by Teri Wilson
She felt responsible. He could see that much in her eyes. And it gave him the very sudden, very real urge to wring George Alcott III’s pretentious neck.
“I’m sorry if our dance played any part in what happened with Royal Gourmet.” Even if it hadn’t, he was still sorry. From the looks of things, the turn of events had taken its toll.
She snorted. “Sure you are.”
“I mean it.” He gave her a half grin. “Although I can’t say I’m sorry you’re not marrying that idiot.” As one who had so recently escaped a similar fate, he could empathize.
Her eyes went melancholy again for a beat. “Why are you being so nice to me?”
He shrugged. “I like you.”
It was inconvenient to say the least, but it was the truth. His relief at her single status wasn’t fueled solely by empathy. He liked her. That didn’t mean he wanted to marry her. Marriage and all it entailed was as far off his radar as Paris. But he could simply like a woman, couldn’t he?
“You can’t like me.” Her voice went softer. Quieter. “And I can’t like you.”
“The hell I can’t. The feud has nothing to do with me. I don’t believe in it.”
She rolled her eyes. “What do you mean you don’t believe in it? It’s a thing. It exists, whether you believe in it or not.”
“Plenty of people believe in Santa and the Easter Bunny, but that doesn’t make them real.” He moved closer to her, keeping one eye on her dog. Just in case.
She looked him up and down. “Believe whatever you want. Or don’t. But I do.”
“Yet here you stand, inside the lion’s den.” He had her there, and they both knew it.
She glanced around at the shelves stocked with boxes of rum-flavored chocolate cigars and rich chocolate dessert wines, then at the cases filled with hand-rolled truffles, chocolate dipped orange peels and what he’d been working on for the better part of the evening—Pavé Glacé, melt-in-your-mouth blocks of hazelnut, saffron, dark chocolate and butter, covered in cocoa powder and meant to resemble cobblestones.
He got the distinct feeling she was on the verge of turning on her heel and walking right out the door. And for some reason, it had become very important to him that she stay.
“I didn’t invite you here so we could talk about our families.” Without waiting for a response, he wound his fingers through hers and led her by the hand toward the kitchen.
She followed willingly, so that was something. He hadn’t been altogether sure she would. The dogs trotted behind them—Cocoa first, followed by Sugar, who scrambled to keep up.
“Sit.” He nodded toward the butcher-block countertop next to the stove.
Both dogs plopped into sit positions.
When Juliet hesitated, he put his hands on her waist and lifted her up and onto the counter. She gasped and clutched at his shoulders for balance. But even after she was situated, she held on to him, the fabric of his shirt gathering in her fingertips. He had a flashback of his favorite tie being crushed by those same hands, and a wave of arousal rocked through him, as it always did when his thoughts drifted back to the night. Which they did with alarming frequency.
His palms slid to her hips, pausing for just a moment to appreciate the wholly feminine shape of her.
How long had it been since he’d touched her? Less than a week? Hard to believe. The hunger gnawing at his insides gave him the sense it had been ages.
She removed her hands from his shoulders, finally, and resituated them primly in her lap. With more than a little reluctance, Leo released his hold on her. She cleared her throat and blinked impassively, her expression a carefully arranged mask of detachment.
Leo had to give her credit—she was putting up quite a front, feigning indifference like that. But he could see the faint trembling in her lush bottom lip, as well as the subtle darkening of her irises. And there’d been no mistaking the way her breath had grown quicker when he’d lifted her off the ground and deposited her on his countertop.
Feud or no feud, she still reacted to him on a purely physical level. He got to her. And, hell, was it ever a turn-on. Obviously, she’d rather pretend otherwise. Fine. Two could play at that game.
Leo gave her a cool look, turned his back on her and strode to the refrigerator. He whistled as he pulled out cartons of cream and whole milk and carried them back to the stove. Eyeballing it, he poured a dollop of cream into the waiting saucepan. Unlike a lot of chefs, he was usually a fan of measuring cups. But Juliet was watching him like a hawk, clearly intent on memorizing his every move. He might be attracted to her on an unparalleled level, but he wasn’t an idiot. As much as he liked the idea of feeding her le chocolat chaud, this wasn’t a cooking lesson.
He turned the burner on low and slid his gaze back in her direction. “Nightingale or lark?”
“Pardon?” Her eyes met his once again.
Leo tossed a generous handful of bittersweet chocolate chunks—the finest quality he had on hand—into the cream mixture. Good chocolat chaud was all about the quality of the chocolate. “Nightingale or lark? Are you a night person or a morning person? Given the late hour, I’m guessing nightingale. I’m still fighting off jet lag. What’s your excuse?”
“I typically don’t work through the night. This week I happen to have an unusually heavy workload.” She glared at him as if he had something to do with the fact that she’d been up half the night making chocolate.
And that’s when Leo saw it—a glittery sparkle that caught the light when she turned her head. She moved again, and he saw another shiny twinkle just above her cheekbone. And yet another by the corner of her mouth.
“You have glitter on your face.” His gaze dropped to the open square-cut collar of her dark blue blouse, where her slender collarbones glimmered like stardust. “And elsewhere.”
“No, I don’t.” Her face flooded with color.
She did the flushing thing a lot, he’d noticed. He wondered if it had anything to do with him or if she was always this bashful. He rather liked the idea of the former.
He released the whisk from his hand, stepped closer to Juliet and brushed the pad of his index finger along the side of her neck, letting it glide toward the soft dip between her glittery clavicles. A gentle gasp escaped her lips as her skin broke into shimmery goose bumps.
Leo smiled and held his finger up for inspection. Just a simple swipe, and he suddenly looked as if he’d spent his day scrapbooking. “I rest my case.”
She crossed her arms. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“And what might that be?”
“That I moonlight as an exotic dancer.” Her lips curved into a smile that could only be described as naughty. “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?”
Guilty as charged. He could think of worse things, although he would have preferred that particular activity to take place somewhere private. Like his bedroom.
He backed away a fraction and tried to rid his mind of the image it was currently fixated on. “Of course not. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation why you’re covered in glitter in the middle of the night.” He shrugged. “Maybe you’re the tooth fairy.”
She laughed. Loud and carefree. “I thought you didn’t believe in things like the tooth fairy. Or Santa.”
“Touché.” He grinned.
And just as he was thinking they’d finally gotten somewhere, to a place where neither of them was thinking about the feud, chocolate or their respective families, Juliet said, “Hey, there, Willy Wonka. Aren’t you forgetting something?” She nodded toward the stove, where his chocolat chaud was within a millisecond from bubbling over.
Merde.
He switched the gas burner to the off position. Then, while Juliet smirked at him and petted her giant, Mezzanotte-hating dog with the tips of her toes, he attacked the concoction with the
whisk and gave it a sniff. It smelled heavenly. Like Paris.
Thank God.
He’d never burned something as simple as hot chocolate in his life, and he wasn’t about to start now.
He added a dash of brown sugar before pouring a generous portion into a demitasse cup and then handed it to her. “Here you go.”
She stared into the cup as he slid onto the counter beside her. “What is it?”
“Le chocolat chaud. Parisian hot chocolate.”
She eyeballed it again. He wished she’d just taste it already. “What makes it Parisian?”
“Secret ingredient.” He took the cup from her hands and brought it to her mouth. “Sip. Now.”
She did.
Leo could tell the precise moment the chocolate hit her tongue. Her beautiful green eyes grew wide, then drifted closed. Her head fell back, giving him a full view of her glittery throat, of her slightly parted lips.
“Oh, wow.” Her voice was nothing more than a husky moan.
Oh, wow, indeed.
That sound was enough to get a rise out of any man. Even a Mezzanotte. Perhaps especially a Mezzanotte.
“Thoughts?” he asked, wondering if she remembered that he’d told her he wouldn’t kiss her again until she asked him to. Because he was just about ready to forget that hastily uttered promise.
Her dark lashes fluttered open. “I think if you start serving this, my family will be out of business in a matter of days. What in God’s name did you put in it?”
“Bittersweet chocolate. A little milk, a little cream and sugar.” That was it. For the most part...
“And?” She lifted a wary eyebrow. He was holding out on her, and she knew it.
“And a secret ingredient.” He slid closer, until the length of Juliet’s thigh rested against his.
Leo shot a glance at her dog, just in case that old adage about its bark being worse than its bite didn’t apply. Cocoa was curled on the floor, with Sugar nestled between her giant paws. They both peered up at him and wagged their respective tails. Clearly, Cocoa still had no idea who he was.
“You’re really not going to tell me?” Juliet took another dainty sip of the chocolate, then licked her upper lip.
Leo had to stop himself from blurting it out right there and then—fleur de sel. His secret ingredient was a very special sea salt harvested from the salt marshes of South Brittany and packaged by Le Guérandais. He had no intention of sharing that information with her. Or anyone, for that matter. But sitting there, watching her lick her pillowy lips while the heavy scent of good chocolate swirled around them, the words almost fell off his tongue.
He reminded himself who they were and where they were sitting. It might be fun to toy with Juliet, but there were limits as to how far this flirtation could go. And those limits stopped short of sharing recipes. Obviously. “As everyone is so intent on reminding me, you’re an Arabella. And I’m a Mezzanotte. If the shoe were on the other foot, would you tell me?”
Her gaze flitted to the demitasse cup and back at him. A century’s worth of secrets, betrayals and strife ricocheted between them. “Yes, of course.”
“Liar.” He cupped her cheek in his hand.
There was the barest moment of hesitation in her eyes before she leaned into his touch. “What if I kissed you? Would that make a difference?”
A kiss in exchange for a simple ingredient? It almost seemed like a bargain.
She didn’t wait for an answer but laid her graceful hand on his chest and reached up to brush her lips against his with the barest of touches. It was an innocent kiss. In a way, cautious. But the instant their lips met, Leo was consumed.
There was still no way he was telling her about the fleur de sel.
He smiled against her lips. “The secret ingredient is...”
She inhaled, and the warmth of her body, the softness of her breasts, pressed into him. Her heart pounded against his.
Stay strong. “Unicorn tears.”
She laughed, but made no move to back away. “That hot chocolate is so yummy, I almost believe you.”
His hands moved from the countertop to her waist and paused there a second before sliding to the small of her back. She made the tiniest mewing sound, almost like a kitten. Or maybe Leo only imagined it. He was aware of little else but the way the air between them pulsed—with desire now, more than secrets—and the feel of her silky skin sliding against his palms. Somehow his hands had slipped right beneath her wispy thin blouse, but she hadn’t made a move to back away.
She was warm. So warm. Almost hot to the touch. And every bit as delectable as a soufflé fresh from the oven.
He splayed his fingers and pulled her against him. Her heartbeat careened nearly out of control, and Leo went abruptly hard as granite.
“Who says I’m lying?” he whispered, his lips a breath away from the curve of her ear. A shiver coursed through her. Leo felt it all the way to his core.
Her arms wrapped around his neck in a slow, sultry movement. “Unicorns aren’t any more real than the tooth fairy.”
“Or the feud?” His hands slid up to her rib cage, his thumbs scarcely skimming the lacy edge of her bra.
On some barely conscious level, he was aware this might not be the best idea. But he couldn’t stop himself from touching her. And if he didn’t taste her again—really taste her, right now—he was going to lose what was left of his mind.
“What feud?” she murmured.
It was music to his ears.
Then her mouth sought his, and this time there was nothing chaste, nothing careful about her kiss. It was like the vineyard all over again.
Only this time, she tasted like the salty shores of Brittany, the Eiffel Tower, the Place des Vosges under a starry sky. Every place that Leo loved most in the world. And as his tongue slid against hers, he experienced some kind of fundamental shift inside. For the first time since he’d left Paris, he felt as though he’d come home.
Which made no sense at all.
But he wasn’t about to stop and analyze what was happening. In fact, stopping wasn’t anywhere on his radar. The urgent need to take her had rendered him incapable of rational thought. The fact that he was seriously considering making love to Juliet Arabella on the kitchen countertop of Mezzanotte Chocolates seemed wholly reasonable. The best idea in the world. At that moment, he probably would have bedded her right in the front window display. In broad daylight.
Until he thought he heard ducks splashing in a pond. Somehow, between one desperate kiss and the next, the sound managed to reach his ears.
Juliet didn’t seem to notice. She arched toward him and tangled her fingers in his hair. Her mouth opened in the softest of sighs and a fresh, needy wave of lust surged through Leo. So he told himself he was only hearing things. He slid his hands under her bottom and lifted her up clear off the counter. Then he shifted until that soft, supple body of hers was in his lap, pressed fully against him as he rocked into her so she could feel his arousal.
But when the splashing sound grew louder and was suddenly accompanied by the thumping of metal against metal, Leo could no longer ignore it. Still, it took a superhuman effort to remove his mouth from Juliet’s. She whimpered in protest, a breathy sound that nearly killed him, as he reluctantly opened his eyes and peered over her shoulder toward the source of the invasive racket.
And there he saw Juliet’s enormous dog standing on her massive hind legs, paws planted on the edge of the stove, pink tongue flying as she guzzled down every last drop of his chocolat chaud straight from the saucepan.
7
Juliet had gone positively boneless. Her limbs felt languid and heavy, every bit as liquid as that extraordinary hot chocolate Leo had made for her. And whatever his secret ingredient might be—she was fairly certain it wasn’t unicorn tears—it must have
contained some kind of potent aphrodisiac. Because, oh, God, she was straddling Leo right there on the kitchen counter of Mezzanotte Chocolates, kissing him as if he were her last meal.
Somewhere in the back of her mind, she knew this was a mistake of the very worst sort. This wasn’t like the vineyard, when she’d had no idea who she’d been canoodling with. This time, she knew precisely who he was.
Leo Mezzanotte, whose grandmother had betrayed her own grandmother’s trust and stolen the family chocolate recipe right out from under her. Leo Mezzanotte, whose father had once gotten into a fistfight with her dad in the middle of the street. Leo Mezzanotte, with his fancy degree from Le Cordon Bleu and his chocolates that looked like works of art, whose sudden reappearance was sure to guarantee her a place in the unemployment line.
Leo Mezzanotte, whose talented fingers were currently unbuttoning her blouse.
Could she have possibly chosen a worse partner for a sexual reawakening? What had gotten into her? She didn’t do this. She didn’t sit on men’s laps on kitchen counters. She didn’t make the kind of breathy noises that were coming from her lips. And she most definitely didn’t have sex in the Mezzanottes’ chocolate shop.
Not that she’d done that last one.
Yet.
But when Leo pressed himself against her, letting her know how much he wanted this, wanted her, she knew it was only a matter of time. And right here, right now, she was perfectly fine with that.
Wasn’t this precisely the kind of passion she’d wanted all along?
And then Leo’s mouth abruptly left hers. Juliet felt as though he’d taken the air right out of her lungs. Every cell in her body mourned the loss of that mouth.
“Um, what...?” How pathetic. She couldn’t even form a simple question.
“Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.” Leo scrambled out from underneath her, causing her backside to land on the countertop with a humiliating thud. “This can’t be happening.”
