“You know, there are other places we could walk,” Mack said abruptly.
Anne raised an eyebrow at him. The beach only ran up and down the coast. “You know this is the best direction, so we don’t walk straight into the sun on our way back.”
“No, I mean—” He cleared his throat. “Like Paris. It’s a nice city for a walk.”
Ah. Her mouth curved a little. “I do hear the Seine at night is nice.” She’d been there with him, actually, but when Jaime was hurt, so it hadn’t been the same at all. And she’d been there on her own. Which also hadn’t been the same at all.
“It’s nice if you have someone with you,” Mack said. “If you’re just over there because your daughters are busy dumping you for some idiot, arrogant chocolatiers, it’s fucking lonely.”
She squeezed his hand. “But we did agree you liked them.”
“Some days less than others,” he growled, kicking the sand.
She had never known she had so many instincts to cuddle a grumpy man. “I can take a trip to Paris. That would be nice.”
It would be a little weird, actually, because it had been Julie’s favorite city, and where the two of them went for their honeymoon. But if any city could handle two sets of lovers, Paris could. He’d asked her, which meant he wanted her there, making new memories with him.
“Well, maybe more than…” Mack hesitated, glowering at the sand as if it was his personal enemy. Which would be a pretty scary position for the sand to be in, actually. “I mean, I know how you like to take over spaces, and I have this ghastly, stupid penthouse there now, all glass and steel and some ferns. Nobody should have to live in that thing. But…I mean, it’s big. So you could work with it. Although my dad will probably be there half the time, I should warn you.”
“Maybe you should sell it and get a couple of human-size apartments that are in the same building. One for you, one for him. So you each have your space but he’s not feeling lonely and abandoned.” Nor you.
“I could probably buy the building,” Mack allowed absently, and she bit back a smile. She’d actually grown up very middle-class, and sometimes the world she was in now still struck her funny bone in odd ways. “There are bound to be some nice apartments on the other floors, or ones you could help me turn into nice apartments. And that stupid penthouse could be turned into a great workspace. I mean it’s practically got a studio kitchen already, you’d just have to modify it a bit for your show. It’s got enough rooms that some of your people could even stay there while you have them in Paris, and—”
He looked up to meet Anne’s stare.
He dropped her hand to shove his in his pockets and kicked the sand again. That poor sand was going to fuse into glass if he kept looking at it like that. “I know,” he growled at the sand. “I know they want their freedom from me. I know that’s why they went to some idiot country that acts snooty toward anyone who actually makes money. I got the message. But I just…I mean…” His scowl was so mighty. “When they start having my grandkids and everything, they might—”
He broke off, heaving a sigh, and bent his head and brooded. “I mean, if it’s only for a few months a year,” he burst out hopelessly. “Just another one of our bases, you know. That would be okay, right?”
Anne slipped her hand down into his pocket to find his. “Honey.” It was the first time she had ever called him any endearment whatsoever, so she had to steal his for her. It felt odd in her mouth and sounded silly, but sometimes Mack was too crisp a word. “Your daughters love you. You know that, don’t you?”
He swallowed and gave a wobbly movement of his head that was trying to be a firm nod but ended up not sure of itself.
“They’re so happy to see you happy right now,” she said. “I suppose they do need their independence. You’re a really dominant man. But they love you.” All those conversations she’d kept overhearing in the gardens, the two girls delightedly speculating on their father’s love life.
She’d run into a similar conversation between Kurt and Kai, and it still soaked through her, that sweet, painful, beautiful reminder of what it meant: He loves me, too. Even if I screwed some things up. He still loves me.
Mack swallowed. “So…just a little bit?” He held up thumb and forefinger pinched close together. “Maybe a month around Christmas, a month in the spring, and…maybe a little more when Cade gets pregnant? Or Jaime.” His face winced. “Jesus,” he said very softly to himself. Clearly, he had barely started to adjust to the idea of his older daughter having kids, and imagining his younger pregnant was still a bit of a shock to his system.
“Maybe we should go over there when Summer has her baby, too,” Anne said quietly. “I think that would really mean a lot to her.”
Mack’s face eased. “Good thought.” He slipped his hand out of his pocket so that he could properly close it around hers again.
“After all, even her parents might show up for something like that, and you’re about the only person who can take Sam on and run interference for Summer and the baby. Luc could, but he’ll be sleep-deprived and he shouldn’t have to deal with that shit while he’s a new father.”
Mack started to get that little smile on his face, the one that meant he was anticipating a battle. “Luc.” He shrugged broad shoulders and made a tiny, dismissing gesture like an old, hardened warrior-king taking charge of a battle: Step back, kids, and let me show you how it’s done. “Yeah, I’ll handle Sam. Don’t make an actual bath mat out of Mai or anything.”
Anne made a face. Contact with Summer’s mother always made her want to wash something sticky off the tips of her fingers. “I make no promises. Except to wear gloves, if I strangle her.”
“Good thinking,” Mack said absently. “And take the Fifth this time.”
Anne rolled her eyes to heaven. Yes, everybody had ideas about how she could have handled that whole pursuit by the Justice Department better. Probably the price she paid for being loved by two strong, intelligent men who wanted to figure out every possible way they could prevent her from ever being caught in such a mess again.
Being loved. Having people who wanted to save her. She could probably handle a little annoyance as a price. If she could get past this damn eye-stinging, throat-strangling thing that happened whenever she thought about it.
“About the we,” she said.
Mack’s hand tightened hard on hers. “Damn it, don’t start again, Anne. We’ve been dating for more than a decade. You can do this. Come on. Please?”
Aww. He had said please. For her.
She bent her head, concentrating on the feel of her hand in his, smiling foolishly at the sand. Poor sand probably needed someone to smile at it after all Mack’s scowls.
“Are you sure this is what you really want?” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew how stupid they were, and Mack’s incredulous look treated them as such.
“Anne. I run one of the top corporations in the world. Exactly how much mental energy do you think I have leftover to pursue things I’m not sure I want?”
“Well…” She opened her free hand. Okay, okay, it was a stupid question.
“You’re hedging,” he said severely. “Again. Damn it, Anne. Quit being a coward.”
Her spine stiffened. “I beg your pardon?”
He closed his eyes a second. “Holy crap, you shouldn’t give me that look when we’re so far away from a house. Unless you want to reconsider your opinion about making love on a beach.”
“We might discomfit the neighbor over there walking his dog,” she said dryly.
“Anne. Quit beating around the bush.”
“Well, what about Machu Picchu?” she said.
Mack stopped in the sand, staring at her blankly. “What?”
She gestured with her free hand. “Paris. The beach. Fine. That all suits you. What if I want to hike to Machu Picchu? Or Mount Kilimanjaro? Or…I’ve been working all my life, Mack. What about some of these other things?”
“Hey.” His face lit up. “
You want to hike to Machu Picchu, too? Seriously? I’ve been wanting to do that since I was a teenager, and I just never found the time. And then the girls weren’t old enough, and then all the sudden they were teenagers who didn’t want to do things with their dad. And then…I don’t know. It didn’t seem as much fun to do it by myself. But I never wanted to just cheat and take a helicopter up. That stole all the fun out of it.”
“I think we should broaden our scope.” She gestured again. “Not just limit ourselves to the beach.”
“Anne Winters. That is exactly what I’ve been trying to tell you. You’re just trying to twist it around to make it seem as if it was your idea. And you’re splitting hairs to do it, I might add. You know damn well I’ll hike whatever trail you ask me to.”
Yeah. She did know that. She couldn’t stop smiling at him.
He tightened his hold on her hand and lifted it between them, turning to face her. He couldn’t stop smiling at her, either, this deep, intense, very serious smile. “Anne. Will you walk everywhere with me?”
She beamed at him. She couldn’t help it. She felt like a damn lighthouse. “I will.” Her voice choked up. She swallowed and took a breath, and her voice came out true and pure and clear. “If you’ll walk everywhere with me.”
His hand tightened on hers so hard. “Then we’re good. Because I will.”
She had to turn away, before she started getting as teary as he had. “I thought you might say that,” she told the sand, with that foolish smile.
He took a long stride to catch up with her as she tried to head on, and ran his thumb under her eye. “Caught you,” he whispered, showing her the gleam.
She drew a deep breath and lifted her chin, trying not to sniffle. “I’m just worried about whether you put the cap on the toothpaste. Because you know that one will be hard on me, if you don’t.”
He grinned. Actually, it was more like a sunrise, this joy bursting over the horizon. “Anne. I will even, even, even put the cap on the toothpaste for you.”
She beamed, hugging herself with one arm, all of this silliness making everything feel so cozy, so real.
He bent to whisper in her ear. “I already did that anyway,” he confessed. “Now breaking me of my other habits…we’ll have to see. But you always did like a challenge, didn’t you, Anne?”
She felt so smug. She felt like he looked, when he did that gloating score mark in the air. “Oh, yes,” she said. “I always did.”
He grinned. “Well, you’ve got one now, honey,” he said, and locked his fingers tight with hers, swinging their hands as they headed down the beach.
She squeezed just as hard back and grinned up at him. “You, too.”
***
THE END
Thank you!
Thanks so much for reading! I hope you enjoyed Mack and Anne’s story.
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Meanwhile, don’t miss the rest of the Amour et Chocolat series and Kurt and Kai’s story, Snow-Kissed. (Keep reading for excerpts of Snow-Kissed and Dom and Jaime’s story in The Chocolate Touch.)
And coming up! La Vie en Roses series. Sign up here to be emailed the moment Matt’s book is released. (And for an advance taste of this series, check out The Chocolate Rose, set in the same world, and the novella “A Rose in Winter” in No Place Like Home, where we meet Matt’s family and his cousin Raoul Rosier.)
Thanks so much for reading! In between books you can find lots of fun glimpses of chocolate and perfume research on Facebook and my website. I hope to see you there!
All the best,
Laura Florand
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Other Books by Laura Florand
Snow Queen Duology
Snow-Kissed (a novella)
Sun-Kissed (also part of the Amour et Chocolat series)
Amour et Chocolat Series
All’s Fair in Love and Chocolate, a novella in Kiss the Bride
The Chocolate Thief
The Chocolate Kiss
The Chocolate Rose (also part of La Vie en Roses series)
The Chocolate Touch
The Chocolate Heart
The Chocolate Temptation
Sun-Kissed (also a sequel to Snow-Kissed)
La Vie en Roses Series
Turning Up the Heat (a novella)
The Chocolate Rose (also part of the Amour et Chocolat series)
A Rose in Winter, a novella in No Place Like Home
Memoir
Blame It on Paris
SNOW-KISSED
The snow fell over the black granite counter in a soft hush of white. Kai focused on the sieve she shook as she brought a winter of sugar to the dark world, letting the powder slide across her thoughts the way snow on a falling night would, taking all with it, even her, leaving only peace.
That peace lay so cold. She had almost forgotten how cold she felt, until he showed up.
The man who, once upon a time, had always made her so warm and happy.
Now he stood at the window, looking as cold as she was. Destroying all peace. Past him and the pane of glass, only a few flakes fell against a gray sky, rare and disinterested, nature as usual failing her. Her fall of powdered sugar could not come between her and him, could not blur him to some distant place cut off by the arrival of winter. Could not hush him, if ever he chose to speak.
No, all she could do was concentrate on the sugar-snow. Looking up—looking at him—undid everything.
“I don’t think they’re coming,” the man said finally, and she swallowed. It was funny how her whole body ached at his voice. As if her skin had gotten unused to his vibrations running over it. As if she needed to develop tiny calluses at the base of every hair follicle so that those hairs would not want to shiver.
Light brown hair neatly cut, he stood angled toward the window, shoulders straight, with that long, intellectual fitness he had, the over-intelligent, careful man who had played sports almost like he might study for a test, maintaining perfect physical fitness as just another one of his obligations. She still remembered when he had discovered Ultimate Frisbee, the awkward, unfamiliar, joy-filled freedom in him as he explored the idea of playing something so intense just for fun. It had been rather beautiful. She had gone to all his games and chatted with the other wives with their damn babies and even played on his pick-up teams sometimes, although unwilling to put forth the effort to be part of his competitive leagues.
Those fun, fun years full of weekends of green grass, and friendly people, and laughter. They had had too many happy days. They clogged in her all the sudden, dammed up too tight, hurting her.
She had screwed them all the fuck up. Forever.
She didn’t know what to say to him, after what she had done, so she concentrated on shedding snow, like some great, dangerous goddess bending over her granite world, a creature half-formed from winter clouds, drifting eerily apart from all humanity. She wished he had not come, but the thought of him leaving wrenched a hole in her that filled up instantly with tears.
Hot, liquid tears that sloshed around inside her and wanted to spill out. That in itself was terrifying and strange; she had thought she had tamed her tears down to something near-solid and quiescent, a slushy of grief that lay cold in her middle but no longer spilled out at every wrong movement, every careless glimpse of happy couples or children laughing in a park.
She had so hoped that she had reached a point where she could—see him. Where all that long process of coming to peace with herself and her losses would be strong enough to withstand a glimpse of him. But all of her, every iota of strength and peace, had dissolved into pain and longing the instant she saw him step out of his car, a flake of snow catching on his hair.
She focused with all her strength. She had to get this sugar exactly right, not too thick, not too shallow, not too even, not too ragged, leaving perfect graceful curves and fades into black at its edges. It was soothing to work on that white against gleaming black. To focus on those tiny grains, almost as tiny as cells of life.
She could control these grains. She could always get them right. If she worked hard enough. If she really, really tried.
“The snow is supposed to start from the south and close us off,” Kurt said from the window. “They probably didn’t want to chance it.”
Now why would Anne Winters’s staff do that to her? Leave her alone with him just to avoid bad roads? Those selfish people, it was almost as if they had . . . families. Reasons to live that were far more important than she was.
Kurt shifted enough to watch her, but she didn’t look up. She shouldn’t have let him come, but for God’s sake, his mother was Anne Winters. First of all, Anne had only rented the cabin to Kai so affordably on the condition that Kai maintain it for her use in photo shoots when she wanted it. And even without that agreement, Kai was a food stylist who regularly contracted to Anne Winters’s company. She could hardly refuse this photo shoot for next year’s holiday edition, Anne’s biggest. And accepting it, she had to jump through Anne’s hoops, even the famous multi-tasker’s insistence on having her lawyer son with her for the weekend so she could work on contract negotiations simultaneously. Her formidable presence and the bustle of her staff should have helped dissipate all this miasma from their past and saved them from any need to linger in it.
Sun-Kissed Page 18
