The Chocolate Touch (5 page)

She shook her head minutely. “Startled me, for a second.” Which was a lie if he ever heard one; for a split second, her reaction had been pure terror. But that terror had been so instantly, so oddly, so completely allayed. An odd, faraway look came over her. “You smelled like chocolate,” she murmured. He remembered that instant when she had relaxed against his chest, before she had even looked up and seen his face.

Desire surged and fisted around him. He wanted nothing in life but to strip them both naked, to wrap her in his scent. It made his breath ragged with the effort not to say it, not to lean into her, aggressive and guttural, and say,
Come smell me all over.

His scalp prickled with the struggle not to be as crude and direct as the two strangers he had just driven away. He cleared his throat and forced himself a couple of steps back out of her personal space, before he violated every centimeter of it. “It’s better in the middle than at the edges,” he said, trying to focus on practical advice because he didn’t want her getting in trouble on her own some day while he was up in his
laboratoire
and had no idea. “The troublemakers always hang out on the edges.”

She made a little face. “I hate being in the middle of a crowd, though. I used to enjoy it, but these days, it feels as if I can’t get out.”

Hunh. It must be odd to be so small. He could shove his way through most masses of people. Crowds didn’t trap him. They just made him want to hit people. “I don’t like being in the middle, either.” He was adamantly against hitting people who didn’t deserve it. “You could just avoid protests. Tear gas is no fun.”

She grimaced. “I know.”

“You
do
?” She
was
American, right? He had gotten the vague idea that Americans were too passive for protests, but maybe that was just one of those media stereotypes.

She shrugged oddly. After a second, she held up three fingers.

“That’s exactly how many times
I’ve
gotten tear-gassed,” he said, considerably startled.

“Most of mine were as a student.” She sounded so stiffly defensive, she must be talking to someone else in her head.
He
wasn’t going to start judging anyone for getting into trouble.

Most? “All of mine were as a teenager,” he admitted, feeling a tad out-gunned. Like a reformed addict, ever since he was eighteen he had avoided situations that might lead him back to his addiction, if that was the best way to describe his rapport with violence.

“Two G-8 summits,” she said, for some reason embarrassed. “I was a spoiled brat.”

“
Banlieue
issues. I was mostly just a troublemaker. But not like them,” he added hastily. Not one who harassed women half his size. “What was the one
not
as a student?” curiosity compelled him to ask, even though she clearly didn’t want to volunteer the information.

Her eyebrows crinkled, her expression shifting to something very sober. “That one—I was in Africa,” she said with what had to be deliberate vagueness. If she had actually traveled in Africa, she was surely capable of distinguishing countries within the continent. “And—very naive to join in a protest. There were—there were actually military sharpshooters on the rooftops, shooting people in the crowd in the head. Peaceful protesters in the crowd.”

Putain.
She must be incredibly strong, was the first thing he thought. In fact, he wanted to close his hands around her shoulders and hold her still for him while he took a good long look into the depths and strength of her. The fleeting thought crossed his mind that his heart might have protected itself for so long and then thrown itself so ridiculously after her because it had incredible survival instincts.

But no, then, surely he wouldn’t feel so helplessly kamikaze.

“Don’t do that,” he said involuntarily.

She looked questioning.

Don’t put yourself in positions where people might shoot you in the head,
he wanted to say, lamely. “Don’t join in protests in strange countries where you don’t know how the government might react.” Starting with G8 summits.

“I don’t anymore. Mostly.”

He narrowed his eyes. “You’re that familiar with the way French riot police might handle a crowd or what’s likely to make that crowd degenerate into a riot?”

She looked disgruntled. “I was just there for the dancing.”

Now he did close his hand around her shoulders. He couldn’t help it. Somebody had to get a grip on her. “Don’t join in protests in strange countries where you don’t know how the government might react. Even for the dancing.” He started to release her, hesitated. “And don’t go to nightclubs by yourself, either. Go find the dance groups on the quays, if you’re looking for dancing.”

Although he didn’t entirely like the thought of her being there on her own—hit on by all comers—either.

Merde
. This time he did manage to force himself to release her. Before he could start getting jealous of someone whose name he didn’t even know. Wouldn’t
that
be a chip off the old block.
Les chiens ne font pas des chats.
“I’ll see you tomorrow?”

She hesitated, flushed a little, but held his eyes as she nodded.

J
aime concentrated on not feeling guilty about Dominique Richard’s chocolates when she sat down across the table from Sylvain Marquis that evening. Her future brother-in-law, named by some as the best chocolatier in the world, would be outraged to learn she was frequenting Dominique Richard’s
salon.

So would the other man at the table, Philippe Lyonnais, come to think of it. And her sister Cade. Probably the only person who wouldn’t mind was Philippe’s fiancée Magalie, who might consider it good for the men to have their arrogance tweaked.

They were sitting in Hugo Faure and Luc Leroi’s three-star restaurant in the Hôtel de Leucé, full of crystal and gold opulence and the kind of powerful people who could afford three-hundred-euro-per-person dinners. Of course, everyone at their table felt quite at home, or in Magalie’s case, at least pretended. Jaime had a feeling Magalie was good at pretending to feel at home. Massive bouquets of roses decorated the place today, creating the impression that people were dining in a forest whose canopy was red velvet roses.

Sylvain Marquis sat at the head of the table, with her sister Cade on his right hand and Jaime on his left. “Indulge me,” he had told Jaime. “This way, I get to be surrounded by beautiful women”—he winked—“and keep as far away from Philippe as possible. Also, it will annoy him no end to find me at the head of the table when he gets here.” But what it also accomplished, gorgeous, gracious poet that he was, was to place Jaime, the only one without a partner, squarely in the middle of the gathering and not at its outer edge.

Philippe Lyonnais, considered one of the world’s best pâtissiers, had clearly been dragged to this dinner by Magalie. Jaime supposed that if you were competitive enough to become one of the best chocolatiers-pâtissiers in the world, you were too competitive to form easy friendships with your rivals.

She had a flashing vision of adding Dominique Richard to the mix and grinned involuntarily. Sylvain was a nice guy, who already had to bear being engaged to a Corey of Corey Chocolate, a
mésalliance
if ever there was one.

He seemed to be dealing with it surprisingly well, though, as if in her annoyingly perfect sister he had caught a prize. Sylvain was the ultimate proof that Cade could land anything she set her mind to. Countries, even. Major world businesses as subsidiaries. Jaime had heard that landing Sylvain had involved breaking and entering. She had to admire that in her sister, that confidence, that ability to go after a dream. She had had it herself once, not so very long ago at all, but it was hard to sift through the ashes and remember what that confidence had felt like when it was alive and thriving.

Cade was the more attractive of the two sisters, with an even-featured elegance and no freckles, but she wasn’t drop-dead gorgeous or anything, and Sylvain really was, in an intense, passionate, poet’s way.
He
seemed to think Cade was drop-dead gorgeous, though. It made a girl feel sad and lonely just to watch that glow in his eyes when he looked at her sister.

Right now, Sylvain wasn’t looking at her. He was busy singing the praises of all the most fattening dishes on the menu, trying to get Jaime to order them. And when Sylvain went out of his way to convince a woman something was delicious, it was pretty hard to ignore.

She thought about ordering the salad for her first course just to be provoking, since that was how she reacted to pressure. But she was pretty full of Dominique Richard’s chocolate, which seemed to just snuggle up cozy and warm in her tummy. So she did something even more provoking. She refused to order a first course at all and opted for the lightest main dish.

Cade frowned anxiously, causing Sylvain to redouble his efforts with Jaime.

“I’m full,” Jaime said. “I’ve been wandering around the city trying pastries all day.” That and going to the gym near her new temporary apartment were her main occupations.

“Whose?” Sylvain and Philippe asked in the same indignant breath.

Oops. “I just like to walk around. Visit the Louvre. Explore the different quarters. There are tempting boulangeries everywhere.”

“Oh—boulangeries,” Sylvain said, partially mollified. He didn’t do bread. Jaime bit back a grin. Yep, if she
could
have her fantasy date here right now, Sylvain and he would be at each other’s throats all evening.

“Are you sure you’re all right on your own?” Cade asked, setting Jaime’s back teeth. Did she look so helpless? She might be the younger sister, but she was the one who had spent the past few years in all the wildest, most challenging corners of the cacao world, reforming working conditions and changing people’s lives. Okay, right at the end there, she had been helpless and had the scars to prove it, but it wasn’t as if anyone else could have survived better.

And she didn’t like having that moment of helplessness rubbed in her face. “I’m fine.” She had spent the first few weeks of physical therapy living in the spare bedroom in Sylvain’s apartment, the one Cade now shared with him, but even though Sylvain’s place was fairly large for Paris, it was still too small for Jaime to share with an anxious sister.

She had rented her own little place by the week, up toward the northern corner of the Marais, near Dominique Richard’s
salon
. She would have been welcome to use the luxurious place her father had bought in the Sixth, when Cade had declared her intention of remaining in Paris. But Jaime had spent her summers all through college doing internships with professors in the far reaches of the world, and she had spent the three years after she graduated entirely on her own in those far reaches, continents away from her family. She liked that. Being far away from the Coreys and anything they could want of her. Maybe not quite as far as usual right this second, but . . . she needed her own place, a place she could curl up in, without any chance that someone else would turn the key in the lock and pop in unexpectedly.

This apartment put her no more than a twenty-minute walk from Cade, but Cade got all hovering and anxious nevertheless. It drove Jaime nuts.

“It’s a little wilder up near République, isn’t it?” Cade asked. “You’re careful, aren’t you?”

Jaime gave her sister an ironic look, which was better than strangling her. For one thing, what Cade meant by “wilder” probably was just that the area north and east of République was considerably more working class and ethnically diverse than the Sixth, where Cade was. For another, Jaime was in the Marais, one of the most elite quarters in the city, even if she was only a couple of blocks from République. And finally, wilder than
what
? Madagascar? Côte d’Ivoire? Papua New Guinea? Cameroon, perhaps? Cade had no real clue what Jaime had been doing, did she?

Cade flushed a little under Jaime’s look and set her jaw stubbornly. “I know it’s a romantic city, but it’s a city, nevertheless. Just make sure you pay attention. Don’t go wandering down empty streets in the middle of the night. Make sure no one’s within grabbing reach when you enter your code on the street late at night.” She shot an odd, sudden glance at Sylvain at that last and bit her lip. Sylvain, inexplicably, grinned.

Jaime ground her teeth and focused on Philippe, sitting across from her, beside Magalie, who was so fashionable and sure of herself she made Jaime feel very freckled. She also wore such high heels that she always looked taller than Jaime, which was unfair, because Jaime was pretty sure she herself would be a couple inches taller if they ever got to meet on even footing. “So,” Jaime said brightly to Philippe, “I hear you are doing the, what do you call them, the
pièces montées,
for Cade’s wedding next month. I’m sure they’ll be stunning.”

Philippe nodded his tawny head absently, clearly not finding any doubt in that and not remembering he should pretend to be modest. “We’ve got the expo next week first, though.” He nodded at Sylvain.

Sylvain rolled his eyes. “If Richard doesn’t ruin it. I’m going to have the table right beside his again, I know it. We need a chocolatier whose last name starts with P.”

Philippe shrugged. “He won’t do anything that would damage his work. Just ignore him when he tries to start a fight.”

Jaime’s eyebrows went up. When he tried to start a fight? She remembered the moment when he’d looked ready to take on a whole mob. But—that was circumstantial, right? With her he had been so
nice.

“I wouldn’t put it past him to do something to destroy someone
else’s
work,” Sylvain said broodingly. “Trip someone carrying a chocolate sculpture, for example.”

Philippe considered that, square chin on one hand. “He’s managed to restrain himself from doing it in the past,” he pointed out, not as if he felt it was any guarantee of future results.

“I know. But you can feel the restraint.”

“Look, don’t ask
me
to defend Dominique Richard.” For some reason, Philippe glanced at Magalie and away, his mouth hardening. “He’s an arrogant bastard. But you know, so are you, Sylvain.”

“I am
not
a bastard,” Sylvain protested. “And I’m not arrogant, I’m just realistic. Richard is a bastard.”

“C’est vrai,”
Magalie suddenly intervened, her mouth curving in amusement. “Sylvain’s a sweetheart compared to Dom. That is, Sylvain, you just assume everyone will fall at your feet when you walk by, the same, ah, realistic way Philippe does.” She cast her fiancé a dark look. “But Dom—he knows he might have to bludgeon some people into bowing. He’s ready to do it.”

Bludgeon. The word evoked an unfortunate visceral reaction in Jaime. But in her head, that hard face softened into boyishly grinning pleasure. Magalie didn’t mean bludgeon literally, she reminded herself.

“Since when do you call him Dom?” Philippe asked Magalie sharply. “Are you getting to know him so well?”

“He’s just being Dominique.” Magalie waved a dismissive hand. “Don’t let him get to you. That’s all he’s trying to do.”

Philippe curled one hand around Magalie’s under the table, his face hard. Magalie leaned to whisper something in his ear. His mouth softened enough for one corner of it to curl up as he glanced down at her.

Had Dominique Richard hit on Magalie? Jaime toyed with her fork. It figured. Magalie was intensely vivid and cute. There was just something about having the movie star flirt with someone she
knew
that made her . . . wistful.

Still, what did she expect? Even though she wasn’t really attractive in the way Magalie and her sister were, she didn’t normally base all her worth on her looks. She had changed
lives.
Saved
children.
Found a break in the world and fixed it. She had been someone even a man like Dominique Richard could love, if he could get past the freckles. But right now . . . well, what did she have to offer him?

She sighed and shoved the wistfulness away. If he hit on Magalie, he did; it wasn’t her business.

And if his rivals thought he was a bastard, what did it matter? They probably thought that about each other and all their other rivals, too.

She was quite sure plenty of her teenage movie star idols had been bastards when you got to know them. And like a teen idol, Dominique would probably be appalled that she might think something could develop between them. So she would just enjoy the crush for what it was.

Bastard or not.