by Nora Roberts
“Ah, my little puff pastry, you’re as beautiful as ever.”
“And you, Franconi, are as full of…” Summer broke off as she spotted the woman standing in the center of the room. She smiled, and though it was friendly enough, she didn’t attempt to hide the survey. “Hello. You must be Carlo’s publicist.”
“Juliet Trent.” Odd, Carlo felt as nervous as a boy introducing his first heartthrob to his mother. “This is Summer Cocharan, the finest pastry chef on either side of the Atlantic.”
Summer held out a hand as she crossed into the room. “He’s flattering me because he hopes I’ll fix him an éclair.”
“A dozen of them,” Carlo corrected. “Beautiful, isn’t she, Summer?”
While Juliet struggled for the proper thing to say, Summer smiled again. She’d heard something in Carlo’s voice she’d never expected to. “Yes, she is. Horrid to work with, isn’t he, Juliet?”
Juliet felt the laugh come easily. “Yes, he is.”
“But never dull.” Angling her head, she gave Carlo a quick, intimate look. Yes, there was something here other than business. About time, too. “By the way, Carlo, I should thank you for sending young Steven to me.”
Interested, Carlo set down his leather case. “He’s working out then?”
“Wonderfully.”
“The young boy who wanted to be a chef,” Juliet murmured and found herself incredibly moved. He hadn’t forgotten.
“Yes, did you meet him? He’s very dedicated,” Summer went on when Juliet nodded. “I think your idea of sending him to Paris for training will pay off. He’s going to be excellent.”
“Good.” Satisfied, Carlo patted her hand. “I’ll speak with his mother and make the arrangements.”
Brows knit, Juliet stared at him. “You’re going to send him to Paris?”
“It’s the only place to study cordon bleu properly.” Carlo gave a shrug as though the matter were everyday. “Then, when he’s fully trained, I’ll simply steal him away from Summer for my own restaurant.”
“Perhaps you will,” Summer smiled. “Then again, perhaps you won’t.”
He was going to pay for the education and training of a boy he’d met only once, Juliet thought, baffled. What sort of a man was it who could fuss for twenty minutes over the knot of his tie and give with such total generosity to a stranger? How foolish she’d been to think, even for a minute, that she really knew him.
“It’s very kind of you, Carlo,” she murmured after a moment.
He gave her an odd look, then shrugged it off. “Dues are meant to be paid, Juliet. I was young once and had only a mother to provide for me. Speaking of mothers,” he went on smoothly, changing the topic. “How is Monique?”
“Gloriously happy still,” Summer told him, and smiled thinking of her mother. “Keil was obviously the man she’d been looking for.” With a laugh, she turned back to Juliet. “I’m sorry, Carlo and I go back a long way.”
“Don’t be. Carlo tells me you and he were students together.”
“A hundred years ago, in Paris.”
“Now Summer’s married her big American. Where’s Blake, cara? Does he trust you with me?”
“Not for long.” Blake came through the open doorway, still elegant after a twelve-hour day. He was taller than Carlo, broader, but Juliet thought she recognized a similarity. Power, both sexual and intellectual.
“This is Juliet Trent,” Summer began. “She’s keeping Carlo in line on his American tour.”
“Not an easy job.” A waiter rolled in a bucket of champagne and glasses. Blake dismissed him with a nod. “Summer tells me your schedule in Philadelphia’s very tight.”
“She holds the whip,” Carlo told him with a gesture toward Juliet. But when his hand came down, it brushed her shoulder in a gesture of casual and unmistakable intimacy.
“I thought I might run over to the studio in the morning and watch your demonstration.” Summer accepted the glass of champagne from her husband. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you cook.”
“Good.” Carlo relaxed with the first sip of frosty wine. “Perhaps I’ll have time to give your kitchen an inspection. Summer came here to remodel and expand Blake’s kitchen, then stayed on because she’d grown attached to it.”
“Quite right.” Summer sent her husband an amused look. “In fact, I’ve grown so attached I’ve decided to expand again.”
“Yes?” Interested, Carlo lifted his brow. “Another Cocharan House?”
“Another Cocharan,” Summer corrected.
It took him a moment, but Juliet saw the moment the words had sunk in. Emotion she’d always expected from him, and it was there now, in his eyes as he set down his glass. “You’re having a child.”
“In the winter.” Summer smiled and stretched out her hand. “I haven’t figured out how I’m going to reach the stove for Christmas dinner.”
He took her hand and kissed it, then kissed her cheeks, one by one. “We’ve come a long way, cara mia.”
“A very long way.”
“Do you remember the merry-go-round?”
She remembered well her desperate flight to Rome to flee from Blake and her feelings. “You told me I was afraid to grab the brass ring, and so you made me try. I won’t forget it.”
He murmured something in Italian that made Summer’s eyes fill. “And I’ve always loved you. Now make a toast or something before I disgrace myself.”
“A toast.” Carlo picked up his glass and slipped his free arm around Juliet. “To the carousel that doesn’t end.”
Juliet lifted her glass and, sipping, let the champagne wash away the ache.
* * *
Cooking before the camera was something Summer understood well. She spent several hours a year doing just that while handling the management of the kitchen in the Philadelphia Cocharan House, satisfying her own select clients with a few trips a year if the price and the occasion were important enough, and, most important of all, learning to enjoy her marriage.
Though she’d often cooked with Carlo, in the kitchen of a palace, in the less expensive area of the flat she still kept in Paris and dozens of other places, she never tired of watching him in action. While she was said to create with the intensity of a brain surgeon, Carlo had the flair of an artist. She’d always admired his expansiveness, his ease of manner, and especially his theatrics.
When he’d put the finishing touches on the pasta dish he’d named, not immodestly, after himself, she applauded with the rest of the audience. But she’d hitched a ride to the studio with him and Juliet for more reason than to feed an old friend’s ego. If Summer knew anyone in the world as well as she did herself, it was Carlo. She’d often thought, in many ways, they’d risen from the same dough.
“Bravo, Franconi.” As the crew began to serve his dish to the audience, Summer went up to give him a formal kiss on the cheek.
“Yes.” He kissed her back. “I was magnificent.”
“Where’s Juliet?”
“On the phone.” Carlo rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “Dio, that woman spends more time on the phone than a new bride spends in bed.”
Summer checked her watch. She’d noted Carlo’s schedule herself. “I don’t imagine she’ll be long. I know you’re having a late breakfast at the hotel with reporters.”
“You promised to make crêpes,” he reminded her, thinking unapologetically of his own pleasure.
“So I did. In return, do you think you could find a small, quiet room for the two of us?”
He grinned and wiggled his brows. “My love, when Franconi can’t oblige a lady with a quiet room, the world stops.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She hooked her arm through his and let him lead her down a corridor and into what turned out to be a storage room with an overhead light. “You’ve never lacked class, caro.”
“So.” He made himself comfortable on a stack of boxes. “Since I know you don’t want my body, superb as it is, what’s on your mind?”
�
��You, of course, chérie.”
“Of course.”
“I love you, Carlo.”
Her abrupt seriousness made him smile and take her hands. “And I you, always.”
“You remember, not so long ago when you came through Philadelphia on tour for another book?”
“You were wondering how to take the job redoing the American’s kitchen when you were attracted to him and determined not to be.”
“In love with him and determined not to be,” she corrected. “You gave me some good advice here, and when I visited you in Rome. I want to return the favor.”
“Advice?”
“Grab the brass ring, Carlo, and hold on to it.”
“Summer—”
“Who knows you better?” she interrupted.
He moved his shoulders. “No one.”
“I saw you were in love with her the moment I stepped into the room, the moment you said her name. We understand each other too well to pretend.”
He sat a moment, saying nothing. He’d been skirting around the word, and its consequences, very carefully for days. “Juliet is special,” he said slowly. “I’ve thought perhaps what I feel for her is different.”
“Thought?”
He let out a small sound and gave up. “Known. But the kind of love we’re speaking of leads to commitment, marriage, children.”
Instinctively Summer touched a hand to her stomach. Carlo would understand that she still had small fears. She didn’t have to speak of them. “Yes. You told me once, when I asked you why you’d never married, that no woman had made your heart tremble. Do you remember what you told me you’d do if you met her?”
“Run for a license and a priest.” Rising, he slipped his hands into the pockets of the slacks Juliet had selected for him. “Easy words before the heart trembles. I don’t want to lose her.” Once said, he sighed. “It’s never mattered before, but now it matters too much to make the wrong move. She’s elusive, Summer. There are times I hold her and feel part of her pull away. I understand her independence, her ambition, and even admire them.”
“I have Blake, but I still have my independence and my ambition.”
“Yes.” He smiled at her. “Do you know, she’s so like you. Stubborn.” When Summer lifted a brow, he grinned. “Hard in the head and so determined to be the best. Qualities I’ve always found strangely appealing in a beautiful woman.”
“Merci, mon cher ami,” Summer said dryly. “Then where’s your problem?”
“You’d trust me.”
She looked surprised, then moved her shoulders as though he’d said something foolish. “Of course.”
“She can’t—won’t,” Carlo corrected. “Juliet would find it easier to give me her body, even part of her heart than her trust. I need it, Summer, as much as I need what she’s already given me.”
Thoughtful, Summer leaned against a crate. “Does she love you?”
“I don’t know.” A difficult admission for a man who’d always thought he understood women so well. He smiled a little as he realized a man never fully understood the woman most important to him. With any other woman he’d have been confident he could guide and mold the emotions to his own preference. With Juliet, he was confident of nothing.
“There are times she seems very close and times she seems very detached. Until yesterday I hadn’t fully begun to know my own mind.”
“Which is?”
“I want her with me,” he said simply. “When I’m an old man sitting by the fountains watching the young girls, I’ll still want her with me.”
Summer moved over to put her hands on his shoulders. “Frightening, isn’t it?”
“Terrifying.” Yet somehow, he thought, easier now that he’d admitted it. “I’d always thought it would be easy. There’d be love, romance, marriage and children. How could I know the woman would be a stubborn American?”
Summer laughed and dropped her forehead to his. “No more than I could know the man would be a stubborn American. But he was right for me. Your Juliet is right for you.”
“So.” He kissed Summer’s temple. “How do I convince her?”
Summer frowned a moment, thinking. With a quick smile, she walked over to a corner. Picking up a broom, she held it out to him. “Sweep her off her feet.”
* * *
Juliet was close to panic when she spotted Carlo strolling down the corridor with Summer on his arm. They might’ve been taking in the afternoon sun on the Left Bank. The first wave of relief evaporated into annoyance. “Carlo, I’ve turned this place upside down looking for you.”
He merely smiled and touched a finger to her cheek. “You were on the phone.”
Telling herself not to swear, she dragged a hand through her hair. “Next time you wander off, leave a trail of bread crumbs. In the meantime, I’ve got a very cranky cab driver waiting outside.” As she pulled him along, she struggled to remember her manners. “Did you enjoy the show?” she asked Summer.
“I always enjoy watching Carlo cook. I only wish the two of you had more time in town. As it is, your timing’s very wise.”
“Yes?” Carlo pushed open the door and held it for both women.
“The French swine comes through next week.”
The door shut with the punch of a bullet. “LaBare?”
Juliet turned back. She’d heard him snarl that name before. “Carlo—”
He held up a hand, silencing any interruption. “What does the Gallic slug do here?”
“Precisely what you’ve done,” Summer returned. Tossing back her hair, she scowled at nothing. “He’s written another book.”
“Peasant. He’s fit to cook only for hyenas.”
“For rabid hyenas,” Summer corrected.
Seeing that both of her charges were firing up, Juliet took an arm of each. “I think we can talk in the cab.”
“He will not speak to you,” Carlo announced, ignoring Juliet. “I will dice him into very small pieces.”
Though she relished the image, Summer shook her head. “Don’t worry. I can handle him. Besides, Blake finds it amusing.”
Carlo made a sound like a snake. Juliet felt her nerves fraying. “Americans. Perhaps I’ll come back to Philadelphia and murder him.”
Trying her best, Juliet nudged him toward the cab. “Come now, Carlo, you know you don’t want to murder Blake.”
“LaBare,” he corrected with something close to an explosion.
“Who is LaBare?” Juliet demanded in exasperation.
“Swine,” Carlo answered.
“Pig,” Summer confirmed. “But I have plans of my own for him. He’s going to stay at the Cocharan House.” Summer spread her hands and examined her nails. “I’m going to prepare his meals personally.”
With a laugh, Carlo lifted her from the ground and kissed her. “Revenge, my love, is sweeter than even your meringue.” Satisfied, he set her down again. “We were students with this slug.” Carlo explained to Juliet. “His crimes are too numerous to mention.” With a snap, Carlo adjusted his jacket. “I refuse to be on the same continent as he.”
Running out of patience, Juliet glanced at the scowling cab driver. “You won’t be,” she reminded him. “You’ll be back in Italy when he’s here.”
Carlo brightened and nodded. “You’re right. Summer, you’ll call me and tell me how he fell on his face?”
“Naturally.”
“Then it’s settled.” His mood altered completely, he smiled and picked up the conversation as it ended before the mention of the Frenchman’s name. “Next time we come to Philadelphia,” Carlo promised. “You and I will make a meal for Blake and Juliet. My veal, your bombe. You haven’t sinned, Juliet, until you’ve tasted Summer’s bombe.”
There wouldn’t be a next time, Juliet knew, but she managed to smile. “I’ll look forward to it.”
Carlo paused as Juliet opened the door of the cab. “But tonight, we leave for New York.”
Summer smiled as she stepped inside. “Don’t forget to p
ack your broom.”
Juliet started to climb into the front seat. “Broom?”
Carlo took Summer’s hand in his and smiled. “An old French expression.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
New York hadn’t changed. Perhaps it was hotter than when Juliet had left it, but the traffic still pushed, the people still rushed and the noise still rang. As she stood at her window at the Harley, she absorbed it.
No, New York hadn’t changed, but she had.
Three weeks before, she’d looked out her office window at not so different a view. Her primary thought then had been the tour, to make a success of it. For herself, she admitted. She’d wanted the splash.
She realized she’d gotten it. At that moment, Carlo was in his suite, giving an interview to a reporter for the Times. She’d made a half-dozen excuses why she didn’t have time to sit in on it. He’d accepted her usual list of phone calls and details, but the truth had been, she’d needed to be alone.
Later, there’d be another reporter and a photographer from one of the top magazines on the stands. They had network coverage of his demonstration at Bloomingdale’s. The Italian Way had just climbed to number five on the bestsellers list. Her boss was ready to canonize her.
Juliet tried to remember when she’d ever been more miserable.
Time was running out. The next evening, Carlo would board a plane and she’d take the short cab ride back to her apartment. While she unpacked, he’d be thousands of miles above the Atlantic. She’d be thinking of him while he flirted with a flight attendant or a pretty seat companion. That was his way; she’d always known it.
It wasn’t possible to bask in success, to begin plans on her next assignment when she couldn’t see beyond the next twenty-four hours.
Wasn’t this exactly what she’d always promised herself wouldn’t happen? Hadn’t she always picked her way carefully through life so that she could keep everything in perfect focus? She’d made a career for herself from the ground up, and everything she had, she’d earned. She’d never considered it ungenerous not to share it, but simply practical. After all, Juliet had what she considered the perfect example before her of what happened when you let go the reins long enough to let someone else pick them up.
