All for You (Paris Nights #1)(6)
He opened his eyes, holding hers with that beautiful, beautiful hazel green. “Célie. You know I’m just a man, right?”
“No!” she said indignantly. She did not know that at all.
“Made of clay,” Joss said, his mouth turning down. “I’m not good enough for the way you look at me.”
Okay, now he was talking crazy. She put both hands on his chest. “You’re Joss. You can do anything!” She shouldn’t have to keep repeating that last part. It was so inherently true to who he was that she wanted to kick the world, kick her own brother, for vandalizing Joss’s belief in himself. People around here got their graffiti on everything else, but they could damn well keep their grimy, destructive hands off Joss Castel.
He stared down at her a long moment. Then strength seemed to infuse him, even more strength than he always held, as if he grew three centimeters in every direction just from her belief in him.
Well, good. She willed more of it into him, trying to pour it through her eyes into his heart. You are the biggest, best, most wonderful guy in the world. Don’t let this get you down. You can do anything!
“Right,” Joss said. He took a deep breath that seemed to expand his chest to superhero size. He squeezed her chin one last time. “I can be good enough,” he said like a vow. “Way the hell better than this.”
Exactly. You can do it! Don’t let this place get you down! She pushed the thoughts into him until her forehead hurt from the effort.
His hand left her chin—but then it was as if he couldn’t stop touching her, because he stroked a wisp of hair back off her face, tucking it behind her ear. His fingers lingered over the curve of her ear and then, far too soon, fell away.
Célie flushed all through her, this rosy, starstruck hope.
“Bonne nuit, Célie.” He started to turn away, then stopped, and looked back, gazing down at her as if he had to memorize her for a test. “You really are the best part of my day.”
So Célie was radiant when she curled up in her bed that night. She glowed so much she could have been her own night-light. Tomorrow—tomorrow she was going to wear her sexiest shirt, the one with the deep V-neck, and the jeans that really hugged her butt, and, and … she lost herself in dreams of what he would do, of how she might just trip a little when he kissed her cheeks, see if she might get their lips to meet for real tomorrow, because maybe he would like it. She dreamed it until those dreams blurred into sleep.
So it was a complete shock to her when his mother showed up at the bakery the next day in a hysterical rage, blaming Célie because the evening before, her son had caught a train south and joined the Foreign Legion.
Chapter 3
When Célie finally came out of the ganache room so people could work, keeping her head down, trying to get to the bathroom first to wash her face before she had to make eye contact, Jaime was sitting on a stool beside Dom, leaning back on one elbow on the counter, talking to him, passion fruit caramel hair angling against her cheek. Her blue eyes locked on Célie immediately. “Hey, Célie.”
Oh, crap. Dom had called for female intervention. His über-freckled fiancée was exactly the perfect person to doggedly pursue the issue until she got to the bottom of some suspected abuse of the sisterhood. Célie scowled at her boss, for being so damn bossy, as if he had the right to interfere in his employees’ personal lives or something, and went on to the bathroom.
Cold water on her face did not really do a whole hell of a lot of good. She turned her back on the mirror and sank against the sink behind her, holding on to it with both hands, and just—holding, there, for a moment. Holding everything. She drew yet another deep breath and sighed it out and finally went out to deal with things.
“So.” Jaime scooped her arm up, elbow to elbow, as if they were best sisters about to go out for a walk.
Célie liked Jaime, so astonishingly different from all the women with whom she had been convinced Dom would screw himself over. In a good mood, she liked teasing Jaime, and even hanging out over a cup of tea or hot chocolate during a pause in the day. She’d been teaching the other woman how to inline skate, even. But still. They weren’t actual sisters. Jaime had one of those already.
“Why don’t we go for a walk?” Jaime said.
“He’s still out there.” Dom gave a greedy show of sharp teeth. “Why don’t I go send him on his way first?”
“I believe we’ll call the police if we need that,” Jaime said very firmly. “Dominique. Let’s keep you out of jail.”
Dom brooded like a cigarette addict trying to make do with patches while somebody smoked right beside him. Célie thought it was so cute the way his fiancée called him by his full name all the time, Dominique, with that little careful accent of hers around all the French vowels. It was probably no wonder Dom was always kissing her. Célie practically wanted to kiss her herself, and she was not the type to go for small women who looked like they needed protection. She’d always kind of wanted to be the small woman who got protected herself.
It just hadn’t worked out for her.
Well, Dom, but he was kind of on loan, really. He was her boss. He wasn’t supposed to have to act like her big brother, too. Or in any other capacity, although she couldn’t say that a few fantasies hadn’t managed to slip past her guard on bad days, especially after she’d finally forced herself to quit fantasizing about Joss.