Chase Me (Paris Nights Book 2)(41)

She squared her shoulders. Because these shoulders could take it.

Beyond Lina, Vi could glimpse the great statue of Marianne in the center of the Place de la République, where very, very recently she and everyone here had left flowers in memorial, weeping. Dozens of huge protests for all kinds of issues had filled République since then, of course, a sign of how the city pulsed with life no one could put out. Right now, a group in roller skates was dancing to a boom box from which, occasionally, a particularly loud sock hop refrain reached them.

Lights played with the dark everywhere—the red lights of cars braking, the warm lights spilling out of cafés, bouncing off red awnings to pick up additional tones, gleaming in shades of warm and dark off paving stones, and glowing from street lamps against the great white marble base of Marianne and over the skaters, the people watching the skaters, the groups passing and crossing, heading toward home or stopping at the cafés and bars.

Vi loved this quarter. The kind of place where students and young people just starting their careers could still afford to go out, where the theaters were full of music and comedians and small, quirky plays.

Screw the critics. She had her faithful. They’d come back.

She didn’t cook for the critics of the world anyway. Nor for the president of the United States and his First Lady, however nice that would have been. She cooked for the people of this quarter. The workers and the children of immigrants and the artists and the actors, the young people with good jobs starting to move in as the quarter got more and more expensive, the people who came here to hang out because the other side of Paris was too pale, too fake, too BCBG and bourgeois for them. They wanted to keep it real.

“Thanks, guys,” she told her team. “It’s nice to have you on my side.”

Up on the rooftops, she caught a glimpse of four silhouettes running and leaping and smiled a little. Des traceurs de parkour. It was always fun to catch a glimpse of them. Like a glimpse of luck. Of energy. Movement without rules. She should do some kind of dish that evoked parkour. Height and vertigo and no limit to the lines of movement.

No limit. And if you had a bad fall, you picked yourself back up.

And avoided the kind of man who pushed you down mid-leap.

She nodded to herself firmly. Avoid him.

And let that be a lesson to you: the next time you catch a burglar red-handed, don’t sleep with him. As ways of meeting men go, the fact that he’s breaking into your kitchens is never a good sign.





Chapter 14


“What part of go away do you not understand?” Vi demanded, keeping the chain on the door.

“I brought something.” Chase held up a small backpack.

“Did you do something to Quentin?”

“Quentin?” Chase looked vague. “Small guy, kind of scrawny?”

“He always seemed big to me,” Vi said dryly.

“It’s funny how many different perspectives there are on size and power, isn’t it?” Chase smiled at her happily.

“He called me, screaming about me siccing criminals on him.”

“Must have a guilty conscience if he’s that paranoid.”

“Chase!”

Chase shrugged. “I may have provided him a quick demonstration of what it’s like to be struggling in the hands of someone bigger and more powerful who can do whatever the hell he wants to him.” Just for a second, that cool, grim, lethal look showed under his easy charm.

All the hairs on Vi’s nape rose in response to that look. Then Chase winked at her, the look entirely disappearing.

“Did you hurt him?” It wasn’t her fault that a greedy I hope so clenched in her at the question.

“Well…hurt.” Chase shrugged and spread his hands. “People have such a wide range of pain tolerance. I didn’t cut his balls off, at least. Not this time.”

Vi was probably supposed to be relieved about that.

“I wanted him to have something to look forward to,” Chase explained. “In case he ever thought about trying to mess with you again.”

“Chase! Damn it. Starred chefs move in a small world, you know. I have a reputation.”

“For being someone a man shouldn’t mess with unless he wants his ass kicked?”

“For kicking those asses myself! For not needing some man to handle my problems for me!”

Chase considered that. “That’s a really good point, honey. To explain my own point, I thought you did handle that problem yourself. I hadn’t even met you when you gave him a concussion and fired him. I just wanted to reinforce your point. We don’t know who else he might have assaulted in his life. He probably didn’t start out with the entitlement to take on someone like you. Probably went smaller and more vulnerable until he built up his sense of impunity.” He frowned as he thought about it. “Actually…maybe I should go ahead and cut his balls off.” He half-turned back toward the stairs.

Vi had never really thought about possible previous attacks in Quentin’s past either, and now that she did…it was an ugly, ugly thought. Vi had been a pretty, female, teenage apprentice in a kitchen full of men on power trips herself. That was when she’d taken to making sure she had a knife on her.

She caught Chase’s sleeve. “Maiming a civilian sounds like a career ending move to me. At least it would be one in our military, I’m pretty sure.”