“Patrick, don’t make me fire you.”
Patrick straightened from his favorite pour-me-a-drink position on the counter. “Would you?” His eyes brightened with hope.
Luc’s heart squeezed so hard he had to slam the chocolate a few more times. Putain, was Patrick that close to making up his mind to set out on his own? Begging to be kicked out of the nest? The best and brightest always left him, damn it. He had raised Patrick, from the time the younger man was a screwed-up fifteen-year-old apprentice and Luc a nineteen-year-old sous-chef. “No. You know I never let anyone escape alive. Especially if there’s a chance of tormenting them forever, in payment for their disrespect.”
“I’m not alive!” Patrick protested. “Look. See this finger? That’s bone sticking through it.”
“You can’t work yourself to the bone sleeping on top of my counter, Patrick. Besides, I’m sure I could find some good use for your immortal soul, if I do kill you with overwork. Go do some, so I can.”
“Kill me with overwork?” Patrick moseyed over to his current task. “Or yourself?”
“It’s a contest,” Luc said. “Go lose it.”
But by the time they left the kitchens at three, it was Luc who had most clearly tried to lose it. Perfectly controlled, unfaltering, with a wildness beating inside him like an impossible drum, trying to break through his skin. Let me out. This is not working.
No. Everything beautiful comes through control. Control. Keep your control.
“I kind of missed Sunshine today, didn’t you?” Patrick fell cheerfully into step beside him as he headed out. “I wish she would stop by and fire you again. Have you tried making her a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich? Something she might like?”
Luc’s teeth ground. “Patrick. I’m going for a walk. I need to get out of this hotel for a while. Meaning, you need to walk the other way.”
“But you would miss me,” Patrick said soulfully as they made their way to the lobby.
Luc heaved a breath.
Patrick grinned.
And cooperatively checked when Luc did, at the sight of Summer Corey.
She stood in the lobby facing a man who looked too old for her, but the man clearly didn’t agree. In a tailored suit that suggested a great deal of money, the man leaned toward her possessively, and Summer tilted her head back to keep his face in clear view, small and golden and . . . it was probably his damn over-romantic imagination that made him see a deer cornered by a wolf. The hotel’s top-of-the-line security had been tripled since Summer arrived. She didn’t have to put up with anything she didn’t want to.
Patrick flicked a glance at him. Anger held Luc rigid, unable to think past it.
And Patrick strolled forward, bent down, and kissed Summer Corey straight on her stunned mouth. “Ma chère,” he drawled, draping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her against his side before Luc could lunge for him and rip his head off.
Rage roared up, a thunder.
Summer sank against Patrick in relief, her smile warming into something personal just for him.
“Who is this, darling? Keeping you entertained again while you wait for me? Mais je vous remercie, monsieur.” Patrick waved a vague, royal, dismissive hand, a king gracefully thanking a courtier for playing lutes for his mistress while he was dealing with some national emergency.
“Who are you?” Aggression came off the man in civilized waves.
Putain, first Patrick had kissed her, claimed her, and now he was going to get to fight for her, too?
“One of my chefs,” Summer said easily, setting Luc’s teeth. Patrick was his chef. His sous-chef. She only got to own . . . him.
He started forward, much too late to do anything but kill everybody.
“Summer?” a calm, strong female voice asked.
And Summer looked around and literally threw herself into the other woman’s arms. “Cade!”
Cade Corey Marquis rocked under the impact of Summer’s body, hugging her awkwardly. The older man frowned, taking a step back, as if this slim, brown-haired woman, so much smaller than he was, made him wary.
“Cade Corey.” Summer relaxed the hug but held on to one of Cade’s arms, articulating her cousin’s name very clearly and firmly. “Could I talk to you?”
“Of course,” Cade said, sweeping Summer out of there while the older man turned on his heel and disappeared out of the hotel as fast as he could. Cade might as well have been carrying her off on a white steed. Luc hadn’t even gotten to be the fucking dragon in the scenario.
He walked, his head one giant echoing beat, beside Patrick, trying to make it out of the hotel before he broke.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” Patrick asked without preamble as soon as they were through the doors.
“Does your mouth feel good from that kiss?”
Patrick grinned. “Putain, ouais. ”
“Allow me to correct that,” Luc said and hit him full on it.
Patrick staggered back hard against the stone façade of the hotel. “Shit, this is so much better than a food fight.” He grinned and dove for Luc full-body.
CHAPTER 16
“I had no idea we were that close,” Cade said as she stepped into Summer’s suite. “But I’m delighted to see you, too, cousin.”
Summer crossed to her television and turned on the scrolling photos of the island immediately and then stood there in front of them a moment, taking a deep breath. She felt violently sick. She felt so grateful to Patrick she could kiss him again. And the thought of Luc gazing at her with that flat contempt stirred so much misery in her she could have been fifteen again.
A photo passed of Summer dressed in a pareo, wearing a crown of flowers and a lei of them draped around her neck, the sun just setting behind her, her face lit with laughter. “Oh my God, that’s fantastic,” Cade said. “Summer. If you’re so happy there, what did you come back here for?”
“A deal with Dad. We need another satellite over that region. Sometimes the islands lose communications for days. If someone gets injured or sick, there’s no way to get medical attention in time. I only have to last three months.”
“I knew he had gotten a lever on you. You know, my father placed a lot of importance on having an heir, too, but he eventually got over it, when he realized I wanted something else. When I could tell him I wanted something else.”
“I’ve told him,” Summer said dryly. “I said it very loud and clear, I went and said it in his ear. He said if I wanted to be useless the rest of my life, I could at least marry someone worthwhile.”
Cade winced and gave her an apologetic look, guilty about never having heard her own worth dismissed in her entire life. “I know about jumping through hoops. Although most of mine were ones I set for myself, I have to admit. So why were you so happy to see me? Don’t tell me getting kissed by that golden god there was a hardship. I know he’s not your usual type, but you have to admit he’s cute. And brave, given the look in Luc Leroi’s eyes.”
Summer shrugged uneasily.
Which made Cade’s gaze uncomfortably penetrating. “Who was that older man?”
“Somebody I knew in boarding school,” Summer said briefly. “I’ll tell hotel security not to let him in again. Don’t worry about him. He just had to try to revive an old flame. He’s not dangerous.”
A tiny silence. “In boarding school? He looked to be a good twenty years older than you, Summer.”
Summer clenched her jaw and watched the island photos scroll. Oh, that was a nice one. Summer seated on the ground while a group of girl children made a rather hilariously sweet tangle of flowers in her hair, trying to practice their hairdressing and flower-weaving skills.
“Do you want me to make him uncomfortable? Or I’m sure if we mentioned it to your father—”
“No!” Summer said sharply, nausea rising up in her so violently it was all she could do to keep breathing evenly, to keep smiling. “It’s fine, Cade. Not my father.”
An assessing little silence. “Y
ou’ve got my number, don’t you? In case you change your mind later? Because if that man is as power-hungry as he looked, I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t take me much effort to make him sorry he bothered you.”
“Just let it go, Cade. Can we talk about something else?”
“All right, fine,” Cade said after another long moment. “I wanted to talk to you about this idea of Jaime’s.”
Oh, thank God. A topic Summer actually felt good about. “The idea of bringing teens here to apprentice?”
Cade nodded. “You could be really helpful.”
First Jaime and now Cade. Two of the most amazing women she knew thought Summer’s experience was valuable. Yes, those smiling faces on my kids, the way their eyes light when they understand something for the first time, the way I learned to be part of a culture not my own, with no crutches anywhere, only me . . . those are valuable!
“If we go through with it, could you help us figure out best practices with these kids? Jaime said teenagers always have to leave your island if they want to continue schooling, that you’re the only reason they can stay as long as they do, so you have to have seen this.”
“It’s a small island, Cade. Only one of my kids has graduated since I got there.”
“And how is he doing?”
“Great. He went to the University of Hawaii on a . . . scholarship.”
Cade sent her a knowing glance. Summer shrugged. She still had her doubts about her Pacific Islanders Scholarship Foundation—should she really be facilitating those teenagers’ steps out into the brutal wide world?—but then again . . . Tehau’s eyes had gleamed so very bright with pride and dreams. Other kids, whom she didn’t know, must have the same dreams, and her old boyfriends’ various stocks were doing outrageously well, so the scholarship fund had been easy enough to start. Kind of funny, when she thought about it. The way she would invest in start-up after start-up in college, because some boyfriend looked at her with pride and dreams in his eyes, and she couldn’t resist. And then the boyfriend poured himself into the dream she had enabled and forgot all about her.
And now she was a teacher, giving kids the same ability—to pursue their dreams and forget all about her. That was what teachers did, wasn’t it? Helped build someone and then faded out of that person’s mind and world as they went on to bigger and better things.
How ironic, and how strange, that she was now pouring herself into a job where no matter how much she felt loved, she would end up, once again, forgettable. And she had never even realized it before.
“So do you think it’s a good idea?” Cade asked.
“Good lord, Cade, I don’t know. You never know all the consequences of trying to help someone. Some of those teenagers would leap at the chance. But yes, some of them might also lose touch with their family and cultural roots; yes, some people might get hurt. Isn’t that the way dreams work?”
“Will you consider helping?”
“With money? I would probably be willing to back anything you or Jaime decided to do.”
Cade’s lips quirked. “Thanks. That’s quite a tribute, coming from Penthouse’s most famous indicator of a man’s future success.”
“What can I say?” Summer shrugged as if it didn’t hurt one damned bit. “I’m gifted at picking men who can pour all of themselves into their work.”
“But I meant help in a more hands-on way. It would be nice to have someone who is not always looking at the big picture. Who can care for individual people. Sit down and talk with these kids. Make sure they’re doing all right.”
Summer got terrifying visions of teenagers traumatized by childhood exploitation and uprooting, compared to her happy, sunny kids, and took a step back. “I don’t know if I can handle that kind of thing, Cade. You need professionals.”
“I thought you were a professional,” Cade said mildly.
“With training! Specialized training!” Not someone who had developed all her teaching skills through trial and error and extensive website research after stepping off a boat. Cade Corey actually thought of Summer as a professional? A little warmth spread through her. “And I’ve already got a job, actually.”
Cade, who had trained her whole life to take over a multibillion-dollar corporation and only recently thrown that all over a windmill, surprised her by not mocking her job. She smiled. “If ever you decide to relocate, I wouldn’t underestimate what you can handle, Summer.”
Yeah, but Cade could run the world if she felt like it. Summer felt physical revulsion at the thought of running the world. She tried to think what advice she could offer someone like Cade, and even what she came up with was counter to all the Corey sisters’ will to change seven billion people at once. “Start small. With people you know would be good chefs to these kids. Sylvain, I assume?” Summer had barely met Sylvain. “Dominique?” Hadn’t Jaime said he was aggressive and always spoiling for a fight? “Luc.” Her voice firmed. Yes, he despised her, but she had seen him in his kitchens, the patience and discipline, the way his temper never flared. Except with her, of course. It was too bad he didn’t have a soft side to him. But still . . . “Luc would do great.”
Cade’s blue eyes gleamed. “I can’t help noticing Luc is a slightly different take from the men in your Penthouse spread.”
“I did not pose for th—”
“Does he have some bigger dream he’s pursuing that I don’t know about, and that you’re about to help him fulfill? Bigger than being one of the top chefs in the world? Or as you get older, have you decided to start dating men who have already succeeded in life, rather than ones waiting for your start-up skills?”
“I’m not dating Luc,” Summer said between her teeth.
“Oh, right. He probably wouldn’t let that golden chef kiss you if you were.”
“Exactly.” She didn’t know why she had imagined, that first instant she saw Luc in the lobby, that he would rescue her again, sweep her out of it as he had that first night. You only got that spoiled-brat luck once, she supposed.
Cade nodded, a glint in her eye. That woman needed a better outlet for her urges to run the world. “You know what? Why don’t you come to dinner tonight? You can bring Luc.”
“We’re not a couple, Cade.”
“Great, it can be like some dating game show, where we can watch the two of you circle around each other while we say things to stir up trouble. Sylvain will love it. It would be like having Luc as his own personal voodoo doll. Come on.”
“No! Cade!” Luc would be Sylvain’s voodoo doll? With her as the pin? Was the woman used to running one of the world’s largest corporations just an emotional idiot, or what kind of vulnerability was Cade seeing that Summer didn’t?
Cade laughed. “All right, fine, you can come stag. Which is a hilarious thing to say in conjunction with the name Summer Corey, but if that’s the way you want it. I’ll see if Jamie is free, too, if you like. It will do you good to get out of this hotel.”
God, yes. Especially after that brush in the lobby with the nadir of her past. Summer nearly hugged her third cousin in gratitude.
“That was so much fun,” Patrick said cheerfully half an hour later, as the two men sat with their legs dangling over the Seine. Freezing. The doormen had had to throw water over them to break it up. The scandal would last years, or at least Luc’s role in it would. Nobody expected Patrick to behave. “We should have fights like that more often.”
“If you kiss her again, you won’t survive the next one.”
“Now, see, Luc, I don’t know how you could expect a man to know that. You need to work on that impervious manner of yours a little more. Like, work on shaking it up. There she is, facing some creepy asshole who clearly wants to eat her alive, dying for Prince Charming to come and save her, and what were you going to do? Leave her to him? What the hell is wrong with you? Don’t you like being Prince Charming?” Patrick rubbed his lips in a way that made Luc’s knuckles itch. Apparently you had to really pound a man to drive away the memory of Summer’s mout
h. “It’s not like it was torture.”
“Cade Marquis was her Prince Charming, Patrick. Not you.” But just for a moment, her face had lit for Patrick. Rage slammed inside him again.
Patrick shrugged. “I just kiss ’em, I don’t keep them forever after.”
It was amazing how hard it was not to pound Patrick’s mouth over and over and over, to a bloody pulp, until all possible memory of Summer’s lips was erased from it. “Go kiss someone you would mind losing, why don’t you?”
Patrick’s eyes flickered and he looked away. Before them, a barge passed slowly, a little blue car chained to the roof. The Seine rocked gently in its wake, tossing an old shoe about wistfully in its brown wintry waters. It wasn’t raining, but low gray clouds weighed down the day, pushing people to retreat to where it was cozy and warm. Their wet hair was that close to turning into icicles.
“Creepy asshole?” Luc said.
“Well, he was a lot older than her, and she clearly was doing her best to protect herself from something about him with that flimsy smile thing she does. Are you just willfully unperceptive where she’s concerned, or still that damn mad because she asked you to carry her bags? Why can’t you see that yourself?”
Luc’s eyebrows drew together. He stared after the barge, profoundly disturbed at the thought that Summer might have needed him and his tangle of pride and hunger had left her unprotected. “Do you really think she’s shy?” he asked after a while.
Patrick smacked his forehead into the palm of his hand. “Luc. She’s desperately shy.”
“But she’s got a Penthouse spr—”
“If you mention that word one more time, I’m going to go look at all the photos, and then think how mad at me you’ll be.”
Yes, anger kicked him just at the thought. “They used a body dou—”
“I’ve got a good imagination.”
Luc set his teeth.
“Luc. I know you never gave up on me, but sometimes it’s a lot harder not to give up on you and wring your damn neck than you think.”
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