All for You (Paris Nights #1)(79)

When the only bright spot in his whole world was the girl who ran out of her bakery apprenticeship with her eyes lighting up at the sight of him and some box held up filled with some precious pastry she had made and saved because she wanted to see his eyes light up, too.

When he would do anything, anything in the world, rather than become her failure. The man who didn’t live up to that bright hope in her eyes.

Anything, rather than become the man who sank into grimy nothingness and weighed down all her hope and let his kids grow up to the same gray, dull lack of future.

It was the kind of ring a man bought just before he said: No. No. I can’t give her this crap. I have to be more.

And if he was just turned twenty-one, and at heart desperately wanted to be the great romantic hero, went off and joined the Foreign Legion.

His throat hurt so bad. His hand fisted around the ring, and the damn thing was so cheap, he bent the setting of the fake diamond.

Anybody could see the other was better, right?

Anybody in the world could see that he’d done the right thing.

Except Célie.

And she was the only one who mattered.

He closed his eyes.

Five years of brutal effort and unstoppableness seemed to crash down on him all at once, and he turned his head into his arm, with the rings still clutched in either hand, there on the rotting, stained floor, and fell so solidly asleep it was like crashing into dark water.





Chapter 24


“I’ll never have the cuddle now,” Célie told the water dully. Not crying. She’d cried more the past week in public than in the past twenty-three years combined. Now grief weighed so heavy it had crushed even her tear ducts closed.

“I’m really sorry.” Jaime sat astride the wall of the canal, one foot dangling just above the water next to Célie’s. “I didn’t mean to create problems.”

“It’s not the job. It wasn’t the Foreign Legion either. He doesn’t have to stay smaller for me. But … he thinks he does. He thinks if he talks to me about it before he does anything, I’ll shrink him.”

Jaime grimaced, failing to find words. Yeah, because what words were there? No one wanted to be a guy’s idea of shrink-wrap on his dreams. “The cuddle?” she asked finally.

“You know.” Célie’s mouth drooped. She stared at the black water. “So you don’t have to hide behind your bed at night. So you can just relax into someone’s arms and be happy. It’s gone now. I’ll never have it.”

Jaime put her hand on Célie’s shoulder and squeezed gently.

Which was nice, but it wasn’t the same as a Joss squeeze. Not as big, not as strong, not as longed-for.

“I was so happy before he showed back up,” Célie said. “I was over him. I only ever even thought of him maybe a couple of times a day.”


A rueful, sympathetic glance from Jaime that seemed to suggest a couple of times a day was still a lot. Little did Jaime know.

“And now it’s going to be so hard.” Célie’s throat tried to strangle her, it tightened so much. Anger had given her the strength to shove him away so that she could go back to the cheerful, strong life she had built for herself. But now that the anger had subsided, she felt like a girl who had gotten rid of everything but spinach in her house in a determination to lose five kilos. Who the hell cared about five kilos? She didn’t want a life of spinach. She wanted chocolate.

“Célie,” Jaime said. “You’re underestimating that man of yours. He’s going to analyze his failure and then come about and get it right the next time. You’ll see.”

Weight settled down on Célie, heavier and heavier grief. Because even if she’d needed anger to give her the strength to make this purge, something much more serious than five kilos was at stake here.

“Don’t you get it? That just makes me the object of his plans again. I want to be the person who takes part in them. You know … together.”

***

The first postcard arrived at the shop the day Dom and Jaime came back. A stamp with a plumeria flower was on the corner of the envelope, inscribed République de C?te d’Ivoire, its postmark a week old. The address was in precise, square, careful handwriting, her name, c/o the shop address.

The card she pulled out of the envelope was of a palm tree over a sunset beach.

Célie. The long pause could almost be felt in the paper, in the heart that had been drawn over the I in her name, thickly layered with ink from a pen that had repeated it over and over, as its owner sought words. And then, I’m terrible at this. Joss.

A smile kicked through her despite everything. She stroked the deep impressions of the pen, made by a man who fought with pen and paper to get it to say what he wanted.

Dom, who had handed her the envelope with her name on it, eyed her a second, warily.

“I’m fine,” she lied. And, unable to resist, “How did it go?” For once, she could actually know something about what Joss did on those adventures he sought out without her.

“He’s got this covered.” It was clear by Dom’s expression that his impressions of Joss had undergone a radical transformation. “The way he moves. The way he assesses every situation and every person constantly and reacts exactly as fast as a situation needs, handling it immediately or taking his time to see what is developing. That control and steadiness coupled with instant reflexes and no energy spared to do what needs to be done. And he speaks the military language. They listen to him, and he gets their respect. My wife and all those cocoa farmers she cares about so much are all going to be safer because he’s there.”