Once Upon a Rose (35 page)
Footsore and only
Wishing for you
Aww. Damn it. She was killing him.
Bouclettes, no wonder you need to hide in my valley, when you’re always sticking your heart out like this in front of a crowd.
And,
Really? You really feel that?
Her chords grew stronger, braver, truer with each verse, like the energy that surged through a weary traveler when she spotted the light of home.
Lonely
Always everywhere lonely
Seeking everywhere only
In hopes of you.
His hand reached for her.
Bouclettes. Me, too.
Her chords softened again, growing quiet, sure, true. This profound simplicity to them.
Lonely
No longer lonely
No longer only
Because my wish came true.
Aww,
hell.
His eyes felt damp. This was
terrible.
And everybody was cheering, and she was gazing up at him with this soft look in her eyes like he was
amazing
, like he was…her wish come true, and, and…
“I love you,” she said, with her
mic still on so that the whole freaking world could hear.
The audience went
crazy
.
And she didn’t even seem to notice them. She was all focused on him, like her hero, and—
“You make me happy,” she said softly.
Damn it. “Me, too,” he said gruffly, and he could hear his own voice echoing out over the crowd. The damn sound crew must have turned on the main mic right beside him. But what the hell else was he supposed to do? Leave her hanging out there on her own? “I love you, too,” he said simply.
While the crowd cheered, he bent to her ear. “And don’t you ever do this to me again,” he growled.
She turned her head and kissed him.
Something hit him on the shoulder softly, then several somethings. People were pelting them with…no, not rotten tomatoes. Roses. People were throwing the roses that had been handed out during the festival.
He took a step back and then another, eyeing his escape route. Petals fluttered around his face. He could leap over the edge there, shove through his cousins like their old rugby games, duck behind that post—“Hey.” He turned suddenly as he thought of something and glowered at Layla. “You’d damn well better marry me after all this.”
She grinned. “That is
so
sweet of you to ask.”
Shit, had he just said that for the whole world to hear? He didn’t fold his arms across his chest, though. He put his hands on his hips and gave her his bossiest glare.
You’d better do what I said.
“Okay,” she said and picked up one of the thrown roses to kiss it. “I will.”
Oh, thank God.
He leapt off the stage, going for the rugby shove-dive through his cousins, and—they’d caught him, damn it. And they were…
…hugging him.
Pounding him on the back. Hugging him again in congratulations. More distant relatives and friends were pressing in beyond them, trying to join in the celebration.
“I’ve got it all on video!” Allegra was exclaiming cheerfully as she tried to force her way in to hug him, too. “This one’s going to go down in family history! It might even beat the alien photo!”
“Well,” Layla said with a deep breath through her mic. Over his cousins’ shoulders, he saw her standing there with her cheeks all flushed, too, and her eyes starry, and her hand pressed to her chest, over her heart. “Isn’t he a prince? What do you want me to play after
that
?”
And he finally relaxed into his cousins’ embrace, grinning and flushing at the congratulations and teasing that poured in and watching his happiness up on stage as she played.
She’d come back to him in a little while, and they would be able to take this somewhere quiet and private, the quiet and private she needed, too. It fit together, those two needs.
He was her roots. And she was his wings.
***
FIN
Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed Matt and Layla’s story, the first in the Vie en Roses series. Click here to leave a review. And don’t miss Tristan’s story, coming next in this series.
Before Tristan, though, I’ve got some other stories coming. Next up, for those of you who love the Amour et Chocolat series, is
Once a Hero
, a novel that takes us back to Dom Richard’s chocolate shop in Paris for the story of his chocolatier Célie and her older brother’s best friend, home from the Foreign Legion. Keep reading for a glimpse.
And I’m working on a (free) short story that involves Dom and sandcastles and the night before his wedding, but alas, I can’t share it with you until after
Once Upon a Hero
is out for chronological reasons. But sign up
here
to be emailed your copy when it’s ready, as well as to be alerted when these other books are released.
Meanwhile, make sure to catch the books that first introduce us to the world of the Roses series. You’ll find Gabriel and Jolie’s story in
The Chocolate Rose
, a prequel to the Vie en Roses series that bridges with the Amour et Chocolat stories. Daniel and Léa’s story is in the novella
Turning Up the Heat
, and Raoul and Allegra’s in the anthology
No Place Like Home
.
Keep reading for a glimpse of
The Chocolate Rose
as well as a complete book list.
Thank you so much for sharing in this new world with me! For some behind-the-scenes glimpses of the research in the south of France, check out my website and Facebook page. I hope to meet up with you there!
Thank you and all the best,
Laura Florand
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Newsletter
Amour et Chocolat Series
All’s Fair in Love and Chocolate
, a novella in
Kiss the Bride
The Chocolate Rose
(also a prequel to La Vie en Roses series)
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 prequel)
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
Snow Queen Duology
Snow-Kissed
(a novella)
Sun-Kissed
(also part of the Amour et Chocolat series)
Memoir
An Amour et Chocolat novel
He left her for the Foreign Legion. And now he’s back.
Oh, hell. Célie tried to pull herself together. “Joss. What are you doing here?”
He just looked up at her with those hazel green eyes and that stillness he had, emphasized even more by five years of military discipline. “Would you rather I wait outside?”
It was all she could do not to just shove that little table aside and climb into his lap, bury her head in his chest and hold on tight.
Why did you leave me, you bastard? Oh, thank God you’re home.
Yeah, and that would be insane.
Plus she’d already done it once.
“Joss, you know I love you—”
A little jerk ran through his body. And hers, as the echo of her own words ran through her.
“Like a brother,” she hastened to add.
“Fuck, Célie.” He turned his head away, his jaw setting. “Like
Ludo
?”
Okay, well, maybe not like her actual brother. Or like any other male she’d ever known either. But, but… “But I’m not your person to come home to here.” Oh, hell, had she just said that?
Yes, I am. Yes, I am.
“I’ve moved on.”
“Moved on from what?” Joss asked.
She stared at him.
“We never dated, Célie. I wasn’t Sophie’s boyfriend, but I was never your boyfriend either. I was saving you for later.”
Her jaw dropped. Fury sizzled once deep in her stomach and then just flared all through her. “You son of a bitch.”
“For when you were
older
.” He tried to regroup. “And I deserved you.”
“I’m going to
kill you
!” Célie pressed her hands into his table and her weight into them as she leaned her body over his.
“Okay,” Joss said, and just lifted the table to the side to expose his body to her, shifting the table as if neither it nor her pressure on it weighed anything. “You can do that.”
Once a Hero, coming 2015! Sign up
here
to be notified of its release.
Gabriel straightened and moved to the wall of the terrace, almost positive he heard a frustrated puff of breath behind him. Looking down over the fountain Sainte-Mère had built in his honor when the town’s tourism economy quintupled after he got his third star, he took a moment to stretch. Hands locked high over his head, he arched his back into it, rolling his neck, his shoulders. What started as a deliberate calculation was such a relief after the past seven hours without a break that he sank into it, taking his time, muscles easing.
Putain,
but that felt good. It would feel even better if slim little hands added their pressure.
He glanced back at Jolie Manon, who had her knees pulled up so he couldn’t even see her chest, staring at him. Her fingers rubbed slowly back and forth over her jeans-clad knees, as if she needed texture.
Don’t hold back, chaton. I’m happy to be your texture.
He sat on the edge of the terrace wall, stretching out his legs, bracing his hands against its edge so that his torso was long, lean, fully exposed, the muscles of his arms and shoulders flexing a little.
Merde,
but he liked it, when she had to bite on her lower lip.
He had so many things he could do with that mouth of hers. Make her lose not only her worries but her entire mind, tangling with him desperately in a—
A beast, though.
A
beast.
Was he really that bad?
Would one of those civilized men who paid a fortune to eat at his tables sit here in front of that slim, vulnerable, adorably delicious little body, those eyes so wide and dark on him, and not do anything about it?
And just because some men were
des putains d’idiots
, did that mean
he
had to be? In order to live up to their standards? Something was screwed up, there.
“About that
other
idea,” he said firmly, because, well—he would
like
to be a prince. If it was remotely possible and didn’t require him to ignore her screaming body language indefinitely. “I think you should give me fifteen percent of the royalties. Since fifteen percent of the recipes are mine. Of your father’s royalties,” he added, as he saw her eyes flicker in calculation.
She bit her lip. Wait, had that not been a princely thing to say? Damn it.
“
Not
yours. You did the same amount of writing, whether you knew you were writing up my work or not.”
She worried at her lip.
Would she
quit doing that?
It appealed to every heroic instinct he had—and he had a lot more of them than she gave him credit for—the thought of swooping in and protecting that lip from her cruelty. Offering himself to her teeth in its place. . . .
He shifted, wondering what her head was doing with his increasingly obvious arousal. Anyone would think she would like it,
since he aroused her
, but apparently it couldn’t be that easy.
“And I want subsequent editions to acknowledge me under each recipe that’s mine.
Created by Gabriel Delange
works fine. For the remaining print run of this first edition, you can just insert one of those slips of paper that corrects errors. It’s not ideal, but it’s either that or make you destroy the entire run.”
That lower lip got more punishment. Her physical awareness of him faded as her worry rose.
Merde. You’re not the knight in shining armor, you’re the beast, remember? She’s never in a million years going to think of you as the hero.
Women never did. “I’m just starting out as a food writer,” she said, low. “If I have to get my publishing house to do all that, they probably won’t ever work with me again.”
Gabriel sat still for a moment, his fingers pressing into that rough stone. He tilted his head back, closing his eyes, concentrating on the distant sound of his fountain, below in the square. “I’m never going to get any damn justice, am I?”
She said nothing. When he opened his eyes again, she had her arms wrapped even more tightly around her knees, and she was watching him with a mixture of worry and apology.
Bordel.
“It is so like that
salaud
to have a stroke just before that cookbook came out.”
“As if he did it on purpose!”
Yes, all right, she loved her father.
Le connard
.
He
got three daughters to love him, even though he didn’t deserve it, while Gabriel lost his girlfriend of six years—sixteen to twenty-two—and had had a really lousy success rate when it came to long-term relationships ever since.
How did Pierre Manon always manage to manipulate his situation to get everyone else to give him their all, so much more than he deserved?