Turning Up the Heat (A Novella in the Vie en Roses Series)

by Laura Florand

  TURNING UP THE HEAT

  by

  LAURA FLORAND

  TABLE OF CONTENT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Thank you!

  Other Books by Laura Florand

  The Chocolate Rose - Excerpt

  About Laura Florand

  Copyright

  * * *

  CHAPTER ONE

  It was incredible how much energy he had. Léa could literally no longer believe in it. The unfaltering, unfailing will that drove her husband out of bed at five, that kept him going until midnight, that sent him up to Paris to film some Top Chef contest when anyone else would be begging for sleep, and that kept him, the whole train ride, sketching ideas, talking to some peer who wanted his consulting skills, calling a supplier.

  Léa used to watch Daniel on the train ride. To talk to him about the next job or the show, between calls. To put a finger on one of his sketches and say, Oh, I like that.

  Then she started to read a book.

  And lately, she just slept. Or didn’t go up to Paris with him at all.

  It was incredible how much energy he had. Because she felt like something old dropped off a cargo boat mid-storm, tossed in waves for years until it was washed up on the beach. Ready for some conscientious beachwalker to pick up and toss in the trash.

  Daniel had always had that drive. From the first moment she had met him, when he had taken one look at the restaurant owner’s daughter and gone for her like an arrow to a target.

  Her father had been indulgent. The teenage Daniel had fast become his kitchen protégé, and her father loved the idea that his little girl would fall for a man just like her papa.

  When her father died from an unexpected heart attack a year later, Léa had been terrified. This big three-star restaurant and all its staff, now hers. And all the critics zooming in, to strip it of its stars in her incompetent, female, eighteen-year-old hands. That’s what they all said about her. Blogs and forums had been full of it: What will happen to the Relais d’Or now? And she had two younger siblings and had just started a ridiculously impractical arts degree, no likelihood of a real income for years. It hadn’t mattered before. Her father was larger than life, happy to indulge his daughter in as many years as she needed, to find her artistic path in life. And then he was gone.

  Just like that.

  Daniel had married her almost before the will was read, and he had taken over the restaurant. Don’t worry. I’ve got it.

  He had been amazing. She had pulled whatever gift for publicity she could from her art skills, dragged on all her creativity, and poured it all into supporting him. She had had her own flair, it turned out. For finding television spots he could appear on. For landing articles in newspapers. For getting the mayor to reserve their restaurant when a group of actors came to town to film.

  And he had climbed. Had he ever climbed. The restaurant had, indeed, lost a star two years later, when he was only twenty-one. He had known it was coming—there was no way Michelin would let a twenty-one-year-old keep a great chef’s three stars. But he had fought so hard that she had bandaged more burns than anyone could ever count, in his wild will not to lose another one and to get that third one back.

  He never had lost that second star, which had stunned everyone. Twenty-one! And then by the time he was twenty-seven, he had regained the third.

  Léa was twenty-six when the restaurant got back that star. But where everyone talked about how young he was, how extraordinary, how driven, no one talked about her at all.

  She handled accounts, and interviewing people for jobs, and firing them if Daniel didn’t do it in a flash of hardness during a kitchen crisis. Things it made her sick to do at first. The firing. God, the firing was awful. She had been sick for three days, nerving herself up to the first one, and thrown up immediately afterward.

  But she had done it. Eighteen years old and not even reaching the man’s shoulder, standing there while he shouted at her, until Daniel realized somehow from the kitchens what was happening and came in and tore into the other man, yelling, Daniel himself only nineteen to the man’s thirty, an adolescent who had to establish his authority now, instantly, no chance to develop it as he worked his way up.

  No one had believed in them, the two teenagers. No one except them, because they had to. They had to desperately.

  And the next person she had had to fire, she had done it without Daniel’s help. That woman had cried. She would have to take her children out of their wonderful school, and she claimed the public one was so bad that their lives would be ruined. Léa had crawled under her desk after the woman had left and huddled shaking. She had had nightmares about those children for weeks.

  But she had done it.

  Because Daniel couldn’t do everything, and he was working so hard, and—she loved him so much it hurt her in some deep and utter way how little she saw him. Well, she saw his profile, she saw his quick smile for her, she saw his tension and his drive. But so very, very rarely could he stand still and just—talk to her. Let her talk to him. About something other than that all-consuming restaurant and whether they should hire someone else or fire someone else or run an ad or...all those decisions that pressed down on them like concrete on grass, crushing the chance for anything else to bloom.

  The accounts were just—tediously horrible, giving her a headache, filling her head with numbers until she thought of them even at dinner or walking on the beach, times when she used to think of what the light looked like on the water.

  Daniel took every television spot she landed him. He did every gala for famous people she talked the mayor, and eventually senators, and then the President of France, into hosting there. He became a superstar. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Exceptionally amazing.

  Sometimes he would look up from finishing a plate on a TV set, and it was like he looked right through all those lights and straight at her, in the audience.

  And she would remember those gray eyes, when he used to lean over her against the alley wall outside her father’s restaurant, when it was still her father’s. Teasing and young and intense and wanting her.

  Making her feel wanted.

  And it was funny she thought of that in those moments, because there was no way he saw her, sitting in the shadows, through those lights.

  I’m so tired. She stared out from their terrace high up on the hills, out over the Mediterranean in the distance. Why can’t I have energy like his? What is wrong with me?

  I’m so tired.

  What am I going to do?

  * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  Daniel got back from Japan at three in the morning. It had been a good trip. The restaurant owner there had been eager to have Daniel’s expertise at developing his menu and his theme, and the man was doing good things. As always when away consulting, Daniel had absorbed new ideas for himself everywhere—from tastes in markets to artistic elements in monastery gardens. He had bought Léa a necklace that intrigued him and couldn’t wait to try its design in a subtle squiggle in the corner of a plate.

  Sometimes he came back from trips revved up, ready for more, but that had been one hell of a flight, with delays and a double-whammy of jet lag since he had never really had time to recover in the other direction either. He didn’t blame Léa for not picking him up at the airport at three in the mo
rning, but he was a little jealous of her comfortable bed. A little disappointed. She used to travel with him everywhere, but lately she was...just sick of it, he guessed.

  Actually, sometimes these days, she only came into the restaurant for the morning, and when he managed to make it home on the break between services in the afternoon, he found her sleeping, which made no sense to him, since she was usually sleeping when he left and sleeping when he got home. How could anyone sleep that much? Especially Léa, who used to have so much energy she could handle all the insane demands of the restaurant during the day, pick up her younger siblings from school, help them with their homework, applaud at their school events, swing by the restaurant after they went to bed to give him a kiss and a hard hug and pitch in for an hour or two if things were intense, and still have energy left to come up with some crazy scheme for him to be on television that she would share with him as soon as he got home at midnight.

  He missed her awake. Thank God she still handled the restaurant business management, or he would never see her.

  Recently, she had started talking about hiring a business manager, which made something inexplicable knot in his gut. She had left him so little chance with her already, and if she didn’t have the bookkeeping to keep her in his vicinity...she would be entirely gone.

  No more leaning over a sexy, shy, happy teenager who drove him crazy with hunger in the alley, reaching above her head to pluck a jasmine flower and tuck it into her hair, wondering if he could sneak her somewhere she would let him kiss her and kiss her and maybe...slip his hands up under her shirt, or even...

  He smiled, despite his fatigue, rinsing the flight off in the guest bathroom so he wouldn’t wake her. But sometimes she liked for him to wake her, sliding into bed with her late at night.

  She would roll over sleepily, and he would lean over her, stroking her hair back, and her face would light into a smile before she was even properly awake. And he would kiss her, sinking gently, hungrily into her, and know that despite how much his life seemed to be consuming him, everything would be all right.

  The windows were shuttered, which was unusual. They lived up in the hills, overlooking a valley of roses on one side, with a far view of the sea from another, and Léa always slept with the shutters open, and in the summer the windows themselves. She loved the sight of moonlight sparkling on the water or gilding the great fields of roses far below. She liked the sound of the cicadas and the wind.

  He cast a doubtful glance into the pitch blackness of the bed, not wishing to disturb her, but finally cracked open the shutters to let in some moonlight, because the place made him feel claustrophobic otherwise. He spent enough of his life in tight spaces.

  Then he turned back toward the bed—and something cold tremored through him.

  The bed—didn’t look right. He came closer, and this time the shock was so hard it hurt his heart. The bed was empty.

  He had to shake himself, take a deep breath. Léa must be in the master bathroom, or in the kitchen getting water, or sitting on the terrace watching the full moon rise.

  But she wasn’t in any of those places.

  His heartbeat began to race out of control. “Léa?” He started to shout, flicking on lights. Where the hell was she? “Léa?”

  The house was terrifyingly empty.

  His phone bleeped suddenly multiple times in his pocket, finally getting enough reception to burp up all the messages it hadn’t been able to access while he was on the plane.

  He yanked it out of his pocket, and relief surged through him so hard at the sight of her name, he had to grab hold of the table to steady himself. Okay. Okay. She must have gone somewhere. To a friend’s for dinner, had a glass too many, and stayed the night, something like that. The Rosiers below were famous for throwing parties and filling a big upstairs room with mattresses, so that nobody had to restrain their alcohol intake or leave at a wise hour.

  He kind of didn’t like it, when she went without him, because—drunk people letting all their wild fun out, lots of mattresses—it wasn’t that he didn’t trust her, but...he hated it when she went without him. But he had never tried to stop her, because...because he knew he could trust her—he thought he knew, although, merde, sometimes he felt like he had barely seen her for years—and it would be cruel to limit her fun for him. Stupid and jealous and selfish.

  He hit the voicemail. “Coucou, chéri.” Her voice sounded odd. Wistful and a little nervous. Anxiety tightened again, and he pivoted, still half-searching for signs someone had dragged her off against her will and was now holding her hostage. “I’m sorry to sneak out on you this way. You must be on the plane already. I just—needed to get away for a while.” A little nervous laugh. It made him want to surge out of shadows, eviscerate the man holding a gun to her head while she made this call, a bastard who had sure as hell messed with the wrong knife skills. “I’m, ah—I know you’re going to think this is crazy, but—I’m going to Tahiti. I think I’ll stay a week or two. I’m not sure exactly. I’ll try to call you in a few days. I just need a break. I...” She clearly had no idea what to say next. And suddenly, brightly: “I hope you had a great flight!” The voicemail ended.

  Daniel pulled his phone away from his ear and stared at the moonlight over the valley of roses. What?

  He hit call back immediately, no longer giving a damn if he woke her up. A cricket chirped from her bedside table. Her phone. He stared at it and actually almost started to leave a message, so intense was his need to talk to her. But then he realized how stupid he was being and slowly hung up.

  “Wh—what the hell is going on, Dan?” His neighbor Grégory stumbled as Daniel dragged him out in front of his house two hours later. After listening to that message over and over. After sitting on their bed gnawing at it. After hunting through the house to see exactly what she had taken—not her family heirlooms, at least. A deep breath there. And he didn’t see her wedding rings abandoned anywhere.

  “Did you see anything?” Daniel gestured toward the view of his own house. “Any signs of trouble?”

  “Danny...it’s not even dawn yet. Wait—what? What do you mean—trouble?”

  “Léa is gone.”

  “What?”

  “She said she was going on a little trip,” Daniel said, but then wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want to falsely reassure anyone who might help in the search. “I just—did you see her when she left yesterday?”

  “Sure, she waved. She did have a suitcase.”

  “Did you see anyone in the back of the car?” Daniel asked tensely.

  Grégory gaped. “You mean—like a lover? Merde, Dan...do you think...?”

  Daniel stared at him in white shock, feeling as if the man had just detonated a grenade in his belly. “A lover? You think she has a lover?”

  “No.” Grégory backed up a step.

  Daniel followed. “What the fuck have you seen?”

  “Nothing! Just...when you said about someone being in the car”—

  “Someone forcing her to go! Her voice sounded funny! Not a—lover, damn you.”

  “No! No. She seemed—fine. Happy, even.”

  That stopped Daniel for a moment. He looked back over at his house. “Happy?”

  “You know. Like someone going on a vacation, in fact.”

  “Oh.” Daniel continued to stare at his house. He couldn’t remember what it was like to go on a vacation. In his teens, his father had taken him camping in the mountains sometimes. He had given all that up for Léa.

  And she hadn’t even invited him?

  Not that he knew when he could have gotten away, but...

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “All right. All right. Sorry.”

  “Were there signs of foul play?” Grégory asked, still worried by Daniel’s worry.

  “No, I—no.”

  “She had a suitcase. She must have packed.”

  “She forgot her toothbrush,” Daniel said lamely. Not really a sign that a woman had been drugged and dragged out of th
e house, when you looked at it closely.

  “You must be jetlagged out of your mind,” Grégory decided finally, giving him a clap on the shoulder. “Give her a call. She probably won’t mind being woken up, if you’re this worried. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Daniel went back into his house, sat down on her side of the bed, and stared at her phone. After a minute, he picked it up, typed in her code, and started checking through all her recent calls.

  “So you’re still here,” Daniel said flatly to Matthieu Rosier. Called by Léa at 11:23 a.m. yesterday. Matthieu pulled his big body out from under one of the extractors and stared up at him from flat on the concrete. The whole place stank of solvent. Matt was a third cousin of Léa’s, distant enough that the fact that Léa and he got along so splendidly didn’t always sit well with Daniel. He was also single and went after what he wanted, and Léa was clearly gorgeous. All those angles of her cheekbones and shoulders and wrists, an athlete or a poet, the brown dust of freckles over her skin, the straight straw hair, and the way her smile bloomed out, infectious and shy and enthusiastic. Who could help wanting to please her? Daniel never had been able to.

  “What?” Matt growled. “It’s the middle of the rose harvest, and this putain d’extracteur is broken. Where do you think I’m going to be? Off in Tahiti?”

  Daniel took a hard step forward. “What do you know about Tahiti?”

  “Léa seems to think all her problems will be solved there, although personally, it sounds humid and boring to me. Be interesting to see how the tiare flowers grow, though.” Matt wiped grease off his hands and reached for a wrench.

  “What problems?” Daniel said between his teeth. How the fuck much better could he be for her? He never stopped. I’ll deserve this. A very young man with his head lifted high, getting married in a fourteenth-century church, to a girl who was trusting everything she possessed to him. I promise I’ll deserve you.

  Matt looked at him, startled. “Nothing in particular. I think she just wants an adventure, a change of scenery. Merde, Danny, why don’t you take your wife on a belated honeymoon or something? Might do the two of you good.”