The Chocolate Temptation (Amour et Chocolat)

by Florand, Laura

  Oh, God, red prickle marks trailed all down her throat. And she didn’t have any clothes to put on.

  She came out in a towel. Patrick’s gaze flashed over her whole body once, then lingered on her throat, and he ran a hand over his jaw. “I should have shaved. I’m sorry. The collar of your jacket will hide it, don’t worry.” He tried to put a cup of coffee into her hand.

  She turned away from it, looking for clothes, battling tears with everything in her. How was she going to handle this day? How was she going to handle the next month? What was she going to do?

  “I’m not going,” she said. “I’ll call in sick.”

  “I’ll throw your phone out the window first. You’re not sick. You’re tired. Get moving.”

  She flashed him one bitter look over her shoulder as she pulled on jeans and panties, wishing idiotically that she had done laundry recently because today, of course, the one day he would actually know what panties she was wearing under her marshmallow-snowman workday clothes, all that was left in her drawer was a white cotton bikini.

  Tired. He thought she didn’t want to go to work just because she was tired?

  She was tired. She had gotten almost no sleep, but then neither had he. Patrick was an incredible lover, but she had always known he would be. Indefatigable, determined, and almost glitteringly focused on making her come. He had turned her limp from how incredible he was. And she knew perfectly well that she had made almost no mark on him at all, just a not particularly memorable lay.

  If they had been on that beach on which she always imagined him, he would already be eyeing the next gorgeous island girl to stroll by.

  Oh, God. She wanted to crawl into a hole and die rather than spend the day working with him. An ache of anguish as she remembered falling asleep with her face smashed into her pillow in limp bliss, his arm heavy over her back, his breath tickling her shoulder. Everything feeling so utterly, perfectly right.

  “Sarah.” His fingers touched suddenly against her back, doing up the catch of her bra. “You quit your career for this. You moved to another country, where you didn’t know a soul. You went into debt. You worked at Culinaire and at the Leucé until you fell facedown on your bed in your clothes the instant you got home and never moved again until morning. There were probably nights you fell asleep in the Métro and missed your stop and didn’t know where the hell you were when you woke up. I know what you did to get this dream. And you are not losing Luc’s respect by calling in sick when you’re not.”

  Easygoing Patrick. Who, for as long as Sarah had worked there, had never missed a day, had never once even showed up five minutes late. In fact, he usually showed up two hours early and worked well past any official shift.

  “I don’t have Luc’s respect in the first place,” Sarah mumbled, pulling on a shirt. Patrick was so serious this morning. It was weird.

  Also, it felt extremely rude to call Chef Leroi Luc out loud like that instead of Chef, and the fact that it didn’t feel weird to Patrick was yet another blatant proof of their different positions.

  “You’re the best intern we’ve ever had. He has an absolute respect for you. Why do you think he spends so much time on you?”

  Chef Leroi spent any particular amount of time on her? She looked at Patrick blankly. He grabbed her and spun her to the tiny kitchenette counter. “Yogurt’s ready. You need more food in your apartment. And here’s your coffee. Hurry.”

  She drank a few sips of the coffee but just couldn’t stomach the yogurt, her nerves already shot through the roof.

  “Sarah, eat that yogurt before I feed it to you like a baby,” Patrick said, coming right into her body, his hand reaching for the spoon. She twisted away from him, forcing a spoonful into her mouth. He didn’t move away. In fact, he braced one hand on the little counter and the other on the frame of the window against which the kitchenette was tucked, holding her prisoner until she finished. She could feel the heat of him just behind her. Just like in the kitchens. Irrationally, her stomach eased at the familiarity of their positions, and she managed to swallow another spoonful of yogurt.

  The heat of him was even more embracing, not shielded by two chef’s jackets. As if he was enveloping her in his care, in his bossiness, in his warmth. As if she could believe in it.

  God. What the hell had she just done to herself?

  Patrick put her coat on and wrapped a scarf around her throat, his fingers so damn fast she didn’t even have time to organize her own efforts to button it instead of him. And all she could think of was the night before, when his fingers had gone so…damn…slow.

  “We’ll have to take the Métro, it’s the quickest,” Patrick said, hurrying them down the street toward the nearest station. A shock of cold as they stepped outside, everything a deep, heavy gray, the winter sun rising later than most people did. The streets were already stirring with those who went to work early, Paris blinking slowly awake.

  They made it down the Métro stairs just in time to hear the train sound its horn. Patrick grabbed her hand and ran, blocking the door onto the train with his body and yanking her through before he let it close.

  In the half-empty car, neither sat. Patrick grabbed her pole, gazing at her as the Métro shook its way down the track. Sarah looked at the other passengers, trying not to be too obvious about not facing him directly.

  To her surprise, a big, warm, callused hand curved around her cheek and jaw. Her gaze flew to his. “I’m sorry,” Patrick said, smiling ruefully into her eyes. His looked…gentle. His thumb stroked her cheekbone ever so subtly. “I tried to let you sleep as late as I could. You’re going to be dead on your feet the whole day. I’m sorry.”

  Maybe fatigue did make everything worse, but she didn’t think so. Sarah often stressed herself out of most of a night’s sleep. Spending it wrapped up in his body instead should have left her one mass of bliss. She should have floated through the day and the rest of the week, too.

  Except that she would have to see him, flirting with everyone as easily as breathing. She would have to work under him, be corrected by him, have him come in close behind her, knowing how little it meant to him. Knowing she could have just as well been Summer or a pretty receptionist; maybe he had even fantasized about one or both of them while he was using her.

  Nausea rose up in her.

  She turned her head away from his hand, and something flashed in Patrick’s eyes. He straightened and let go of their shared pole, standing without a hold, keeping his balance against the rocks and turns of the car effortlessly, while she had to hold on tight. “What do you want me to do?” he asked.

  She couldn’t conceive of anything she might wish for that Patrick would actually be capable of. Like, thinking she was his sun and moon and stars or something. Yeah, right. Her lungs squeezed. This was going to be so hard.

  “Should I keep acting like we’re just colleagues?” he asked.

  Colleagues. She was an intern, the lowliest person on the totem pole. She wasn’t a colleague with Patrick Chevalier, Luc Leroi’s second-in-command, one of the youngest MOFs in the country, and poised to become one of the world’s next great superstar chefs whenever it struck his fancy. “People can’t know,” she said, on a shock of horror. Patrick, you wouldn’t!

  He watched her, his eyes very dark blue, his own body so still that when the car jerked to a stop, he lost his balance, bumping his shoulder against the wall. Which was surreal; Patrick didn’t lose his balance.

  “So you want me to act like we’re not sleeping together,” he verified.

  Like we’re – “Sleeping?” She pressed a hand to her aching forehead. “Like we’re going to do it again?”

  Patrick’s eyes started to glitter. She had never seen any of this morning’s expressions on his face before, and she didn’t understand a single one. “I can keep the again a surprise, if you prefer.” The thread of icy anger in his voice was new, too.

  Keep it a surprise? Like whether they slept together was a party he could choose to throw fo
r her or not? “I think it’s up to me,” she said coldly, crossing her arms.

  Something bleak flashed across his face. “Like it was last night?” he asked very dryly. He reached out and caught her shoulder to keep her upright as the next stop threw her off balance without the brace of the pole.

  What did that even mean? “It was up to me last night,” she said, confused and a little offended. Did he think she didn’t know how to say no?

  She didn’t, and she hadn’t, or she wouldn’t be in this situation this morning, but it wasn’t like he had drugged her.

  The horn sounded. “This is our stop,” he realized suddenly, grabbing her and hauling her out of the car with him just before the doors could close. His hand shifted automatically from her arm to her lower back as he hustled them through the station, and she realized belatedly that he had her backpack of chef’s attire and wallet and other essentials, all forgotten by her, slung over his shoulder. There was no sign of that flash of anger in the casual firmness of his hand on her back. Even through her winter coat, that pressure eased her, as if she was being taken care of. She wanted to be back in her apartment, where that hand could rest on her through only a knit shirt. Or maybe slide under the shirt, rub it upward lazily until he was teasing her bare skin…

  “Please, don’t tell them,” she whispered.

  But he heard her, even in the hustle of the Métro. He tucked her up in front of him on the escalator and stood a step below her, shielding her from the people who pushed past them as he gazed at her, the lack of humor stripping his face down until it seemed almost…naked. Stark. “What do you want me to do, then? How do you want me to act with you today?”

  “Can’t you just be professional?” she cried. For once. And not gentle and not funny, not winking at her or making her feel so special when she wasn’t.

  His face closed entirely. “Professional. With you.”

  Yes. She glared at him.

  He nudged her around to make sure she didn’t trip over the end of the escalator and steadied her as she tripped a little anyway. Then he took her backpack off his shoulder and slid it over hers as they headed toward the exit. “Go ahead.” He fell behind. “I’ll come in five minutes later. So no one will see us together.”

  Chapter 13

  Patrick’s skin itched. It wasn’t supposed to keep itching that way, damn it. I made love all night. Doesn’t that give me a day off this damn itching? I get to be satiated and content today. I’m pretty sure that’s in the rulebook.

  But he looked at her bent head as she focused so fiercely on coating tiny apple-caramel-centered chocolates with gold, and his palm crawled with the need to curl over that nape, to give it a gentle rub. Hey, Sarah, it’s okay. It’s just me. Come on, Sarabelle.

  He watched her carry a tray of little cakes to the elevator to transfer it to the hotel bistrot, and his whole body itched with the need to follow her, wrap itself around her in a hug during the elevator ride. There you go, Sarah. Does that feel good? Shh. Relax.

  “What did you do?” Luc asked, quiet and dangerously cool, in the semi-privacy of his office.

  “Let’s see.” Patrick ticked deeds off his fingers. “The Phénix molds, those damn orbits of sugar you thought would be such a good idea and that no one else can get right, and I showed Grégory how to manage that Pomme d’Amour you just invented so he would quit screwing up half of them, oh, and I ran into Summer in the hall and–”

  “To our intern,” Luc said between his teeth.

  Patrick adopted a confused look. “Did you need me to work on something with her? I was going to put her on the sugar slipp–”

  “Patrick. I could swear she’s nearly burst into tears three times this morning, and as we already established, she doesn’t cry.”

  Patrick’s stomach tightened, until he almost knew why Sarah never ate. He fought not to turn around and check her expression. “Don’t you have a girlfriend or something to attend to? Because I was really counting on Summer to–”

  “Patrick.”

  “It’s not your business, Luc.”

  “It’s my kitchen.”

  “Well, of course it is,” Patrick said kindly. “You’re sleeping with the boss.”

  Their eyes locked. Luc’s glittered. Patrick smiled, but he was pretty sure his were glittering, too. “I was head of this kitchen before I ever met Summer,” Luc said icily. “It’s not the same damn thing at all. Patrick. She’s our intern. You’re supposed to be helping her. Not taking advantage of her.”

  Patrick fought so hard not to fold his arms over his chest defensively that his fingers hurt from the pressure as they dug into the edge of the desk behind him. “How many years have we been working together, Luc? And you still can’t trust me?”

  Luc looked frazzled, not surprisingly. After all, he should be able to trust his second after twelve years working together plus half raising Patrick from a screwed-up teenager to an adult who was…still kind of screwed up, apparently. “You’re saying I can?” Luc searched Patrick’s face.

  Be helpful if Luc was a little less smart. Still, Patrick hadn’t been manipulating him for twelve years for nothing. “Make up your own mind. You either trust me or you don’t.” He turned his head away, giving it a subtly proud, wounded angle. Not so hard, really. It did wound him, damn it. That Luc didn’t trust him. That Sarah didn’t trust him. That she was over there wanting to be professional.

  Luc’s eyes narrowed. “Patrick–”

  Shit. Of course, the trouble with having manipulated a man since both of you were teenagers was that, sometimes, he started getting wise to you. Patrick checked his watch. “Merde, I’m going to be late for that workshop at LeNôtre. If you see Summer, give her a kiss from me, okay?”

  He blew Luc one and breezed out. Walking right by Sarah without touching her. Without winking at her. Without even grazing one finger over the back of her hand to say, Hey, see you later?

  His whole body itched until he felt ready to claw through layers of skin to the heart underneath. Bordel de merde. Sleeping with her was supposed to fix that.

  ***

  Sarah drew a breath of relief when Patrick left to give a workshop over at LeNôtre. And then it occurred to her how many star-struck women would be in that workshop, hanging on every word he said, thinking he looked so cute. Her time as an intern was coming to an end soon. Maybe it was time for him to pick up his next one.

  In her hand, another sugar slipper shattered. Damn it.

  Chef Leroi stopped right beside her, and she froze, caught with the glittering, sweet fragments of her failure on her palm. “Sarah. Would you mind seeing me in my office?”

  Oh, God, Patrick had told him. Had she thought he would choose her over Luc? The two men were tight as only a chef and his second could be. When they had been in the glass-walled office earlier, all those glances Chef Leroi kept throwing her way had probably been in reaction to Patrick’s amused comments about how she was just as hopeless in the sack as in the kitchen.

  Oh, God.

  Her head chef turned inside his office, leaned back against his desk, and was silent for a moment, studying her. She felt crushed already. Too much perfection, too intensely focused on her. And, despite everything, all she could think about was how much she wanted Patrick. Just a wink of humor to save her, to tell her it was all okay. How was she going to get through the rest of this internship without him now?

  “How are you handling Patrick?” Chef Leroi asked.

  She nearly jumped out of her skin.

  “You’re not letting him get to you, are you?”

  She stared at him, feeling as if he had just walked in on her naked in the shower and doing something kinky to herself. Luc Leroi, the impervious, the imperturbable, the ever-perfect, and her boss. It made everything inside her squirm.

  “He’s like that with everyone,” Chef Leroi said ruefully. “Even me.”

  Her hands curled slowly into fists at her thighs as everything squirmy inside her congealed into ickines
s and sank. “I don’t take him seriously,” she said coolly. “Who would?”

  One of Chef Leroi’s black eyebrows went up, and she had to hide a flinch. She hated it when he looked at her like that, her head chef’s eyes cooling a little, her value visibly reducing. “I would,” he said, in the even tones that made it clear that what he did should set the standard for the whole rest of the world. “When he should be taken seriously. But that way he pretends to flirt with everyone…I don’t know how that might feel, if you are working under him.”

  Miserable. Her old hatred of Patrick stirred. “He doesn’t mean any harm.” She shrugged. “It’s just the way he is. He would stop if I asked him to.”

  Now both Luc’s eyebrows went up. “No, he would not,” he said, a little amused, but not in a way she liked; amused as if she had just said something stupid.

  Sarah’s brow creased. She rather thought he might, actually. So why hadn’t she asked him to? “He’s just amusing himself. He doesn’t go after things that seriously.”

  Luc gazed at her a moment. “He’s got an amazingly refined skill for getting people to believe that, at least. And yet, if I recall, you watched his MOF trials at Culinaire?”

  Yes. His glorious, golden MOF trials, the way he had made them look so enticingly easy.

  “The trials for which people train their whole careers, with more intensity than if they were training for the Olympics? And at which most chefs kill themselves trying to succeed, and still fail?”

  Her eyebrows drew together. She stared at him for a moment.

  He allowed those perfect black eyebrows to wait for some gleam of intelligence in her brain, faintly raised, not much hope. “You thought he was just amusing himself at those trials, is that it?”

  Well…it had looked that way.

  Chef Leroi gave a slight shake to his head, his eyebrows settling back down as that brief hope in any other human being’s intelligence went out.