The Chocolate Thief

by Laura Florand

  Her arms squeezed him suddenly so hard, he could barely breathe, making him rather smug about the success of that gift. But all she said, into his chest, was a provocative murmur: “When the demand gets too high for it, and you want to sell it for a fortune to a corporation that can handle its mass production, let me know.”

  He laughed and used his finger to script an invisible word over her back, lightly, delicately, as if he was inscribing a chocolate: Je t’aime.

  Epilogue

  Two days later, Sylvain was chiseling a Christmas tree—soon to be decorated with ornaments full of ganache for the Élysée Palace Noël festivities—when two men barged into his workshop. At first, he didn’t even look up. He was considered the best chocolatier in Paris, and it was the Christmas season. People needed to stay out of his workspace. But Cade, who had been circling his sculpture, watching him chisel with an utter absorption that was making him fumble and grow clumsy, stiffened.

  Sylvain glanced sideways at her, picking up on the nerves instantly. Not even his mother had managed to make Cade visibly nervous. He straightened and paid attention.

  Neither man was tall, although the fifty-something man had some heft on him, but both carried themselves exactly like Cade—as if they owned the entire world.

  “Sylvain Marquis,” said the fifty-something one with the well-cut gray hair, his voice firm. “I’m Mack Corey. So you’re the man who’s trying to steal my daughter.”

  Sylvain shrugged. “She wanted to steal the best. So did I.”

  Cade’s stiffness melted.

  “And I’m not trying to steal your daughter. I’ve already done it. So if you’ve come here to try to undo it, you’re going to have to get out of my laboratoire.”

  Cade stopped melting, staring at Sylvain in horrified shock. Maybe she was used to people being a lot more careful around her father.

  Mack Corey studied him for a long moment and finally grunted. “Well. At least I like you. That’s something.”

  The man who must be her grandfather, James Corey, was looking around the laboratoire greedily. He seemed awfully spry for eighty-two years old, wrinkled and white hair thinning but upright and proud. Sylvain hadn’t realized milk chocolate was that healthy. Must be those stearic acids.

  “A real, honest-to-goodness, French, holier-than-thou, chocolatier snob,” the elder Corey said delightedly, looking Sylvain up and down as if Sylvain was a painting to be bought and added to his collection. The family had a really annoying knack for that look. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Cadey. I never thought anyone would manage to bring one of those into the family. How did you get him to stop being polite to you?”

  “Family?” Mack Corey went alert. “Are you two talking about family already?” He gave Sylvain a speculative look, as if analyzing his genes for the capacity to produce future CEOs.

  “I’m sure they are,” the elder Corey said. “She doesn’t lose her head easily, but once she’s lost it, it’s kind of like one of your guillotines.” He made a slicing gesture across his neck, accompanied by what was probably supposed to represent the noise of a blade. “It’s gone for good.”

  “What are you talking about?” Cade demanded indignantly. “When have I lost my head before?”

  Sylvain grinned. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Never,” James Corey admitted. “You’re usually so cool and controlled.”

  “She’s what?” Sylvain interjected. Cade had acted so helplessly hot and out of control since the moment he had met her. Had she been that way just because of him?

  “I was starting to worry that she was going to turn out just like her father,” James Corey confided.

  Mack Corey gave his father a frustrated look. Cade must have decided her father had had about as many kicks this week as any man could stand, because she left Sylvain’s side to go give him a hug.

  When her father’s arms wrapped around her, Sylvain stiffened against the unreasoning fear that the other man was going to haul her off into his limousine and disappear with her.

  “Did you come to Paris to try to talk me out of it again?” she asked her father.

  “No, to hunt for an apartment. Your grandfather and I were thinking it’s about time we had a pied à terre here.”

  Until he saw the incredulous happiness blossom on Cade’s face, Sylvain didn’t think he had really understood how much leaving her family had cost her.

  “Plus, we had a lousy Thanksgiving, so I thought it would do us good to get the whole family together in Paris for Christmas. Get to know the new family. It’s closer to the Côte d’Ivoire, so we may even get Jaime up here for the holiday.”

  “I’m eighty-two years old, and I’ve never spent Christmas in Paris,” James Corey said. “Can you believe it?”

  Sylvain’s mother was fifty-three and had never hosted four billionaires for Christmas, either, but she was going to have to get used to the idea really fast.

  “You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?” Cade asked wonderingly.

  “I already tried that,” Mack Corey said, rather bitterly. “It didn’t work.”

  “Don’t beat yourself up about it, son,” his father told him sympathetically. “It didn’t even work for me, so you can hardly blame yourself.”

  Mack Corey gave his father a look of much-tried patience and declined to take the bait. “Plus, you spent the whole time lying to me about it, Cade, which wasn’t helpful. You could have talked about it in other terms than as a business decision once in a while.”

  Cade looked completely dumbfounded.

  “So, we’ll come visit. Have you found a good real estate agent here yet?”

  Cade hugged herself, blinking slow, delighted blinks. Father and daughter might have worked all her life together, but her father, with thirty years experience on her, had clearly still managed to catch her by surprise.

  Sylvain began to smile. “So, just out of curiosity, what do you want out of life?” he asked his new beau-père.

  “For my daughters to be happy, for Corey to dominate the chocolate market, and to let my family inherit the earth,” Mack Corey said promptly. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you? Not much point having money if you make your own kids miserable with it. Right, Dad?” he added rather acerbically. “Meanwhile, if you two could get to work on the family bit, so I don’t have to wait until I’m ninety-five to retire, that would be great.”

  Sylvain stiffened. “Wait. Why? You don’t think one of my children is going to run Corey Chocolate, do you?”

  “Children?” said a voice from the shop door. He looked past the Corey men to see his mother and Natalie advancing, Christmas shopping bags draping from each arm. Behind them, Chantal, similarly accoutered with shopping bags, had stopped still in the doorway. The three women were long-standing co-shoppers. “Are you two talking about children?” Marguerite studied Cade as if analyzing her genes. All hostility had dropped from her gaze, to be replaced by absolute delight.

  “Your—son, I presume—wants to marry my daughter,” Mack Corey told her, holding out a hand.

  Marguerite gave the hand an utterly confounded look, bypassed it, and pressed enthusiastic bises on Mack Corey’s cheeks. Four enthusiastic bises, in her excitement. “Mariage? Sylvain, tu veux te marier? Enfin? Enfin!”

  Beyond delight, she turned and planted multiple bises on Cade’s cheeks. “Nobody in your generation gets married! Sylvain, I never thought you would! Are you going to wear white?” she asked Cade eagerly. Clasping her hands again, she looked toward Heaven, making Sylvain suspect his mother had been praying for him: “Un mariage.”

  “Vraiment?” Natalie looked excited. “This will be fun. Can I be a demoiselle d’honneur?”

  “Un mariage?” one of Sylvain’s least favorite voices said. Christophe. Seriously, he was never going to allow another food blogger into his shop as long as he lived. The guy was worse than fleas. He just kept bouncing right back into Sylvain’s laboratoire. Christophe stopped beside Chantal in
the doorway and studied Cade a little wistfully. “I suppose I should have expected it,” he said to Chantal, as the closest available ear. “They both have to be so melodramatic about everything.”

  “Yes,” Chantal said, resigned. “I suppose I should have expected it, too. But I didn’t.”

  “Well, who gets married? That’s so old-fashioned.”

  “He’s a romantic,” Chantal said. “And nobody can talk him out of being one.”

  Christophe turned his head to really look at her for the first time. He blinked. Then he suddenly bent down for introductory bises. “I’m Christophe. A friend of Sylvain’s. Do you like romantics?”

  A friend? Sylvain thought, outraged until he got distracted. Cade had curled a hand around his wrist and was gazing up at him, looking so completely and utterly happy, he wished he could bottle this moment and bring it out for her every time she was down for the rest of her life. “Really, no one gets married here?” she murmured.

  “It’s not that common,” he admitted. “Most people just live together all their lives. But you already promised, so don’t start backing out now.”

  “You had better not!” Marguerite interjected, outraged. Her hands clenched into fists of excitement. She was practically bouncing on her toes. “Un mariage. Wait until I tell my friends. None of their children have gotten married. Can I help you shop for the wedding dress?” she asked Cade.

  Cade cast a quick, analytical glance over the plethora of shopping bags. “Yes,” she said very firmly. She apparently knew now exactly how to make friends with her belle-mère. “On the Faubourg St-Honoré, in fact.” She mentioned the street in Paris most packed with outrageously expensive designers.

  Sylvain’s mother had to go sit down. Any minute now, she was going to have to put her head between her knees so she didn’t pass out, in fact. Chantal took Christophe’s arm, and they both fled this talk of weddings to go stand with heads bent toward each other in the front of the shop.

  “Good Lord,” Cade muttered in English, gazing after Marguerite. “I think money might have finally bought me something in this town.”

  “Can I come shopping, too?” Natalie asked, thrilled. But she didn’t allow herself to be distracted long. She thrust out her hand to the most powerful business contact in the room for a very American business-style handshake. “So, are you Cade’s father? I’m Natalie Marquis. I’m thinking about interning for you this summer.”

  Cade grinned and glanced at Sylvain, who had to admit being rather proud of his sister. Irrepressibility was an excellent trait.

  “You know what I would like out of life?” the spry voice of another irrepressible person announced in Sylvain’s ear. “To break into a Swiss chocolatier, which Cadey’s going to help me with, now that you’ve got her trained. And to blend spinach with chocolate. Which sounds to me like your area of expertise, so . . .” Behind him, Cade’s eyes widened in alarm. She put a hand up to her mouth as if protecting it from gustatory assault and started shaking her head at Sylvain in warning. Too late. The old man grinned fiendishly. “I’m sure you won’t mind helping your new grandpapa with a little project, now, will you?”

  “I think the spinach project sounds like a good idea,” Mack Corey said, proving conclusively that CEOs of multinational corporations had no morals or conscience. “Especially the part about doing it here in Paris in Marquis’s laboratoire. But no breaking and entering. No getting caught spying in a Swiss factory. My God, if both of you get all over the media as chocolate thieves . . .” He flexed his large, square hands in impotent strangling motions. “And Jaime will probably get arrested in some World Bank protest right around the same time.” He brought both fists to his forehead and groaned.

  James Corey slung his arm over his granddaughter’s shoulders. She grinned up at him quickly, her eyes lighting in a way that showed instantly exactly how much she loved her grandfather. “It’s really tough being the white sheep of the family,” he told his son sympathetically. “I don’t know how you do it. But don’t you worry about Cade and me. First of all, now it will be the Marquis name that gets splashed all over the media as a chocolate thief.”

  Sylvain had a sudden, horrible vision of his name being associated with an attempt to steal another chocolatier’s secrets.

  Cade’s grandfather grinned diabolically at him. “But I probably won’t find those Swiss factory owners sexy, so we won’t get caught.”

  Laura Florand’s

  Favorite Chocolate

  Worth a Trip to Paris

  Okay, Paris is worth a trip to Paris. But if these chocolate shops were in the world’s ugliest city and it was being bombed by aliens, they would be worth a trip there.

  Jacques Genin

  133, rue de Turenne

  75003 Paris, France

  011 33 1 45 77 29 01

  The first thing you notice as you step into this chocolaterie is the sublime space. Rough arches of exposed stone blend with red velvet curtains, white rosebud-embossed walls, and a spiraling metal staircase to create a setting of exceptional beauty. (It’s the inspiration for the setting in my third book, in fact.)

  While Jacques Genin has supplied chocolates to the top hotels in Paris for years, he is a relative newcomer with the general public, as his salon du chocolat only opened in 2008. Considered by many to be among the best in the world, his chocolates are presented in flat metal boxes that frame the beautifully printed squares of luscious ganache infused with herbs and spices—ganaches that melt in your mouth in sensuous ecstasy. Take your time the first time you bite into one of his chocolates, because the memory will stay with you for the rest of your life. But don’t stop with the chocolates. If you have the joy of being in Paris, sit down at his tables to sample his famous millefeuilles (made to order and worth the wait), his éclairs au chocolat, and all his other delicious pastries. And if you have never considered yourself a lover of caramel or pâtes de fruit, try his and you will be converted.

  For some behind-the-scenes looks at Jacques Genin’s laboratoire, check out my website, www.lauraflorand.com, where I share some of my research for the Chocolate series books. With generous enthusiasm and a true passion for his work, Jacques Genin welcomed me into his chocolate workshop and answered every question I could ask. And he has, without a doubt, the most beautiful laboratoire in all of Paris, in itself worth a look.

  Michel Chaudun

  149, rue de l’Université

  75007 Paris, France

  011 33 1 47 53 74 40

  Michel Chaudun’s tiny shop in the 7th arrondissement of Paris provokes the giddy delight of stepping into some old museum crammed with artifacts from around the world—only in this case, they are all in chocolate: from the massive sculpture of a Mayan warrior to the bust of an Egyptian pharaoh, from a Hermès purse to strings of sausage so utterly realistic you could offer them at the dinner table and no one would realize the trick until they tried to cut into them and the chocolate fragmented around the knife.

  Another of the world’s very best chocolatiers, he is famous for his chocolate sculptures as well as his whimsy. And as for flavor . . . take one bite of his very famous pavés and you will melt right at the feet of that Mayan warrior. Sensuous bites of ganache delicately dusted with cocoa, these are as simple and as sinful as chocolates get. Don’t try to hoard them for months or even weeks. (You know you want to eat the whole box anyway!) They are at their best when you buy them and need to be enjoyed at their peak.

  The utterly charming Michel Chaudun also welcomed me into his world for my research for the Chocolate books. Take a look at www.lauraflorand.com for glimpses of his tiny laboratoire and this passionate, generous man in action.

  As you’ll notice, the preceding chocolatiers are so good, so famous just on word-of-mouth, and so very focused on local artisan production that they don’t need to have websites. And as of this writing, they don’t. For chocolates you can order, read on.

  Can’t Make It to Paris?

  When I can’t, I order m
y chocolate from these . . .

  La Maison du Chocolat

  www.lamaisonduchocolat.com

  La Maison du Chocolat is a legend. It was founded in 1977 by Robert Linxe, who came up to Paris from the Basque region in 1955 and changed the taste of Paris chocolate by replacing the popular nut- and fruit-laced fillings with pure heavenly ganache and, in so doing, became my personal hero. By bringing ganaches into the forefront of French chocolate-making, he has made the world an infinitely better place.

  These days, La Maison du Chocolat has boutiques all over the world, and that’s our good fortune, because the quality has never faltered and it is possible to order these legendary chocolates shipped straight to one’s door. (The price, you say? Hmm . . . perhaps you thought I was exaggerating Sylvain’s assessment of his own worth when he sells his chocolates for over a hundred dollars a pound? No, no, I’m toning him down.) Michel Chaudun was chef chocolatier here before he set off on his own over twenty years ago. Jacques Genin was head pâtissier here when he was 33.

  These days, the creative director is Gilles Marchal. Try his tender, intense ganaches, and the way you think about chocolate will never be the same. And if you’re in New York? La Maison du Chocolat has not one but four beautiful chocolate shops that you can step into to experience your own magic moment in Paris.

  L.A. Burdick

  www.burdickchocolate.com

  Whenever anyone in the United States makes me very, very happy, I order them chocolate from L.A. Burdick. Born and raised in Boston, Larry Burdick spent time both in Switzerland and France before establishing L.A. Burdick Chocolate in 1987. His cafés in Cambridge and New Hampshire have been around for a while, but they have two recently opened spaces in Boston’s Back Bay and New York’s Flatiron district as well.