03

“I put him in a cab. Now—what to do with you?” he asked, his gaze dropping over her.

  Her nipples tightened beneath a stare that was fire and ice at once. Her spine stiffened; her throat froze. The truth was still ricocheting around her skull: Lucien Sauvage owned Fusion. She’d unknowingly put her future in the hands of a man who had rejected her.

  And nobody rejected her.

  Well, hardly anybody, at least when she wanted otherwise. She’d definitely wanted “otherwise” with Lucien. Just my luck. Of all the restaurants and gin joints in towns all over the world, she’d had to walk into his, she thought with a panicked sense of amusement.

  “You’re going to do the only thing you can do with me,” she replied, her voice cool enough for someone who was playing the poker game of a lifetime with a crap hand. It was a mark of their shared past—their onetime friendship—that they spoke English to each other. Both of their mothers were English, their fathers French. It was a commonality they shared, a small intimacy that used to seem significant to a fourteen-year-old girl who craved the feeling of closeness to a beautiful young man who forever seemed unattainable to her. “You’re going to have to let me fill in as Fusion’s chef now that you’ve made such a mess of things with Mario.”

  He blinked and his expression went flat. “What are you rambling about? Are you drunk?”

  Anger bubbled up in her chest. “I had one glass of wine all night,” she said honestly. She noticed his sarcastic glance at her brandy snifter on the bar. “Mario handed it to me; I took it. Lucien, what are you doing here?” she asked again, her curiosity about him trumping her worry about her future. “You disappeared from Paris over a year ago. None of your employees in Paris will say where you are. My mother spoke to yours recently. Even Sophia doesn’t know where you are. She’s miserable with worry.”

  “Right,” he said sardonically. “My mother is sick to death at the idea of me not touching all that money she wants for herself ever since my father has been locked up in prison.”

  Elise blinked. He had a point. She had heard he was being strangely stubborn and elusive about accepting his ancestral fortune.

  “If you tell a soul you saw me here, I’ll make you pay, Elise.”

  Quiet. Succinct. Completely believable.

  Her heart leapt into overdrive. He’d paused a few feet away from her. She had to stretch her neck back slightly to see his face and hoped he didn’t notice her pulse throbbing at her throat. He struck her as even larger than she remembered—tall, lean, hard, and supremely formidable. He’d cut his dark hair since she’d last seen him, wearing it in a short, very sexy shake-out style that emphasized his masculine, chiseled features and an effortless sense of masculine grace. She’d always had a desire to run her fingers through that soft-looking, thick hair . . . wantonly fill her palms with it. He’d grown a very trim goatee since then, too. He wore jeans and a buttoned ivory cotton shirt, the color along with his silvery-gray eyes creating a striking contrast to smooth, caramel-hued skin. Mario wasn’t the first to refer to Lucien as a devil. Men said it with bitter envy. Women said it with covetous lust.

  His size and an undeniable aura of physical strength had always thrilled her, but Lucien intimidated her as well. His quiet, calm voice; contained, confident manner; and brilliant, charming smiles belied a coiled power inside him. There was a darkness to him that didn’t exactly match the white, flashing smile and easygoing manner with which he charmed the upper strata of the social world and his affluent hotel and restaurant guests.

  She had no doubt that Lucien could be dangerous when he chose. She also knew he’d never really harm her—not the young man who had once showed her kindness and taken her under his wing.

  But that didn’t make his threat any less intimidating.

  “Now,” he said calmly, stepping closer still and placing a hand on the rail of the bar. She suddenly felt cornered. “When are you leaving Chicago?”

  “I’m not leaving. I plan to live here.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Chicago is my new home,” she said with supreme confidence, even though she didn’t feel it. Elise was nothing if not an actress, and spirited aplomb was her finest role.

  Unfortunately, her father had been contemptuous of her plans to become a chef and relocate to Chicago, refusing to fund her new career. She couldn’t access her trust fund until she was twenty-five. Six months had never felt so far in the future to Elise. The nest egg she’d squirreled away after almost a year of waitressing in Paris had never seemed so pitifully small.

  “Why would you come to Chicago? It hardly suits you,” he said, his downward glance at her evening gown infuriating her.

  “You really don’t know, do you?”

  “Know what?”

  “My culinary school in Paris has matched me up with Mario Vincente for my training. I’m staging with him, Lucien,” she said, referring to the process whereby a new chef trained for a period of time under an established chef. She studied his stoic expression anxiously. “I have a contract,” she added defensively when he seemed unmoved by her confession. “You can’t send me away.”

  “You’re mad,” he said dismissively, picking up the brandy snifters on the counter and starting to walk away. The panic amplified in her chest. She despised the sight of Lucien’s back.

  “I’ve completed my training at La Cuisine in Paris. The only thing remaining is for me to stage with a master chef—the master chef you just fired!”

  He turned around and she saw he was smiling. Her heart swelled and seemed to press against her breastbone. Merde. Lucien’s smiles—the white teeth, the twin dimples, the firm, shapely lips. If the devil did exist, he’d definitely take on Lucien’s form in order to sow as much sin in the world as possible. She’d never seen a more handsome man in her life, and unfortunately, she’d seen more than her fair share of men.

  “You’re serious, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said, her spine stiffening. She took offense at his condescending tone.

  He chuckled. Her stomach felt hollow, seeing him laugh at her aspirations. She felt hollow.

  “So you’re going to be a chef this week.”

  “I’m going to be a chef for the rest of my life.”

  He shook his head, his smile fading. “This is the latest item on your crazy to-do stunt list. You’ve already tried race-car driver, sommelier, and photographer.”

  “I’ve grown up. I’ve turned my life around. I want my life to have . . . substance. I’m trying to create a career for myself.”

  “Why does an heiress need a career?” he asked. He had a decadently sexy voice. Rumor had it that women were regularly seduced by it alone, forget the rest of the package. Not that anyone would ever forget the smallest detail of Lucien. Elise knew she never had. She watched him as he moved behind the bar.

  “Why does an heir?” she countered. “You’ve always worked, first at your father’s hotels and then in your own hotels and restaurants. You of all people shouldn’t be questioning me.”

  He glanced up, all traces of amusement gone. Her lungs couldn’t expand as he held her stare. Pain welled up in her—shame about her past wild behavior and cynical attitude toward life, lancing fear that her plans for a future were hollow, that she truly didn’t have what it took to be a functional adult who could give and take and make the world a bit of a better place. She hadn’t possessed any role models for such a thing. She was afraid that greatly diminished her chances of success.

  It was Lucien’s stare that made her feel her shortcomings so completely. He saw a lot with those X-ray eyes. He always had.

  He’d immediately seen her foolishness when they’d first met at his parents’ estate in Nice. Elise had been a headstrong, wild thing, desperate for her preoccupied parents’ attention, for the staff’s, other houseguests’ . . . anyone’s. Lucien had been a coolly elusive twenty-one to her fourteen years that summer. From the beginning, he’d seen her ragged neediness, although she ha

dn’t realized it at the time. He’d befriended her, much to her delight. She’d been like a pitiful, neglected puppy, in awe of every scrap of attention he threw her way. It had been the best summer of her youth, those golden months on the shore of the Mediterranean.

  Of her life.

  She hadn’t realized until years later that their fathers had implored Lucien to take her under his wing. More than likely he’d been paid well for spending time with her, riding, swimming, and boating during that unforgettable summer. The knowledge shamed and infuriated her to this day.

  “You must realize this is an unexpected—not to mention ridiculous—situation, Elise,” he said, his tone softer than it’d been before. She tensed when she suspected it was from pity. “You can’t work at Fusion.”

  “I told you. I have a contract.”

  “You have a contract with Mario, not with Fusion or me. I understand that master chefs take on stages. I allow them to arrange that on their own, respecting a talent I don’t possess. You aren’t one of Fusion’s paid employees, however, and as you just witnessed,” he said, wiping off the snifter he’d just washed, “Mario no longer works here.”

  She stood there, panic gripping her, her thoughts coming a mile a minute. Had she failed so quickly in her plans? Were they so brittle? Was she? Would she be forced to return to the sterile emptiness of her existence in Paris, once again the vanquished fool?

  No. It would not happen.

  “Why did you change your name?” The random question just popped out of her throat she was so frantic.

  For a moment, he didn’t speak, just finished wiping off the snifter and hanging it with the other glassware, leaving her with her thoughts. Taking his time, he strolled around the bar. He approached her and stood close. Closer than she’d expected. The spice scent of his cologne filtered into her nose.

  “I’d actually already changed my name during our last meeting in Paris. Apparently, you’d been partying too much. You likely are a bit cloudy about a few things that occurred that night.”

  She stilled, suddenly growing wary. Something about his reference to their encounter at Renygat and the subtle suggestion that she might be mistaken in her memories of it triggered a warning signal in her brain.