The Chocolate Heart

by Laura Florand

  “Did anyone ever mention to you that Summer spent her teenage years in a Paris boarding school?” Jaime asked Luc, suddenly serious, holding his eyes. “What was that like, Summer? Hell, by any chance?”

  Why would Jaime bring that up in front of Luc? Like he needed to know how she had spent five years rejected and despised by every single person who walked the earth? His opinion of her didn’t need any reinforcement.

  “Oh, a dream come true,” Summer said lightly. “But I’m on to other dreams now.” She forced herself away from Luc to explore the little living room and the rainy view, trying not to let the Corey sisters’ happiness get to her. It was better than spending an evening alone looking at the Eiffel Tower, right? Or going out with the first man who looked at her twice, as her father put it. Just so she wouldn’t be alone.

  Luc joined her at the window, curling her fingers around a wineglass. With everyone else in the kitchen and the rain sheeting just the other side of the cold window, the moment married too strongly with the one under the umbrella, at the door below. As if they had shifted to that cozy place they were meant to be together. Her heart tightened. She would have given anything, just then, to never have offered him a yacht. To have walked up to him that first moment in the hotel, laid her head on his shoulder . . . and been welcomed. Sometimes she wondered whether everything about their relationship could have been different if she had had enough trust in her first instinct to do just that.

  It hurt too much to think about. “Did you take care of that?” she asked of the cut on his cheek.

  His hand lingered on hers around the wineglass. “Would you bandage my wounds, Summer? Actually care if I got hurt?”

  What kind of horrible person did he see when he looked at her? “Yes, but only because I need psychotherapy,” she snapped.

  “For anger management?” he asked helpfully.

  “For being attracted to you!”

  A tiny pause, while her words echoed back to her. She winced, eyes squeezing shut.

  “You might think about the anger management,” said the man sporting multiple bruises, his voice almost a caress. She peeked at him. He was looking at her as if she had suddenly dropped all her clothes and stood there naked. And as if this time, he liked the view. “You say the most fascinating things when you lose your temper. “

  She flushed, setting her teeth, and whispered: “That whole thing about . . . the wall, I was just trying to be offensive! I don’t actually want you to—” She broke off, in despairing rage at herself.

  “Of course not,” Luc said soothingly, and she almost relaxed. Did he really understand? Maybe forgive a little? “Not right now. But it’s interesting to note that when you are in a real rage, you think that’s how you would want to be dealt with.”

  “Fuck you,” she said bitterly.

  His eyebrows rose. “Is that just an example of your foul mouth or another Freudian slip?”

  She turned away.

  “I started it.” His voice curled around her and held her still. “So it’s all my fault.”

  “You started a fight?” Luc? “Was it some kind of long-range plan, or did you actually lose control?”

  His eyebrows crinkled. “You have a very odd idea of me, Summer.”

  Right. Just because he didn’t lose control with her didn’t mean some other person might not be worth it.

  Her nostrils stung unexpectedly, and she fought it back. She wasn’t crying again for him. But she asked despite herself: “What was the fight about? Did a critic insult one of your desserts?”

  That cut lower lip tightened in a way that had to hurt. He didn’t relax it to relieve the pain, though. “You don’t know anything about me, do you?”

  “No more than you know about me,” she said flatly and started to turn again.

  He braced his arm against the window frame, blocking her in. Holding them in a tiny cave of dark glass, rain, and him. From the kitchen, warmth and laughter washed over them, in little ripples. He leaned in on her. His black-silk voice caressed her, arousing her and opening her to him before she even absorbed what he said, so that the words hit straight into her sex. “Do you know that I could strip you naked in less than a second? Do you know how fast I could touch every part of your body? And how long I could keep doing it? You’ve seen what I can do with my hands, haven’t you?”

  Her nipples peaked. Her sex softened helplessly against her panties. Oh, God. She had always known that with the slightest effort he would catch her.

  He leaned closer. His voice seemed to reach right down between her legs and rub her to his tune. “You may not want desserts, but I could make you one of mine,” he breathed.

  And while her body was still jolting with the aroused, helpless understanding that until now, he had not even bothered to toy with her, Dominique and Jaime spilled out of the kitchen, carrying plates, and he straightened away.

  Oh, yes, that sent her running, Luc thought. She didn’t know what the hell to do when he took the sexual-aggressor role from her, did she?

  Except scurry to tuck herself between her cousins in the kitchen. That was almost hilarious, that she thought she could hide from him in a kitchen. It was also endearing and sweet, and he was sick and tired of resisting his protective instincts. Because if Patrick was right, and she really did need him . . . God, but he wanted to be her hero.

  “Mind if I take over?” he asked Sylvain. Sylvain gave a slow grin and handed him the knife.

  “Not at all.”

  Such a small apartment kitchen, and maybe Summer did not understand. She seemed to have lived much of her life far away from people. Seen by a camera lens but not close up. He, on the other hand, had almost never had a private moment: busking in crowded Métros all day; sleeping in the street; sharing bedrooms after his foster father took him because Bernard always took too many kids, unable to turn them away; working his way up through packed, intense kitchens.

  He didn’t have any problem negotiating that workspace to brush against her, over and over, every single time he reached for something. A tickle of his arm against the nape of her neck. A brush of his thigh against her butt. A breath against the top of her head.

  Summer’s hands grew clumsier and clumsier on the asparagus she was trying to snap, piece by slow piece. The urge to protect her grew stronger and stronger, protect her with himself, the danger. Damn it, how might their world have been different if, that first night, he had tucked himself in that comforter with her, given her his body heat, stroked that beautiful hair back from her face, and made her happy?

  He nudged Cade out of his way—because Sylvain was far more secure than Dominique, who might ruin the whole evening if Luc dared nudge Jaime—and took the counter space beside Summer. Rolling up his sleeves, he picked up a knife—and barely avoided cutting Summer’s finger off when she grabbed his wrist.

  “Merde, Summer, do you know how sharp Sylvain keeps these knives? Shit.” Hair rose all over his body.

  Summer flushed as everyone looked at them.

  “Dis, donc.” Dominique raised his eyebrows. “When you don’t even shout at your interns.”

  “Sarah doesn’t do stupid things like that!” Luc snapped, and Summer’s flush deepened.

  “Allez,” said Sylvain, the only one who could see Summer’s face fully from the other side of the counter. “Luc.”

  Luc sent him a vicious look, fighting his fury at another man intervening to protect Summer from him. Cade glanced between Sylvain and Summer, her expression shifting from surprise to a noticeable chill.

  Annoyance and shocked pity hit him at the same time. That was why Summer had clung to his side when they got here, broadcasting boyfriend signals. If she didn’t have a boyfriend, she didn’t have anything. She was just too luminously gorgeous. Men pursued her, and women hated her, and there was no one she could relax with and confide in. She had to show up with a boyfriend just to appease other women’s wariness enough to get within speaking distance of their husbands. Cade was supremely se
lf-confident, her and Sylvain’s relationship was so happy it made Luc’s teeth hurt, and yet one involuntary kindness toward Summer on Sylvain’s part and Cade was already prepared to defend her territory.

  That was how alone she was. And he had left her to it. When she had walked straight up to him, so afraid of that loneliness that she had offered him a multimillion-dollar bribe to save her.

  What a fucking fool he had been.

  He took a long breath and touched the back of Summer’s hand. “You scared me,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

  Summer’s lashes lifted. For a second, he thought her eyes shimmered with something other than a smile.

  “I’m sorry if I’ve hurt you,” he said slowly.

  What if, all this time, under that easy, flippant dismissal against which he beat himself, she was exactly as vulnerable and sweet and warm as he had believed her to be, that first minute he saw her? When she was so tired that all her defenses were down.

  “Oh, don’t worry about me.” She backed away from her asparagus, task half-finished, wiggling those fingers around which she wrapped him so carelessly. “See? All intact. I was actually wondering about you.”

  He slipped his hands into his pockets, against the surge of emotion in him, the burn on the back of one protesting. “I’m strong. Don’t worry about me.”

  Her mouth set, stubborn. “Have you at least taken care of it?”

  I’m trying, Luc wanted to shout. “Taken care of—what?”

  “That!” Summer gestured toward his pocketed hand, annoyed. “It looks bad! It could probably get infected. And your knuckles are all skinned and swollen. What have you been doing to yourself?”

  “At a guess, beating the crap out of someone,” Dominique said very dryly.

  Luc shot him a look. “Honors were even. Shut up, Dom.” Spoiled bastard. Jaime probably lavished sympathy on him every time he stubbed his toe.

  “And getting very clumsy in the kitchens. For some strange reason.” Sylvain sounded unbearably amused, but not unsympathetic. “Hot caramel? Sugar work?”

  “A commis knocked the handle of a spoon, and the caramel landed on my hand.” Luc started to shrug, thought better of it, and tried to look bravely suffering instead. He knew, by the expressions on the other chefs’ faces, that he was doing a shit-hell job of it, but he was pretty sure he could get better with practice. For the right incentive.

  “We’ve got some bandages in the bathroom,” said Cade, who was an angel, even if an amused one. Thank God Sylvain had married her.

  Luc tried impatient indifference, the kind of thing that might convince a woman who liked to take care of small children that he sure as hell wasn’t going to take care of himself. “It’s fine.” He reached for the knife again.

  Summer’s hand closing around his wrist shocked all through him. The clumsy play had actually worked? Never, not once in his entire life, had anyone showed pity for his wounds. “Come here,” she said sternly.

  Luc’s body felt too hot, as he followed that bright head down the unlit hall, as she spread the antibiotic ointment over the splotch of the burn on the back of his hand. Sugar burns, the most frequent risk in a pastry kitchen, were nasty, the 320-degree caramel sticking to skin, hard to get off quickly even immersed in water. And ointment was the wrong treatment, but he let her do it anyway, bracing his hand against the sink, so close to her in the small bathroom he could smell her hair.

  “Coconut,” he murmured. “And tiare.”

  Summer’s fingers trembled a little as she tried to open the bright blue chef ’s bandage.

  An image of a little blond girl in a beautiful, empty hotel room, cooing over her stuffed animals and bandaging their make-believe wounds in the absence of anyone else to pour love out onto, flashed through his mind and wrung his heart in passing.

  Fuck, yes, I changed my mind, I’ll be your toy. Take all that care and lavish it on me.

  Except he could barely absorb the tiny bit she was giving him right now.

  “It’s the perfect scent for you.” He lifted one thick strand of gold hair, breathing it in.

  She looked up fast and bumped back into the sink. “What are you doing?”

  He decided to go with honesty, mostly because protecting himself was just not working. “Trying a new technique.”

  Her eyes flared in panic. She stared up at him like he was about to kill her for dinner.

  “If you have a dream in your head, but every time you try to realize it you end up with a bloody mess, you have to try something different.” His mouth curved wryly. “Plus, two of the least qualified men in the world to give me advice on dealing with women have both recommended I adjust my technique, so obviously . . .” He gave a humorous shrug.

  Summer let go of his hand—merde—and clutched the sink behind her. “That’s not fair.”

  “I don’t actually know how to play with other people, so you’ll forgive me for not knowing what fair is.” He touched that vulnerable lower lip of hers, just with his thumb. It trembled open for him. “I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to adjust my technique. I don’t have as much experience with this kind of thing as you do.”

  Summer went white. And then flushed deep red. And then smiled her heart out. “Oh, don’t worry, I’m sure when you’ve practiced as much on women as I have on men, you’ll be marvelous.”

  And she was gone, back to the refuge of the others, leaving her smile behind her like a damned Cheshire cat.

  The others were setting dishes on the table when they got back to the living room, Luc still cursing himself. He didn’t understand, when he was so elegant and controlled in everything he did, how he could keep bludgeoning her with thoughtlessness. He had only been trying, very cautiously, to let her know something about himself. Maybe that old wild child in him was determined to ruin his life.

  He hated every other man who had touched her with a profound loathing. But he was used to trying over and over again to get something right. He couldn’t judge her for it. In fact, he couldn’t even wrap his mind around her courage, that she had thrown her heart out there again and again, that she had kept trying. How could she bear it? When he even thought of loving her and losing he—

  Shock roared up in him. A clawing fear. He wanted to lock himself in his closet, curled over the box of childhood treasures he had managed to keep, and pretend that nothing precious could be torn from him ever again.

  Putain, he realized, staring at the back of her golden head as he tried to force his soul out of its fetal ball. That was why she was so afraid of him. Of anything but sex. Because he might matter.

  “Mom always said you were the sweet one,” Cade told her cousin, eyeing his bandage ruefully.

  Summer’s step hitched.

  “The angel-child,” Jaime laughed, rolling her eyes. “I remember.”

  “She used to talk about Summer in the car with dad whenever we were on the way home from their place,” Cade told Luc. “ ‘The sweetest little girl, I could smack Sam and Mai.’ ”

  Summer stiffened.

  “We were a little bit jealous,” Cade said, “since I was always getting in trouble for being too bossy, and Jaime for doing things like pitching an unholy fit on the lawn to save an anthill.”

  “You were too bossy,” Jaime pointed out.

  “The damn ants bit me all over!”

  “You should have paid more attention to where you were stepping!”

  Cade laughed. “But anyway. In contrast, you definitely stood out. ‘Such a loving little girl, it breaks my heart.’ I think Mom wanted to adopt you.”

  Summer threw Luc a sudden look, as if he was still holding that big umbrella and she was getting drenched. He took a step toward her and she slipped over by Jaime and Dominique. Putain. So now Luc was worse than Dominique?

  “Dad, too,” Jaime said dryly. “Neither one of us could analyze P/E ratios as a dinner-table trick when we were five years old. That trick used to piss Mom off, too, though.”

  “I could do i
t by the time I was seven!” Cade said defensively. Jaime rolled her eyes.

  Luc tried to remember exactly what a P/E ratio was. Something to do with stocks, because his broker mentioned it on the rare occasions Luc actually let the man talk to him. Summer could recite that kind of thing when she was five years old? “Is that what you did over dessert?” That could explain a lot.

  Pure, vivid hatred in those blue eyes. And a smile. “No, over desserts I was bored, mostly. I’m not much into sweets.”

  Sylvain and Dominique both gave Luc looks of such appalled pity, he wanted to hit someone. Again.

  “Mom would have lost it if she had seen you in college, in the tabloids all the time, going through all those boyfriends,” Cade said, and Sylvain winced suddenly, shot a glance at Luc, and closed his hand around Cade’s arm.

  His juggernaut of a wife, of course, plowed right on. “She probably would have staged an intervention. Kidnapped you and submitted you to endless talkings-to.” Cade’s expression grew wistful at the mention of things her mother had never lived to see. Then her eyes crinkled, rueful and sympathetic. “Carried you off to a remote island, perhaps, until you learned how to pick a man who would take care of you.”

  Summer closed her eyes.

  “So, Dom,” Luc said. “This bloggers’ award for Best Éclairs in Paris. Did you bribe the judges, or do you think they just couldn’t afford mine? Why weren’t you on the list, Sylvain? Still haven’t learned how to make an actual pastry?”

  You had to hand it to the solidarity that developed when men survived working in brutal kitchens together. They would seek out any excuse to vent that old urge to kill each other—and they could always do it as a team.

  And Luc, after years of heading the most brutal kitchens of any of them—those of a top hotel’s Michelin three-star restaurant—had little trouble directing a simple conversation to keep it off Summer for the rest of the evening, especially when he let them rib him instead.

  As the evening stretched, the men kept talking shop, since their careers consumed their lives, and the women, denied Summer’s childhood as a subject, talked . . . saving the world. Once she forgot herself, Summer’s questions about cocoa institutions and economic policy, government levies, taxes, tribal influences on politics in cocoa-producing West Africa, and smallholder farmers shaped the whole conversation. She didn’t know anything about any of it, and yet she knew exactly what to ask, as if each question and each answer was part of a complex five-dimensional puzzle she was putting together for Cade and Jaime. Once the Corey sisters got over their surprised appreciation, their discussions grew both more excited and more focused, the sky their limit as they plotted the reformation of cocoa production. It hadn’t been just money that she gave all those boyfriends-on-the-way-up, had it? Did any of her exes even realize how much she had focused their dreams?