All for You (Paris Nights #1)(28)

What a boring letdown for his first night back.





Chapter 11


“Everything all right?” Jaime asked.


Célie straightened guiltily from Dom’s in-progress sculpture of a lioness. No, she had not been thinking of biting that other ear off. “You’re back again? Already? I thought Dom had started sleeping in later.”

“You’re here pretty early yourself,” Jaime said.

Dom came up the stairs, his short delay after Jaime suggesting he’d taken care of a couple of things downstairs on the way in, and gave Célie a disgruntled look at having to share his space so early, but otherwise didn’t say anything, moving to hang up his leather jacket.

“I promised to come in early,” Célie said. Plus, she’d needed the reassurance. Here I am. All these things I made of myself.

Her card from Joss was still tucked in the corner of the counter in the ganache room. I would wait more than five years for you. With a heart over the I in her name.

“Did you ever feel like knocking Dom’s head against a wall?” Célie asked.

“No,” Jaime said.

Oh. Now Célie felt guilty.

“I wouldn’t want to hurt him,” Jaime admitted. Dom gave her a wry look as he moved to double-check his lioness. He seemed pretty darn big and hard to hurt, especially in contrast with Jaime’s size.

Célie scowled. “Fine. I’m a bad person.” Didn’t that just figure?

Jaime smiled. “You’re maybe just more physical in your mental imagery. That or Dom’s less frustrating.”

Dom’s eyebrows rose a little at that, his lips curving ruefully, and he ran his hand over his lioness, exactly like someone petting an actual lion. Well, someone like Dom petting an actual lion. Célie liked the idea, but was worried she might cop out about actually touching a lion in real life.

“It’s just—I mean, it was bad enough when he was just my brother’s friend, whom I had a secret crush on, and he went off and joined the Foreign Legion. Then, you know—well, having a crush on a guy a few years older than you who doesn’t reciprocate, you just have to tough it up and get over it, right? But when he tells me he did it for me, I—” Célie’s teeth ground together, and she grabbed a big bag of chocolate blocks and slammed it against the counter to break them up, helping relieve the stress.

Dom frowned at the noise, sighed, and focused on his lion again. He really did hate sharing his space at this hour of the morning.

“Seriously?” Jaime said. “He abandoned you for five years for your sake? No wonder you want to hit him over the head.”

“Yeah, Dom might be an idiot about wanting to wait until he’s proven his worth, but at least he’s being an idiot at your side,” Célie said.

Dom gave her a look. She stuck her chin up at him.

“True,” Jaime admitted. “You’re doing much better than Célie’s guy,” she told Dom approvingly.

Hey. Both Célie and Dom gave Jaime indignant looks, for opposite reasons.

Dom focused on his lioness, picking up a small knife, working on detail. Célie had dumped her chocolate chunks into a bowl before Dom suddenly spoke, without looking up. “Of course, I’m older.”

Célie blinked. Had Dom just defended Joss? Dom? Of all people?

“How old were you when you first started working for me, Célie? Eighteen?” Dom shaved a long, fine strip of chocolate off the lion. “So that made him, what? The same age? A couple years older?”

“Twenty-one,” Célie said stiffly. Hey … hadn’t it been Joss’s birthday a couple weeks ago? She’d gone out with another guy, to better ignore the date and embrace her happy life without him, but the guy hadn’t inspired in her any desire to invite him up or curl against his side.

“And still stuck in the banlieue and in love with you?” Dom nodded, still focused on his sculpture. “Yeah, that would do it.”

Both women stared at him.

“Do what?” Célie finally asked between her teeth.

“Motivate him. Merde, Célie, a man’s either an idiot or very determined to change his life, to join the Foreign Legion.”

“Or both,” Célie said tightly.

Dom shrugged acknowledgment. Jaime picked up the sliver of chocolate that had come off the lion and nibbled at it. A little smile flashed across Dom’s face as he glanced at his chocolate on her lips.

“I didn’t ask him to change his life for me,” Célie said. “Maybe if he was in—in—in—if he had a crush on me, he should have talked to me about it before he did something so asinine. Maybe we could have come up with some mountain we could have climbed together.”


“Yeah,” Dom said, almost absently, focused on shaping the leg of the lion. “Men don’t always think that way.” He gave Jaime an apologetic look. “We’re kind of raised to want to go out on quests to earn the princess’s hand by becoming a hero. It’s, ah, hard for us to wrap our minds around a princess who wants to do all that dirty work with us. Makes us feel—insufficient. Not man enough. Not good enough.”

Jaime reached out suddenly and rested her hand on Dom’s biceps, flexing as he worked.