B00CACT6TM EBOK Page 14

  She could have kicked herself for mentioning work, too. If for once he stopped working, for God’s sake, let him. No matter what it did to her sense of space.

  “That will confuse them, all right, me coming in late. I should warn Raf at least.” But he lay there gazing at her with guarded eyes, showing no inclination whatsoever to move.

  She tried to get clothes out of her carry-on on the floor, only to realize that the benefits to unpacking included having clothes in drawers. Higher up. Where she didn’t have to bend over in this really skimpy towel to get them.

  She started to bend, hesitated. Shifted so that her butt wasn’t toward him. Saw his eyes follow her butt as it turned away from him. Started to bend again. Saw his gaze glide with a lazy pleasure over her cleavage as more of it started to show. Straightened again. Considered squatting. Which would part the towel and. . . .

  She gave him a frustrated look, wondering if maybe he would go into the bathroom in a second or something, so she could get dressed in comfort.

  He rolled to sit on the edge of the bed, started to stand, and instead just let himself sink down, down, past the edge of the mattress, until his butt hit the floor. “I think I might need to call in sick. You used me.” A little leap of exultancy on the used. He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, feeling the muscles.

  That little smile started to lurk more irrepressibly around the corners of her mouth. She sure had made someone happy.

  “It’s going to be tricky calling in sick to my own restaurant, too, in this size town. Someone will be bound to spot me, and then everyone will be complaining among themselves about how the chef does whatever he wants, but if ever I catch one of them doing it. . .grumble, grumble. I’ll have to hide out in your apartment all day.” He tried to look in desperate need of asylum, but the blue of his eyes gleamed too bright.

  “Tell them you’re dealing with negotations for a cookbook deal this morning and that Raphaël and your sous-chefs will have to handle things, just like they would if you were a guest on a television show or off judging some concours.”

  “Sure, that would work,” he said with lazy amusement. “I like the way you negotiate. How does it work out? Whoever has the fewest orgasms gets the highest percentage of the royalties to make up for it? You’re not going to be making much out of the deal at that rate.” He grinned.

  And she had thought he was arrogant and self-satisfied before.

  “It’s too late, though,” he said. “We already have an ironclad contract.” A sudden, surprisingly dark glance, a subtle emphasis on ironclad contract. “You can’t renegotiate the terms.”

  “You mean you can’t,” she retorted. “You’re the one trying to steal my royalties.”

  “It’s not my fault you’re easy,” he grinned, entirely full of himself, and she gasped and took a step back.

  His eyes caught on her face. “What did I say? Oh, no, I didn’t mean—Jolie, I was just teasing you about how many times you—merde. I didn’t mean—” He smacked his head against the heels of his palms.

  He was so expressive. So—she smiled—out there. Every bit of him extended into the world.

  He groaned into his arms and lifted his head with a sudden self-assertion. “Just because I can do something doesn’t mean it’s easy to do. I bet no one else has ever made you come five times in one night.” And he grinned again.

  If she had a pillow to hand, she would smack him on the head with it until the room was full of feathers. Unfortunately, she would have to go through him to reach the pillows, and she didn’t think that would work out for her the way she planned.

  She threw the wet towel—what the hell point was there of trying to hide your body from a man who had given you five orgasms, anyway?—and turned her back on him, reaching for bra and panties. He made a low rumbling sound of pleasure, watching her, and in the mirror, she saw him gather the damp towel in his fists and sneak a deep breath of it.

  Of her scent.

  That man. He melted her. He made her want to do anything for him. But what kind of insane person fell for a top chef? You enjoyed their work. You loved their work, all the creative, magnificent, ruthlessly driven spirit they poured into it, but that was all you took from them. You never tried to fit yourself into their non-existent private life.

  Nobody fit into something that sliver thin.

  And this particular chef was her father’s adamant enemy. He was blackmailing her into being here with him instead of with her father where she should be.

  She suspected he was about as capable of enforcing that blackmail as kicking a kitten, but she refused to admit that out loud to herself or anyone else. Otherwise, the guilt for being here would be too great.

  “You don’t feel too used?” he asked suddenly. And there it was again, that wariness.

  Gloriously so. “I like my body. It’s nice somebody got some use out of it.” She grinned at him.

  He looked a little confused at this attitude, as if a woman enjoying him using her was a whole new concept. What, were all the women in the south of France complete idiots or something? But then he slowly grinned back at her. “Any time you want to feel your body is, ah, useful to and appreciated by someone besides yourself, you just let me know. In fact, I’ll do my best to make sure you don’t even have to ask.”

  She laughed.

  And then thought, Good lord. Does he think this is the start of a beautiful affair?

  Is it the start of a beautiful affair? They had, at a minimum, a year of cookbook work to do together. But she didn’t do year-long affairs. Men were just so invasive and clingy, draping around her life like some heavy, wet cloak she just had to shrug off.

  She bet Gabriel would not be very shruggable. The very idea made her mouth curve wryly. On the other hand—he didn’t really drape much either, did he? Too full of energy. Nothing about him yet felt likely to weigh her down. Quite the reverse. He suffused her life with exhiliration.

  Pulling a sea-green knit shirt over her head, she turned and looked at him for a second. She would have said he was a man who didn’t let anyone “do” things with him. Too aggressive, too arrogant, too big. But he had locked himself in that doorway the night before until she knew what she wanted.

  So . . . what was she going to do with him?

  Gabriel made it to the shower with a lazy, easy smile on his face, and then he turned on the water full blast and slowly let his back slide down the wall, until he was sitting with his legs crunched up by the opposite wall. The water beat down on him, streaming into his eyes.

  What had he done?

  No sudden movements. He had known he shouldn’t make any sudden movements with her hand gripping his heart like that.

  And sure enough, she had ripped it right out of his body, and now she was standing there looking at it as if it was icky and bloody and she wasn’t sure where to put it so that it didn’t mess anything up.

  He sank his head forward into his hands, the water pounding on the back of his head. His chest felt torn wide open, one gaping, terrifying hole, and no one was handing her heart back across the way to fill the spot.

  What the hell had he just done to himself?

  Chapter 19

  The argument exploded as soon as Jolie referred to her train trip back to Paris, Gabriel’s outrage immediate.

  “You haven’t even stayed a full three days here! You didn’t get here until Tuesday and then we spent all of that day getting you set up in your apartment. I should get Friday this week.”

  “Gabriel, don’t you have a flock of César-winning actors coming up from Cannes Friday night for some big banquet? When do you think you’ll have time to see me?”

  Gabriel shoved his toe against the nearest counter in something suspiciously like a kick. “At night,” he muttered.

  Jolie folded her arms. Not that she minded the at night as much as all that—especially if he still had some energy left—but a woman had to draw the line.

  “And at five in the morning.” His
expression was wistful until he looked up and caught hers, and then he folded his own arms defensively. That did such hot things to his biceps. “Well, what?”

  “At five in the morning, I would be heading down to Nice to catch the first train. No. This will just have to be a short week, as we agreed, because I had to have Monday to get everything organized with Papa’s therapists.”

  The usual conflicted expressions on his face when she mentioned anything pertaining to her father’s stroke—pity, some flash of fear, and outraged frustration at both feelings. As well as jealousy, resentment, and a powerful old hatred, his knuckles digging into his arms.

  “If you stayed, you could come to the kitchen and watch and get something to eat. And do an article or something, about a ‘Feast for the Stars’,” Gabriel urged. He didn’t really know how to lose something, did he? He kept bouncing right back with more arguments.

  His ideas sounded fantastic—far better than watching her father roll a rolling pin on a table as if life had nothing left. “Gabriel,” Jolie said desperately, tightly. “Stop it. Don’t cling so much.”

  He took a step back, his expression blanking.

  “Sorry.” Jolie scrubbed her face. “I didn’t mean that exactly, I just”—she drew a breath, her voice dropping—“don’t make it harder.”

  Again a war of expressions on his face, one of which was sudden bright pleasure. “It’s hard?”

  Jolie glared at him.

  “Pardon,” it was his turn to say. “I just meant”—the brightness crept back into his face, irrepressible—“hard to leave me? Or just hard to go back to”—his tone darkened—“Pierre Manon?”

  He always said her father’s name in the same tone as that bastard. Sometimes it was that poor bastard, but bastard was always in there.

  “Look, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. We had an agreement—”

  “And you’re not meeting it,” he said promptly. “We agreed on three full days a week.”

  “And that means Friday through Sunday in Paris,” Jolie spoke over him determinedly. “So I’m leaving tonight. As we agreed.”

  “What?” Gabriel’s arms flung out in outrage. “Tonight? Why can’t you leave in the morning?”

  “Because then it won’t be three full days in Paris,” Jolie said between her teeth. Like, what, she would rather be on a night train back to deal with her father’s depression than curled up late typing her notes for the day in comfort, near a three-star restaurant where she could stop by whenever she wanted a snack, all while waiting for a man who knew how to give a woman five orgasms in a row?

  “How late tonight?” Gabriel sounded rather panicked. “I thought—putain, Jolie.”

  “I thought I would catch the train at five,” she said. After his afternoon break finished.

  “You’re not even going to stay and eat?” he asked sulkily.

  Damn it, that was such an unfair temptation. He was impossibly irresistible. “Stop it!”

  “You could catch the train at nine. You’ll get in too late to see your father until the morning anyway.”

  Jolie hesitated. “I would get in too late for the Métro. I suppose there will be taxis at the station, though, even that late at night.” Would there be? She had never actually gotten into a Paris train station that late.

  Gabriel began to frown. “Where is your apartment exactly? Is it a secure building? Damn it—it will be three in the morning, won’t it? I don’t—never mind.” He growled, and her skin prickled everywhere, and most particularly in her nipples. “Just—fine. You can catch the five o’clock train. Putain. Maybe you should leave at four.”

  He scowled down at his feet, the biceps in those folded arms bulging with frustration.

  “Thank you,” Jolie said awfully, “for your permission.”

  He shot her a quick, feral look and snarled.

  Wow. That snarl was so hot. And he was concerned about her safety, too. Hot and sweet. And extremely demanding.

  His fists clenched and unclenched in the fold of his elbows. “So are you going to be back by Monday this time? Like you’re supposed to be? As per, you know, our contract.”

  “I’ll catch the first train out Monday morning,” Jolie promised. And wasn’t that going to be a thrill, dragging herself to the station by five a.m.

  “But then you won’t get here until nearly noon! The restaurant is closed Monday!” Gabriel sounded like a child who had just had Christmas wrenched away from him.

  Was spending the morning with her Christmas? Jolie thought with a spark of joy. “Well . . . I could come late Sunday. It’s a five and a half hour trip, so if I left at eight, I would get in at . . . one-thirty in the morning.” And then have to drive up here, negotiating those narrow, impossible streets in the dark, tired.

  More scowling. “Why not Sunday afternoon?”

  “Because then that’s only two and a half days in Paris? Did I mention that my father just had a—”

  “Stroke.” This time the shove of his toe against the counter was considerably harder. “Yes. I got it. I got it.” A pause when she thought he was going to let it drop. “But why do I have to get all the half days? I only have two full days. Why does he always get first choice of everything?”

  Jolie gaped at him. Outrage surged. “I’m sorry, who exactly do you think my days belong to? I’m not a candy bar you’re splitting between you!”

  He growled again. And hung his head. And then sighed slowly, at least some of the tension relaxing out of his body. “Pardon,” he muttered. “You’re right.” He reached for her, pulling her into his arms, his muscles still too taut but the gesture soothing her, nevertheless. Until he spoke again: “You’re much more special than a candy-bar. You taste better, too. I’ll make you something sometime, to show you what you are.”

  For someone who made everything in life seem possible, he sure as hell was hopeless. She thumped her head against his chest. “And I’m the one spending eleven hours on a train every week! Not to mention all the time getting to and from the station!”

  He sighed again, very heavily, and wrapped her more tightly in his arms. “Damn Pierre Manon,” he muttered, so low and grumbly she almost didn’t catch it. And maybe wasn’t meant to.

  Gabriel might be the hottest thing since molten sugar, but he wasn’t exactly without his issues.

  Chapter 20

  “Salut, Papa,” Jolie said cheerfully, bending down to kiss her father’s cheek.

  “How was he?” he asked. “Daniel Laurier?”

  “He just promoted his second to executive chef, if you can believe it. He’s taking a step back. Trying to find more family time.” She snuck a sideways glance at her father’s face, not quite sure what she was looking for or why she didn’t want him to know she was looking for it. Some regret, for the fact that he had put his own restaurant before his family? Some reflection on it?

  “Daniel Laurier?” her father said incredulously. “What happened, did he hear a rumor that the restaurant was going to lose a star? He wants to make sure that gets blamed on someone else?”

  “I don’t think so, Papa.” Jolie turned away, oddly saddened. Whatever she had been looking for, she hadn’t found it. “Have you thought any more about that invitation from Luc Leroi?” she asked carefully, not looking at him.

  Her father stood from the couch and walked over to the window, a little slower and heavier on the left side than the right, but not too bad. Jolie liked his physical therapist. The woman didn’t put up with much.

  “Remember, when I was interviewing him last week, he said the Leucé would be delighted to host us for an event in honor of the cookbook,” she said. “He offered to have himself and his chefs make a selection of the recipes to serve.”

  The Hôtel de Leucé was only one of the most famous restaurants in the world. But, of course, the Leucé had climbed up in the world while Pierre Manon’s restaurant at the hotel’s rival, the Luxe, had fallen. Back when her father had three stars, the Leucé only had two. Now the
ir situations were reversed—or rather, her father had no stars, really, since he had quit, but everyone knew that under his leadership the Luxe had both gained its third star and lost it.

  “Why?” Pierre Manon asked harshly. “Pity?”

  Jolie bit her lip. The energy and cheerfulness she had absorbed in Sainte-Mère wavered, struggling to hold up against the heaviness in this apartment. “I think it was for my sake,” she said cautiously.

  Her father clenched his fist—his left fist—slowly and carefully and hard.

  “Because I’m working with him, Papa. I think he’s offering it as a friendly gesture.” Even when she was working on other books, did her father still see her as only that tiny font name?

  “Five years ago, when those idiots were taking away one of my stars, they were giving one to that kid. And he’s going to make my recipes to help me? You may not think it’s pity, but I know pity when I see it.”

  Jolie was silent a long moment. “I think it was to help me,” she said again. “He’s actually a very nice guy, under that intense self-control of his. I think he likes to help people live their dreams.”

  Her father snorted. “The amount of people who have interviewed Luc Leroi can’t even be counted. It doesn’t make you important enough for him to organize an event in your honor.”

  Jo’s jaw set. Tears stung, sudden and bright, but she blinked them back. “All right, Papa. Come for a walk with me in the gardens? We’ll stop and eat in the bistrot at the corner.” Her father never felt threatened by the homey bistrot.

  Settling into the seat on the TGV south to Nice three days later was like exfoliating the soul. First the guilt and then the worry, slowly washed away by the inexorable swift roll of the train, to reveal the bright hopefulness, clean again.

  It wasn’t so bad, really, having a five and a half hour commute. She typed up notes from her kitchen testing of recipes and from the work with Philippe Lyonnais that Friday. How to process his macarons into a recipe a home cook could approximate was a challenge. She watched Youtube clips of Gabriel demonstrating a dessert for this or that TV station—big, fun, pulling everyone into his energy. She drafted some behind-the-scenes stories to post over the next week on her blog. She scrolled through the weekend’s texts from Gabriel. There were a lot, photo after photo of different savory and sweet plates being produced or tested in his restaurant, with which he wanted to tempt her. Once in a while a word thrown in: Hungry yet?