The Chocolate Heart

by Laura Florand

  Luc contained his surge of pride to a faint curve of his lips. “I’ll show you.” Him showing his foster father. He always loved that. The man who had showed and showed and showed a wild ten-year-old, a twelve-year-old, a hormone-crazy fifteen-year-old, sometimes making him do it one thousand painstaking times in a day, until he got it right.

  “You’ll come visit my new boys soon?” Bernard asked as Luc demonstrated the Victoire. “Show them what they can accomplish with a little discipline and focus? It’s good for them to see you. Realize they can transition. Sometimes they were raised like animals. Well, you know.”

  Some rebellious streak in Luc’s heart still wanted to argue that his biological father had tried to do a bit better than raise him like an animal, but he thought of the cats and dogs dragged around with people in the Métro to milk more money. Bernard would compare his father’s use of him to that of those animals, and he didn’t want to hear that.

  “I’ve been busy,” he said guiltily. It was a ninety-minute car trip out to the sprawling banlieue edge where his foster home was. An hour via the Métro and RER, if he could force himself to take it. Worse, every time he helped show this next generation of foster brothers what they could become via ruthless control and discipline, he felt . . . odd. Wrong. As if he should be modeling another way. Although what other way existed besides unrelenting control and discipline?

  “And tonight I’ve got this gala. A thousand people to see the hotel handed over to Summer Corey. We’ll have a dozen camera crews down here wanting a clip of us to add color to their coverage.”

  “Of you, you mean.” Bernard didn’t smile his pride, but Luc could feel it. Could lap it up.

  “And with the new owner, things might be crazy for a bit.”

  A new owner who thought Luc was a bellboy. And was going to pay for that by letting her soul float as soft as a golden snowflake down to rest in his hands.

  A delicate operation, to hold a golden snowflake in one’s hands. But he knew all about delicate operations. It was just a question of the utmost control.

  Cameras flashed as Summer’s father squeezed her shoulders and announced the gift of the hotel. Summer yielded with a big smile for everyone, because what else was she supposed to do at this point? The media was going to be full of ghastly photos of her frowning otherwise, and then people would be calling her a spoiled brat.

  Again.

  No, this way, it made a lovely photo, her father framed by his beautiful wife and daughter. She was still a spoiled brat to all concerned, but at least she looked happy about it. Meanwhile, crisply attired, her father controlled the room as chair of Corey Holdings, one of the great financial movers and shakers of the world. Gray-haired, his face too angular, he didn’t have Luc Not-the-Bellboy’s beauty, but he held power in him and everyone gravitated to it.

  Summer had, too, as a girl, though much good it had done her. Before she fled to a place where people liked her. Everyone had different goals in life and hers, it turned out, were love and affection.

  Unfortunately, her father had just dragged her out of that warm place by her hair to try to force-feed her his own ambitions of money and control. Dragged her to the Leucé, one of the world’s top hotels, with its Michelin three-star restaurant and its views of the Eiffel Tower. Her old home away from home.

  Dad, you bastard. What kind of man forces his daughter to reign in her own personal hell?

  She slipped away from him as the camera clicks slowed, dancing through the crowd. So many hands to clasp with delighted enthusiasm, so many people to promise she had not forgotten them, so many times to laugh and say, Well, who wouldn’t want to laze around on a South Pacific island? So many times to meet a man’s eyes with a warm smile as she passed, just warm enough that he thought she was going to approach and didn’t react quickly enough to approach her before she wove on past.

  Each glance calculating what a man could get out of her seemed to take a layer of skin with it, and she breathed deeply, trying to tap down into that golden core of island memories. For God’s sake, anyone could get through three months.

  The tip of a whip curled around her attention and she drew a quick breath, turning to discover her rescuer king from the night before nearby, watching her thoughtfully, a glass of white wine in his hand. Her breath went out with what felt oddly like relief, which didn’t make any sense at all.

  She wanted to hide her face in embarrassment, so she gave him her silkiest, sexiest smile. He tilted his head slightly, studying her smile as if he wanted to submit it for chemical analysis. He didn’t smile back.

  In the deceptively simple black pants and white shirt of a top designer, he exuded concentration and intensity and utter control, watching her approach with easy arrogance, in that whip’s semblance of repose. Her breath shortened despite herself. To punish him for it she shifted discreetly, so that the silk of her dress slid over her body and glimmered in the light. Goosebumps rose on her arms as air-chilled silk slid against her skin. Paris was always too cold for her.

  Luc Leroi sniffed his wine thoughtfully. The air smelled darker, within his personal space. Like somewhere she could curl up and be safe. “You really like your men tall, dark, and handsome, don’t you?”

  Yes, she supposed she had been rather obvious about that, when she’d offered him a yacht. “Now you’re just being modest. I call you ‘Gorgeous’ myself.”

  A black eyebrow lifted slightly. His chin indicated the room. “They’re the ones you flirt with the longest.”

  Did she really? She nodded solemnly. “They provide such a good foil.” Desperate to unsettle him, she pulled a lock of hair free from its elegant coiffure and leaned into the wrist so near her head, wrapping the strand around it, a golden contrast to the dark hairs there. “See?” She smiled up at him, her cheek pressed against his forearm.

  His eyes went pitch black, and one deep breath moved through his body. Sudden awareness of the strength in that forearm shivered all through her, not from fear but from a delicious knowledge of his control of it.

  “It must do them good,” he said. “To have worked and climbed all their lives so that some blonde can consider them a good foil.”

  She had spent five years in boarding school with a pack of other rich, abandoned, insecure girls, and she had defended herself in needling conversations against the best of them. “Well.” She gave a rippling shrug that shivered her dress over her body and smiled at him again as she straightened, her lock of hair sliding slowly over his wrist and then dropping to graze her shoulder. The touch of her hair fresh from his skin raised more goose bumps on her arms, but she blended her shiver into the shrug. “Some people dream bigger than others.” Implying that being her foil was the biggest dream a man could have.

  “They certainly do,” he said evenly. Implying something entirely different.

  Yes, she always managed to go after the ones who dreamed so big she vanished in those dreams like a little speck of light.

  She straightened away from him, saw a man beyond him shift subtly, ready to take advantage of the window if she started to move away, and stayed where she was, in that potential circle of his arm. He didn’t seem to be feeling any urge to wrap her up in his darkness again, the way he had the night before. He must be pretty damn fastidious, to get so turned off by the offer of a yacht.

  Too fastidious for her, clearly.

  “Were you drunk last night?” she asked suddenly.

  A long silence. “. . . Yes,” Luc said finally.

  In the darkness of his eyes, the image of herself in her silky pale slip dress danced like a tiny flame. “How much had you had to drink?” she asked suspiciously. He had smelled of everything but alcohol—chocolate and raspberries and sweat and citrus.

  He touched the glass of wine to his lips, barely wetting them. The light from the chandeliers gleamed on the moisture left there. “How tired were you?”

  “Four days. No sleep. Very bad seasickness.”

  He didn’t seem to appreciate
the fact that she had an excuse. If anything it annoyed him, but it was hard to tell from his controlled expression. “That explains a lot.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  The twirl of his wineglass in his fingers released a sweet, golden scent. “We opened a bottle of champagne. I had allowed an author to spend the day in the kitchens, for research, and she wanted to thank the team.”

  How much of the bottle could he have drunk, if it was split among a whole team?

  “In the kitchens?” she said blankly. Hadn’t he said he ruled this place?

  An obsidian glint in an otherwise polite face. “I believe I did introduce myself to you last night.” Another twirl of the wineglass. An edge crept into his voice. “I suppose you’ve forgotten my name.”

  She grinned at him. “Well, yes, but I never forget a beautiful face.”

  The glass stopped twirling so suddenly wine sloshed up its sides. Black eyes glittered.

  “I’m just teasing you! Luc Leroi, see? I remembered.”

  His jaw tightened. “You flatter me.”

  “Do you want me to drop to my knees, your majesty?” She sparkled her smile right into his tense face.

  His lashes veiled his eyes. The tiniest smile relaxed the tension in Luc’s fine mouth. “Only if you like the position,” he murmured.

  Wait. Had he just—

  “Mademoiselle Corey!” A voice pulled her attention to a tall, lanky man in his thirties with straw-colored hair and a certain geekiness to his face. Alain Roussel, the hotel director. They had met earlier, just hours before her father announced publicly that the hotel was now hers. “I see you’ve met Luc!”

  Luc gave the other man a sardonic look.

  “Again,” Alain allowed lamely.

  “It’s like associating with royalty.” Summer fanned herself. “It’s going to my head to be on a first-name basis. Or am I presuming . . . ?” A teasing up-and-under look at Luc.

  Alain nodded relieved approval. “It hits us all that way at first. But you’ll get used to it.”

  What? “He’s really king of something?”

  Luc’s expression remained flawlessly polite. She didn’t know why she had the impression he wanted to strangle her. Alain looked appalled, but an older man drifting into the scene eyed Luc with slightly malicious amusement.

  Alain Roussel gave Luc an apologetic grimace, which he doubtless thought was over Summer’s head. Somehow, she had that effect on men—they dismissed the possibility she could have anything but looks and wealth. Luc was the one who recouped the moment, giving a wry, minute shrug of his shoulders to Alain, his self-possession today unshakeable. “I believe my grandfather might have been making a statement about Gypsies being the kings of the earth when he invented Leroi to fill out some form. No hereditary kingship, no.”

  Gypsies? As in colorful caravans and dashing black-haired adventurers, or a poor, wandering, much-despised population?

  “Luc is our head chef pâtissier,” Alain Roussel said stiffly.

  Summer stiffened. Of course. Oh, yes, didn’t that figure. He had been a dessert personified last night—so gorgeous and enticing, snapping himself out of her hands at the last second and leaving her to huddle in cold loneliness because she had said the wrong thing. Maybe he and her father had swapped notes on how to keep her in line. “Congratulations.”

  One black eyebrow rose minutely.

  “Thanks,” Alain said, throwing her off.

  She glanced between the two men. Luc’s mouth curved in a kind of edged amusement, as if underneath that curve he didn’t find her ignorance in the least bit funny. “For being able to convince me to work here,” he explained gently.

  “He’s world famous.” Alain stressed the words so hard they almost squeaked out of him. “He’s the very best.”

  She tried to switch gears. “Sounds like the work of a great director—recruiting top talent and keeping it happy.” She winked at Alain and stage-whispered: “Is he temperamental?”

  “Not even remotely,” both Alain and the older man who had come up said at the same moment.

  “He’s a perfectionistic bastard, though,” admitted the older man, with considerable empathy.

  Alain laughed. “Nothing but the absolute best for him.”

  Oh. So maybe she just wasn’t good enough.

  “I should think not!” her father exclaimed, joining the circle with her mother beside him. “He’s the jewel in this crown I just gave you. Only two other hotels in Paris can claim a three-star restaurant, and it makes all the difference between the best and the would-be best. And none of their chefs draws the media he does. Don’t you lose him, Summer. He’s the reason I bought you this place.”

  “Oh, yes, he’s wonderful.” Her mother squeezed Summer’s waist. “You’ll have to watch your weight around this one. He’ll get you, if you’re not careful.”

  Luc’s gaze flickered between Summer and her mother, and she just tried to bear it. I’m not getting Botox so I can look as young as my mother, damn it. Not even to survive three months in Paris.

  “Hugo Faure, too.” Her father nodded appreciatively to the older man. Stouter and shorter, with a more dated sense of fashion, he too had dark hair that was only starting to gray, and emanated a rougher-edged arrogance.

  “Chef cuisinier,” Alain mouthed to her from out of Hugo’s sight, looking anxious.

  “Oh, so you’re responsible for all this delicious food?” Summer squeezed herself to the chef ’s arm in breathless admiration. “Hugo Faure! What an honor!”

  Luc’s eyes almost narrowed. He took another minute sip of his glass of wine.

  “And to meet you, too, of course!” she gushed at him, because he had seemed just a tad temperamental to her the night before. She gave him a warm smile to make up for the belatedness. He gave her a tiny, edged smile in return.

  He wasn’t even remotely temperamental? Like, not known for hauling women off by their hair to their hotel rooms when they annoyed him? She rubbed her cold arms surreptitiously in memory of his warmth closing over her.

  Luc turned away to say something to a waiter. Yeah, she just riveted his attention, didn’t she?

  “You’ll have to show me your kitchens sometime.” She layered it on a little more, shifting her efforts to Hugo. Starstruck enthusiasm always worked on the older men on the island.

  “My kitchens are your kitchens,” Luc said courteously, turning back to her.

  Well, that was true, but . . .

  “I was being polite.” His eyes narrowed again.

  He made her brain dizzy. As if she was breathing out carbon dioxide but only breathing in him.

  “I’ll be happy to show you around as long as you can stay out of the way,” Hugo told her roughly.

  Her father gave both men a sharp look and glanced at Summer to see how she would reinforce her ownership of the hotel. “I’m pretty discreet,” she promised Hugo humbly.

  Her father frowned in severe disappointment at her lack of backbone, amusement leaped suddenly in Luc’s dark eyes like a secret, and Alain Roussel stared at her as if she was insane.

  Look, the indiscreet part of last night was his fault, she barely stopped herself from saying, then sent Luc a grumpy look. He had gotten her all over the Web again. Her first damn night.

  Her breath whooshed out of her as silk and a fine edge of soft wool slid over her bare arms and closed her in warmth and scent. A waiter straightened away from her, his face politely neutral, as she looked straight at Luc.

  He smiled at her urbanely, and she must be imagining that hungry, satisfied edge to him like a cat watching a mouse wander well past its safety zone.

  She rubbed the edge of the coat between her fingers. Dior, maybe, the texture very fine. It had to be Luc’s, she could tell by the labyrinth of scents: chocolate, butter, spice, stinging bright scents, and secret, mysterious warm ones. She wanted to get lost in them and never come out until morning.

  “What the hell is that?” her father aske
d, since apparently that rule about keeping Luc happy didn’t apply to him. Her father had ambitions for a son-in-law with a brilliant financial mind.

  Luc gave her father a cool look. Her fingers stilled on the coat. The chef pâtissier looked at one of Forbes’ top five hundred, who had just bought the hotel where he worked as a Christmas present for his spoiled daughter, as if he had the potential to be a headache and inconvenience and not much more.

  She pulled his coat more snugly around herself, without even realizing she was doing it.

  “Better?” Luc asked gently, reaching out to button the jacket near her throat, so that she wore it like a cape. Her heart beat so hard as his fingers grazed her throat that she was sure he would feel her pulse there.

  What was wrong with her? What had she started with her stupid exhausted carelessness the night before? “Was I not up to the dress code?” Her quick grin invited everyone into the joke. “Coat and tie only?”

  “You were perfect,” Luc said calmly. “But you looked cold.”

  Her father’s critical look made her want to tuck herself up against Luc and thumb her nose at him.

  “And you’re welcome in my kitchens any time you choose,” Luc told her, with exquisite manners that reinforced his possession of those kitchens. “You won’t get in my way.”

  Damn it. She really hated men who didn’t let her get in their way.

  “Welcome to the Leucé.” And he walked off and left her. Again. Draped in his coat, his scent twining all around her.

  CHAPTER 4

  Sylvain Marquis stared as Luc approached, reflected back on himself in a vast gold-framed mirror that glinted with the lights from the chandeliers. In it Luc saw Summer forget him almost instantly, turning that sweet smile on the first man to take his place. “How did you manage to do that?” the chocolatier asked.

  “Do what?” Luc pretended to sip his wine again. He was damned if he would get any alcohol into his system tonight. That half glass of champagne the night before had clearly left him far too vulnerable to being . . . cracked like a raw egg.