Red Hot Candy (22 All-New Delicious Romance Books by Best-Selling Authors about Alpha Males, Billionaires, Cowboys, and More for Your Summer Reading) (Red Hot Boxed Sets)

by Dani Dundee

  Of course, he thought. I’m here doing what we should be doing together. It’s no wonder I miss her so much.

  The knowledge didn’t offer any consolation, and by the time his mind slowed, the first hints of sun were peeking through the wispy curtains.

  Dr. Archimedes’ atelier, or studio, was a mini museum in itself, inherited from his father who had grown the space a dozen times over the years. Jasper learned this as he followed Archibald around, listening to his self-indulgent historical retelling.

  “I like to call it my laboratory, though my fellow scientists rib me about the label,” he jested. “But anthropology is a special brand of science, wouldn’t you agree?”

  Jasper nodded, taking notes in his leather planner.

  “Over ninety percent of my collection never makes it past this building. Our museum, which I’ll show you later, features only the crème de la crème. In an average week, I receive no less than ten dealers, all hoping their collections will meet my approval and I’ll pay the fees to incorporate the items. My assistant, Pa… Persephone tracks all items presented to us, which is further evidence of what I’m telling you. We accept only the finest and the rarest at Archimedes Antiquaries.”

  “I’d love to sit down with Persephone and review the ledgers,” Jasper replied politely.

  “She has the summer off,” the doctor answered quickly. “I can arrange for someone else to walk you through them. Anyhow, let’s continue.”

  On his second night in Paris, Jasper dreamed of Pandora.

  She floated naked in a pool lit only by moonlight, her golden hair drifting away from her in a rebellious halo.

  “I’ve waited for you,” her voice whispered in his ear, though the beautiful figure in the water said nothing.

  Jasper descended the stairs. Still water rippled forward at his violation. As the cool fluid enveloped him, he realized he, too, was nude. He hardened at the discovery, and at what awaited him.

  As he glided toward her in the cerulean water, her head came up, her hair pulling back toward the glassy surface in defiance. As she rose, her expression revealed a terrifying vulnerability. One Jasper craved to nurture and crush in equal measure.

  Jasper pulled Pandora to him in one swift move, burying himself inside her as she cried out. Cheek to cheek, they made love under the moon, somewhere no one could find them, or touch them.

  As he spilled inside her, Pandora let out a gentle moan, and asked, “Was I worth waiting for?”

  “You’ll always be worth waiting for.”

  Jasper continued to have this dream, or variations of it, every night thereafter.

  As his first month under the patronage of Dr. Archimedes came to a close, Jasper began to question his sponsor as to what items he might be inclined to sell. While his heart sagged at the thought of carrying forward without Pandora, he secretly believed realizing their dream on behalf of both of them, might be the one thing that would bring her back to him.

  But Dr. Archimedes was noncommittal in his responses, consistently putting the discussion off until a later date.

  As Jasper went through his daily life in Paris, Pandora whispered in his ear, guiding him. Sometimes offering commentary, like a voiceover in a television show, other times answering his seemingly answer-less questions.

  “I don’t know if I trust this man,” he said to the night sky, enjoying a glass of champagne on his balcony before turning in.

  Ask yourself why, Pandora’s voice whispered in his mind.

  “I don’t think he has our best interests at heart.”

  You said our.

  “I did. I’ll always say our.”

  Follow your instincts, Jasper. They’ve never been wrong.

  The next morning, Jasper left a message on the doctor’s answering machine, requesting they meet for dinner to discuss business.

  ***

  CHAPTER SIX – PANDORA

  To say Archibald was acting strange lately would be like remarking the sky was looking especially blue. Nonetheless, Pandora sensed a marked shift in him not long after the summer began.

  Archie had an addictive personality. This translated mostly into his work, which occupied him often around the clock, from day into night and then into morning again. It was, in fact, the thing Pandora most admired about him.

  First, he began sleeping until noon, plodding around in his pajamas for another couple of hours before bothering with a shower.

  Next were the days off, something he’d once told her he only believed were justified on holidays.

  Then he refused to leave the house altogether, forcing Pandora and Leander to share his solitude, often in the form of sitting wordlessly in the parlor as he gazed out the window in thought.

  For his own well-being, she approached the changes—tenderly, of course. He shrugged her off with the explanation they were in a slow season for trades, which directly contradicted with everything he’d said about his profession up until then. Getting nowhere, her questions lessened over time, until she realized his actions were putting her patronage at jeopardy.

  When she confronted him with this, he turned on her with bloodshot eyes and asked, “Haven’t I given you everything you could want and more?”

  Pandora understood there was no satisfying answer to that question, which was not really a question at all, but ramblings of a half-drunk man driving himself to madness.

  Before she could retreat to her room, and Leander, his hand snaked out and caught her wrist. “I’ll give you all of it, Pandora. Anything of mine is yours. But you must marry me. Right away.”

  “Archie, we’ve talked about this—”

  “Marry me, or leave my household!”

  Pandora packed her and Lee’s belongings in choking tears. To leave his household meant leaving Paris. The Sorbonne would not provide housing for a young, unwed woman with an infant.

  She would never marry him. Would never marry at all, unless the beloved’s name was Jasper. Jasper with the elbow patches on his tweed jacket, and the curious old-fashioned speech, with all the romance of a Jane Austen novel.

  Archibald swept through the door within minutes, taking her into his arms in a sloppy gesture as foreign to him as it was unwelcome to her. “Don’t listen to me, Pandora. I’m not myself lately. You can stay.”

  She nodded, and let him fall over his apologies. He’d have it no other way.

  Still, Pandora understood her leaving was not a matter of if, but of when. Even if it meant moving on without her beloved.

  One evening, as she went into the kitchen to prepare a bottle for Leander, she overheard Madame Fitzroy talking to the butler about Dr. Archimedes’ elusive “American guest.”

  “He’s not had him to the house once!” she complained in an exclaimed whisper. “He’s been here a month.”

  “It is curious,” the butler, whose name Pandora was ashamed to realize she’d never learned, replied. “But none of our business.”

  “Pft,” Madame clucked, turning to finish stacking the china in the cabinet. “I suppose it will also be none of our business when he gambles away his father’s fortune and we’re turned out into the streets with nothing?”

  “Monsieur is no gambler!”

  “Nor is he usually secretive,” she said with a pointed look. “I have half-a-mind to go down to Chez Dumonet and find out what secret things are going on myself!”

  Pandora made a point of announcing her presence by tapping the bottle against the counter. “Sorry to interrupt. I came to make a bottle for Lee.”

  “Do you know anything about Monsieur’s American guest?” Madame inquired, well past any offense at Pandora’s unintentional eavesdropping, and ready for an ally.

  “He doesn’t tell me about those kinds of things,” Pandora replied.

  “Monsieur brought you on as his assistant. Shouldn’t you be aware?”

  “He gives me assignments, and I do them. That’s all there is to our arrangement.”

  “Hmph.” Madame put aside all pretense
of stocking the hutch and leaned against the counter with one hand. “I find it terribly odd that he’s brought on another college student from America—why, from Louisiana, if I recall, isn’t that where you’re from?—a second apprentice, and then locks him up at the Montmartre place in secrecy. It’s as if he’s ashamed!”

  “Calm down before you get your hand slapped for being nosy. Again,” the butler chided and slipped from the room before she could reply.

  His warning didn’t stop Madame, who went on and on about the American college student, and the odd behavior of her employer.

  By the time Pandora finished warming Leander’s bottle, the color had drained entirely from her face.

  Could it be? Was her hope not so foolish after all?

  “Excuse me,” she said in a trembling voice, and fled up the stairs to find something to wear.

  ***

  CHAPTER SEVEN – JASPER

  Jasper spent the entirety of his day practicing his words. First in front of the mirror, then later at the small dining table in his flat, pretending Dr. Archimedes sat across from him and it was the most natural thing in the world to be saying these things.

  My, you look handsome, Pandora sang in his ear, while he straightened his lapel, and checked for any errant hairs he might have missed during his shave.

  “I always dress as if it’s the day I might see you again.”

  Dr. Archimedes was early. On prior engagements, he’d left Jasper waiting to the point he considered leaving. When Jasper walked into the restaurant, he spotted his benefactor immediately, fidgeting nervously with his napkin.

  “Did I get the time wrong?” Jasper asked politely, as the maître d’ pulled his seat for him.

  With a frantic snap of the head, Archibald gazed squarely at him. “I regret to inform you I need to end our patronage, effective immediately.”

  Jasper started, pistoning back in his chair before he could remember himself. “What? Why ever for?”

  “I also cannot offer you a detailed explanation. My engagements have changed, plain and simple. I’ve enjoyed having you in Paris, and perhaps we can revisit the offer next summer when I am less absorbed.”

  Jasper’s head spun; all the words he’d practiced flew out of his head, unimportant now. “But… but I’ve spoken with the counselors at The Sorbonne. They’re prepared to extend my acceptance letter to this year. I was… going to stay in Paris. I’d hoped our working relationship would become long term.”

  “Regretfully, it will not.” Dr. Archimedes stood in a haste, his chair tilting. A waiter happening by grabbed it before it could fall. Jasper understood he meant to leave before they could even sup. Nothing he’d prepared to say, none of it, would come to fruition here.

  “I don’t understand,” Jasper kept saying, but his sponsor was already rushing toward the door, without a formal goodbye or further direction. Nothing practical, even, such as what to do with the keys to the flat.

  Jasper offered polite apology to their waiter, along with a small gratuity for his trouble, and then sauntered out of the restaurant in a daze, unsure of his direction but requiring distance from this disappointing conversation.

  ***

  CHAPTER EIGHT – PANDORA

  Pandora watched from across the boulevard as Archibald exited the restaurant in a flurry of anxiousness.

  She pulled tight the light shrug sweater protecting her from the evening breeze, and prepared to return home, when she spotted another man.

  In an instant, her knees went to jelly, her ankles splaying right and left as she nearly fell off balance. She had to grab a lamppost for support. Her heart seized forward at the sight of Jasper Broussard walking into the Paris night, and she expected to faint at any moment.

  This same exhilarating fear rooted Pandora in place. She watched as Jasper looked both left and right, deciding which way he wanted to go, before turning left and wandering down the cobblestone boulevard.

  It was not until his head began to disappear from view that Pandora sprung to life, remembering herself. A strange American guest. From Louisiana, I believe.

  Yes, she’d let those vague details drive her tonight, and guess what? She’d been right. Eugenia had been right. Fate had brought her love back to her.

  Pandora followed Jasper from a tentative distance. Stopping him was out of the question, as she felt a strange guilt at keeping him from wherever he was going, despite her heart insisting he was here to see her.

  But there was also a strong chance he didn’t know she was here. For all her learning, Pandora remained unsure precisely how fate worked. What if this opportunity was of Jasper’s choosing, and what capricious hand had fate played.

  For all she knew, his visit had nothing to do with her.

  Her unflinching belief to the contrary carried her onward, continuing to follow him until he came upon a footpath leading down to a small bank along the Seine.

  Jasper approached the river at a brisk pace, one that made Pandora wonder briefly if he would stop when he hit the water. Then he did pause, an abrupt move that caused him to wobble. His arms shot out to steady himself, and his shoulders slumped, followed by a light sigh of defeat.

  “Jasper,” Pandora whispered, finding her voice.

  His head leaned to the side, the way he might have before she walked away, when he was used to her presence. He swayed slightly, but made no move to turn toward her.

  “Jasper,” she said more firmly.

  Her love’s entire frame went rigid. Very slowly he turned, blinking, adjusting to the sight of her. A wave of emotion—shock?—rolled through him, head to toe, as his muscles softened, then tensed again. “Pandora?”

  “Jasper,” she said again, her breath escaping into the cool night.

  “What on Earth are you doing here?”

  “You told me to wait for you by the river,” she said, praying the lightness of her words might put him at ease.

  “Ten months ago!”

  “There were things I couldn’t tell you.” She paused with a soft sigh. “I hoped… fate might bring you to me.”

  “Why? Pan, when had I ever, ever given you cause to doubt my ability to handle whatever you dish out? Three years of watching you date jocks and idiots wasn’t enough?” No sooner than he said the words did the fire leave him. “I’m sorry.”

  Pandora’s head dropped, all the cleverness of a moment ago dissolved. “I deserved it.”

  “No, darling, you didn’t.” Jasper’s hand reached out to touch her face and paused in midair. His body shuddered with a heavy sigh, and then slumped. “Oh, Pan. How did we get here?”

  “I have a million words for you, but I don’t know where to start.”

  “Why you left. Start there.”

  This wasn’t the place for a story of that magnitude. Not with locals and tourists carrying on feet away, from the bridge above.

  Pandora reached into her bag. She pulled out the small box, the one with her name etched on top. The one housing all her secrets.

  “Here,” she said, reaching it forward. With a hesitant glance, he took the box from her, and as he did, a welcoming electricity passed between them. She saw he felt it, too.

  “What’s this?” He turned it over. “The box I gave you. You’re giving it back?”

  “All your answers are inside,” she replied, pulling her sweater tighter. What she really wanted was for Jasper to remove his jacket and drape it around her, a gesture of tenderness and security. Claiming her.

  “You want me to…” But the words trailed off, because open Pandora’s box seemed too silly for a moment this heavy.

  Pandora nodded. “Please. Inside is a calling card. Send word when you finish… either way.”

  She didn’t wait for his assurance, instead turning, not away from him so much as away from the breaking of her heart. Her moment of reckoning had arrived at last.

  Pandora fell asleep cuddling Leander, who snored softly on the bed next to her, both fists over his head. She knew she shouldn’t,
but she couldn’t help her craving to feel close to what most-grounded her to reality.

  How long would it take Jasper to read through the dozens of letters? If she knew him, he’d be done by night’s end. But he was a man who cherished reflection. Who knew how long he’d need to digest her words.

  Pandora’s last images before she slipped into sleep were of Jasper holding their son for the first time.

  ***

  CHAPTER NINE – JASPER

  Pandora need not have worried about Jasper’s reaction to the letters. She couldn’t have known his heart still belonged to her, still beat for her.

  In all his contemplation, he never once fathomed a child lie behind her reason for leaving. Never guessed their union had brought forth a life. That Pandora had sought out his father for help and been turned away.

  “Let my father disown me. I would never have resented you. How could anyone think I would choose money over my own family?”

  “I was afraid,” she said.

  “I understand. But please believe me when I say you never have reason to be afraid again. I’ll always choose you, Pan. You’ll always be worth waiting for.”

  This was how the discussion started as they sat in the parlor of Dr. Archimedes’ townhome. Soon, he would meet his son for the first time, but they had unfinished business to attend to first.

  “He can’t be trusted,” Jasper said, nodding at the elaborate painting of their shared patron hanging over the marble mantle. The oils made him seem even smarmier, as if it accentuated and surfaced his worst attributes.