A Wish Upon Jasmine (35 page)

“I can get better,” she said quickly. “I’m still trying. It never works out in the bottle like it does in my head.”

“I love your trying,” he said fiercely, shifting his weight so that he trapped her against the counter. “I love that you keep trying to get at me, again and again. I want that so much.”

“Even if I screw up and doubt and fail?”

“Especially.” His hands tightened too hard on her hips as he buried his face in her hair. “It’s how much it costs you to try that makes the effort so precious.” His arms flexed around her. “Me, too,” he whispered into her hair. “I’m trying, too.”

Yes. He was, wasn’t he? Over and over, even when he screwed up and doubted and failed.

She slipped her arms around him and breathed against his chest as if she could blow ease onto his heart. “Did the lavender help your migraines?”

“It helped more than that.” He tilted her head back and began to work gently at the catch of one earring.

Her eyes flew open. “Damien!”

“They had a full set in the jasmine motif,” he said apologetically. “I liked them all.” He laid her stud on the counter and, with the care of a man who could thread cufflinks deftly but didn’t want to hurt her ear, slipped another post through her lobe, so that a delicate dangle brushed against it. She turned her head to catch sight of the other earring still in the box. A matching jasmine design, a tiny strand of diamonds with a little jasmine at the end.

His fingers moved on her other ear. “When I was in Paris, I saw this set on the Faubourg Saint-Honoré, and I thought, maybe that’s what she needs. Little…proofs. Everywhere I can put them.”

Jess buried her face in her hands.

“They didn’t have an anklet,” he said after a moment. “But maybe I could commission one.”

She couldn’t speak.

“I guess that’s overkill,” he said finally. “But all together, they’re still not worth as much as that damn watch I gave you, and you didn’t believe in that.”

That watch was worth more than a flawless diamond bracelet, necklace, earrings, and ring? She spread her fingers to gape at him. “How much is the watch worth?”

He told her.

Good lord.

“My father tends to go overboard, too,” he said. “I guess if money is what you’re good at, it’s important to give what you can buy with it to the people you…care about. But nobody ever gets that. They say it’s just money and you’re trying to buy love.”

Her eyebrows drew a little together. “Somebody said that to you?” Who else’s love had he tried to buy?

“My mom says it to my dad. They fought a lot when I was a kid. I told you—she didn’t like what she said he was turning me into.”

“I like it,” she said quietly, and reached up to touch those beautiful cheekbones of his. “What you turned into.”

His lips curled a little, between her palms. His eyes, holding hers, stayed very serious.

“If I liked it a little less, it would be easier,” she said. “Easier to believe that…you know…I could really have you.”

He stroked her back. Of all the “little proofs” that now brushed her body, that touch was the most reassuring of all. She spread her fingers against his chest.

“In their wedding photos, my parents look so happy,” Damien said suddenly. “My father really loves my mother, you know. But she doesn’t understand him. And they stopped being able to reach each other by the time I was old enough to notice that kind of thing.”

Jess kneaded her fingers gently into his chest.

“You make me feel whole,” he said. “I told you. You make my heart beat. It’s as if all that great empty spot inside me…you fill it up with something sweet, just for me.”

Oh.
Incredible happiness filled her. And it was funny that he should put it that way, because he made her feel as if all that emptiness outside her, he wrapped himself around her and made it go away.

His breath released against her hair in a sigh. “But if you look at their wedding photos, it looks as if my parents once had the same thing. And everyone says I’m exactly like my father and my grandfather. So…”

“You, too,” she realized softly. “You have a hard time believing your wish can come true, too.” Because he, too, knew he couldn’t catch stars. He knew he could only buy diamonds.

He nodded.

She couldn’t refuse these diamonds. It would be like throwing all his worth and accomplishments back in his face, when he offered her what he thought was the best of himself. But she couldn’t let him think they were what was truly important, either.

“Do you know, every single good perfume I’ve ever made, it’s scared the hell out of me,” she said. “The more it matters, the harder it is. A couple of those I left on your desk, I was sick with nerves when I forced myself to put the first concepts down on paper. But then I find my strength. While I’m doing it. And I keep going. I almost never believe I can do it. But I can keep trying.”

His arms tightened on her, pulling her in close. “I love you,” he said, very low and deep. The words vibrated through his chest, under her hands.

Oh. Oh.
That
was the proof. Those words rang so solid even she could believe in them. “That’s better than diamonds,” she whispered. “Better than flowers. And it doesn’t even have a scent. Or a texture.”

He drew a hand through her hair, twining it around his fingers. “It does to me.”

She petted his chest. He was so right.
This
was the texture and scent of those words. “I fell in love with you on that terrace in New York,” she whispered. “So hard. It was like I fell off the damn building, fifty stories up and plummeting, and you swooped in and caught me and carried me up to the stars.”

He bent his head to her hair. “When I think about how you treated me the week after, when inside you felt like that, I get
so pissed off.
”

“You have a problem with grudges.”

“Evidently.” He kneaded his fingers into her back. Despite what he said, he didn’t look angry. He looked wondering.

“It was just too dark a time.” Even now her eyes filled remembering it. “I couldn’t believe in that much happiness. I wanted to, I tried to, but I couldn’t. I know we met on a terrace on top of the world, but in real life, I was stuck down in some dark cave.”

His arms tightened on her. “God
damn it
, I wish I’d been there for you. If you’d
told
me—” But he broke off, stopping the accusation. That was water they had to let flow under its bridge.

She pressed her hand against his chest, looking up at him. “Your mother tried to tell you this when you were little, but of course little kids never understand. That all she needed for her birthday, as proof you loved her, were hugs and kisses, those were the best of all. You learned the hard way that you couldn’t catch the moon and stars”—she touched the scar on his chin—“but it looks as if you decided that you sure as hell didn’t have to make do with just glitter instead.” She touched the bracelet and the necklace and earrings. “I love them. Thank you. I love that you took everything you were good at, and
thought
about me, and gave me something that only you could give and which has meaning to both of us.”

He looked pleased, in a reserved way, like she was touching too close to something that mattered to him. Relieved. He looked a little like she had felt, when she asked him if he liked her perfume and he had said yes. Like maybe this was his equivalent of an artist’s gift of self.

“They’re lovely,” she said again, petting his cheek. “But I think you’ve still never absorbed the real message. That you are the actual star.”

He bent his head. Color climbed his cheeks, those hard cheekbones that she had once thought could never possibly blush. He looked heart-wrenchingly vulnerable. “Jasmin,” he said, strangled.

“I was right, what I thought on that terrace. If I’ve caught you, then this whole world is full of magic again.”

His lashes lifted, and his eyes held hers. For a moment, she thought his might have
shimmered.
“
Merde
, that’s so true,” he whispered. “You’re my magic. For me. But
I’m
not magic, Jasmin. I’m the hard, practical one.”

She shook her head. “I told you before. You’re
the wish come true.”

His arms tightened so hard. “I love the way you keep wishing,” he murmured. “You keep trying. Even when you’re sure you can’t pluck the stars out of the sky, even when you’re seeing them from the bottom of a well, you’ll dream on them anyway. I bet you stretched your hand up, that night in Texas you told me about, and tried to see if your fingertips could brush them. I love you so damn much, Jasmin.”

The words shook through her, precious and beautiful and shivering. Like he’d hung all those diamonds on a tree and set them to vibrating.

“Humans are harder than stars,” she said. “Harder than perfumes. They’re so…human. Things happen to them. They change. They die.”

He covered her hand on his heart. “I can’t promise you forever on the universe’s terms. But I can promise you that while this beats, it beats for you.”

Emotions strangled her. She caught a tear as it leaked from her eye, trying to be surreptitious. But since their fingers were tangled, it was his knuckle that wiped it away.

“You wore one of the scents.” It was here, in the hollow of his throat. “The—”

“—wishing,” he said softly. The sweet jasmine and vanilla and almond, that naïve, delicious wish for happiness like a candle against darkness.

She gasped a breath. “That’s
it
!” Her whole brain sprang awake, as if she’d been hit by lightning. She pushed back away from him to clap her hands. “That’s it! That’s the concept!” She swung over the counter away from him, grabbing for her notebook. “Your scent. We’ve got the same metallic, right, but there, at the core of it, that
wishing
, that sweetness, that—” She wrote quickly, until Damien’s hand closed over hers, stopping her pen.

“You’re left-handed,” he said.

“Yes.” She tried to shake his hand loose. “One second, let me just get this down—maybe there should be a little lavender in it, too, I—”

His fingers tightened. “I have a question pending for your left hand.”

She stilled. And lifted her eyes slowly to his. “You were serious about that?”

He stared at her incredulously a second. And then just lifted her up, hauled her back across the counter to him, and thunked his head in despair against hers.

Gently expressed despair, but clear nevertheless.

“Sorry. I’m sorry. I’m trying. You really are
quite
incredible, you know.” She buried her face in his neck and whispered what she had been trying to say in those fragrances: “And I really, really love you.”

His hands flexed on her at the words, this deep pull of her into his body. He lifted his head. “What do you wish for, Jasmin? Give it your best shot.”

She took a deep breath. “This.” Her thumb rubbed over the spot on his collarbone where he had spritzed her wishing scent. “Happiness.” It wasn’t so hard, after all, to meet those seawater eyes. It wasn’t so hard, to reach for him and catch him. He was right there. “You.”

His smile lit his whole face. He took her hand, sliding the ring onto her finger. “You have to be careful what you wish for around me. According to my family.” His thumb rubbed possessively over the ring on her finger, and he lifted her hand enough to study the effect. His smile deepened.

“What do
you
wish for, Damien? Give it your best shot.”

“I don’t have to wish for it.” His hand tightened on hers, enclosing the ring and her fingers in his strong grip. “I’ve got it.”

“Isn’t it funny how kids can always surprise you?” Tante Colette said, rummaging in her embroidery kit. “And to think I thought you might be a good match for Tristan.”

Damien glowered at his aunt but couldn’t hold on to the irritation. Jess was sitting on a stool by his aunt’s feet, cheerfully weeding. She seemed to have a great fascination for weeding. She’d been adding dirt to every single scent she experimented with these past two weeks, including the trials on his own fragrance.

But her teasing of him about being
dirty
could lead to all kinds of interesting places, so he was rather enjoying the theme. He picked a red flower from his aunt’s beds.

“You can’t inflict Tristan on someone, Mémère,” Jess said, and Damien saw that little tremor of emotion that ran through his aunt at being called
grandmother
. “He’s such a flirt. The poor girl would go crazy.”

“He’s got a very sweet heart,” Tante Colette said firmly, and Damien sighed a little. His entire life, it seemed, family had been calling Tristan the sweet-hearted one, Damien the ruthless one, Matt the growly, hot-tempered one, Raoul the dangerous wild wolf, Lucien the lost, exiled warrior. They’d formed their own roles, to a certain extent, but sometimes it seemed as if family should be able to see a
little
bit more below the surface.

Jess looked across at him and met his eyes, hers warm. And he eased again. Yes, he liked this. Tough and ruthless to most of the world, but with his own tender, private space of quiet, held by her. He didn’t want the world to think he was a marshmallow—
God,
he would hate for everyone to see right through his hard exterior, like they did Matt—but this, this intimate, secret sweetness, was perfect. He picked a purple flower.

“He just hides it,” Tante Colette said, and Damien gazed at the sky a moment. Then he picked a white flower.

Jess smiled a little. “Hiding a sweet heart seems to run in the family.”

“All the family,” Damien said, fixing his aunt with a look.

Tante Colette gave him a
who-me?
stern look back and pulled some white linen out of her embroidery basket.

“Do you have any more surprises in store for the family, Tante Colette?” He picked a yellow flower.

She shook her white head at him. “You boys grew up in peacetime, financially secure, with a powerful family name behind you. And you still want me to make things easier for you. I’m just giving you a little enrichment. Like they do for zoo animals, to keep them from expiring from boredom.”

“You know, I should really share with you the challenges of running an international business successfully sometime,” Damien said dryly. “You might be surprised.”