. “But I trust Damien.”

  A quick shifting in the air, as if the whole room took a breath and light slanted in.

  “And I also really appreciate you stopping by to check on me. But I just—right now, I need to talk to Damien.”

  “I’m not your lawyer at this point,” Antoine said. “But if you’ll allow me one bit of advice pro bono…be careful.”

  Damien pivoted on him like a knife striking. “Get the hell out,” he said, low and deadly.

  Antoine looked to Jess.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. “This is very private.”

  His lips twisted once. He nodded, held Damien’s eyes a moment, and then strolled past him out through the outer shop. They heard the street door that Jess usually left slightly ajar thump closed.

  Damien looked at her. Their eyes held, and already, in that long moment, the trembling tension that had filled her stomach for the past week eased a little.

  “You weren’t out picking up beautiful models this weekend, were you?” she said, trying for lightness.

  His eyebrows slashed together. “Did that bastard c
laim I was? I’ll fucking—”

  “Journalists posted photos of the Abbaye launch.”

  “What, and I was in some of them? Merde, Jess, you know what those things are like. I must be in hundreds of photos with models from those things. Anyone would think I slept with a different model every nigh—” He broke off. His eyes searched hers.

  “Yes,” Jess said wryly. “A woman who grew up in the perfume industry would have to be a complete idiot and…and kind of cowardly, to believe in photos like that. Over what she really knew of the person in the photo.”

  Damien took a deep, slow breath and released it. He took a step forward, holding her eyes. “Or kind of sweet, and kind of shy, in her sarcastic way, and with a history of losing what she most wanted to hold onto.”

  She bit the inside of her lip. “I don’t lose it.” She held up the bottle she had been polishing. “I put it in here.”

  He shook his head and came toward her, both hands held out. “Terribly tight living quarters in a bottle. I know I’m a lot more trouble outside of it, but…you sure you wouldn’t rather have the real thing?”

  That made her eyes sting. “You know I would.”

  He picked her up and set her on the counter and bent his head to rest it between her breasts. And just stayed there, a deep breath moving through his body, and then another.

  The anxiety that had trembled in the pit of her stomach for a week now eased all away, almost in time with the easing of his own muscles. She circled her arms around him, petting her fingertips through his hair.

  He made a tiny nuzzling motion into her chest at the stroking.

  Peace. Ease. Utter relief. It seeped through her bones, ran down her body from the nape of her neck in slow shivers, eased everything about her. Eased everything about him, so much tension running out of his body and dropping away.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” he murmured at last. “I just—I’m sorry.”

  Of course he was. Of course he would accept his own mistakes and apologize for them. She had never known what a special thing that was until she met him.