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Authors: Laura Florand

BOOK: The Chocolate Thief
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Chapter 30
I
f Cade kept finding his
chocolaterie
such a turn-on, he might have to start looking for an apartment closer to it, Sylvain thought a little later. Or maybe install a bed in his office. Two blocks from his apartment to his
laboratoire
was all very well when he was just walking to work and back, but on a freezing December midnight, it seemed a long way to go post-sex for a cuddle.
And the apartment Cade had rented to spy on him left a lot to be desired in the comfortable, cozy bed department, he thought, squeezing in on its stiff mattress beside her. But for now it would do. It had a memorable staircase, and a delicious tight squeeze of an elevator, he had just discovered.
Maybe Cade could buy the entire top floor and turn it into a penthouse, or something. He would design the kitchen.
The light they had turned on when they came in the door shone now too brightly into the bedroom area. He pulled her comforter over them completely like a tent, like children at play. He did feel as excited as a child, but he had never felt so intensely, joyously adult.
His finger traced over her shoulder and down her arm. “My name on
you,
” he said wonderingly. “Really? Did you mean that?”
She, too, looked wondering and puzzled. “Do you know, we’ve known each other less than two months? And I haven’t even dated anyone that long since high school.”
His heart sank like stone. “You mean you want to wait longer, test this out.”
Putain de bordel de merde.
Why couldn’t she feel as absolutely certain as he did?
“No.” Blue eyes met his, that straight look that charged him with electricity. “I’ve tested everything that needs to be tested. I know what I want.”
Sylvain stared back into those blue eyes, so wide and dilated in the shadows under the covers. “And that’s me.”
She reached out a hand to touch just her fingertips to his bare chest, in possession. He could feel his heart thudding against them. It might be possible to die of pride at this woman’s claiming of him. “And that’s you.”
“Dieu.”
He pulled her hard into his arms. “How could any man be so lucky?”
“Luck had nothing to do with it.”
“Of all the
chocolateries
in Paris, you walked into mine.”
“The last thing I would have thought you of all people would credit to luck is me walking into
your chocolaterie
. Who else’s would I walk into?”
He pressed his forehead against hers. “You misunderstood. I know what’s to my credit, Cade. I know why you walked into
my chocolaterie
. And I know exactly how much effort I put into getting you to want something besides my chocolate, too.”
“Good. It would confuse me if you suddenly started being humble.”
He did feel humbled, though. Not humble about his accomplishments—quite the contrary—but humbled before God, or fate, or destiny, whatever force it was that had brought her into it. “My luck is that of all the people who could have walked into my
chocolaterie, you
walked into it. You.”
Her smile bloomed. “I’m special, then?”
“Cade.” He squeezed her helplessly. Women’s hearts were inexplicable things. “How could you not know that?”
She did not answer, moving her fingertips in tiny, stroking motions through the hair on his chest.
“Did you mean it about becoming my apprentice?”
She smiled a tiny, impudent smile, seemingly focused on his chest.
“My chocolate apprentice,” Sylvain clarified. “In the
laboratoire
.”
She looked up brightly. “Will you have me?”
This was trickier ground by far than marriage. He felt entirely, one hundred percent sure about the marriage. “Will you sign a contract not to use what you learn in Corey Chocolate?”
“Yes. I quit, anyway.”
He just stared at her. No, gaped at her, caught completely off guard.
“I’m still available for consultation, something my father is sure to take far too much advantage of, and I’ve still got the same amount of shares, which leaves me a very interested party, but we’re going to have to hire someone to take over my day-to-day roles. It’s a blow to my father.” Grief shadowed her face. That blow to her father was a blow to her, too. That, too, humbled him, the choice she had made. “And to my grandfather. But the competition for top executive positions is pretty cutthroat. I’m sure we’ll find someone who will excel at the job.”
He continued to stare at her. “You’ve had a hard week.”
“A little bit, yes.” He felt the rise and fall of her long breath against his body. “But”—she opened her hand with simple finality—“I knew what I wanted.”
He framed her face in both his hands and just stared at her in amazement. She had known, without a shadow of a doubt, what she wanted—him.
“The most,” she corrected herself after a moment. “I knew what I wanted the most.”
“So you
will
be my chocolate apprentice,” he said when he could speak again, thoroughly charmed by the idea.
“Part-time,” she agreed. “Part-time, I might do some small-time venture-capital work. Working with individuals who want to succeed with their own
chocolateries,
their own
pâtis-series
.”
He tugged one lock of hair reproachfully. “You just couldn’t manage to give up all sense of responsibility to the rest of the world, could you?”
“Existential guilt.” She shrugged self-deprecatingly.
He rolled onto his back, pulling her to pillow on his chest, stroking her hair, dreaming dreams of a life like this. “You know, I may make a Cade Marquis bar, after all. We’ll call it an engagement present. A special,
artisanal
Cade Marquis bar we sell only in my shop.”
Her arms squeezed him suddenly so hard, he could barely breathe, making him rather smug about the success of that gift. But all she said, into his chest, was a provocative murmur: “When the demand gets too high for it, and you want to sell it for a fortune to a corporation that can handle its mass production, let me know.”
He laughed and used his finger to script an invisible word over her back, lightly, delicately, as if he was inscribing a chocolate:
Je t’aime.
Epilogue
T
wo days later, Sylvain was chiseling a Christmas tree—soon to be decorated with ornaments full of ganache for the Élysée Palace Noël festivities—when two men barged into his workshop. At first, he didn’t even look up. He was considered the best chocolatier in Paris, and it was
the Christmas season.
People needed to stay out of his workspace. But Cade, who had been circling his sculpture, watching him chisel with an utter absorption that was making him fumble and grow clumsy, stiffened.
Sylvain glanced sideways at her, picking up on the nerves instantly. Not even his mother had managed to make Cade
visibly
nervous. He straightened and paid attention.
Neither man was tall, although the fifty-something man had some heft on him, but both carried themselves exactly like Cade—as if they owned the entire world.
“Sylvain Marquis,” said the fifty-something one with the well-cut gray hair, his voice firm. “I’m Mack Corey. So you’re the man who’s trying to steal my daughter.”
Sylvain shrugged. “She wanted to steal the best. So did I.”
Cade’s stiffness melted.
“And I’m not trying to steal your daughter. I’ve already done it. So if you’ve come here to try to undo it, you’re going to have to get out of my
laboratoire
.”
Cade stopped melting, staring at Sylvain in horrified shock. Maybe she was used to people being a lot more careful around her father.
Mack Corey studied him for a long moment and finally grunted. “Well. At least I like you. That’s something.”
The man who must be her grandfather, James Corey, was looking around the
laboratoire
greedily. He seemed awfully spry for eighty-two years old, wrinkled and white hair thinning but upright and proud. Sylvain hadn’t realized milk chocolate was that healthy. Must be those stearic acids.
“A real, honest-to-goodness, French, holier-than-thou, chocolatier snob,” the elder Corey said delightedly, looking Sylvain up and down as if Sylvain was a painting to be bought and added to his collection. The family had a really annoying knack for that look. “I’ve got to hand it to you, Cadey. I never thought anyone would manage to bring one of those into the family. How did you get him to stop being polite to you?”
“Family?” Mack Corey went alert. “Are you two talking about family already?” He gave Sylvain a speculative look, as if analyzing his genes for the capacity to produce future CEOs.
“I’m sure they are,” the elder Corey said. “She doesn’t lose her head easily, but once she’s lost it, it’s kind of like one of your guillotines.” He made a slicing gesture across his neck, accompanied by what was probably supposed to represent the noise of a blade. “It’s gone for good.”
“What are you talking about?” Cade demanded indignantly. “When have I lost my head before?”
Sylvain grinned. He couldn’t help himself.
“Never,” James Corey admitted. “You’re usually so cool and controlled.”
“She’s
what
?” Sylvain interjected. Cade had acted so helplessly hot and out of control since the moment he had met her. Had she been that way
just because of him
?
“I was starting to worry that she was going to turn out just like her father,” James Corey confided.
Mack Corey gave his father a frustrated look. Cade must have decided her father had had about as many kicks this week as any man could stand, because she left Sylvain’s side to go give him a hug.
When her father’s arms wrapped around her, Sylvain stiffened against the unreasoning fear that the other man was going to haul her off into his limousine and disappear with her.
“Did you come to Paris to try to talk me out of it again?” she asked her father.
“No, to hunt for an apartment. Your grandfather and I were thinking it’s about time we had a
pied à terre
here.”
Until he saw the incredulous happiness blossom on Cade’s face, Sylvain didn’t think he had really understood how much leaving her family had cost her.
“Plus, we had a lousy Thanksgiving, so I thought it would do us good to get the whole family together in Paris for Christmas. Get to know the new family. It’s closer to the Côte d’Ivoire, so we may even get Jaime up here for the holiday.”
“I’m eighty-two years old, and I’ve never spent Christmas in Paris,” James Corey said. “Can you believe it?”
Sylvain’s mother was fifty-three and had never hosted four billionaires for Christmas, either, but she was going to have to get used to the idea really fast.
“You’re not going to try to talk me out of it?” Cade asked wonderingly.
“I already tried that,” Mack Corey said, rather bitterly. “It didn’t work.”
“Don’t beat yourself up about it, son,” his father told him sympathetically. “It didn’t even work for me, so you can hardly blame yourself.”
Mack Corey gave his father a look of much-tried patience and declined to take the bait. “Plus, you spent the whole time lying to me about it, Cade, which wasn’t helpful. You could have talked about it in other terms than as a business decision once in a while.”
Cade looked completely dumbfounded.
“So, we’ll come visit. Have you found a good real estate agent here yet?”
Cade hugged herself, blinking slow, delighted blinks. Father and daughter might have worked all her life together, but her father, with thirty years experience on her, had clearly still managed to catch her by surprise.
Sylvain began to smile. “So, just out of curiosity, what do you want out of life?” he asked his new
beau-père.
“For my daughters to be happy, for Corey to dominate the chocolate market, and to let my family inherit the earth,” Mack Corey said promptly. “I don’t think that’s too much to ask, do you? Not much point having money if you make your own kids miserable with it.
Right, Dad?
” he added rather acerbically. “Meanwhile, if you two could get to work on the family bit, so I don’t have to wait until I’m ninety-five to retire, that would be great.”
Sylvain stiffened. “Wait. Why? You don’t think one of
my
children is going to run Corey Chocolate, do you?”
“Children?” said a voice from the shop door. He looked past the Corey men to see his mother and Natalie advancing, Christmas shopping bags draping from each arm. Behind them, Chantal, similarly accoutered with shopping bags, had stopped still in the doorway. The three women were long-standing co-shoppers. “Are you two talking about
children
?” Marguerite studied Cade as if analyzing
her
genes. All hostility had dropped from her gaze, to be replaced by absolute delight.
“Your—son, I presume—wants to marry my daughter,” Mack Corey told her, holding out a hand.
Marguerite gave the hand an utterly confounded look, bypassed it, and pressed enthusiastic
bises
on Mack Corey’s cheeks. Four enthusiastic
bises,
in her excitement.
“Mariage? Sylvain, tu veux te marier? Enfin? Enfin!
”
Beyond delight, she turned and planted multiple
bises
on Cade’s cheeks. “Nobody in your generation gets married! Sylvain, I never thought you would! Are you going to wear white?” she asked Cade eagerly. Clasping her hands again, she looked toward Heaven, making Sylvain suspect his mother had been praying for him:
“Un mariage.”
“Vraiment?”
Natalie looked excited. “This will be fun. Can I be a
demoiselle d’honneur
?”
“Un mariage?”
one of Sylvain’s least favorite voices said. Christophe. Seriously, he was never going to allow another food blogger into his shop as long as he lived. The guy was worse than fleas. He just kept bouncing right back into Sylvain’s
laboratoire
. Christophe stopped beside Chantal in the doorway and studied Cade a little wistfully. “I suppose I should have expected it,” he said to Chantal, as the closest available ear. “They both have to be so melodramatic about everything.”
“Yes,” Chantal said, resigned. “I suppose I should have expected it, too. But I didn’t.”
“Well, who gets married? That’s so old-fashioned.”
“He’s a romantic,” Chantal said. “And nobody can talk him out of being one.”
Christophe turned his head to really look at her for the first time. He blinked. Then he suddenly bent down for introductory
bises
. “I’m Christophe. A friend of Sylvain’s. Do you like romantics?”
A friend?
Sylvain thought, outraged until he got distracted. Cade had curled a hand around his wrist and was gazing up at him, looking so completely and utterly happy, he wished he could bottle this moment and bring it out for her every time she was down for the rest of her life. “Really, no one gets married here?” she murmured.
“It’s not that common,” he admitted. “Most people just live together all their lives. But you already promised, so don’t start backing out now.”
“You had better not!” Marguerite interjected, outraged. Her hands clenched into fists of excitement. She was practically bouncing on her toes. “
Un mariage
. Wait until I tell my friends. None of
their
children have gotten married. Can I help you shop for the wedding dress?” she asked Cade.
Cade cast a quick, analytical glance over the plethora of shopping bags. “Yes,” she said very firmly. She apparently knew now exactly how to make friends with her
belle-mère
. “On the Faubourg St-Honoré, in fact.” She mentioned the street in Paris most packed with outrageously expensive designers.
Sylvain’s mother had to go sit down. Any minute now, she was going to have to put her head between her knees so she didn’t pass out, in fact. Chantal took Christophe’s arm, and they both fled this talk of weddings to go stand with heads bent toward each other in the front of the shop.
“Good Lord,” Cade muttered in English, gazing after Marguerite. “I think money might have finally bought me something in this town.”
“Can I come shopping, too?” Natalie asked, thrilled. But she didn’t allow herself to be distracted long. She thrust out her hand to the most powerful business contact in the room for a very American business-style handshake. “So, are you Cade’s father? I’m Natalie Marquis. I’m thinking about interning for you this summer.”
Cade grinned and glanced at Sylvain, who had to admit being rather proud of his sister. Irrepressibility was an excellent trait.
“You know what I would like out of life?” the spry voice of another irrepressible person announced in Sylvain’s ear. “To break into a Swiss chocolatier, which Cadey’s going to help me with, now that you’ve got her trained. And to blend spinach with chocolate. Which sounds to me like
your
area of expertise, so . . .” Behind him, Cade’s eyes widened in alarm. She put a hand up to her mouth as if protecting it from gustatory assault and started shaking her head at Sylvain in warning.
Too late.
The old man grinned fiendishly. “I’m sure you won’t mind helping your new
grandpapa
with a little project, now, will you?”
“I think the spinach project sounds like a good idea,” Mack Corey said, proving conclusively that CEOs of multinational corporations had no morals or conscience. “Especially the part about doing it here in Paris in Marquis’s
laboratoire
. But no breaking and entering. No getting caught spying in a Swiss factory. My God, if both of you get all over the media as chocolate thieves . . .” He flexed his large, square hands in impotent strangling motions. “And Jaime will probably get arrested in some World Bank protest right around the same time.” He brought both fists to his forehead and groaned.
James Corey slung his arm over his granddaughter’s shoulders. She grinned up at him quickly, her eyes lighting in a way that showed instantly exactly how much she loved her grandfather. “It’s really tough being the white sheep of the family,” he told his son sympathetically. “I don’t know how you do it. But don’t you worry about Cade and me. First of all, now it will be the Marquis name that gets splashed all over the media as a chocolate thief.”
Sylvain had a sudden, horrible vision of his name being associated with an attempt to steal another chocolatier’s secrets.
Cade’s grandfather grinned diabolically at him. “But I probably won’t find those Swiss factory owners sexy, so we won’t get caught.”

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