Turning Up the Heat (A Novella in the Vie en Roses Series)

by Laura Florand

  “You know, you don’t actually know how to handle every aspect of the restaurant without me,” Léa said stiffly. Vas-y, handle the numbers and see how you like it. But she could hardly dump that job on him on top of everything else he did.

  “I know that.” Anger flicked through his tone and in the flex of his hands. “But I can’t send a message to you about the restaurant when we’re both here.”

  She bit her lip.

  He let go of her hands and took a hard step away from her, pivoting toward the sunset. It limned him beautifully, the gold and rose gleaming off the water, shimmering around his silhouette. He made her heart ache with longing at how beautiful he was, and for once he wasn’t on a television set or in the kitchens, too busy. He was right there. She could have touched him.

  But she swallowed over a lump in her throat and curled her hands into soft fists.

  It was a long time before he spoke. And when he did, he still faced the sunset, a hard, beautiful silhouette. “How long are you planning to stay here, Léa?”

  “I don’t know,” she said uneasily. And defensively: “I know it’s expensive, but we can afford it.”

  He made a cutting gesture with one hand. “That’s not the point. I’ll take another consulting job to cover it, if you need me to.”

  Something about that hurt her so badly. “You don’t think some of the money the restaurant earns might be mine, too?” she asked stiffly.

  He turned sharply. “Léa, what are you talking about? You manage the place. It was your inheritance. Our house was your inheritance. I just meant—the consulting money is usually extra. Not something we might need to put back into the restaurant these days. I can cover a stay in the Pacific.”

  There was that I again. The truth in that I shouldn’t hurt, but it did. She wanted him to go away now, and she felt as if, when he claimed himself as the one who would pay for it, he had just shattered her right to stay on as her own person if he left.

  The sun was sinking below the horizon, its bright edge softening enough to reveal his face against it again. His mouth curved, unexpectedly. “You don’t know how happy that makes me, Léa, when you gave everything to me, just handed yourself and your father’s restaurant over with all that trust, to be able to say that I can pay for however long a vacation in an island resort you want.”

  And yet, that happiness still somehow hurt her. Her jaw thrust out a tiny bit. “Maybe I wanted to pay for it.”

  He just stared at her for a long moment. That tightness came back to his face, and he turned back toward the ocean. “Whatever you prefer, of course.” They salaried both of them from the restaurant, and their salaries had always been exactly equal, a question of how to handle taxes more than anything else; the salaries themselves went straight into their joint account, which Léa managed. While spending within the restaurant had often been a subject of hot dispute, especially at the beginning when Léa worried about how tight things were and Daniel worried about quality, she didn’t think they had ever really fought about personal spending. Daniel just didn’t spend much, for one thing—too busy—and what little he did spend tended to be on presents he picked up on consulting trips for her. And Léa had always been very smart and careful about money, with the bulk of her expenditures going to take care of her younger siblings until her brother, the youngest, landed his first real job a year ago, meaning both were finally completely independent.

  Whatever Daniel earned from Top Chef and consulting also went into their joint account. Léa had been the one who first started landing him those spots, before his success at them helped make him famous, but of course the money from that was more…his. His accomplishments.

  “When you say you don’t know how long you want to stay.” Daniel’s voice sounded stifled. “Are we talking about a week? Two? A month?”

  A month, Léa thought with relief. A month sounded good. As if she could breathe. “Maybe.”

  A sharp, indrawn breath. Daniel didn’t say anything again for a long time.

  “How long can you stay?” she pressed finally, again. This place was going to feel so empty now without him.

  He threw her a feral look, and then on a hard breath he suddenly jumped down into his kayak and took off, driving the paddle into the water as he headed past his bungalow and out toward the reef and the sunset.

  The next morning, she didn’t see Daniel at all. She kept expecting him, hesitating to head off on a walk down the beach or eat breakfast, conscious of waiting for him so that she could adapt her life around his. Until finally she went to check his bungalow and didn’t find him there, although his kayak was tied there. He was probably out snorkeling or something, she thought, a little disgruntled. No problem pursuing his life without her.

  Think, for half a second, her brain whispered. He’s here, isn’t he?

  He’s not pursuing his life without you. He must have dumped all kinds of obligations. He just reshaped his entire packed schedule to your whim. How could you be so self-absorbed?

  But...how could seizing a little escape for herself, after eleven years of doing everything for everyone else, be such a self-absorbed thing to do?

  She went into the main resort, filled with flowers fresh-picked that morning. A bowl of white tiare buds sat at the reception desk, and she tucked one behind her ear, the sweet scent wafting around her.

  “Madame Laurier!” Tane Ehu, the manager-receptionist, brightened. “I found you paints!”

  “You did?” Léa exclaimed, happy and for some reason terrified. Maybe she should never have asked about the art supplies.

  “Yes, and drawing things. My cousin paints some of the art we have in the gift shop, and I talked him into letting you have some of his supplies.”

  “Thank you!” Léa said, wondering if she even remembered how to paint. Her stomach knotted stupidly. “With—with canvas and everything?” Blank canvas.

  “He says he can sell that to you while he orders more supplies. I might start trying to keep some in the gift shop.” He tilted his head doubtfully, a manager who had no idea how to make this beautiful place succeed. “People might like to paint here.”

  For a moment, Léa wanted to say, Never mind, I don’t want to take his things, it’s no big deal. She forced the urge down and her chin up. “I’ll take everything he can spare. Just charge it to my room.”

  The manager smiled, pulling a giant worn cotton tote out from behind the rattan reception desk. A sketch book, pencils, two canvases, a selection of oils.

  Léa took it and slung it over her shoulder, wincing at the friction against her skin before she transferred it back to her hand. The weight of it made her feel oddly lighter, and still afraid. “Have you seen my husband today?”

  Tane slid her a curious glance but did not say anything about her husband staying in a bungalow on the opposite side of the lagoon from her. His face brightened. “He’s in the kitchen! Madame Laurier, you didn’t tell us your husband was a famous chef! He’s helping my brother.”

  Léa stopped still in the kitchen door at the sight of Daniel at a counter, talking to a Polynesian man in his twenties and demonstrating something as he sliced. The other man focused on Daniel with all his attention.

  Multiple plates spread out around them, clearly Daniel sampling and experimenting with what the restaurant already offered. She recognized the signs. Daniel Laurier, top chef, was going to take on this little resort’s restaurant. By the time he was done with it, people would probably be renting helicopters and yachts just to come in and eat here.

  She laughed, helpless affection rushing through her. He looked up, his eyes getting caught on her face, and the knife slipped off the onion and into his hand.

  “Putain,” he told the other man. “This is what I mean about needing to keep your knives sharp.”

  “So you could have cut your finger off?” Léa challenged as she reached them, picking up his hand and inspecting it. The knife had hit a knuckle, leaving a bleeding nick. One of Daniel’s knives would have
cut through to bone.

  “It never would have slid over the onion in the first place, if it had been sharp,” Daniel said severely. “You know what I think about knives.”

  “Yes, well, I say, teach the knife skills before you make them so sharp they’ll maim anyone clumsy.”

  “How can you teach knife skills with a dull knife?”

  Since she was never in her life going to win an argument against Daniel inside a kitchen, Léa just shook her head at him, still smiling, drawing him to the nearest sink to rinse his finger. “Weren’t you supposed to be taking a vacation?” she chided.

  But Daniel’s face did not relax in response. He gave a nominal smile in return and looked down at the hand she held in the water. “You’re going to”—He took a proper look at the tote. His eyes flashed back to her face, searching. “You’re going to paint?” His voice was both astonished and careful.

  Léa hadn’t been quite sure she had the nerve to see how much her art skills had deteriorated in the past ten years. But her chin firmed now. “Yes,” she said. “I am.”

  Daniel came out to find her at lunch, discovering her on the beach, cursing at sand. “It gets in your oils everywhere. I need a drop cloth or something.”

  “Maybe they’ll let you ruin a tablecloth.” He stopped to study her drawing, and Léa flinched with embarrassment. Her talent sure as hell did not match his. About the only place her paintings would ever hang was in her own home. And that was on the slim chance she could manage a painting she wouldn’t be mortified to look at.

  “This is really nice, Léa,” he said.

  “Daniel. It’s pathetic.”

  He shot her a glance. “I didn’t say it was good. I’ve never done a damn thing that was good the first try. But I like what you’re aiming for. This rustic style that’s not quite primitive, but that’s bright and real. You hit it best around the bungalow. Is the sunlight on the water hard to catch?”

  “Yes,” Léa said, heartfelt. And intensely in love with him for respecting her enough not to tell her something was good when he never, ever told anyone with any hope of being good that they had made it to that “good” before they actually had. “As you can doubtless tell.”

  He smiled at her. “I’m sorry, were you expecting me to feel sorry for you because you have to practice?”

  She laughed, utterly and completely in love with him, tilting her face up to invite a kiss.

  He plopped down on the sand beside her and gave it to her, long and hungry, then studied her legs, paint-splotched from propping up the canvas while she sat cross-legged. “You need an easel. Maybe I can come up with something.” He frequently invented implements and put together frames to manage some impossible thing he wanted to do in the kitchens. He picked up her sketchbook and flipped it open, while she was still thinking about how nice his mouth felt on hers.

  She started, spreading her fingers over her face to hide her flush as he turned past the first two sketches—failed attempts to evoke the lagoon with pencils—and came to what she had tried next, portraits. Of him. His silhouette against the sunset, because she would love to be able to paint anything half as beautiful as it had been. His face bent over a plate, as he adjusted something to perfection. That little half smile he had on Top Chef, which he said was always due to her.

  And again, that look of his which she used to try to capture so often as a teenager, brilliant through his lashes straight at her. She had gotten far worse at drawing since she was a teenager. It made her feel sad.

  Daniel drew a slow finger over his own cheekbone in the drawing and looked at her. “Léa.”

  She blushed and squeezed her fingers together so that they shut her eyes.

  He kissed her right between her hands, her lips the one spot on her face left unshielded. Not touching her hands themselves, not trying to pull away her shield.

  Then he spread out a couple of pareos on the sand and unzipped the soft cooler he had brought, watching her with bright eyes as she sipped juice made fresh from island grapefruits and barely sweetened with a secret touch of rosemary-infused syrup, then chilled to perfection. Her eyes met his as she sipped it, savoring his pleasure in offering it to her as much as the drink itself. “Thank you,” she murmured, and he smiled, turning back to the cooler.

  Pulling out first pork sliced fine and intricately paired with slivers of avocado and pineapple. Then an elegant strata of mango and papaya and passion fruit, layered in perfect little ripples in a whiskey glass he must have stolen from the bar.

  Sometimes she just loved him so much. His compulsion and his hunger and his pleasure in creating this and offering it to her. The way he took what he saw and tasted around him and refined it into something so perfect. She slipped her hand around his and kissed it, pressing a smile into his knuckles.

  He turned his hand over and caressed her cheek as he let it fall slowly back down to the pareo. He watched her a while as she ate, a little smile on his mouth, and then relaxed onto his back, tucking his hands under his head.

  “You’re not hungry?”

  He shrugged.

  “You nibbled in the kitchen.”

  Another shrug. “Some.”

  “Daniel, you were kayaking all day yesterday. You can’t survive on tasting sessions.”

  He closed his eyes, the palms above them shading his face with here and there a brush of sun. She proffered him a sliver of mango, and he turned his head towards her immediately, lips parting willingly, kissing her fingers as he took it. But he didn’t sit up and reach for food for himself.

  “You can’t possibly be snubbing this food. You made it.”

  The faint tightening of his mouth. “I wasn’t snubbing the other food, Léa.”

  She frowned at him.

  Silence. Daniel locked his hands behind his head and looked at the palm fronds. “I can’t eat when I’m stressed,” he said at last, in what seemed an effort at evenness.

  And eleven years—eleven years—of her trying so hard to feed him up as he prepped for something brutal, some championship or Top Chef competition, and of him swearing her food was delicious while he picked at it with a faint expression of revulsion…eleven years suddenly got put in a radically different perspective.

  She stared at him. He gazed at the palm-filtered sky, his expression stoic somehow, determined.

  “You’re stressed?” she asked cautiously. They were on a deserted beach, on a remote Pacific island, eating tropical delicacies that had just been made by one of the world’s top chefs and watching the waves. She wasn’t stressed. She had been thinking to hell with this attempt to discover a space for herself, that she wanted to curl up against his chest and not have any space at all.

  Daniel’s expression didn’t change, but the tendons shifted in his forearms, as if something had happened to the hands hidden under his head. After a minute, he said, “I am enjoying this. Every single second of the waves, and the heat, and—you. I can’t remember the last time we spent so much time together. But I do know, Léa, that you don’t want me to be here, and that you’re just too sweet to kick me out. Plus, you can’t. I won’t go. So—yes,” that compression of his voice that made it so low, “I am stressed.”

  “I don’t want to kick you out!” she protested. But she really wasn’t sure she wanted him to be here either. I went away for me, and I don’t want this to become about somebody else.

  “That’s what I said,” Daniel replied much too evenly. She wondered how exactly he had developed that evenness. She had seen the ability grow, over time, from the intense teenager who sometimes had no idea how to impose himself without anger to back him up. She wondered suddenly if it was still growing, if right now he was putting his ability to stay even to a great trial of strength.

  “And there’s nothing to stress over, Daniel. This is not—honestly, this is just about me.”

  Under that evenness, his jaw line was so tense. That tension reminded her of their wedding day, oddly. That taut profile beside her in the church, how st
raight his shoulders had been and how high his head. “All right,” he said. “But I’m just going to stick around, because I’m interested in things that are all about you.”

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  Daniel’s temper kept flicking him. He wanted to shout at her, What the fuck do you think, that I can eat when you’re saying it’s all about you? As if you like it that way? As if you could get used to it? I’m the one who’s supposed to be the superstar, and I would never say that about me.

  But he didn’t shout because they had gotten past their tempestuous fights as teenagers trying to handle marriage and one of the world’s top restaurants, all at once. Other than occasional irritability, they hadn’t had a proper fight in years. He had learned to control his temper, and Léa—well, other than to give him a little leeway when he was clearly stressed sometimes, she hadn’t had that much to learn how to do. She had always been a sweet, infectiously happy kind of person.

  He missed that infectious happiness for him right now so much that he was growing desperate, his stomach pure knots. It was a wonder he hadn’t cut his own finger off when he finally got a glimpse of that delight in him that morning.

  And…he barely even saw her anymore as it was. How much less of him did she need, to let it be “all about her”? What the fuck had he not done right?

  Once she had stopped traveling with him and started sleeping so damn much, they had pretty much been reduced to business contact at the restaurant and when he woke her up at one in the morning. And at the restaurant, he admittedly was not always at his best. Difficult, intense, driving everyone, all the time. Well…except that he was at his best—one of the best in the world—the only best of himself he had ever had time to be.

  He sat up. “Léa”—

  “Daniel,” she said at the same time, her head cocked, and he caught himself. On the alert for any fucking clue he could get as to what was going on. Her eyes searched his. “Have you ever regretted marrying me?”