Shadowed Heart

by Laura Florand

  And she’d had a really good nanny, too. Liz. Kind of her lifeline back then.

  All the other women were staring at her. She tried to shrug.

  “When people shape you when you’re tiny, it can be really hard to break out of that mold, can’t it?” Sarah said very softly, almost to herself.

  “Summer, allow me to share with you one of my favorite phrases. My dad taught it to me, for when I have to go into a boardroom and make a decision that I know everyone is going to criticize, everyone is going to call me a bitch for,” Cade said. “You might want to practice it for situations like this. It goes: Screw you.”

  “That’s not what Dad actually says,” Jaime mentioned, amused.

  “Well…his version starts with an F,” Cade admitted. “He felt that screw might not be powerful enough for all occasions. So you can use that, too.”

  “Yeah, but…you can’t say that to your own mother, Cade,” Jaime protested.

  “In your head.” Cade tapped her skull. “It’s the general idea. You think it, when all the worries get to you, and then you roll over and tuck yourself up against Syl—Luc and go to sleep.”

  “It does kind of work like that sometimes,” Jaime admitted. “Having that person to tuck yourself into definitely helps handle anything.”

  Sarah nodded.

  Summer lay back in her chair and sucked on the last little bit of her ice pop. “I wonder if it works the other way?”

  The women looked inquiring.

  “That guys need to roll over and tuck themselves up into the other person sometimes, too. To handle things.”

  Everyone considered that. “They don’t tuck very well,” Jaime decided finally. Summer bit back a grin at the image of rough, muscled Dom tucking his head in Jaime’s lap.

  Although…that was oddly easy to imagine.

  “I think we’re more like their teddy-bear sometimes,” Jolie said. “You know—we get pulled in and held tight. And that’s what reassures them.”

  Now all the women were blushing a little, looking out to sea, growing thoughtful and quiet.

  Maybe Summer and Luc needed to find more time to do these things. Maybe…maybe Summer needed to be the one who made sure they did.

  Something eased suddenly, with all these women around her. Luc had always had trouble finding the right way to show his feelings, outside his desserts. He had always panicked. He had always pushed too hard and held on too tight, then let go at the wrong moment because he started fearing his own tight, greedy hold.

  But he did love her. Which gave her all the power anyone could ever need. The power to say, Luc. Let’s talk.

  “You know what I think?” Jolie asked suddenly. “I think the most important thing you can do for your baby is give it a happy family. Parents who stick together and spend time with her. That kind of thing.”

  Everyone looked at her, and she shrugged a little, visibly uneasy at the attention and probably what she had just revealed about her own childhood. “That’s just my two cents.”

  ***

  “This is ridiculous,” Sylvain said. “This one says chocolate is a top craving, too.” He slumped broodingly on the floor, his back against the couch. “The Corey women were warped from birth,” he muttered. “That’s the only explanation.”

  Slouching himself as usual, Patrick took a healthy swallow of his wine and grinned like a man who had no paternal cares in the world. Easy enough for him, Luc thought. It would be far too premature for Patrick and Sarah to be thinking kids already. Patrick had a lot on his plate as he made a new future for himself. And he and Sarah had barely known each other for…

  For six months longer than Luc and Summer had. Luc frowned at his wine glass, a little confused by it. It stood resolutely half-full, the way he liked it, and yet he felt so much more relaxed and easy than he had before they had all ended up on the floor with the wine bottle and their computers out. Relaxed, as if the blunt realization that he and Summer had been a little fast about jumping into the baby thing wasn’t a question for angst and crises but just a rather funny bit of precipitousness on their part that they now had to deal with.

  It might make things a little complicated, a little challenging. But no end of the world, or their relationship, or happiness as he knew it, loomed in sight.

  In fact, he felt so much more comfortable at the idea of dealing with it—happy, relaxed—that he kept suspecting alcohol was involved.

  But Dom sat on the other side of his wine glass, and Dom never touched alcohol at all much less fed it to unwitting others. And even Patrick couldn’t manage to surreptitiously re-half-fill Luc’s glass regularly from his slouching position on the other side of Sylvain.

  Besides, Patrick and Sylvain and Gabriel seemed to be enjoying sharing the bottle themselves.

  “You’d think candied ginger dipped in chocolate would be perfect for any sane pregnant woman,” Sylvain said broodingly. “One that wasn’t genetically scarred.” He gave his wedding ring a darkling glance, presumably in lieu of his wife.

  “This one says carbonated beverages. I could make a ginger syrup, mix it with spring water, and carbonate it.” Luc rubbed his thumb against the rug under him, tasting variations without ever parting his lips. His taste receptors actually activated for the combinations he imagined, so well-trained by now. But did they activate the same way Summer’s did, now that pregnancy had turned her taste buds so crazy? “Maybe with a squeeze of fresh lime.”

  “You could do a frozen reverse spherification of it,” Gabriel said. “The calcium lactate’s probably good for pregnant women, right? Don’t they need extra calcium? You want me to whip something up right now and see if she likes it?”

  No, Luc did not want him to do that, merde. All these greedy men around him trying to feed his wife and baby instead of him. Back off. She’s mine to feed.

  “How’d she like the peaches?” asked Nico, who had somehow ended up in the gathering, too. Luc wasn’t even entirely sure how that had happened. They were colleagues, weren’t they? Surely they weren’t friends already? Despite how much Nico seemed to be amused by him. The other person who was frequently amused by Luc, Patrick, kept eyeing the other chef in this lazy, alert way as if he hadn’t decided what he thought about him yet.

  “Maybe it’s that Corey merde their mother was tortured with. That’s got to be it,” Sylvain said. “Probably she would have loved good chocolate.”

  “‘Feed her before she gets out of bed’,” Dom read, ignoring Sylvain. “Have you tried that?”

  “Have you tried asking her what she wants?” Patrick asked, with the air of a man suggesting a radical new medical approach to curing cancer. Luc slanted him a glance.

  Patrick widened his eyes. “What? I hear there are men who talk to their wives about what they want. It’s not a widespread practice or anything yet, don’t worry, but it might have potential.”

  God, he had missed the regular urge to throw something at Patrick’s head. All those years in the kitchen, and he’d restrained himself every time. So many interesting foods around to dump on a guy’s head, too.

  “Pickles,” Luc said carefully in English, since the damn things she liked had no resemblance at all to any cornichons he knew of. He couldn’t say a single full sentence in English—except I love you, which he’d been fortunate enough to be exposed to a lot recently—but he’d picked up a fair amount of food vocabulary in the past fifteen years in top kitchens. “That’s what she said she wanted. And peanut butter. Peaches. Popsicles.”

  “Wow.” Patrick put a hand over his heart. “That accent. Say something else?” He fanned himself.

  Luc sighed heavily.

  Patrick grinned.

  The corners of Luc’s lips kicked up, and all that anxiety that had weighed on his heart felt so damn light.

  “So we’ve discovered she likes alliteration,” Patrick said with great thoughtfulness. “What other things start with P in English?” He made an elaborate show of searching on his phone. “Oh, look, peas.
And pretzels. There you go, Luc. Have you tried that?”

  “Pretzels is on this list,” Dom said, from his laptop. He turned it toward them. “Really.”

  “It’s practically poetry,” Patrick said, awed. “How about potatoes?”

  Luc almost laughed.

  Patrick’s grin deepened. “If Sylvain and Gabe and I get any drunker, you won’t have an inhibition left. Ignore Dom brooding over there in the corner. We’ll drug his water.” He put up a hand for an exaggerated stage-whisper to Dom. “It’s in the ice cubes.”

  Dom flicked a melting fragment of ice at him.

  “Ice!” Patrick exclaimed, sucking the fragment into his mouth. “That’s on the lists! You’re a genius! And here I thought you were nothing more than brute muscle.”

  Dom sighed so heavily that it made Luc’s sigh seem a shallow breath. Luc discovered a grin on his face and couldn’t even figure out how it had gotten there.

  He looked up at movement in the doorway. Summer, in yoga pants and a silky top, ready for bed except for the bra she had kept on in honor of their guests. “Are you guys still up?” Her gaze rested on Luc.

  He grinned at her from the floor, feeling so relaxed he was almost foolish with it. Hey, we’re all right, did you know that? Our worries are silly, not serious.

  Summer’s expression softened, bemused. She tilted her head, blue gaze tracing over him, curious and warm.

  He blew her a tiny kiss.

  “Are you drunk?” she asked curiously.

  “Oh, you know, five sips,” Patrick said. “About the same amount he had that night he met you.”

  “You only had five sips the night you met me?” Summer asked. “You always told me you’d been drinking champagne!”

  “Hmm. Such a strange sensitivity to alcohol, don’t you think?” Patrick rolled his eyes to heaven. “Almost as if that’s nothing to do with what’s going on at all.”

  Summer took a step into the room and then hesitated and stepped back to the door. “I won’t interrupt your—your guy thing.”

  Luc patted the floor beside him.

  “Hell, no,” Patrick said. “If you get to have Summer in here, I get to have Sarah. No fair.”

  “You’re the one who told me to ask her what she wants,” Luc pointed out to him.

  Patrick took another swallow of his wine. “That conversation was intended for your more private moments,” he said loftily.

  A black head appeared behind Summer and then slipped past her in the doorway. Patrick grinned in delight and lifted an arm so that Sarah could more comfortably tuck herself up within it when she sat beside him. How they had all ended up on the floor when they had perfectly good furniture, Luc wasn’t entirely sure.

  The other women followed, laughing, Cade and Jaime and Jolie maybe just the tiniest bit over-relaxed from liquor. Dom pulled Jaime down to sit between his knees with her back against his chest, and Cade took the corner of the couch behind Sylvain, folding her legs up and rubbing his head when he rested it back against her calves.

  Nico shifted, this slightest angling of his body away from all that couple-happiness in the room. His relaxed demeanor closed just a little, but that was the only sign he gave that he was the odd man out—the one person there who didn’t have someone to curl up with him.

  Well, and Luc.

  Luc patted the floor again, his heart starting to tighten as it braced for rejection. His wife was the only one still standing in the doorway.

  “We’ve got beds for everyone if anyone is getting tired,” Summer said. “That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “The night’s young,” Luc said with a wave of his hand. Well, for chefs it was young. Barely midnight.

  Sylvain smiled in this slight way, amusement packed with understanding. “We’re staying tomorrow, too, you know.” You don’t have to get all the friendship and support you can out of us tonight.

  “Sarah and I were just planning to move in,” Patrick said. “I mean, I only have this big a glimpse of Notre-Dame from my apartment.” He held up thumb and forefinger. “And you guys have the whole Mediterranean. Plus, I hear you’re going to need an au pair soon to help take care of that baby.”

  The tiniest stiffening on Summer’s part. Luc’s focus on her sharpened.

  “And I freeze fantastic ice cubes,” Patrick said, and Luc knew he’d caught that stiffening, too, and was easing it away. “Which I hear is all you’re eating these days. Way better ice cubes than this guy. His are all—dense. He uses inferior water.”

  Summer laughed, a surprised, delighted sound, and Luc relaxed again. Damn, it was good to have Patrick around. He didn’t even feel jealous of the laughter, just…happy. Happy that Summer was genuinely smiling.

  Patrick folded an arm behind his head. “Now if Sarah were pregnant, I’d have to make all her ice cubes in the form of…hearts.” He turned his head to gaze down at his girlfriend a moment, his smile sinking inward, to secrets, as his hand rubbed her shoulder. “Yeah. But you know how bad Luc is at putting his heart out there through food.”

  Summer actually giggled, her hand covering her mouth, her eyes sparkling at Luc. All the love in those eyes, all softened and freed by humor.

  Oh.

  Oh…we’re going to be all right.

  Thank you, Patrick. For getting my head back on straight.

  “I suppose you’d make the pickles heart-shaped, too?” Luc asked dryly, but he couldn’t pull his gaze away from Summer.

  “No, I never mess with a good phallic shape,” Patrick said, with an airy and outrageous wave of his hand. He sent Summer a limpidly innocent look. “Do you?” He lifted Sarah’s hand to his and kissed it, automatically reassuring her that his teasing of another woman had no serious undertones.

  Summer gave another little gulp of a giggle and then just burst out laughing, her eyes dancing even as she tried to make them wide and innocent, shaking her head as if she had no idea even what a phallic shape was.

  “I’m going to have to hit you again,” Luc mentioned to Patrick.

  “And I don’t even work for you anymore this time.” Patrick sighed despairingly. “What a waste of a chance for a lawsuit.”

  Summer slipped into the room and curled up against Luc, laughing more and more as Patrick expanded into the laughter with great enjoyment, growing more and more outrageous with each success. Luc covered her hand, resting on his abdomen, and played with it gently while her laughter grew first more relaxed, then softer and softer. It must have been an hour later when he looked down and discovered she was fast asleep.

  Patrick slouched back against the base of the chair, with Sarah asleep against his own shoulder, and toasted his wine glass to—apparently himself. Patrick drank a long swallow of his wine with an expression of smug satisfaction. “You’re an idiot,” he told Luc. “Have I mentioned it to you lately?”

  Damn but he’d missed Patrick. “You’re not supposed to call your chef an idiot, you know.”

  Patrick shook his head, but didn’t correct the title of chef to their current relationship. “Go take your wife to bed, idiot.”

  Chapter 21

  God, that felt good, the weight of his wife against his arms and chest, the thought of that little baby, right there in her belly, still so tiny it didn’t add anything to her weight at all. It felt as if he could take care of them. It felt as if they were all his.

  It felt strong, and it felt awkward, too, this new, fresh caution about all the things that he might do or be wrong. Was the scent of him, or the motion, stirring up nausea? Odd and disturbing, how much the changes inside her could change their relationship, when he hadn’t changed at all—the scent of her still made him feel as if he had come home.

  Until he found her, or she found him, the kitchen had been the only home he had, his apartment no more than a place to eat potato chips, watch TV until the adrenaline released him, and sleep.

  Now he had her, for his home. But…

  “It’s my security,” he whispered to her. “Th
e restaurant. When I’m worried, it’s where I know I can get everything right.”

  “Mmm?” A sleepy, questioning noise from Summer as he lowered her onto the mattress. He folded the comforter over her and knelt by the side of the bed. Maybe he knelt because he still didn’t feel he had the right to get back in that bed with her, or maybe it was because it put his face so much nearer her belly. She patted sleepily with her hand, her eyes still closed, trying to pat him, ending up patting his head. “‘Sokay,” she mumbled. “I know.”

  Of course she forgave him.

  Of course she did.

  She loves me.

  He curved his hand over her belly. It was warm and flat, just her ordinary belly, and yet life beat out of it suddenly into his palm like a pulsing sun. God, mine? Mine. Some of me, right there. Growing.

  “Thanks for inviting everyone,” she murmured and snuggled her head into the pillow. He sat on the edge of the bed, watching his hand on her belly, watching her face as she fell completely back asleep.

  After a long time, he went to their closet. The walk-in was much bigger than any closet he’d ever had outside restaurant pantries, and in it, he could move down this short, lovely alley between his clothes and Summer’s. His fingers brushed over her dresses, releasing soft hints of her scent into the air, soft memories of her body being touched by him through those clothes.

  He’d changed lodgings several times since he first started collecting treasures, but he always tucked this box into the same place: the deepest corner of the closet, the last thing in the house anyone might find, if they wanted to steal it.

  A small, worn cardboard box that he had pulled out of the trash just after he was first fostered, its flaps all bent from being opened and tucked into each other again and again, its corners battered. In clumsy marker, it said “Luc”. Then, a little older and neater above it, “Luc Leroi.” “Mine,” he had written in another spot, bolding it, shaping the letters into a stamp. Around the words were drawn layers of things: monsters and sharks and superheroes in different colored markers and with different levels of skill, whatever he believed in, at that particular age, whatever he placed his hopes in, to protect that box.