Shadowed Heart (24 page)

“Aww, hell.” Patrick covered his heart with a fist, as if Luc had just hit him right there. “Really?”

Luc peeked again, just a subtle slanted glance, the way he would check people in his kitchens without them knowing it.

Patrick’s eyes were shimmering. He lifted his other hand against Luc’s glance, turning away a bit. “Give me a second.” A flex and deliberate relaxation of Patrick’s strong shoulders, hands dropping to hook thumbs in his jeans, and when he shifted back to face Luc, he could manage that lazy, easy shrug. “Good thing you asked me,” he said offhandedly, as if this was all nothing to him. “Saves all that awkwardness when I had to nominate myself for the role. I mean, somebody has to make sure that kid is raised right.”

“Yeah,” Luc said. That was what he thought, too. “I…yeah.”

One of those quick, blue looks of Patrick’s that happened so fast and saw so deep, all while Patrick kept that lazy façade of his. “I was kidding about that.”

But Luc just shook his head, his lungs so tight. “I don’t know how,” he said suddenly, low, to the terrace wall. “To raise a kid. To be a good dad. I’ve never even
seen
a good dad. And I don’t have anything to
practice on.
”

Patrick’s hands slid deep down into his jeans pockets. Out of the corner of his eye, Luc could see his throat flex as he swallowed. “Sarah thinks you did all right with me,” he mentioned awkwardly, to the terrace wall, his lazy shrug completely failing to make him look indifferent or casual.

It shook the breath out of Luc. His throat tightened up, and…shit, his eyes were stinging
.
Patrick sometimes thought of him as his
father figure
? He was only four years older than Patrick. And he’d been such a desperately struggling teenager himself when he took Patrick on.

But…but Patrick had turned out all right, actually. More than all right. Patrick had turned into an exceptional man.

“I don’t—I—” Luc rubbed the back of his neck. “I mean, I think you mostly raised yourself.”

Patrick looked sideways at him. “Oh, you think that, do you?”

“Well…” Luc’s shrug felt like some awkward imitation of one of Patrick’s.

“All those apprentices you formed into top chefs who are now earning their own stars all over the world, they raised themselves, too, did they?”

“Well, I mean…”

“And those kids Jaime has you helping right now. The ones who are driving Sylvain crazy and you find easy to handle.”

“
That’s all in the kitchens, Patrick.
I don’t even see kids until they’re fifteen.”

“Fine.” Patrick shrugged, visibly pissed off. “All I’m saying is…you’ve had practice at parts of fatherhood, at least. And you seem to do pretty damn good at it. Now work with your wife, the one who loves to sit and teach little kids their letters all day as if that is something any person can do patiently, and I bet between you, the two of you can figure this out.”

Really? Luc couldn’t even start to encompass the softening of tension in him, that weird, shimmering thing that was happening to his heart, that the once screwed-up teenager he had tried so hard to raise right thought he would be a good father. “I think most of those apprentices that came through our kitchens owe a lot of their success to you, Patrick.” This was no exaggeration. Patrick was fantastic at guiding new apprentices and even higher level chefs, at helping them survive and grow good at their impossible profession.

Patrick…was Patrick starting to flush, too?
Merde
, it was a good thing they were having this conversation at five in the morning where no one else could see them. “I’ll tell you what,” Patrick said. “I’ll talk to Sarah. She’s mentioned lately realizing she wants to spend more time working her way up in a good kitchen before she tries to do her own place. Maybe she and I could help out over the summer and see what she thinks of Provence. Help you and Summer get started.”

“Yeah?” Luc couldn’t help it. He beamed at that damn Mediterranean.

Patrick nodded slowly. “Luc. Just so you know. You were right to let yourself need people a little bit. You were right to call on friends.”

Well, it had been for Summer, not for
him
, of course, but, but…he decided not to say that. Not to Patrick, who knew damn well that Luc had called on him.

And people had come, hadn’t they?
Here we are. We’re happy to help welcome your baby into the world.

We know that sometimes being a good father, being a good husband, being a good person is tough to do entirely on your own.

He had a sudden, flashing vision of himself, Patrick, Sylvain, Dom, Gabriel, and Nico all gathered around a black-haired one-year-old with her face scrunched up at all their coaxing spoons. In the vision, Nico had pureed peaches spit back on his face. Luc grinned, and his hand opened slowly on the little flower bracelet, so that it lay, pretty and fragile in his callused palm but revealed to the world.

“What’s that?” Patrick nodded at it but had far too great an instinct for what might be precious to reach for it.

“It’s a present,” Luc said. “It’s for my daughter.”

FIN

***

Thank you so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed Luc and Summer’s story. And I’m working on a (free) short story about the birth of Luc and Summer’s child as a little holiday present. Sign up
here
to be emailed your own copy of the story when it’s ready and to be kept abreast of other releases.

Speaking of new releases, the first half of 2015 will see the launch of my new Vie en Roses series with
Once Upon a Rose
as well as another book in the Amour et Chocolat series, which takes you back to a well-loved place in Paris with a hero and heroine I am very attached to! Keep reading for glimpses.

Meanwhile, make sure to catch the other books in the Amour et Chocolat series. You can find the story of Luc and Summer’s tempestuous courtship in
The Chocolate Heart
and Patrick and Sarah’s story in
The Chocolate Temptation.
Dom and Jaime’s story is in
The Chocolate Touch
, Sylvain and Cade’s in
The Chocolate Thief
, and Gabriel and Jolie’s in
The Chocolate Rose.
Keep reading for a glimpse of
The Chocolate Temptation
as well as a complete book list.

Thank you so much for sharing this world with me! For some behind-the-scenes glimpses of the research with top chefs and chocolatiers, check out my
website
and
Facebook
. I hope to meet up with you there!

And this book is lendable, so if you enjoyed it, feel free to loan it to a friend. Anything that encourages discussions around books makes the world a richer place. Kind of like love and chocolate!

Thank you and all the best,

Laura Florand

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She hated him.

Tossing around dessert elements as if they were juggling balls he had picked up to idle away the time and, first try, had dozens flying around his body in multiple figure eights.

Patrick Chevalier.

Sarah hated him with every minute painstaking movement with which she made sure a nut crumb lay exactly the way Chef Leroi wanted it on a financier. She hated him with every flex of tendons and muscles in her aching hands in the evening, all alone in her tiny Paris apartment at the approach to Montmartre, knowing someone else was probably letting him work the tension out of his own hands any way he wanted.

She hated him because she knew he probably didn’t even have any tension in his hands. That after fifteen or more brutal hours in one of the most mercilessly perfectionistic pastry kitchens in the world, he was still as relaxed as if he’d been sunning all day on a beach, occasionally catching a wave.

She hated him because five thousand times a day, his body brushed hers, his hand caught her shoulder or touched her back to guide their bodies around each other, in that constant dance of sixteen bodies in a space much too small for so many people working at blinding speeds. She hated him because every time his body controlled hers so easily, she felt all the lean, fluid muscles from his fingertips to his toes – and knew that however lazy he looked, those muscles knew tension.

She hated him because most times when he touched her he didn’t even notice, and once in a while, when he did, those vivid blue eyes laughed into hers or winked at her as if she was gobble-up delicious, and then he was gone, leaving her heart this messy, unthawed lump that had just tried to throw itself into his hands and ended up instead all gooey over her own shoes.

Fortunately black kitchen shoes were used to receiving a lot of gooey messes on them over the course of a day.

“Sarabelle,” he called laughingly, and she hated him for that, too. The way her ordinary, serious American name turned so exotic and caressing with those French Rs and dulcet Ahs, like a sigh of rich silk all over her skin. The way he added belle onto it, whenever it struck his fancy, as if that couldn’t break someone’s heart, to be convinced someone like him thought she was belle and then realize he thought everybody was belle. He probably called his dog belle, and his four-year-old niece belle when he ruffled her hair.

And they both probably looked up at him with helpless melting, too.

She hated him because she knew he couldn’t even have a dog, given his working hours, and that somehow her entire vision of Patrick Chevalier, which was all of him he let her have, could not possibly be true.

* * * *

Available Now!

It’s the start of a new series! Set in Provence, in the south of France, La Vie en Roses series takes us into the heart of a powerful family in the perfume industry and into the hearts of the five male cousins who are its heirs. Here’s a glimpse of Matthieu Rosier, the rising family patriarch, in his valley full of roses…and the American upstart who just stole a chunk of his land.

“You still have the key,” Layla said.

Matt braced his hands on the doorjamb, on either side of her above her head.
That
moved him into her space—caging her in the size of him, and all his body wide open to her. But of course, she could always take one step back and just shut the door. “It’s in my back pocket,” he said. That little smile as he held her eyes, and that deep, deep voice. God, a smile was a gorgeous look on him. She wanted to play with it, run her fingers over it, nurture it. “And I think my hands are dirty.”

His jeans looked as if they’d been through a lot more than dirty hands. And, anyway, he’d just wiped his hands off so carefully she’d been
sure
he was about to touch her with them. But now they gripped the doorjamb above her, not touching her at all.

Meaning she would have to touch him, if she wanted any touching to occur.

His
back
pocket. Her palm itched to slide over the curve of that taut butt. “If I—if I got it out, what would you do?”

The biceps to either side of her face grew more pronounced. He gazed down at her, eyes not grumpy at all, oddly quiet. Intent. “What would you want me to do?” His voice didn’t boom. It slid over her, textured, strong and rich, entirely reassuring.

“N—nothing,” she admitted. Well, kind of that was what she wanted. With, like, the only two neurons that seemed to be functioning in her brain right now that was what she wanted. The other two hundred billion seemed to want something entirely different.

Evidently a big, hot body that smelled of roses short-circuited all synapses.

His low, deep voice rubbed over her. “Well, I guess I’m going to do nothing, then.”

Oh, really? Would you really do that for me? Hold all that big, aggressive need to
do
still for me?

He tightened his hands on the doorjamb. “I told you, it’s not that easy to do.”

But he waited, quite still except for the flexing of his arm muscles.

She slid her hand into his back pocket slow, slow, slow, afraid of what she was doing but tantalized by it, too, by that firm curve, by the warmth and snugness of the pocket, by the arms framing her that hardened and didn’t move. By his eyes watching her. Intent and pushing his will on her, as if he knew exactly what he wanted to do to her, but maybe this hint of caution, too, as if he wasn’t quite sure what she might do to him.

She came out with the key, iron and warm, but she didn’t step back into the house with it and shut the door. She stared up at him, liking her little space inside the cage of his body so much she could have stayed there for an hour, just with that warmth so carefully not touching her.

He took a deep breath and sighed it out. “I promised to do nothing, didn’t I?”

She nodded mutely.

Another huff of a breath, and he shoved himself away from the doorjamb and her. “Well, that was even harder than I expected.”

He picked up his toolkit and studied her another long moment, as if she was really hard to figure out. “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced yet,” he said slowly and held out his hand. “I’m Matthieu Rosier.”

Her hand disappeared into his, slim and strong but engulfed by his strength and size. “Layla Dubois.”

He didn’t release her hand. “You stole my land,” he said, still studying her as if something here was a complete mystery to him.

“It was a gift.”

“I want it back.”

Yeah, but now that she knew what it was like to be here, sheltered and private and far away from any thought of media or performance, she didn’t want to get kicked back out into the world. The same way her hand, warm and snug inside his, didn’t want to be released. “The thing is…I like it here.”

She expected that flare of grouchiness on his part at her refusal, but instead a little light came into in his eyes, as if she had paid him a compliment. “Do you?”

She gestured out over the roses with her free hand. “It’s beautiful.”