All for You (Paris Nights #1)(75)

It felt kind of … natural, actually. As if that was what her heart had always wanted to be.

“You’re sure it’s not just sex starvation?” She tried to make her voice sound teasing, but a part of her still worried about that.

He grinned, his eyes lighting. “I don’t know.” He checked her clock. “We’d better test it. Let’s see if I still love you in … oh, about an hour.”





Chapter 22


Célie was so happy she couldn’t get over it. She felt like walking around with her arms wrapped around her own body in a hug instead of working. Whenever she tried to concentrate on her chocolate, she ended up rocking on her toes, dreamy, and would blink awake at some teasing comment from the rest of the team to discover she’d been drawing hearts in chocolate again.


Then she would try to get back to work and instead find herself rising on tiptoe to see if she could spot Joss in the street below.

Dom sighed. “I suppose this will wear off and you’ll turn back into a halfway decent chocolatier one day.”

He should talk. He still mooned over Jaime. Célie stuck her tongue out at him. And then the full impact of his statement hit her. “A—halfway decent? Did you just say—” She started for him as Dom grinned and ducked into his office.

Just then, Jaime ran up the stairs and pushed the glass doors of the laboratoire open, and Dom reappeared immediately.

Those two were so mushy. Célie smiled a little as she turned away from their kiss to peek out the window again.

Hey! There he was. Coming down the street. Happiness lilted through her, this crazy chirp of it that was like being caught in a hiccup of joy. It was almost too much. It shook her too hard.

And yet she loved it. She hugged herself, watching that long, strong, steady walk. Joss really wasn’t in the least pushy with all that power, politely shifting to one side well before he reached someone coming the other way on the sidewalk, and yet she could see the normally assertive Parisian pedestrians part and flow around him like boats giving a very wide berth to an iceberg.

Jaime leaned in the open window beside her, smiling. “How’s it going?”

Célie shrugged happily and hugged herself.

“You guys are so cute,” Jaime said.

“Hey, we’re not as mushy as you and Dom.”

Over setting some trays of fresh-made chocolates on the wire racks, Zoe made a choked sound of amusement.

“What?” Célie asked indignantly. “Nobody’s as mushy as these two!”

Zoe smothered a grin and turned away.

Hmm. Célie glanced sideways at Jaime, who seemed to be smothering amusement, too. Heat touched her cheeks, but she hugged herself anyway. It was kind of … nice to be mushy.

“Try not to draw hearts and Js over every surface while I’m gone,” Dom drawled. “I’m a little worried about you leaving you running the show.”

Célie stuck her tongue out at him, too happy to let him get much of a rise out of her. As if she couldn’t run this show. Ha! The only problem was that she was jealous. She wanted to go see the cocoa farms in C?te d’Ivoire with him and Jaime, too. She’d been curious about visiting an actual cocoa farm for ages. But the thought of not having to leave Joss for a week right at that moment made it easier to be left behind this time. Maybe next time she could come.

“You don’t mind me stealing Joss?” Jaime asked.

Hunh?

“I feel bad to do it so soon, but we need him to get started. I could really use his insight in West Africa.”

Célie turned her head and stared at Jaime. Her diaphragm hurt suddenly, as if one of those hiccups of joy had frozen right in the middle and wouldn’t release her.

Below, Joss lifted a hand to her, smiling, and glanced up and down all the buildings around him with that quick Legionnaire glance before he started to cross the street.

“What are you talking about?” Célie’s lips felt funny around the words, bee-stung.

Jaime blinked. And straightened from the window, her expression going wary. She glanced toward Dom, who was dipping a finger in the ganache to taste what Célie had come up with, and Dom lifted his eyebrows at the glance and shifted toward them.

“You don’t … know anything about it?” Jaime said. “Didn’t you guys spend the weekend together?” The Sunday–Monday weekend of those in the restaurant business.

Yeah. They’d gone out to Rambouillet on the new bike—Joss driving them out of Paris, just like some teenage fantasy of wrapping her arms around him on a motorcycle while he broke them free of their childhood—and picnicked in the woods and then Joss had rolled her under him on that picnic blanket and…

“Tell me what you’re talking about,” Célie said between her teeth.

“Just the … trip down to C?te d’Ivoire with us tomorrow.”

Célie’s brain buzzed. Joss reached the sidewalk below them and stood with his head tilted back, waiting for her to look at him. “What are you talking about?”

“The, the …” Jaime looked from Dom to Joss below. “Did nobody mention to you that I’d hired him? That he’s going to be advising Corey on security issues? That he’s going down to C?te d’Ivoire with me tomorrow?”