The Chocolate Temptation (Amour et Chocolat) Page 17

  Or getting to Sarah’s…? Exhaustion crushed the thought like a granite boulder. He couldn’t handle Sarah tonight. He couldn’t manipulate his way out of a cardboard box right now. That dark gaze would look straight at him as he fell in a heap on her bed, and that bright brain of hers would think, Wait. I thought he was special? Maybe I should take another look at some of those guys at Caltech.

  He hoped to God he could find a taxi without trouble. The thought of dragging himself through the cold streets, getting ignored by taxi after occupied taxi, washed through him, and that floor looked so tempting. No, he couldn’t let the commis see him like that.

  Maybe lock himself in Luc’s office?

  No, no, no. Get home.

  He dragged himself out of the kitchens through the back service entrance and stopped dead when he saw Sarah: bundled up everywhere until only her eyes peeked out, shivering in the dark street. “Sarah, what the–” He glanced around, but no one was there to see him. He knew still, in a dull way, his brain getting lost more and more in a morass of fatigue, that he was supposed to keep them a secret, that she was ashamed. That was why she wasn’t waiting for him inside, where it was warm. But he couldn’t quite figure out how to accomplish keeping that a secret right this moment, with her coming up to him, her gloved hands shoved up her own sleeves, shivering. “Sarah, what the fuck are you doing out here? It’s after midnight. You shouldn’t be just standing around on a street, waiting for someone to come harass you.”

  She pulled in on herself even more tightly, which had to be a trick for someone already as tight against the cold as she was. He wanted to put his arm around her to help with the cold, and he remembered people might see, and his brain felt so sluggish. “I was worried about you,” she said, low and…embarrassed. He had made her feel bad.

  She was worried about him, she was trying to take care of him, and he wouldn’t even know how to deal with that when his brain was awake and working properly. She shouldn’t see him like this, anyway. He didn’t want her to see him weaker and not in charge. He was going to handle this badly, he knew it, and he wished to hell she had caught him before he slid his chef’s jacket off, because now that the adrenaline had sludged off him, he couldn’t seem to scrape even an iota of it back up to help him deal with this.

  His lack of sleep had already put an edge on him all day, so that tempers had flared in the kitchens far more than they usually did and usually in his wake. “I’m all right,” he said, which was a lie, but he didn’t see why he should start telling her the truth at this hour of the night. Talk about a recipe for disaster.

  “Let me just get you home.” She looked stubborn. “Patrick, you look terrible.”

  Well, then, he didn’t want her to see him, for fuck’s sake. He caught the flick of temper before he could let it lash her, but still…he didn’t.

  “Fine,” he said stiffly, walking with her toward the Champs so they could get this over with. Oh, shit, she thought he lived in the Ninth.

  Did he want to deal with her knowing he had lied about that, or did he want to deal with pretending to go into a building that wasn’t his, and then, still, having to find his way home? Putain, he was so tired. That bench over there would be a perfect place to sleep.

  Sarah so should not see him like this. What had possessed her? She could have been curled up safe and warm in her bed and never had a clue that he had moments when he wasn’t all that hot. Weak, his brain too clumsy to manipulate his situation.

  And her standing on the street alone for who knew how long at that hour of the night, too. Fuck.

  Sarah, of course, looked so pretty and small that she found a cab immediately, and it was totally irrational to credit that to her looks, given how bundled up she was, but when was the last time he had slept? He could be irrational. Besides, if he was a cab driver, he would have stopped for her. And dumped his previous passengers right out on the sidewalk to make room, too.

  “Where to?” the cab driver finally prompted when nobody spoke, and Sarah looked at Patrick expectantly.

  What, couldn’t she even think about just taking him to her place? That pissed him off again – his temper had really suffered from this day – and he slumped in his seat and growled his address, closing his eyes so that he didn’t have to see her expression when she realized it was in the Fifth and not remotely near her apartment as he had claimed.

  Closing his eyes worked so well that he just kept them that way, and the next thing he knew, small but very strong hands were shaking him. “Patrick. Patrick, wake up. I can’t carry you.”

  In a minute, for fuck’s sake. Surely he could sleep one more minute.

  “Patrick. I need your help.”

  Oh, what? Oh, shit, really? But he dragged himself up out of it, struggling like a flounder against a tsunami. Did flounder live where there were tsunamis? His brain slogged and tangled through the question, as if that wave was in slow motion and he was stuck in it, and finally he managed to get his eyes open. “Sarah?”

  “You have to get up.” She sounded sorry and sympathetic, but firm. “We’re still in the cab, Patrick. Get out. Just a few more steps, and you can sleep, all right?”

  Well, merde. He opened the door without remembering to take his weight off it and more fell than rose out of the cab. The cold air hit him, which was damn rude of it considering how tired he was, and he just wanted to be in bed. He took three steps toward the door and then missed Sarah and looked back to find her paying off the cab. Oh, that – no. He didn’t like that. He went back, digging for his wallet, but it was too late, and the cab was already pulling away.

  He frowned at her. “How much was it?”

  “Shut up,” she said, which startled the hell out of him. She’d never had the nerve to speak to him like that in all the time they worked together. Well…she couldn’t, in the kitchens. She had to say yes and just grit her teeth and bear it, if he was annoying.

  He was such a screwed-up asshole, not to have held out for those last weeks.

  “Type in your code,” she told him, pushing him to the door.

  “0608.” He leaned against it, closing his eyes again. It clicked open, and he fell backward a step and grabbed her to take her with him. Although he didn’t know why he did that, she – “Sarah, why did you send away the cab? You have to get home, too. I don’t want you wandering the streets looking for one at this hour. And it’s getting late to catch the Métro.”

  A tiny check of her foot on the first step of his stairs. But she didn’t say anything, just pushed at him to lead the way.

  “You first,” he said. “I don’t want to fall on you if I’m so tired I trip.”

  “I don’t know what floor you’re on, Patrick.” A trace of dark irony entered her voice. “After all, I still thought you lived in the Ninth.”

  “I might have fudged a little about that,” he said airily, and pressed her in front of him up the stairs. “I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  “Yes, I’m sure you will,” she said, very dry and dark, and his brain couldn’t quite process why. He was going to have so much shit to straighten out tomorrow after he got some sleep. He probably needed to take the whole team out for drinks, too; he’d been such a bastard to deal with. Maybe he could buy Sarah diamonds or something, to tell her he was sorry for whatever he was screwing up right now.

  Oh, no, she hadn’t liked the earrings.

  Fuck.

  Flowers seemed so…skimpy. They died. She couldn’t put them on her body and wear his mark of her everywhere she went. And he’d been giving her chocolate and sweets of all descriptions ten times a day for months, and he wasn’t entirely sure she’d even noticed.

  “Oh, here,” he realized and grabbed her as she started up the next flight, pulling her back down to his door. She fell against him. “Sorry.” He righted her and found his keys.

  She took them from him and opened the door, which he thought was oddly…sweet. This whole thing was sweet. She was taking care of him?

  Sh
e had worried about him?

  Was there a way to let her do that sometimes without her actually seeing that he might have moments of weakness when he needed care?

  His apartment opened before him like a vast sigh of relief. Home. All he had to do was get his shoes off and flop down. Maybe shower, he felt so nasty. Oh, yeah, a shower would feel so damned good and also the thought of not stinking too much for Sarah.

  Hilarious, really, given how much time they spent working around each other in hot kitchens at top speed, but…he always wished he could take the stink and the foul mouths and the rough speed of it away for her and just let her concentrate on making pretty things in peace and quiet, the way she liked to do.

  His apartment was about five times bigger than hers, which hardly made it enormous, but the open floor plan gave it a sense of space, as did the great glass windows through which he could catch a glimpse of Notre-Dame and the Seine, only two streets away. But not so much of a glimpse that spotlights shone directly on him all freaking night from the tour boats. Those spotlights were more like pretty winks from flirty stars at this angle. To the right of the door was his perfect, commanding kitchen space, a step above the rest of the room, with the counter at which he could work while looking out over everything. Marble, a nice rose-gray marble he thought Sarah would look good against.

  He never had people over – no time, really, and when he dated, it was much, much better to slip out of a woman’s bed at two or three in the morning and make his way home than to try to kick her out of his at six a.m. so he could get to work. One gave him a nice, safe feeling of escaping into the night before things started to matter too much, while the other just made for a shitty start to a day. And he never cooked anything but the simplest thrown-together meals – granted, he could throw together quite a bit – but the idea of the kitchen had appealed when he bought the place. And had appealed even more after he had that new countertop installed a month after Sarah started her internship. He could actually stand at the counter and imagine her draped over it for him, and do a lordly survey of the bed where he would take her next.

  That bed took up a luxurious, lazy space near the great windows, lovingly framed by the arrangement of spare furniture and carpet, pretty much suggesting the whole apartment was dedicated to that bed, and he liked that, too, because almost all he had time to do in this apartment was sleep, and sleep with profound joy to be able to do so at last.

  Oh, yeah, he loved that bed. Chérie, I’m home. Just one more second. Thank you for waiting for me.

  “Sarah,” he said ruefully as she pushed him firmly toward the bed. “Ma chérie, tonight’s not…I’ve got to sleep.”

  God knew what he would screw up if he tried having sex in this state. She might end up pregnant. Worse, she might not even come.

  Well, maybe she wouldn’t think that was worse, but…

  It was official: his brain was way too fudged with fatigue for him to risk unzipping his pants.

  “I know,” she said, in that quiet, steady way of hers, that shyness she tried to keep in such firm control so it wouldn’t take her over. She pushed him toward the bed again. That was hot, Sarah getting bossy and demanding with him, oh, that would be fun to play with, but…when he was awake, maybe? So he wouldn’t ruin it?

  He redirected himself toward the bathroom door. “Let me take a shower at least.”

  “Patrick.” She was flushing. “I’m not trying to have sex!”

  He blinked, holding on to the bathroom doorjamb a second. “Then why are you still here?” he asked, his brain pure sludge. To just cuddle up and sleep with him? Sarah?

  Oh, that would be – he shut the door between them and leaned back against it, his face relaxing into a beatific smile. It sounded way less likely than his fantasy of getting her to come fifteen times against that gorgeous marble counter, but that would be so sweet.

  Chapter 20

  Sarah closed Patrick’s apartment door quietly behind her, listening to the lock snick to shut her out, and then took five steps down the stairs before she sat abruptly on them. Then she buried her face in her hands, sick to her stomach. Then why are you still here?

  Her mouth twisted bitterly. So even you can’t hide the truth when you’re that tired, can you, Patrick?

  And she’d thought he was so damn cute. Even when she realized he didn’t even want her to know where he lived, that he’d lied to her in order to get into her apartment. Even when he tried to turn her away at his door, making it clear he didn’t expect her to stay. She’d kept pushing, her stupid change of clothes and her stupid toothbrush tucked up into her little backpack with all those expectations. His grumpy exhaustion endearing. Like he might actually need her for something on some rare occasion – to take care of him, to make sure he got home all right. Damn it, to pull off his damn shoes for him and a blanket over his tired body.

  Yeah.

  And he’d thought, Then why are you still here?

  If it’s not for sex.

  What kind of illusions had she started to get? Just because he charmed the hell out of her didn’t mean anything except that he was charming.

  She dashed her hand suddenly, fiercely across her eyes, and shoved herself off the stairs.

  ***

  By the time Patrick got out of the shower, he felt half human again. Not awake, but like someone a woman could curl up against without being revolted. Like someone who could sleep a long, long heavy time, with his arm over a slight waist, not letting her get away even while he was unconscious. He’d let her sleep on the window side, so she could enjoy the view while he snored. Did he snore?

  He wasn’t sure he could stand the idea of her finding out, if so.

  But he could hardly kick her out to save his reputation. It was cold outside, and it was one in the morning, and he didn’t want her in the streets alone at one in the morning. He hated that solitary night-walking habit of hers.

  So he relaxed himself to his vulnerability, increasingly warmed by his own resignation, and padded, mostly damp still, wrapped in a towel, out of the bathroom.

  The great, open space was empty. The wave of bleakness hit him out of nowhere. “Sarah?”

  She wouldn’t hide behind the counter or between the bed and the window, but he looked anyway. Then he looked back in the bathroom, absurdly, as if she might have snuck back in there somehow.

  Then he sat down on the bed and stared at his hands a moment, and the three burns on them and his forearms, deeply hurt. She’d just left?

  Just – not even goodbye? Had he not heard her over the shower? Had she maybe at least knocked on the door and said she would see him tomorrow?

  He found his phone to text her to let him know when she got home all right, and then suddenly threw it across the room without typing the message. Then he rolled over on the bed, pulled his pillow over his head so the damn star spotlights couldn’t wink at him, and fell asleep like falling into tangled, inky octopus arms of worry.

  Chapter 21

  I hate this kitchen, Sarah thought as she changed in the locker room. For the first time since she had started her internship, she was almost late. One minute more. I hate everything about it. I hate the sweat, and the noise, and the men cursing. I hate the bodies bumping me, and every single damned time Chef Leroi looks my way, and I hate, hate, hate the stupid surfer chef who juggles me just as carelessly as every other damn thing.

  Those midnight-Paris earrings grazed just below her earlobes as she thrust her things into her locker, and she slapped her hand over the one she could see in the mirror she had fixed inside the locker door. Why are you still here?

  Like, what other use could she have to him but casual sex? She didn’t belong in his life. In his apartment.

  She jerked the earrings free, so tempted to throw them somewhere – in his face, in the trash right in front of him. But she couldn’t just throw something so valuable away. Somewhere else in the world, the cost of those earrings would probably feed a village for a year. So she shoved th
em in the back of the locker.

  It seemed fitting that the act left her ears bare for the first time in years. She had chosen to strip herself of those engineering accomplishments that her pearl earrings had represented and start anew.

  So start anew. No crutches.

  I don’t need him, I don’t need him.

  I don’t care about him.

  I am me.

  God damn it, I can be me without anybody else’s help. I can reach my own dreams!

  She built a bubble around herself, in her head, and inside it, there was cool and quiet, the noise and the bumping bodies bouncing off its force field. She could focus. Just her. All that mattered.

  Then why are you still here?

  Because it’s my dream. Mine. I didn’t come all this way, and betray all my parents’ hopes for me, to give up.

  The cold from the marble wanted to seep into her bones and turn her into one of those marble counters herself.

  Outside the force field, Patrick was in a particularly merry mood today, as if he just couldn’t be satisfied until everyone thought he was special. His handwriting on the whiteboard had her working on the sugar slippers again. Good. She could focus on that. Something important.

  Something that mattered more than he did.

  As she used the stove near the pass to melt sugar and Isomalt, Patrick leaned across into Chef Leroi’s station right in the middle of her line of view and squeezed out a giant heart in red raspberry sauce over the marble, complete with exaggeratedly kissy lips. Grinning, he finished the heart tip with a flourish and shifted back into his own space, catching her gaze with a wink.

  Chef Leroi reappeared, checked just a second at the sight of the heart Patrick had drawn, and – to the utter wonder of everyone in the kitchens – tilted his head back and laughed out loud. Wow. Maybe he and Summer Corey were working things out.