by BETH KERY
No, Lucien was the one. She trusted him with her body and her well-being, despite all this bewildering domination business, not to mention her unprecedented sexual reaction to it.
Even though she’d agreed to this thing with him, she didn’t want him to know about her vulnerability . . . her relative naïveté. Especially since he’d proposed such a sophisticated sexual arrangement. First of all, he’d never believe her, given all the hyped-up press about her. His disdain would hurt. Second of all, the idea of giving herself wholly when he knew of her weakness made her feel too raw. Too exposed.
Lucien had his secrets. It was only fair that she have one of her own.
Lucien stalked through the empty, hushed interior of Fusion, feeling particularly energized at the prospect of his upcoming meeting. A switch had been flipped in him recently. He’d discovered a newfound purpose here in Chicago, and it had nothing to do with Ian Noble.
He was considering buying a lovely vintage building ideally located in the South Loop near the once venerable, still atmospheric Prairie Avenue District. The location would make it the perfect spot for a restaurant and elegant boutique hotel. It was unusual for him not to have several new business ventures going at once. He’d restrained himself in the past year, however, unsure how long his business in Chicago would take. He still had several restaurants in Paris and one in Monte Carlo, along with four thriving European luxury resort hotels. He’d learned the hotel business firsthand from his father years ago. Each of the businesses he owned today had been acquired and cultivated completely on his own, however, without his father’s money or assistance. The only debt he owed his father was the excellent training Adrien had provided by allowing him to manage several of his hotels. Lucien figured he’d repaid that debt amply in hard work and lucrative business decisions. Elise may have called him an heir the other night, but in truth Lucien had never touched a cent of his inheritance. He’d built a respectable fortune of his own, and he’d be damned if he ever pocketed dirty money.
The decision to begin a new business signaled a change was in the offing for him. It felt like a breath of fresh air flowing over the dark oppression of the past few years.
The thought of fresh air made his head turn toward the kitchen.
It was three thirty in the afternoon, the calm between the lunch and dinner bustle in the restaurant. In the distance, he heard the metallic sound of cookware and pictured Elise in the kitchen, her lovely face sober as she focused her entire attention on her culinary task. The memory of how she’d tasted when he’d spontaneously kissed her the other day sprung into his mind in vivid detail. The taste of maple syrup had lingered on her tongue, but the flavor of her—Elise—had been sweeter still.
It’d been a week since he’d caved and hired her as his interim chef, seven increasingly brutal nights since he’d come to a decision about her. He’d kept his distance with the exception of that regrettable kiss, all too aware that he must wait. She was his employee, after all.
For the time being.
He’d kept close tabs on her. All reports about her cooking from his staff and patrons had been stellar. Sharon had expressed her amazement yesterday when she’d come into his office, announcing the arrival of another chef candidate for Lucien to interview.
“Are you unhappy with Ms. Martin’s work?” Sharon had asked.
“Not at all. Should I be?”
“No, everyone is raving about her food. And she’s very pleasant to work with. Have you ever noticed everyone smiles when she’s around? There’s certainly a new pep to Evan and Javier’s stride.”
“I pay her to cook, not perk up my male employees,” he’d muttered dryly.
“It’s not just the male employees,” Sharon had continued, undeterred by his frown. It was one of the reasons he liked Sharon. She had a mind of her own. “She’s a nice change for all of us. Do you know Maryanne won tickets to the symphony but couldn’t go because of her kids?” Sharon asked him, referring to one of their waitresses, a single mother. “Elise volunteered to watch Allie and David so Maryanne could go. That meant a lot to Maryanne. It meant a lot to me, too,” Sharon added thoughtfully. “And she’s doing a marvelous job of cooking. Why do you need another chef?”
“Ms. Martin isn’t a fully qualified chef yet,” Lucien had said briskly as he cleared his desk in preparation for the interview.
“Tell that to your elated customers,” Sharon had said wryly before she left to retrieve the chef candidate.
He’d pretended to be brusque, but in truth he’d been pleased that Elise had won Sharon over as a protector. Sharon was no pushover, and all of his employees looked up to her.
Another part of him was tense, however, waiting for the other shoe to drop. A calm atmosphere and Elise did not go together.
She was a storm waiting to break.
The thought flew into his head as he opened the smoked-glass doors of Fusion and saw Elise standing in the lobby of the Noble Enterprises tower wearing her chef’s smock and talking to Francesca Arno, Ian’s lover. She was several inches shorter than Francesca, although he doubted most people would notice the inequity of the two women’s heights. Elise was so vibrant and animated, like a flickering flame. As he watched, several casual passersby turned to look at her, and not just men. Her strength of character and palpable charm had always amazed him, even when she’d been a child.
Elise’s expression shifted when she took notice of his approach, but she kept chatting amiably until he arrived by her side.
“Mr. Lenault! You know Francesca, don’t you?” she asked, pink lips curving.
“Of course I do,” he said, leaning down to give Francesca a brief kiss of greeting on the cheek.
“She just told me she’s a runner,” Elise said. “I’m going to start training with her for the Chicago Marathon.”
“You run?” Lucien asked Elise, disguising his surprise.
“Yes. I started a year ago. It’s good discipline,” she emphasized, the defiant spark in her sapphire eyes meant solely for him.
“I hadn’t realized you two had met,” he added mildly, ignoring her stab at him.
“I introduced myself last night after experiencing the ecstasy of her Essaouira chicken and strawberry crepes,” Francesca said, grinning up at him. “She’s brilliant. Ian and I asked for you at Fusion last night, but they said you weren’t in the restaurant. We had very important news to tell you.”
Francesca was always a lovely woman, but he’d never seen her look quite so radiant as she did when she lifted her left hand. Lucien laughed and gave her a heartfelt hug. He reexamined the exquisite triple-diamond platinum ring on her finger after they’d stepped back from the embrace.
“Ian is a very lucky man,” he told her sincerely. He bounced her hand teasingly. “Are you strong enough to handle such a heavy ring?”
“I’m strong enough,” Francesca told him archly, and he knew she’d precisely understood his double entendre.
He smiled, pleased yet again by Ian’s choice. “I believe you are.”
“Thank you. Ian picked it out himself,” Francesca said amusedly, her eyelids narrowing. “And if you know any different, don’t tell me.”
“He most definitely picked it out himself.”
Francesca beamed at his steadfast answer. “We’re throwing a little get-together at the penthouse Sunday night to celebrate. I hope that you’ll come. You too,” she told Elise irrepressibly.
“Oh, that’s so nice of you to ask, thank you. But . . . I don’t think I can,” Elise prevaricated, her hesitant, meek manner completely unbelievable to Lucien.
“Of course you can,” Francesca insisted. “You told me just now that you hardly know anyone in the city. You’ll love my friends Davie and Justin and Caden. . . . Well, Justin and Caden will love you, in fact, but they’re relatively harmless. And Fusion is closed on Sundays and Mondays, so I know you’re not working. Isn’t that right, Lucien? Tell her.” Francesca glanced at him for assistance. He held Elise’s gaze as
he spoke.
“Of course you should go, Ms. Martin. It will do you good to make some friends in a new city.”
Elise’s eyes widened in surprise at his agreeable tone. Clearly she’d thought he’d signal for her to decline the invitation, but Francesca’s sincere request had blocked that option.
“Will you be there Monsieur Lenault?” Elise asked, eyes wide and innocent.
“I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Her slight frown told him she’d understood his subtext. Allow Elise to run wild in the Noble penthouse without supervision?
Not likely.
The following day, Elise glanced up when Sharon walked into the kitchen.
“Lucien would like to see you in his office, Elise.”
The knife she held in her hand stilled at the news. It took her a moment to recover, something she hoped Evan and Sharon didn’t notice. It’d been a seemingly innocuous announcement, after all.
“You can take over here, Evan. You have it down perfectly,” she said with a reassuring smile as she set down the knife. She’d been instructing and assisting Evan in the dressing of a capon. “I’m sure I won’t be long,” she added over her shoulder after she’d washed up.
She coached herself to ignore the butterflies she felt as she walked down the long hallway to Lucien’s office. He couldn’t be requesting the meeting because she’d done anything wrong. Her work ethic had been unquestionable. In fact, she was usually the first one there in the morning, eager to begin cooking. Part of that motivation might have been the depressing dreariness of her hotel room—not to mention a desire to pass Baden Johnson’s room before he awoke from his nightly intoxication—but the point was, she’d been here, ready to work. She’d become an expert at avoiding her leering, malodorous neighbor at the Cedar Hotel.
Her stomach fluttered with anticipation as she knocked on the carved wood door, graphic memories of her former meeting with Lucien in his office flooding her consciousness and mounting her anxiety.
“You wanted to see me?” she asked a moment later when Lucien opened the door. Today he was dressed in black jeans, a simple black crew-neck shirt, and an ivory blazer that highlighted his broad shoulders and the smooth, beautiful color of his skin. He was such a sinfully gorgeous man, some rare, magical blend of unknown origins, the mystery of his existence somehow perfectly fitting the magnetic enigma surrounding him. She recalled how once during her fourteenth summer, she’d bluntly asked him about his ethnic heritage. They’d been fishing off the dock, a pastime they’d both gravitated toward that summer, a simple, wholesome activity that stood in such contrast to the complex machinations of their parents’ business and social lives. It was obvious to anyone that Lucien couldn’t be the natural child of his blond, painfully thin mother, and Lucien towered over his paunchy, balding father. Lucien hadn’t taken offense, probably because he’d sensed her childlike sincerity and simple curiosity.
“I never knew or saw my biological parents. My mother and father adopted me when I was still a baby,” he’d replied, nodding at her fishing line. She’d obediently lifted it, and sure enough, a fish had stolen her bait. He took it from her without comment.
“I’m adopted, too,” Elise had told him. She’d thought it a thousand times before. It must be true. How else to explain how she felt as if she were interacting with a different species when she related to her parents? Lucien’s smile had struck her as a little sad.
“You are the spitting image of your mama.”
“I am?”
“Yes, but you will surpass even her beauty one day,” he’d said as he rebaited her line. He’d glanced aside and noticed her expression. “You look like her. What is on the inside is whatever you make of it.”
She’d stared at the sunlight dancing in the azure Mediterranean Sea, not wanting him to know how much his words meant to her. “Don’t you ever wonder about your true mother, though? Don’t you ever miss her?”
She recalled how he hadn’t answered immediately.
“I wonder about her once in a while,” he’d said, handing back her pole. “But it’s hard to miss what you’ve never had.”
What you’ve never had. Neither Lucien nor she had known much about what it meant to have a nurturing, available mother.
Lucien waved her into his office, snapping her back to the present. “Come in. Elise, I’d like you to meet Denise Riordan, Fusion’s new chef.”
Elise’s startled gaze flew to the other occupant of the room. A tall, auburn-haired woman with a stern expression that was softened by kind brown eyes stood to greet her.
“I hadn’t realized Lucien had gotten so far along in the hiring process. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Riordan,” Elise managed, despite her surprise.
“I understand from Lucien that you’re a talented chef. I would be glad to take you on as my stage, if my qualifications are suited to your school . . . and to you, of course,” she said.
“I’m sure that anyone Lucien would hire has the best qualifications,” she said, glancing sideways at the distraction of Lucien’s tall form when he approached.
“I’ve already taken the liberty of sending off Ms. Riordan’s applicant information along with an explanation of the alteration in plans to your school in Paris. We should be hearing back quickly,” Lucien said.
“Thank you,” Elise replied, dumbfounded by the fact that he’d taken pains to smooth the path with her school.
“If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I need to speak with Sharon. I’ll just leave you two to get better acquainted,” he said politely.
Denise Riordan and she sat in the chairs before Lucien’s desk and got to know each other. By the time Lucien returned twenty minutes later, she felt certain she could work well with the older, knowledgeable woman. Two chefs in a kitchen was never an easy scenario, but Elise was eager to learn, and she had no problem with taking on the subservient role. It’d been what she’d expected when she came to Chicago, and she was convinced Denise Riordan had significant things to teach her.
“Please stay for a moment. I need a word,” Lucien said to Elise after he’d returned and Ms. Riordan was saying good-bye.
Neither of them spoke for a moment after the new chef closed the door behind her. A prickly, electrical atmosphere descended.
“I received the medical exam results you left me,” he said. “Did you receive mine?”
“Yes,” she replied airily, as if she discussed such things all the time despite the heat of embarrassment in her cheeks.
“Do you like her? Denise?” Lucien asked quietly from where he stood near the door.
“Very much. I don’t suppose there’s a reason you chose a female chef, is there?”
“I chose the best qualified candidate.”
She gave him a dry glance. “I wasn’t going to fall into bed with any male chef that you hired.”
He gave a small grin. She stilled at the appearance of the twin dimples, the flash of white teeth. “What about Mario?”
“What about him?” Elise asked, crossing her arms beneath her breasts.
“Wasn’t that where things were headed on that night I caught you two here?”
“No. I had no intention of sleeping with Mario.”
“What, precisely, were you doing here with him then?”
“He was going to supervise my training. When he asked me to dinner, I didn’t really feel I had the option of saying no. I didn’t know he was planning on trying to get me into bed.”
He gave her a weary glance and walked toward his desk. “Right. That dress you were wearing screamed a practical day at the office. I hired the best candidate for the job, but I’m not at all unhappy that she’s a female, the truth be told. I know the effect you have on men. They lose about forty points off their IQ in your vicinity. No need to light the fuse if it can be avoided.”
“I resent your constant allegations that I’m promiscuous.”
“That’s funny,” he said, unconcerned by her offended act. He lowered to t
he chair behind his desk. “Because I resented learning about your constant displays of promiscuity. I even witnessed them a time or two.”
She stilled. “What do you mean?” she asked slowly, not sure she actually wanted an answer.
“Half of Europe saw that photo of you dancing nude on top of a cocktail table at the engagement party for the son of the archduke of Luxembourg,” he said dryly.
“I was wearing a thong,” she defended, chin up. Lucien’s sharp, annoyed glance made her wilt on the inside, however.
“And how about the night I came upon you in a secluded alcove at the Opéra de Paris? You were busy demonstrating what was apparently your enthusiastic, deep affection for a married, middle-aged politician. I believe you were nineteen at the time. Do you recall?”
“I . . . you . . . wait.” Her heart squeezed tight and seemed to stop in her chest. “Was that you who interrupted when I was with Hugh Langier?”
His sarcastic expression was her answer.
Enthusiastic, deep affection.
Oh no. She shut her eyes, but Lucien’s stare continued to score her. She hadn’t seen who had walked in on her tryst with Langier; she only knew someone had. Knowing that someone was Lucien made her feel light-headed with shame. How could she have been so impulsive—so stupid—at times?
No. She wouldn’t think of it. She wasn’t that person anymore.
“I doubt you’d like what I did to your paramour when he came into Renygat two nights later,” Lucien muttered. “Slimy sod.”
“He wasn’t my paramour,” she bit out, but then she fully absorbed what he’d said. “Did you hit him or something?” Lucien gave her a bland glance. “You got in a fight with a senator?”
Over me?
He didn’t comment further, but she saw the way his nostrils flared, a sure sign he was subduing his anger. What he’d referred to had occurred during the height of her careless self-indulgence. There’d been a time when she found life meaningless, when everything had been a joke. Her only concern was to have as much fun as she could, and damn the consequences. Acquaintances in Paris—not to mention her parents—had looked the other way during her wildest, most desperate, period.
