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He gaped at her and then let out a huff of a laugh. “That’s hilarious. Thank you. No.”

  “I do know my way around kitchens somewhat,” Jolie said stiffly.

  He blinked again. “I keep losing track of what this conversation is about. All right. Cooking. Making something—beautiful.” His hand shot out and whisked the caramel off the burner. “Pardon. I know I was supposed to slow down, trust you, and let you handle it, but burnt caramel really stinks.”

  “And that is why we need to make sure no amateur is trying to make a caramel while they have other things to think about,” Jolie said firmly.

  “Well, that’s going to be a tough one for you, then, because you always have at least one other thing on your mind.”

  Chapter 15

  But the crème pâtissière itself went better, Gabriel told himself. Less—argumentative. Well, he liked argumentative, and if Jolie didn’t, she surely would have stopped arguing by now. But he had been aiming for something even more seductive than a good argument.

  Richer. More enticing. Like vanilla-infused milk being whisked into golden caramel, just so, his hand guiding hers, her happy face as he taught her how to avoid lumps. As she tasted the golden rich cream. Oh, so that was why he had picked this recipe. It had reminded him of her. How would a pistachio-caramel réligieuse work?

  “And fill each little nun just the right amount,” he said, compressing a grin out of all but the twitching corners of his mouth, as he used the tip to make a hole in the bottom of the chou and squirted cream into it until it was entirely full.

  Jolie looked at his face suspiciously. “Are you sure I’m the one who always starts thinking about sex?”

  “I knew it!” he exclaimed self-righteously. “I knew your mind was going down that track again! Non, mais—Jolie. Focus.”

  She considered the trays full of choux that waited for them. “You must have a lot of stamina,” she said thoughtfully. “You have to fill a hundred of them with that stuff.”

  She killed him. He choked, tried not to, and then laughed so hard that he accidentally squirted the damn cream all over himself.

  And that made Jolie crack up. She laughed so hard she sat down on the floor, and he had to thrust an arm out to keep one of his sous-chefs from running into the unexpected obstacle.

  Oh, God, she was glorious. She made him so happy.

  He dragged her up, so giddy with it, it was all he could do not to—not to do everything. Not to stuff himself inside her, for one. He ran his hands up her arms to frame her cheeks and bent down low. “I should make you eat that off me,” he growled, still laughing.

  Her own laugh choked, and her eyes went very wide and did an involuntary flick down his body and back up.

  Merde, he had just been a damn beast again. What the fuck had he been thinking? He wanted to tell her he didn’t mean what she thought he meant, but then, of course, if by any chance she liked the idea, he did mean it, and then—fine, it was time to blame all the dirty ideas on her again. “The cream, Jolie. Try to focus.”

  “I know we’re talking about the cream,” Jolie said blankly, her eyes dilated to a thin rim of green. She flicked a little fingerful of the cream off his jacket and tasted it again.

  Putain, so hot. He wondered if she really had only been thinking about the pastry cream. It was quite possible his mind might go down that particular sexual track a lot more easily than hers did.

  And now he had two visions. One of her sucking warm, golden pastry cream off his naked body. And one that was—well, the other one.

  And he was going to be torn in ungodly torment between those images for the rest of the damn day.

  Jolie gave herself a shake and blinked several times, turning to focus on the choux. “I had better finish filling these.”

  He wasn’t sure she should practice squeezing things repeatedly in his vicinity, not right at the moment, not when every single motion of her hand seemed to squeeze over some part of his body—his heart, his dick, the nape of his neck where it would feel so sweet to have a little hand squeeze the tension, his butt where it would feel so hot and also just damn nice against the slight soreness starting from his excessive workout that morning.

  On the other hand, teaching her this recipe was what he had contracted with her to do. He sighed, leaned his elbows on the counter to try to keep his arms out of trouble, and nodded. “Go ahead.” But he just could not repress the slow grin, or the wink. “I’ll give you tips on your technique.”

  By the time Jolie finished squeezing pastry cream into all those choux and glazing them, biting on her lip or even the tip of her tongue when she focused, Gabriel was one melting, hot mass of imagined pleasure, and it was all he could do not to bury his face in his arms on the counter and groan.

  But because he could do all kinds of impossible things, even, very rarely, contain himself, he reached out to help her untie her apron instead.

  She pushed strands of escaped hair back off her flushed face and heaved a breath. “Whoo. I just don’t know how you do it all day, without ever tiring.”

  Her face was so full of admiration for him that he actually managed to bite his tongue on a quite unprincely remark about his stamina. Really, it was not his fault. She kept giving him these openings.

  And then he couldn’t get his mind off them.

  She was making him as obsessed with sex as she was.

  She ran a hand up the back of her neck, lifting her ponytail off it, and made a flexing, twisting motion of shoulder and neck muscles, then glanced at the clock. Ten-thirty. He helped her out of her chef’s jacket, for no other reason than that he really enjoyed taking over undressing her, and picked up her notebook—which was filled with doodles among her notes, including, prominent in the upper right corner, his Rose. She had drawn a heart around it, her pen running over and over the shape, deepening the lines. He hesitated a moment over that heart, then slapped the notebook closed and handed it to her.

  Slipping his own chef’s jacket off for a moment, he stepped outside into the alley with her, his motives of the most impure. Like pulling her into his arms and kissing her for a long time to get him through the lunch service after all that squeezing. Maybe grinding his hips a little against hers while he kissed, because his arousal was driving him insane with the need for contact. And then—

  “Thank you,” she said happily before he could even touch her. “That was wonderful.”

  Aww. See? Just when his mind was happily managing to concentrate on just sex for once, she said something like that, and whirled all the rest of his emotions into the vortex. How was a man supposed to keep focused that way?

  “Let me get out of your way for the lunch service. I have to go see Daniel Laurier now, anyway.”

  His hands froze mid-reach for her. She might as well have grabbed one of the ice baths out of the kitchen and dumped it over his head. “You have to do what?”

  “Daniel Laurier. You know, Le Relais d’Or.” She looked at him blankly, as if it was inconceivable that anyone not have heard of Daniel Laurier.

  Well, it was inconceivable, but still. “Of course I know him,” Gabriel said, aggravated. “Léa Laurier is some kind of cousin of mine. His wife.” He put some emphasis on the wife. A man couldn’t be too careful. Women always thought Daniel was so hot. When he went on TV, his TV hostesses practically leaned over and licked him instead of one of his plates. He knew just how to handle it, too, with that kind of gentle, amused, I’m-married firmness, while Gabriel always got his hopes up that the pretty hostess could actually fall for him enough to put up with him longer than a month, and then got his stupid heart stomped on again. Damn smug happily married Daniel. “I helped him make sure his pastry kitchen didn’t collapse, after Léa’s father died and he found the whole restaurant on his shoulders.”

  Gabriel had just been fired by Jolie’s father and working to get the funding together for his own restaurant at the time, and he could hardly stand around twiddling his thumbs while his third cousin by marriage got drowne
d in the impossible sucking vortex that taking over a legendary three-star restaurant had been. Daniel had only been nineteen, for God’s sake, and not even risen to sous-chef yet when his girlfriend’s famous chef father died. Gabriel softened a second into reminiscence, almost forgiving Daniel for the fact that the other man had been married eleven damn years to a woman who thought the sun rose and set on him. Something Léa managed to do even though she could never actually see the sun set on him, since he was always in the kitchen at sunset. “God, he was such a skinny kid. So intense.”

  Just like Gabriel had been, in fact. But Daniel had turned into a real damn prince, elegant and self-possessed in a way Gabriel couldn’t even imagine being. He always felt pretty damn good about himself after he finished filming a TV segment—laughing, energetic, dragging the host or hostess into the fun. He felt as if he had reached into the homes of the audience and they were feeling the energy with him. And then he would catch some clip of Daniel, all graceful, contained passion, and just want to sink in his chair at how big he himself was. How out there. Let loose in a china shop, he would never break a single thing, not even a spiderweb spinning between dishes, but people always thought he would.

  “Ooh!” Jolie clapped her hands together, excited. “I might interview you about him, your memories of that first year. That would be awesome! It’s such an incredible story, how he managed to hold that place together.”

  Gabriel’s jaw locked. “You’re supposed to be working with me.” About me. Focused all on me.

  “I had to have some kind of cover story to tell my father,” Jolie explained.

  “Oh, did you?” Gabriel folded his arms, absurdly embarrassed by the way that made his muscles stand out. Daniel always slipped his hands in his pockets. Nobody knew when Daniel was mad.

  “And anyway, I need some more chefs from the south of France for this cookbook, and some more savory food while I’m at it. I’ve been focusing too much on desserts. Daniel Laurier is perfect!”

  Gabriel’s jaw ground so hard it hurt. Daniel always was fucking perfect. Three stars, carried a restaurant on his shoulders at nineteen, and managed to hold Léa Laurier at the same time, a woman who just poured her whole life out for him and thought he deserved it. “I’m supposed to be your”—dream come true—“focus.”

  “Gabriel, come on. You’re going to be busy, starting in about five minutes. Since Daniel Laurier is making his sous-chef executive chef, he has a more relaxed schedule and can actually sit down and talk to me about his decision to step back from the day-to-day handling of the restaurant. Can you imagine the story? A chef’s decision to yield control? I’ve already sold at least one big article on it, and I might be able to get more.”

  “Just how many projects are you working on exactly, while you have that contract with me? Another cookbook, articles on Daniel—”

  “That’s how I earn a living, Gabriel. Multiple projects. I love cookbook writing, but cookbooks take a long time, and the money for them comes in really slowly.”

  She could live off him, he thought sulkily. He had more than enough money for two. She’d probably get pissed off at him if he said that, though.

  On the other hand—his face brightened—he never had tried dating someone who was financially dependent on him. Maybe that would convince someone to overlook his hours.

  “I’m always doing spin-off articles. Things that come up during my research for the books that would make wonderful short pieces. Sometimes it can be just something tiny, like what Gabriel Delange makes for a quick dinner at home.”

  “Potato chips,” he said on a puff of frustrated laughter. “But don’t worry, I can come up with a good quick salad to tell your readers.”

  “Or what Gabriel Delange would make if life handed him a lemon,” she continued, her eyes lighting with ideas.

  “My tarte citron, but I could come up with something new if you want me to. Or five things. How long do you want the article to be? Do you want these to be simple, or is it okay to do something no one else can do?”

  Her eyes caught his a moment, and then a smile broke on her face like sunshine. “You are such a sweetheart!”

  He was? He wasn’t just trying to get all the attention off Daniel Laurier and back on him? But he caught the word, the belief, the glow in her eyes, pressing it hard against his middle, which felt as if it had just whooshed right out of him.

  Her hand rose and curved around his cheek, surprising him and her both. But she didn’t yank it back. He went still under the touch, taking a long, deep breath, soaking in the sensation of it. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “For?” Blackmailing her with her father’s health to make her come work with him?

  She seemed to search for words, her palm still curved over his cheek. He should have shaved. “For being you,” she finally said, as if that covered it.

  It sure as hell covered a lot. For being him. He stared at her, immobilized, as she flushed suddenly, dropped her hand, and ducked out of the alley.

  Heading off to see Daniel Laurier.

  Who had conclusively proven already that he could get women to fall for him forever.

  Chapter 16

  “Gabriel Delange mentioned that he helped you the first year after Henri Rosier died,” Jo said, following Daniel’s lean, graceful, ground-eating stride through the stone building, nearly two centuries old, that had been remodeled by Daniel’s wife’s father, Henri Rosier, into the famous Relais d’Or. Before Chef Rosier had repurposed it and turned it into the home of his legendary restaurant, the place had been used to extract the oils from the roses, violets, and jasmine the region was known for, and Jo could swear she could still smell the scents when she stood close to the stone walls. Or maybe that was some scent coming from the kitchens. Henri Rosier, a Rosier cousin who had had the audacity to branch out from the family fragrance business, was widely credited with starting the trend toward subtly incorporating flower flavors into dishes.

  “That’s right.” A quick kick of that contained Laurier smile, the one that the cameras caught so well on television, where Daniel’s lips only turned up two millimeters but a person felt as if she had brushed close to something glorious. “That was an—interesting time. I wasn’t even remotely ready for a three-star restaurant. But I could hardly walk out and leave it on Léa’s shoulders. She was only eighteen herself and had her two younger siblings to take care of, too. Her father’s pastry chef didn’t have the same qualms about walking out on us, though, so we were rather fortunate your father fired Gabriel just then. If he hadn’t stepped in out of a sense of family—” Daniel broke off and shook his head, clearly unable to say they would have failed, and possibly unable to believe he was capable of failing, but some thought of it flinching across his mind nevertheless.

  “Maybe it was lucky for him you needed him,” Jo suggested. Would it have done her father a world of good if he had gone to save someone instead of sinking into brooding defeat after he lost his star? “Maybe it gave him something to do besides just give up.”

  Daniel’s smile deepened, not growing bigger or wider, just richer somehow, more feeling compressed into it. “Gabe? Give up? You don’t know him very well, I think.”

  “So you liked him?” Jo guessed. Daniel was a hard read. All the chefs she researched were a hard read, now that she thought about it, each with a persona he hid behind. But Daniel was definitely the hardest. So contained you wondered how his body didn’t split from the density of his emotions, all packed in tight like that. That’s probably why he poured so many fantastical creations out of him so fast. “Liked working with him?”

  A glance down at her, warmth in the gray eyes. “I had never met anyone like him. He was so—out there.” And the man known for his contained cleanness, who never gestured extravagantly, whose hands were usually in his pockets when he wasn’t working, spread his arms wide, as the only way he could express Gabriel.

  Jo grinned.

  Daniel’s face warmed further in response to her e
nthusiasm. “Even compared to Henri, who was quite a force of nature, Gabe was huge. He was only twenty-three, and he couldn’t keep a kilo on him, he worked so hard. But even back then you could feel that energy in him. You know, that force he has. These days it’s grown so big that you know if Gabriel Delange is in a room when you’re two meters from the closed door. You can feel him.” He laughed, a low, firm sound, nothing like Gabriel’s full-out happiness. “Sometimes you can hear him.”

  Jo laughed, too, a memory of that roar of his burring over her, making her want to ditch this interview with Daniel and run right back to it, so it could rub over her skin some more.

  Daniel came out on the busy terrace of his restaurant, hands in his pockets again, looking around in seeming casualness. But Jo knew chefs, and she knew that gray gaze was seeing every single square millimeter in the place, and woe betide the person responsible for getting something a millimeter wrong. Only one small table sat empty, at the far end, clearly reserved for them.

  “And he’s such a hopeless romantic.” Daniel shook his head, a lingering curve to his lips. Jo peered at him, surprised at the depth of liking. It wasn’t that common for top chefs to truly like each other. Some part of them always wanted to make sure everyone knew who was really the best.

  “Do you really think so?” she asked, her face softening despite herself.

  A quick cut from those steel-gray eyes. “You didn’t pay any attention to that Rose you put on the cover of your father’s book?”

  Ow. Steel could have a very sharp edge. But at least—“You know that Rose was Gabriel’s?”

  “Every chef in the world knows it was Gabriel’s. You’re only fooling amateur chefs. And those chefs cuisiniers full enough of themselves to truly believe everything that comes out of the pastry kitchen is theirs by virtue of creative osmosis.”

  “So if he put it on his own cookbook, no one would think he was copying?”

  “Hardly,” Daniel said. “Everyone would respect him for reclaiming his own.” He looked at his watch, an elegant, understated titanium that suited his strong wrist perfectly, and glanced around. There was a sense of movement behind them on the stairs, and Jo shifted automatically to make way for waiters, but instead it was a woman with a straw-blonde ponytail, her hand touching the small of Daniel’s back.