Read Online The Chocolate Heart by Laura Florand - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Florand
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souls ducking away, pressing to their counters.
Oh, wow, this was so much better than her lonely, elegant hotel room. Or wandering around the echoing vastness of the Louvre, trying to force her mind to dwell on the art, until the museum guards kicked her out at closing and forced her to slink back to her boarding school, the way she used to the last time she lived in Paris.
Fascinated, Summer stepped forward. Metal clanged. Figures in white twisted around each other between open flames and boiling liquids as if they had been doing this for all eternity. Counters and stoves and stainless steel stretched in all directions. Black demons slipped in and out, tuxedoed waiters carrying great trays.
She pushed deeper, staring at flesh being hacked with great butcher knives, entrails being twisted, blood boiling over a low flame. Blades flew over roots and fruits of the earth she didnât even have a name for. White souls glanced at her occasionally, solidifying into chefs who were wondering what she was doing in hell.
âMay I help you?â someone asked when she nearly ran into him as she rounded a corner. One quick hand touched her shoulder to steady her and then dropped politely away.
She looked up at a lazy smile, a sun-gilt, golden-brown Achillean hero who had got caught down here by accident, or maybe a confused surfer who should be hanging out watching for waves on some Hawaiian beach. He wore white chef âs attire, as did most of the people around her, but was bareheaded, no toque or white cap. âJust exploring. Iâm Summer Corey.â
â Merde. I was afraid of that. I suppose that means youâre looking for him.â He stepped back to reveal Luc Leroi.
Luc concentrated completely, not looking at her at all, that black hair clinging damply to his temples. She locked on him and all the chaos coalesced around her. A ferment of dangerous, beautiful creativity, completely controlled by that darkness at its center. A rich, complex dance where everyone knew his role, and those werenât screams, just firm calls of warning as a great bubbling pot was carried from a stove to wherever its contents were needed.
He was working on something beautiful, and it was crazy how powerful need ran through her suddenly, for him to ignore it in her favor. Put me between you and that beautiful thing youâre working on, forget everything but me, make me forget everything but you.
Yeah, right. Not that she would have any trouble forgetting everything else, but she was trying not to be such a damned idiot about what she expected from men like him.
His focus had no room for her. Seeing it explained a lot about how easy he had found it to dismiss her. Amazing how driven men could do that, shut her out like she was nothing. The concentration that let him achieve so many great things was a black hole for her, sucking all her light toward it until she felt she could be pulled through it into something beautiful.
She had always wanted to be sucked into the black hole. To see what was so impossibly wonderful that it was more important than anything she could do or be or say.
Being screwed-up doesnât mean you have to yield to your own screwed-upness, Summer.
But still, she drew closer, even as she fought the pull. All her fatherâs complex projects had been in his head, on his computer, things a child could never see. She could only see him not seeing her. Here, the fruit of Lucâs concentration formed into incredible fantasy under his hands. She couldnât help looking at it: Something soft and gold nestled safely in a net of darkness, while the black-haired pâtissier carved holes in that chocolate darkness so that the gold heart was protected from the world, but not shut away from it.
She took a hard breath and looked away, trying to breathe under a high, crashing wave.
No. Oh, no.
She wasnât going to start letting desserts have power over her again.
Especially not wielded by
Oh, wow, this was so much better than her lonely, elegant hotel room. Or wandering around the echoing vastness of the Louvre, trying to force her mind to dwell on the art, until the museum guards kicked her out at closing and forced her to slink back to her boarding school, the way she used to the last time she lived in Paris.
Fascinated, Summer stepped forward. Metal clanged. Figures in white twisted around each other between open flames and boiling liquids as if they had been doing this for all eternity. Counters and stoves and stainless steel stretched in all directions. Black demons slipped in and out, tuxedoed waiters carrying great trays.
She pushed deeper, staring at flesh being hacked with great butcher knives, entrails being twisted, blood boiling over a low flame. Blades flew over roots and fruits of the earth she didnât even have a name for. White souls glanced at her occasionally, solidifying into chefs who were wondering what she was doing in hell.
âMay I help you?â someone asked when she nearly ran into him as she rounded a corner. One quick hand touched her shoulder to steady her and then dropped politely away.
She looked up at a lazy smile, a sun-gilt, golden-brown Achillean hero who had got caught down here by accident, or maybe a confused surfer who should be hanging out watching for waves on some Hawaiian beach. He wore white chef âs attire, as did most of the people around her, but was bareheaded, no toque or white cap. âJust exploring. Iâm Summer Corey.â
â Merde. I was afraid of that. I suppose that means youâre looking for him.â He stepped back to reveal Luc Leroi.
Luc concentrated completely, not looking at her at all, that black hair clinging damply to his temples. She locked on him and all the chaos coalesced around her. A ferment of dangerous, beautiful creativity, completely controlled by that darkness at its center. A rich, complex dance where everyone knew his role, and those werenât screams, just firm calls of warning as a great bubbling pot was carried from a stove to wherever its contents were needed.
He was working on something beautiful, and it was crazy how powerful need ran through her suddenly, for him to ignore it in her favor. Put me between you and that beautiful thing youâre working on, forget everything but me, make me forget everything but you.
Yeah, right. Not that she would have any trouble forgetting everything else, but she was trying not to be such a damned idiot about what she expected from men like him.
His focus had no room for her. Seeing it explained a lot about how easy he had found it to dismiss her. Amazing how driven men could do that, shut her out like she was nothing. The concentration that let him achieve so many great things was a black hole for her, sucking all her light toward it until she felt she could be pulled through it into something beautiful.
She had always wanted to be sucked into the black hole. To see what was so impossibly wonderful that it was more important than anything she could do or be or say.
Being screwed-up doesnât mean you have to yield to your own screwed-upness, Summer.
But still, she drew closer, even as she fought the pull. All her fatherâs complex projects had been in his head, on his computer, things a child could never see. She could only see him not seeing her. Here, the fruit of Lucâs concentration formed into incredible fantasy under his hands. She couldnât help looking at it: Something soft and gold nestled safely in a net of darkness, while the black-haired pâtissier carved holes in that chocolate darkness so that the gold heart was protected from the world, but not shut away from it.
She took a hard breath and looked away, trying to breathe under a high, crashing wave.
No. Oh, no.
She wasnât going to start letting desserts have power over her again.
Especially not wielded by
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