All for You (Paris Nights #1)(77)

“You’re still acting as if I don’t even have anything to do with your life! You don’t even tell me! And you just go off—” Her voice choked her. She struggled to get her breathing to calm down but it kept coming more and more hysterically. “You’re leaving me again. And you said—you said—you—” An onslaught of ugly sobs bottled up in her, and she fought to keep them contained.

He pushed her back against the wall, between two shelving sets of chocolates, capturing her inside a cage made of her own rich-scented work and him, still half covered in chocolate.

“I had a plan.” He pushed the words through her incipient hysteria. “Calm down.”

Her breath hitched at the command … and then came in with one long, deep pull and held a second, and then slowly released. The threat of raging sobs eased at that long breath. She stared up at him. God, he looked hot like that. She wanted to lick that chocolate off him so bad. And she was so mad at him.

“I’ve got something for you.” Those hazel eyes held hers. Behave, Célie. And, Listen to me. She hiccupped a little, staring up at him, taking another deep breath. He smelled so good, too, the chocolate and that scent of sand and sun and wild herbs. She needed to make a chocolate that captured sand and sun and wild herbs … “It’s in my pocket.”

But his arms stayed braced on either side of her to keep her captured.

She looked at his shirt. He was wearing, actually, what was a pretty nice shirt for Joss, a dress shirt, pressed, unbuttoned at the collar, rolled up at the sleeves, and now thoroughly stained in chocolate. And there was a small square box in the front pocket.

Her breath hitched in again. She stared at him until his stubborn, beautiful eyes seemed to fill her whole world.

“You want to get it out?” he asked.

Her lips pressed together vulnerably. She shook her head.

His eyebrows drew together faintly. He didn’t release her, but he pushed his body a little farther back from hers. “You don’t want it?”

“Not … not like this. This isn’t a good idea. You’ll—this is really not a good idea right now, Joss.”

“I had a plan,” he insisted, adamantly, pressing the words into her.

Oh, God, of course he had. That he’d decided on all by himself.

“Remember that night I said good-bye to you? And you didn’t know you wouldn’t see me again, and I didn’t tell you? I didn’t offer you that ring?”

She nodded, struggling not to cry.

The hardness in his body gentled. His hand framed her face, and his thumb grazed gently under her damp eyes. “I wanted to undo that. I wanted to do that night exactly the opposite way.”

Oh. A tear spilled out. He caught it, rubbing it carefully against her cheek.

“I wanted to tell you,” he said quietly, full of all that intensity that Joss packed into him, “that I had to leave for a few days, but that I was going to be back. I wanted to talk to you about this job I’d taken and reassure you, if you had worries about it.”

He couldn’t have talked to her about the decision? Like, before he made it? As if she was part of it? Was he still so convinced that she would hold him back?

“And I wanted to ask you”—he reached into his pocket—“if you would wear this.”

He opened the box. Light sparkled off the diamond ring, like sunlight off a glass mountain. She had never thought she liked diamonds, had never been the girl who fantasized about receiving one. But this one sparkled like joy.

Célie covered her face with her hands. But she kept her fingers parted, so she could see that ring, and how utterly beautiful it looked when held in that callused hand. She’d never even noticed diamond rings before. It was the frame of that strong, male hand that set it off. Made it beautiful.

“Because it would make me so proud,” Joss said. “Incandescent with happiness. People would think I was running around in sequins, if you were wearing my ring.”

The utter wonder of Joss sparkling … over her. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I’d probably look ridiculous, I’d glow so much,” Joss said. “But I wouldn’t care. If you were wearing my ring.”

Célie couldn’t stop crying.

“Maybe everyone would know we went together,” Joss said. “If you were sparkling that much, too. We’d match.”


She pressed her fingers against her tears, but they wouldn’t stop.

“And you say I’m terrible at communicating,” Joss muttered. “What does that mean, Célie?” He touched her tears through her fingers. “Is that a … yes?” This pause and hush on the last word, as if it held worlds of wonder.

Oh, God, this was so hard. This was killing her, it was so hard. As if great giant claws had sunk into her body and were ripping her asunder. “No,” she whispered.

“What?” He bent deep to hear her, his face close to hers, his eyes so pure and true and intent.

“No.” The word was so soft it was almost no more than a shape of her lips, all the sound choked out of it.

“What?” He gave his head a tiny shake and pulled back, staring at her lips as if they didn’t make sense, and then into her eyes.

She swallowed, like swallowing a mountain, cramming all of it down her too small throat. And shook her head. “I can’t, Joss.”