The Chocolate Kiss

CHAPTER 30



When the contact at the Restos du Coeur called back to say they couldn’t get a pick-up van through the streets, Philippe grimaced and pocketed his phone, gazing down through the snow at his shop. “Talk about a waste,” he said. “And everything we had half-prepped for today is going to go, too. But”—he shrugged. What can you do?

Magalie came to stand beside him in her heavy bathrobe, tucked up against the warmth of his body, the cold of the window before them. “You should have a block party,” she murmured.

“What is that?” he asked blankly.

“It’s an American thing. It’s kind of like a fête villageoise, but your village is your street. I mean, everyone on the Île is in their apartments all up and down here looking out at the snow. You should just invite them all over.”

He gazed at her for just a second before a white grin split his face. “That would be incredible fun.”

She grinned back, taken by her own idea and his enthusiasm for it. “It would, wouldn’t it?”

“And I bet a lot of people are dying for a cup of your chocolate about now. You know, it’s hot-chocolate weather.”

She made a face. “Our place isn’t big enough for that kind of crowd.” Plus, she had been imagining herself at Philippe’s side, having fun in this event, not down the street, feeling exiled.

Wait just a damn minute. When had being in her own place making chocolat chaud ever felt like exile?

“But, Magalie,” he purred, “you know you are entirely welcome in my kitchens. Je t’invite.”

She prickled just a little, but the idea was irresistible. Grinning, they bundled up again, pounding on the aunts’ door as they went downstairs, Magalie calling people she knew in different buildings to get them to start shaking out the neighbors: Thierry, Claire-Lucy, Aimée. Claire-Lucy was, in fact, at Madame Fernand’s when the call reached her, having walked her dog for her to make sure the old lady did not slip and break her hip in the snow, and she promised to hold her arm all the way down the street.

Geneviève had applied her life-ironing abilities to getting Gérard to spend the cold night at his daughter’s, but he was back outside already and regarding Geneviève with a particularly gargoylish glare. But he came, too, freshly showered at his daughter’s insistence, and Philippe let not only him in but his German shepherd with him. “Because”—he grinned at Magalie—“I have kind of a fondness for that dog now.”

Magalie clenched her fist but managed not to hit him. Sissi the poodle snubbed the German shepherd haughtily today, sticking to Madame Fernand at her little elegant table, over by a rosebud-entwined marble pillar.

Thierry brought all his leftover roses and passed one out to every single woman there, making some of them entirely happy. Claire-Lucy chatted happily with Aimée as each of them waved a red rose in one hand and a pastry in the other to punctuate their comments.

“It’s too bad all that dough in the refrigerators still has to go to waste,” Philippe said to Magalie. “I can’t make all the kouign-amann single-handedly, though.”

“We can do it!” Claire-Lucy exclaimed, overhearing. “Just tell us how.”

Philippe exchanged a long, thoughtful look with one of the lion heads in the corners of his ceiling, presumably asking it for patience against the presumption that just anyone could make his pastries with a few simple instructions. Then he laughed suddenly, that rich laugh that had been one of the first sounds Magalie had ever heard from him, reaching out and grabbing everything around it into its vivid embrace. “Allez. Pourquoi pas?”

A laughing group spilled back into the kitchens, the fun and adventure of the snow party infecting everyone.

“You know a lot of women,” he murmured to Magalie as he opened one of the walk-in refrigerator doors on shelves and shelves of dough. “The milk’s in the next one, by the way. And the chocolate is in those cabinets. Are they all single?”

Her chin jerked up. “Why do you want to know?”

He just looked at her for a second. “You know, I might feel self-satisfied at the jealousy, if it wasn’t so incredibly stupid.” He pulled out his phone again, texting, then showed it to her. A group message to Équipe Labo, it read: No, I’m not making anyone come in today, don’t worry. But if you feel so inclined, there are one hell of a lot of single women who don’t know how to cook trying to make kouign-amann in our kitchens right now.

It was amazing, he said later, how passable the streets were with the right motivation. It was almost as if the city had a Métro or something.

Half an hour later, counters were lined with women and men leaning over them, some grinning, some intent. A group of children on stools were playing with dough on one floured counter. It must have gotten onto Twitter, because Christophe, Le Gourmand, had somehow slipped in, even though his apartment was way over in the Ninth, and he seemed entirely unaffected by the occasional exasperated glances from the store’s owner. “Hi, Chantal,” he said, stopping to stand near a woman Magalie remembered vaguely for her ability to toss her head and the fact that she had, like a lot of women who came to La Maison des Sorcières, a tendency to sell herself short.

Chantal looked up, stiffened, and looked awkward but oddly hopeful. Some old history there, huh? Christophe considered her for a careful, thoughtful moment. “Do you want me to help you?” he asked at last. “I’m not saying I’m up to Philippe’s standards, but I did a long exploration of kouign-amann for my blog.”

Chantal ran her fingers through her hair, which left it coated with flour. A little of the white stuff ended up on Christophe’s cheek when she tossed her hair “Thank you,” she said softly. “That would be nice.”

Where had Chantal come from, anyway? She wasn’t an island resident. There seemed to be quite a lot of people who had walked across Paris in the snow and found themselves here, and most of them asked for hot chocolate first thing.

“Wow,” one murmured to another as they sipped from their cups, walking away from Magalie’s pot of chocolate, a giant thing so big and heavy, Magalie felt as if she should be muttering “Double, double, toil and trouble” over it. “I think I’m glad that Sorcières place we read about was closed. I don’t care what that blog said, their chocolate can’t possibly be better than this.”

Magalie ground her teeth together. Then she wrote a big sign and set it in front of the pot, saying, Chocolate provided by La Maison des Sorcières.

Philippe, helping Madame Fernand fold her kouign-amann, glanced across at her and laughed out loud.

Claire-Lucy looked up with flour on her nose and beamed at Magalie as Grégory put his arms on either side of her to show her how to fold. “This is fantastic,” she told her. “I’ll never forget this snowstorm in my entire life. What a fabulous idea Philippe had to do this.”

Magalie, stirring her chocolate, bit her teeth together on an indignant protest. Philippe gave her a salt-in-the-wound grin.

A minute later, he helped Madame Fernand place her kouign-amann on a pan and came over to put his arm around Magalie’s shoulders. “Let me have a cup?”

“You like to live dangerously, don’t you?” Magalie muttered, filling it. But she could hardly try her first adventure in cursing chocolate when the pot was for such a big crowd.

“I should think that would be obvious by now.” He lifted the cup to the gathering. “A chocolate toast,” he said, and that easily, his golden voice took over the entire room and brought everyone’s attention to him. Even Claire-Lucy’s, and she had been busy getting Grégory to help her fasten a pastry jacket over her breasts. Philippe pulled Magalie snugly in front of and back against him. “To Magalie Chaudron, who had the idea for this party and so graciously agreed to make her hot chocolate in my kitchens for all of you.”

Well, that was finally appropriate behavior on his part, Magalie thought. To give her credit where credit was due. It took her a second to realize the way everyone was looking at her: stunned, amused, pleased, indulgent, approving, incredulous, thoughtful in Aja’s case, and outraged in Geneviève’s. It was quite a range, really. And then they all looked above her to Philippe. She twisted her head back suddenly to try to catch his expression.

Smug. Unbearably smug.

Why, had he just staked his ownership of her out loud and clearly for the entire island? Why, yes, I did win this battle, thank you, and she is mine.

He waved his cup of hot chocolate generously, on cue, inviting his subjects to continue celebrating his victory.

She turned toward his chest so that no one else could see how tightly her teeth were gritting. “I might seriously kill you one day,” she said between them.

“Believe me, I’ve realized that a few times in the past twenty-four hours.” He took a sip of the chocolate. “But a man’s got to die sometime, and it’s hard to imagine a better way to go.”

And while Magalie was sputtering over the meaning he had just put into her threat, flushing and wrestling desperately with the urge to dump the entire cauldron of chocolate over his head, he tweaked her nose where everyone could see and strolled off to make sure all their guests were enjoying the party.





In the end, when people were giddy from sugar shock, Aunt Aja orchestrated a stone-soup movement, and Philippe’s kitchens filled with great pots of something bubbly and curry-influenced. Philippe and Magalie took bowls of it and tucked themselves up at his most intimate table, against one of the great glass windows, slightly sheltered from the room by a pillar.

The snow had tapered off, but the street outside was still lovely with it, despite or because of the footprints everywhere that showed the way their island of Parisians had played all day long. The streetlamps glowed beautifully against crystals of ice, rich gold warming the snow.

“Would you rather we sleep at my place or yours?” Philippe asked, and she curled her hands around the warm bowl with an involuntary burst of happiness at his assumption. Strange, how some of the ways he was arrogant hit her just right.

And, even more oddly, she wasn’t even sure she cared about the answer. Attached though she was to her sense of place, either seemed just fine to her. “Your bed is bigger.”

He smiled. “That has its pros and cons.”

“But mine is closer to work. And less far to go in the snow.”

“That has its pros and cons, too,” he laughed. “I like walking with you in the snow. But I also like being tucked up warm with you in an apartment, watching it.”

She smiled, feeling peaceful, as if she was resting on a great downy mattress of happiness and neither of these choices could really go wrong. “Let’s see how late it is when the party breaks up.”

He took a bite of his curry stone-soup concoction, eyebrows lifting a little in pleasure at the flavor. “Your aunt cooks like this a lot, you said?”

She smiled a little around an odd vision of him tucking himself up at their dinner table. It would certainly change the dynamic. In fact, she was not entirely sure his legs would fit under the aunts’ table. Her head tilted as she considered the vision. She was deeply uncomfortable with changed dynamics inside her home, and yet it didn’t feel wrong. More like the oddly enticing discomfort of the spice in Aunt Aja’s curry.

Philippe took another bite, watching her. “Your Aunt Geneviève said you had trouble trusting others.”

Magalie blinked. “I don’t distrust others.”

“En fait, she said you had learned what trust you do have from her and Aja, which I found disquieting, to say the least.”

“It doesn’t really come up,” Magalie said, perplexed. “Trusting others. I mean, trust them with what?”

Philippe gazed at her with sardonic resignation. “Your feelings, for example.”

“Why would I do that?”

He shrugged as if she had made his point, aggravating her, because she hadn’t.

“My feelings are my own responsibility. I don’t see what trust has to do with it. I can’t go around handing them off to other people.”

He toyed with his spoon. His mouth had an odd, wry curve. “I would try to take good care of them.”

She gave a crack of laughter that made anger tighten his mouth. “You would not. You would try to take them over, do anything you wanted with them, if I handed them off to you.”

Now he was seriously ticked. It ran through every tight line of his body. “What the hell makes you think that?”

“You just would. It’s who you are. It’s who people are, period, but you’re worse than most.”

“I am not.”

Anger crackled so strongly in him, she could tell he could barely sit still. For once, she hadn’t made him angry on purpose, so she tried to explain. “You’re stronger than most.”

“So are you, Magalie.”

She sat back, thrown by how true that sounded. Her parents had always said the same thing about her. Her aunts had always shown it without saying it. She herself had always felt so impatiently competent and in control of herself compared to all the heart-torn princesses who wandered into their shop seeking consolation in a cup of chocolate. “But when I go out into the city, when I leave La Maison, I feel like I’m going to war.”

Surely most people handled that more easily? Even princesses. Particularly princesses. Didn’t her sense that she had to armor herself indicate her own weakness?

“Vraiment?” His anger faded as he reached across the table and curled just the tips of his fingers into hers. “That explains a lot.” He studied her, as if he was trying to peer through a narrow gap in a fence to figure out what was behind it. “You still go, though,” he said after a moment. “You go confront arrogant princes”—he dipped his haughty head in sublime acceptance of his role as prince—“you brave shops for every delicious item of clothing you wear, you put your hair up in a ponytail and go running. Could I go running with you, Magalie?”

“No,” she said instinctively, taken aback. His mouth set. The light in his eyes cooled, was shielded. “I like that time by myself.” But even as she said it, a vision snuck in, of them running together quietly in the dawn, not speaking, in perfect peace and harmony. “Maybe sometimes . . .” she said slowly, softly, wonderingly. Was that something she could share?

He tilted her hand up so that her palm pressed against his and interlaced their fingers. His mouth softened. She liked the way his bigger hand spread hers just a little too much, a not entirely comfortable fit. She liked the way she was getting used to it, after a day of snow and lovemaking and that glowing warmth that had spilled everywhere from their neighborhood party.

It terrified her to realize suddenly that she was getting used to it. That was the one thing she most preferred not to do, with people. Get used to them.

It had taken her years to get used to her aunts, and despite Aja’s claims of making room, she thought mostly she and her aunts did so well with each other because none of them did the jigsaw-puzzle thing. They just stayed the shape they were, and tough luck for other people running into their pointy, hard edges.

Nobody gave herself away.

Not even to a prince who smiled at her across a table and lifted her hand to kiss the inside of her wrist, just there.





It was astonishingly warm and comfortable to spend the night in his apartment, which was where they ended up, out of curiosity to see the rest of Paris in the snow one more time before they went to bed. Astonishing, because to hold onto one place had been so important to her for so long now.

But Philippe seemed delighted to have her, happiness expanding out from him until it filled the whole place like light, and he had to draw the curtains for once in case there was so much light and happiness inside, people could start seeing in. In the private cave of his room, he at first slept curled toward her, then eventually sprawled away from her on his stomach like a man not used to sharing his bed. She slept little, woken constantly by his movements in his sleep, but it wasn’t until around three in the morning that she felt that little knot of cold and anguish in her again. That What am I doing? feeling.

She swallowed it as best she could. She had no patience with people who wallowed forever in their childhoods and sold short the rest of their lives. And it had never occurred to her before the past few days that she might be doing that.

She finally fell solidly asleep when he rolled back over and tucked himself into her breasts as a pillow, and then she slept late, but he didn’t have the luxury. She felt him kiss her and woke to see his back as he left the bedroom and heard the outside door close behind him. She dragged herself home and went out for a slow and careful run through the icy patches of snow, which entirely failed to clear her head.





Magalie was working in the display window later that day, just before opening, when the timbre of a voice that came through the glass made her head lift and her heart perk up. In front of the shop windows, on a sidewalk salted for Madame Fernand’s sake, Philippe was talking to Geneviève, who seemed to be acting quite pleasant. Magalie pricked her ears, but Geneviève wasn’t trying to lower her voice, so no secrets carried through the glass. She leaned deep into the display window, ostensibly to scoop up a spoonful of crystallized roses. “. . . not enough self-confidence . . .” she thought she heard Geneviève say. “C’est un vrai problème.”

Magalie drew back, frowning. Who was Geneviève talking about?

Philippe glanced at her through the glass and held her gaze for a moment without smiling. Her heart started to beat too fast, as his looks always made it do.

His eyes crinkled up just a little at the corners, a hint of a smile despite his serious expression, and he blew her a kiss.

She blinked and spilled rose petals everywhere, and he broke into a grin. He looked for a moment as if he was going to walk into the shop and kiss her for real, but instead he clasped Geneviève’s hand, handing her a package, and Geneviève shook her head and kissed him on both cheeks.

Philippe rubbed one knuckle against one of those cheeks as he turned back toward his shop, looking rather pleased.

Geneviève handed the package to Magalie when she came into the shop, a soft, floppy package, the sticker on its wrapping paper belonging to a clever Marais designer. Geneviève stood over her, studying her and shaking her head. “It’s like seeing your own child grow up to be a unicorn or something,” she said. “It’s hard to understand. But he’s growing on me. I don’t think I’ll mind so much.”

Flushing, Magalie concentrated on her package.

It was a scarf. Rich blue that matched his eyes, cashmere.

The card tucked inside had more than just his name on it, this time. It said, If I have to work you out of this tower one rag at a time, we’re definitely doing the sexual-fantasies version. Philippe.

Magalie folded it quickly against her belly and looked up. Geneviève glanced away guiltily, trying so hard to look uninterested that for a second Magalie thought her aunt was going to start whistling. From the card against her belly, heat grew and stretched through her, pooling and concentrating in all kinds of areas she didn’t want her aunt to know about.

“Don’t you worry about Philippe Lyonnais at all?” Magalie asked and wished desperately that her tongue didn’t curl around his name as if she were saying the king’s.

“I tried to give him some tea,” Aunt Aja said from behind them. She was sweeping the floor. That had once been assigned as Magalie’s job, but Aunt Aja kept doing it no matter how many times Magalie went back over it. She said it was a very satisfying feeling, to sweep the floor clean of old messes. “If he refused to drink it, on his own head be it.” Her black eyes held Magalie’s.

Magalie tried to look as full of tea as possible. Aunt Aja had not offered her a cup of tea since that day a month ago when Magalie had secretly tossed her cup into the Seine. That could be because Aja thought that one cup was enough, but it could also be because Magalie was now labeled as an ingrate. But what if she had drunk it and it had made her too clearheaded to allow Philippe in, for example? That didn’t bear thinking about.

“And I’m not that altruistic,” Geneviève said. “If he had stopped, knocked politely, asked our leave, maybe. But he can’t come in as if he owns this island and expect me to worry about him.”

Magalie stared at both her aunts, for a moment completely confused. Finally, it clicked that they had misunderstood her. “I don’t mean worry about him as if he were your child heading off down the wrong road! I mean, worry about what having him here is doing to La Maison des Sorcières.”

The aunts gazed at her for a moment in deep concern. Clearly, though, for her. Then they exchanged a glance that made Magalie want to show them her report card from school and swear she was doing all right.

“Our customers!” she cried.

“Oh, those.” Aja shrugged. “They’ll go away eventually. Besides, I really think the influx is more your fault than Philippe’s. I told you you didn’t have to make your chocolate call people all the way from Timbuktu.”

“I meant not having enough customers!” Magalie fairly shouted in frustration.

“What, just because there weren’t so many of them the first few weeks he was open?” Aja waved a hand. “We don’t have to compete with fads.”

A fad. Magalie grinned at a vision of Philippe setting his back teeth.

“Besides, we don’t want too many people to know about us. The fun is being a secret.”

“And you weren’t here yesterday morning,” Geneviève said severely. “People trying to rattle our doorknob off to get in on a snow day, because of that Christophe’s blog about our chocolate. Rattling our doorknob. Is that polite?”

“The snow made them worse, I think. Something about hot chocolate and snow. It was very thoughtful of Philippe to host a party at his place to draw them off,” Aunt Aja reminded her spouse. “At Magalie’s suggestion, too. You see, they can both be taught.”

Magalie had brightened. “That blog worked? You mean, we won’t go out of business?”

Both the aunts stared at her for a long moment. They exchanged one of those glances that made her feel thirteen. “Maybe we should tell her,” Aunt Aja suggested.

“I was hoping she would learn her own power,” Geneviève protested.

“She’s very young. You’re rushing her. If she’s still acting like this when she’s in her forties, then we’ll know there’s a problem.”

“By then it would be too late!” Geneviève sounded like a witch who had read one too many parenting books. “You can’t change a person in her forties!”

Aunt Aja shook her head, dismissing parenting books as a waste of paper. “Do you know how much we rent those other apartments for?” she asked her niece.

Magalie shook her head. “Several thousand?”

Geneviève gave Aja a disgruntled look and told her.

Magalie opened her mouth and closed it a few times like a gasping fish out of water. “That’s twice as much a month as my annual salary.” For one apartment. That explained a lot about why Aunt Aja and Aunt Geneviève only opened the shop from two to eight, five days a week, and closed for two months in the summer.

Geneviève gave her shoulder an affectionate pat. “Yes, you do help keep our overhead down.”

“Can I have a raise?” Although, continuing the rental math, her own free studio apartment must be worth . . . also more than her annual salary. That was some gift Geneviève’s’s old lover had given her, back when she was Magalie’s age.

Geneviève gave her a severe look. “You would just spend it all on clothes.”

Yes, well . . . “So?”

“You can’t buy confidence in a clothing store, Magalie.”

Magalie stared at her aunt blankly. “Are you kidding? This is Paris.”

Geneviève gestured to her cotton caftan superbly. It might be a generational gap, but Magalie couldn’t think of a polite way to express her reaction to the idea of wearing a cotton caftan.

“And what’s this about confidence? I have plenty of confidence. People have been commenting on it all my life.” In two languages. Such a self-confident little girl, her teachers used to write in their comments. So centered. Si sûre d’elle. To her teachers’ credit, they had usually managed to make her sureness of herself sound like a compliment and not a danger to anyone else’s authority.

Geneviève snorted. “As if they know anything about self-confidence.”

Probably in comparison with Aunt Geneviève’s, most people’s knowledge of confidence could fit on the head of a pin.

“I know something about self-confidence,” Magalie said, affronted.

This time it was Aunt Aja who patted her shoulder. “It’s all right. You’re still an apprentice. You’ve got plenty of time to learn.”

“Go practice on that boy of yours,” Geneviève added. “You don’t meet many people who let you practice your self-confidence on them that way. The ones who do are either very weak or very strong.” Her brown eyes glinted. “Which do you think he is?”