All for You (Paris Nights #1)(38)

“I liked you. And I was trying to be a nice guy. And your friendship was the most valuable thing I had in that damn place.”

Her smile softened in a trembling way. “Yours was my most valuable thing, too,” she said, and just managed not to add the thought that immediately sprang to mind: Which was why it hurt so much when you took it away from me and left me with nothing but myself.

But then, of course, she had had to learn how to value herself much more than she might ever have done, had he stayed. Possibly the same way he had had to learn his own value, through and through, to handle the Foreign Legion.

A long, slow sigh moved through his body. “I should have written.” He touched her face. “Found a pay phone and called. Gone to the cybercafé and sent an email.”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry, Célie. I did do it all for you, but I may have done it in a very self-absorbed way.”

“Well …” Célie hesitated. “You were only twenty-one. And clearly clueless.”

“I’m very, very proud of you.” He ran his hand down her back to rest on her butt, in possessive approval. “Of who you became.”

She beamed, her eyes stinging. “Me, too. I’m so proud of you, too.” God, she was proud. Every passerby whose gaze lingered on him made more pride swell inside her. But that was a superficial pride, smugness because he was so hot. Deep down, this hot, powerful, passionate pride burned in her center, at the man he had always been and the man he had become.

“When I look at you, bouncing out of that shop, I think, ‘That’s my Célie.’”

Really? She hugged herself, even though it bumped her arms against his chest and even though she wasn’t supposed to want to belong to anyone else. She was too independent. She whispered, “Can I think, ‘That’s my Joss’?”

His smile lit his face for just a moment, this brilliant flash of light. And then it was gone, disappearing under some serious, intense emotion. His hands closed over her shoulders, thumbs rubbing her collarbone, eyes fixed on hers. “Yes.”

Too much emotion swelled up in her, too many things that were too complicated: so much joy it was terrifying. You left me, and I don’t even know you anymore. And I would still, if I saw you watching me with that steady gaze from the other side of a street full of hot coals, walk barefoot across them just for the chance that you would hold me.

Hell, I’d do it just for the chance that you might smile at me and say, “That’s my Célie.”

“I brought you something.” She reached into her messenger bag for the box of chocolates.

Because when he saw her bouncing out of the shop, when he thought, That’s my Célie, she wanted his mouth to automatically start softening in anticipation, his lips to part, his tongue to …

She swallowed.

He smiled, opening the box. “Just three bitter dark this time?” he asked softly, at the array of patterns in the rows to either side of that center dark row.


“The others are just different ones I thought you might like.” She pointed. “This basil one, that was Dom’s idea. I thought he was crazy. Especially when our first test batches came out tasting terrible. But he insisted, and we kept trying it, making the flavor more elusive, until we got … well, try it.”

Joss tried it, but his expression stayed disappointingly closed, unmelted. “I like your flavors better.”

“He’s Dominique Richard, Joss.”

“I like your flavors better.”

“I made that ganache that’s melting in your mouth right this second! Just because it was his idea doesn’t mean I didn’t do any of the work involved!”

“Fine.” His jaw set a little as he forced himself to concede. “Then I guess I like it very much.”

She put her hands on her hips. “Men are idiots.”

His lips quirked up. “I see your sexism hasn’t improved.”

And she laughed. It was funny how much she had always loved teasing and being teased by Joss. It just charged her up. Made her tickle everywhere inside. “This one, we came up with this little hint of spices the first year we opened, for Christmas, and the demand for it and our other flavors caught us all only halfway prepared for it. We’d work through the night—I remember us taking turns catching an hour’s sleep on that divan in the salon—and Dom would go grab everyone breakfast and—”

Joss tried it as she talked, his face relaxing as he gazed down at her. And then he did something he had never done, when he picked her up from her work back in the old days. He took her hand as he turned them down the sidewalk, strolling together as she told all the chocolates’ stories.

Célie stared at her hand in his. Her breath got too short, and she had to fight to calm it. His hand was so solid and large around hers. Calluses rubbed against her skin, which was kept soft by all that cocoa butter.

It was what a boyfriend and girlfriend did, hold hands. It was what a man did when he wanted to tell the woman with him, Our hands belong together. I like to touch you. I like to make sure you’re in reach. I like for everyone who sees us to know you’re with me.

It made her happy.

As if a dream had come true.

Which was disorienting because that dream was supposed to, long ago, have declared itself an impossible fantasy.