Strong eyebrows, strong stubborn forehead and cheekbones and chin—every single damn bone in his body stubborn—and skin so much more tanned and weathered than when she had last seen it. Dark brown hair cropped military-close to his head and sanded by sun.
Célie wrenched back out of his hands, her own flying to her face as she burst into tears.
Just—burst. Right there in public, with all her colleagues and their customers around her. She backed up a step and then another, tears flooding down her cheeks, chocolate crushing under her feet.
“Célie,” he said, and even his voice sounded rougher and tougher. And wary.
She turned and ran back up the stairs, dashing at her eyes to try to see the steps through the tears, and burst back up through the glass doors into the laboratoire. Dom looked up immediately, and then straightened. “Célie? What’s wrong?” Big, bad Dom, yeah, right, with the heart of gold. He came forward while she shook her head, having nothing she could tell him, scrubbing at her eyes in vain.
The glass door behind her opened. “Célie,” that rough, half-familiar voice said. “I—“
She darted toward the other end of the laboratoire and her ganache cooling room.
“Get the fuck out of my kitchen,” Dom said behind her, flat, and she paused, half-turning.
Dom Richard, big and dark, stood blocking the other man in the glass doorway. Joss locked eyes with him, these two big dangerous men, one who wanted in and one who wasn’t about to let him. Célie bit a finger, on sudden fear, and started back toward them.
Joss Castel looked past Dom to her. Their eyes held.
“Célie, go in the other room,” Dom said without turning around. And to Joss: “You. Get out.”
Joss thrust his hands in his pockets. Out of combat. Sheathing his weapons. He nodded once, a jerk of his head, at Célie, and turned and made his way down the stairs.
Dom followed. Célie went to the casement window above the store’s entrance, and watched as Joss left the store, crossed the street, and turned to look up at the window. She started crying again, just at that look, and when she lifted her hand to dash it across her eyes, he must have caught the movement through the reflection off the glass, because his gaze focused on her.
“What was that all about?” Dom asked behind her. She turned, but she couldn’t quite get herself to leave the window. She couldn’t quite get herself to walk out of sight. “Célie, who is that guy and what did he do?”
She shook her head.
“Célie.”
She slashed a hand through the air, wishing she could shut things down like a man could, make her hand say, This subject is closed. When Dom slashed a subject closed with one move of his hand like that, no one messed with him. Well, except for her, of course. “Just someone I knew before. Years ago. Before I worked here.”
“When you lived in Créteil?” Their old, bad banlieue. “And he was bad? Did he hit you? Was he dealing? What was it?”
She gazed at Dom uneasily. For all he was so big and bad and dark, always seeming to have that threat of violence in him, it was the first time she had ever seen him about to commit violence.
“No,” she said quickly. “No. He didn’t.”
“Célie.”
“No, he really didn’t, damn it, Dom! Merde. Do you think I would let him?”
“You couldn’t have been over eighteen.”
“Yeah, well—he didn’t.”
Dom’s teeth showed, like a man who didn’t believe her and was about to reach out and rip the truth out of her. “Then what—”
“He left me! That’s all. He fucking left me there, so that he could go make himself into a better person. Yeah. So fuck you, Dom. Go marry your girlfriend instead of playing around with this I-need-to-be-good-enough shit and leave me alone!”
And she sank down on her butt, right there in the cooling room, between the trolleys full of trayed chocolate and the marble island, in the slanting light from the casement window, and cried.
Just cried and cried and cried.
It sure as hell put a damper on chocolate production for a while, but for as long as she needed it, people did leave her alone.
***
Once a Hero, coming 2015! Sign up here to be notified of its release.
Other Books by Laura Florand
Snow Queen Duology
Snow-Kissed (a novella)
Sun-Kissed (also part of the Amour et Chocolat series)
Amour et Chocolat Series
All’s Fair in Love and Chocolate, a novella in Kiss the Bride
The Chocolate Thief
The Chocolate Kiss
The Chocolate Rose (also part of La Vie en Roses series)
The Chocolate Touch
The Chocolate Heart
The Chocolate Temptation
Sun-Kissed (also a sequel to Snow-Kissed)
Shadowed Heart (a sequel to The Chocolate Heart)
La Vie en Roses Series
Turning Up the Heat (a novella)
The Chocolate Rose (also part of the Amour et Chocolat series)
A Rose in Winter, a novella in No Place Like Home
Once Upon a Rose (upcoming)
Memoir
Blame It on Paris
Acknowledgements
I am deeply grateful, as always, to Laurent Jeannin, executive pastry chef of Michelin three-star L’Épicure, at Le Bristol, Paris, and to Éric Frechon, executive head chef, for allowing me to research in their kitchens.
While deciding what to do with this unusual story—a sequel to a happily ever after story—many, many writers and readers came forward to offer to beta read for me and encouraged me to publish it. I want to thank from the bottom of my heart all of those who offered, and particularly Stephanie Burgis, Barbara Morgenroth, April White, Lynn Latimer, Mercy and Dale Anderson, Sydney Nolan, and Shannon O’Shea Schmeig. Their feedback was invaluable. A special thank you goes also to Nalini Singh, Virginia Kantra, and Elyssa Patrick for all their kindness and support.
And a huge thank you, of course, goes to all my readers for your investment in these books and these characters. I’m so glad that they speak to you.
About Laura Florand
Laura Florand burst on the contemporary romance scene in 2012 with her award-winning Amour et Chocolat series. Her international bestselling books have been translated into eight languages, been named among the Best Books of the Year by Romantic Times and Barnes & Noble, received the RT Seal of Excellence and starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Library Journal, and Booklist, and been recommended by NPR, USA Today, and The Wall Street Journal, among others.
After a Fulbright year in Tahiti and backpacking everywhere from New Zealand to Greece, and several years living in Madrid and Paris, Laura now teaches Romance Studies at Duke University. Contrary to what the “Romance Studies” may imply, this means she primarily teaches French language and culture and does a great deal of research on French gastronomy, particularly chocolate.
Copyright
Copyright 2014, Laura Florand
Cover by Sebastien Florand
ISBN-13: 978-0-9885065-7-2
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author, excepting brief quotes used in reviews. To obtain permission to excerpt portions of the text, please contact the author at [email protected].
The characters, events, and places portrayed in this book are products of the author’s imagination and are either fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author. www.lauraflorand.com
Table of Contents
SHADOWED HEART
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Cha
pter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Thank You!
THE CHOCOLATE TEMPTATION, excerpt
ONCE UPON A ROSE, excerpt
ONCE A HERO, excerpt
Other Books by Laura Florand
Acknowledgements
About Laura Florand
Copyright
Shadowed Heart Page 20