The Chocolate Kiss

CHAPTER 34



“I love you, minette,” Stéphanie Chaudron said, and Magalie huddled into herself in the vast, noisy hall. She had forgotten how cold the Gare de Lyon could be. Cold enough to render the optimistic palm tree over there in front of the nearest TGV kiosk ludicrous. Full of people leaving, so briskly and firmly, as if that was just the way life was supposed to be. Masses of people who brushed past Magalie without a second thought, scuffing the toes of her boots with their suitcases.

She hated train stations.

“Me, too, Maman. You didn’t stay long in Ithaca this time.” Her mother was on her way back to Provence after a brief visit with her father in the U.S. Barely over two months.

“Oh, ma puce, the winter there. And I didn’t even have you to snuggle up with.” Her dark-haired, brown-eyed mother smiled down at her, a sweet smile reminiscent of those clinging cuddles between mother and daughter when all the rest of the world was well lost.

Magalie nodded. She kept trying to straighten her shoulders and open her arms to hug her mother good-bye, but the next thing she knew, she would be rubbing her hands up and down over her tight leather sleeves again, trying to warm herself. “How did Dad feel?”

“Oh, pucette, you know how hard it is on him. At least I always had you.” Her mother touched her cheek and gave her a soft smile. “You always made everything all right. You could handle anything.”

Magalie couldn’t understand why her heart kept trying to choke her, why her eyes kept wanting to sting. She could handle anything, certainly this, her parents’ eternal Hades-Persephone relationship. She didn’t know why she kept seeing her father’s face, his hand lifted in a wave to her until she couldn’t see it anymore.

Unless it was because someone had been forcing her heart open. Sudden terror seized her at how vulnerable it now felt.

“Don’t you want to stay in Paris for a few days? You don’t have to get straight on a train from the airport.”

Her mother laughed. “You’re my little Parisienne. I never could handle this city. But come down south with me. I’m sure the aunts could spare you.”

“No, they couldn’t,” Magalie said quickly, so hard her mother’s eyes widened in surprise. “They couldn’t,” she insisted.

Her mother laughed again, affectionately. “Pucette, I’m quite sure they could find some young woman to serve customers for a few weeks. I’ll talk to Geneviève myself, if you want. She doesn’t need you nearly as much as she pretends to.”

Magalie stared at her mother. “Yes, she does.” Her voice almost squeaked.

Her mother patted her cheek again. “I know sometimes people make a big deal out of good-byes and try to stop you from leaving, but you know they always get over it once you’re gone. That’s what it means to have a full life. You keep living it.”

Magalie’s breathing was so short, it was infuriating her. This couldn’t be happening, this raw openness to things her mother had always said. This was not something she let get to her anymore. She did have a place now. She had made it, and she had never left it, so she got to keep it. No musical-chairs games for her. She knew how those worked. “They do, too, need me.”

But for what? To serve customers in a shop they didn’t even need to keep open, except for their own amusement?

“Pucette.” Her mother tugged at a lock of her hair, looking wistful. “You could at least ask her and see what she says. I bet she would tell you to go without a second’s thought.”

The breath after that one physically hurt. Magalie bit on her lower lip until it made sense that her nose should sting. “I think that’s your train, Maman. I’m glad I could catch you on your way through.”

“Oh, ma petite chérie.” Her mother flung her arms around her and hugged her tightly. “If only you would come with me so we could see each other more. I’m sure everyone here could do much better without you than I can. I love you, you know. My little lavender girl, who would always make me smile, when I was missing your papa.” She started to grab her suitcase handle, then flung her arms back around Magalie one last time. “Don’t mind those two; they have each other, and they’ll get over it if you decide to move back south with me,” she whispered into her ear. “Don’t let them trick you into thinking they need you.”

And with a last quick kiss, she hopped up onto the train. And waved at Magalie out the window as the train slid away from the platform.

Magalie almost ran back to her apartment, the four-inch heels of her boots clashing with her need, forcing her to a brisk walk, to keep her chin up against all the opposing pedestrians who bumped past her as if she was nothing.

Philippe never had to dodge anyone on any sidewalk. People parted around his size and sureness. Slowly, she began to realize that the only reason the masses of Paris had seemed to respect her a bit more, recently, was that she was usually attached to him. It wasn’t that she was growing bigger or more deserving of a place at all.

Reaching her building was such a relief. She ran up the stairs to change her suitcase-scuffed shoes, running a little late to open the shop, but that kind of thing had never mattered because they didn’t really need the shop and they didn’t need her help, a little voice whispered to her.

She shut it up with a firm shove of her key in the lock. It jammed halfway. She frowned, wriggled it out, and tried again.

It wouldn’t fit.

The first shock, washing through her like a wave of sickness, made her reach out and grasp onto the doorknob.

She looked down at it. The doorknob was new, and there was clearly a deadbolt above it that had never been there before.

Her heart raced as if in a nightmare. Had something happened? Had the aunts decided to kick her out?

No. Get a grip, she told herself. A firm grip. Don’t be stupid. Her aunts wouldn’t do that. Maybe Geneviève and Aja had decided to update all the locks in the building and had not thought to mention it to her.

Frustrated, feeling hunted, wanting to at least peek into her room and make sure it was still there, she ran down the stairs to her aunts’ apartment. They didn’t answer her buzzing.

She ran all the way to the bottom and across the courtyard into the shop, gasping with relief when the door opened under her hand and she could get in.

“Bonjour, Magalie.” Her Aunt Aja smiled at her.

“Did you—” Magalie took a hard breath, forcing it to even out. “I didn’t realize you were changing the locks.”

Aja’s eyebrows lifted. “What locks?”

The wave of panic crashed back. “The lock on my door has been changed.”

Aja’s eyebrows flexed together. “Are you sure? Geneviève didn’t order anything like that.”

“Where is Tata?”

“She didn’t say, but you know how she is. I’m sure she’ll be back soon enough.”

Magalie took rough breaths, feeling as she did at the end of a too-long sprint, as if she was trying to get her lungs to cool down. Insight and rage filled her in the exact same instant. She turned and headed down the street.

In his laboratoire, Philippe was bent over something on one of his counters, his fingers hovering just above it. He glanced up when she came in, and his whole face lit. “Magalie! Just one second. Here.” He rubbed his hand over a blank space of marble near him, without really looking at it. “Sit by me.”

Magalie stopped across the counter from him. Anger was beating in her like a drum. He didn’t even seem to feel it, focused again on what he was doing.

“Philippe. I can’t get in my door.”

He looked up from the infinitely precise placement of a crystal of fleur de sel. “Enfin! I thought I was going to have to find someone else. Every time one of my contractors falls in love, they fall to pieces. It’s ridiculous. I’m still getting my work done.”

Her heart gave a little hiccup at that, but she repressed it firmly with anger.

“You hired someone to change the locks on my door?” Not only did he expect everyone’s doors to open for him, he thought he had the right to take those doors over and lock them against the original owners.

“Just put in a deadbolt and a peephole. Didn’t he do that?”

She put her fists on her hips. She might have to murder him. “My door. You hired someone to change the locks on my door.”

He shrugged and went back to the fleur de sel. “You’re welcome.”

Magalie dipped her hands into a nearby box of rates, the macaron shells that had been discarded for imperfections during the course of the day, and came up with a few weapons. “Did he give you a copy of the key?” she demanded between her teeth.

“Of course not!” Philippe said, so offended, it was clear he was priding himself on his virtue in not asking for a copy. “Although, if you wanted to offer it to me . . .” He let his voice trail off, invitingly.

Unfortunately for him, right now all she wanted to do was hit him over the head with the macaron shells. “He didn’t give me the key, either.”

For a second, she didn’t think this was going to penetrate his obsession with a couple of grains of salt. He trailed crystals one way, made a moue of dissatisfaction, brushed them off, then trailed them in the opposite direction, in a single spiraling line. “Wait,” he said, in delayed reaction. “Then who does have the key?”

She hit him precisely in the forehead with a macaron shell. It bounced off, and with lightning-fast reflexes, his arm shot up and blocked it from his current creation, protecting the sea salt.

Everyone else in the kitchen stopped moving.

The intern looked horrified. The more experienced chefs, like Olivier and Grégory, looked at the nearest boxes of discards wistfully.

Philippe picked up the macaron shell that had bombarded him and weighed it in his hand reflectively. “Magalie, this is a professional kitchen.”

Magalie threw the next one. She couldn’t help it. It was his continued conviction that he needed to tell her what a professional kitchen was. He ducked to avoid being hit in the nose, and the shell sailed past the next counter and bopped Grégory in the chest.

Philippe’s return fire hit her right in the chin. If it had been a snowball, it might have hurt, but given that it was one of Philippe’s macarons and therefore lighter than air, it just bounced off her, leaving a few sticky crumbs.

Olivier cracked, scooped up a macaron discard, and hit Grégory in the side of the face. Grégory whipped his head around. Laughing his head off, Olivier tried to pretend it had come from Magalie.

“This is a terrible example,” Philippe informed Magalie, forming a protective shield with his body over his current creation while she launched a volley at his back and tucked-in head.

The intern and lower-ranking or newer employees looked too terrified to participate, but Olivier was getting into position right by the ammunition, rapid-firing at Grégory, who was heading toward Olivier and the box of discard-weapons with a clear sense of purpose.

“Bon, bon, bon, ça suffit!” Philippe roared, and Magalie made a moue at that last word, impressed despite herself. He really could fill a kitchen with that roar when he wanted to, and stamp his great paw down on a mass of rebels carrying knives and hot caramel and precious creations. Everyone stilled. Olivier, ducking to avoid Grégory’s return volley, looked regretful. Grégory threw one last one, hard enough to hit Olivier right in the cheek, and then pressed his hands down by his sides to make them behave, trying to look innocent. “If one single pâtisserie gets messed up, I am not going to be happy,” Philippe warned the whole kitchen in a perfectly normal tone. He didn’t need to raise his voice again, because, post-roar, the loudest sound was a bubble coming from a pot of caramel.

“Magalie.” He turned back to her and lowered his voice for her ears alone. Or he tried to. Since everyone in the entire kitchen was dead silent and eavesdropping, the attempt at discretion may or may not have been successful. “Come physically attack me in private, why don’t you?”

He pretty much had to drag her into his office. Her heels were dug in that hard. “I want you to quit forcing your way into my life, and I want you to leave my door alone. It’s my place. It’s mine.”

“That’s the idea, Magalie. I just made it safer.”

“I can’t even get in!” Her voice rose. Even to herself, she was starting to sound a little hysterical. She hated that.

“Putain.” Philippe picked up a cell phone off his desk, scrolled through the numbers, and made a call. By the way his jaw clenched, she could tell he was getting voicemail. “Franck, this is Philippe Lyonnais. I need you to get back to me right away. It’s an emergency.”

He shut his phone, frustrated. “This is really traumatizing you, isn’t it?”

“No, it isn’t!” she shouted at him. She did not get traumatized. She handled everything with aplomb. She wrapped her arms around her middle abruptly, trying to force herself to sound as if she was handling this with more aplomb. “You had no right to do this. It’s my place. It’s mine.”

“Magalie, this was just a safety issue, and Franck—I didn’t even know he was coming today. I’ve been after him for two weeks. He was supposed to tell you what he was doing, and at no point were you supposed to be locked out of your place. Here, take my keys, if you want, and go to my place until I can get hold of him. Or hang out here and eat macarons and walk home with me when I go. It’s not the end of the world, Magalie.”

“What do you know about the end of the world?” she asked him furiously. “M.Sixth-Generation Paris. Have you ever had your world end?”

He stared at her with utter absorption, as if a harsh light was glaring through all her shields, turning them into transparent, gauzy curtains to her soul. “No. I’m sorry, Magalie. I just did it because I knew you weren’t ever going to do it, and it was driving me crazy. I would have fired Franck already for taking so long, but I was there most nights or else you were at my place, so it didn’t seem quite as urgent. But anyone could slip up there during the day!”

Her jaw set. She tried her best to be calm and strong. “It’s my place.” Her voice was too low. She couldn’t get the tone nice and level. “You don’t have the right to steal it from me. Nobody does.”

“I didn’t steal i—” His phone vibrated. He pulled it out. “Yes, Franck. The key.”

He listened for a second and cut the connection. “He says he gave two copies to your Aunt Geneviève, who put them under a pot in the kitchen, where she said they would be the first thing you saw.”

She turned fast, before she could say anything else she would regret, and headed toward the door.

“Magalie.” His voice caught her. He had the drawer to his desk pulled open and was holding out a key. “This is to my place. If ever you get shut out of your place again, for any reason, this is yours. You can have my place, too.”

She shook her head, fisting her hands as if he would try to force it into them. “I don’t want two places. I only want one.”

“This one isn’t in another country, Magalie. It’s five minutes away, in the same city. Consider it a backup. Take the key.”

She curled her fingers more tightly. “You can change the locks on that door just as easily as you did on mine,” she said bitterly.

His head went back. His eyebrows flexed, and he gave her that confounded look he had given her once before. When she had asked him who he was in love with. “Do you really think I would do that?”

She turned her head away. She just didn’t know. “If you were mad, or an ex-girlfriend was stalking you, or—you can’t ever really have enough worth that when you’re gone, the spot you left won’t close over.”

Philippe looked at her disbelievingly. “Yes,” he said. “I can.”

That was probably true for him, for the man who had made his mark on the whole world. Her heart clenched, stubborn and hostile. If he could make a place so well, why couldn’t she? “I meant on a more personal level.”

He looked wary, studying her as if he both wanted and didn’t want to know the answer. “Would the place that I’ve made for myself with you—let’s call it a tiny toehold, to be realistic—close over that easily, Magalie?”

Again her heart clenched, but in a frantic way, flinching from hurt. Goosebumps rose, as if he had walked on her grave. “No,” she said curtly, looking away. More fool she.

“Your parents haven’t found it easy to let the spot the other made close over.”

“It might have been better if they could. They’ve spent twenty-five years torn between who they are and who they want to be with.”

“They’ve got an unfortunate dilemma. I’m sorry for them, but I think they must somehow thrive on it, or they wouldn’t persist in it.”

“You’ve never even met them!”

“That’s true. Perhaps I’m overestimating their willpower based on their daughter’s.”

Her willpower? What willpower? She was putty for him. “Based on your own, you mean.”

He hesitated, then gave a slight, rueful smile. “Perhaps. In any case, I don’t see any conflict between who you are and who you want to be with, Magalie.” His smile faded, his face turning very serious. “Or maybe you could explain to me the conflict you see.”

There wasn’t one. There was just this hard knot in the center of her chest, this thing that she did not dare free.

He gave a sharp sigh and shook his head. “Magalie. Do you know what I was really going to say, when I asked you about vacationing in the lavender fields? I was going to ask if we could take our family there, because I saw you, a little black-haired and brown-eyed girl, and I wondered if we would have a little girl who would look like you. That was a bit of a leap into the future, but those are the kinds of leaps my mind makes when I think about you.”

She stood still. Like some molten chocolate dessert, the outside still hard but the inside melting into a gooey mess.

He walked across the little office to her, looked down at her stubborn fists for a moment, then slipped his hand in through her neckline and tucked the key into her bra. “I want you to have it. What the hell you want from me besides sex and barricades, I do not know.”

She almost made it to the door. But he had forced her so wide open. He had forced a need on her. The gooey mess of her insides was terrifying her. He could insert himself into her life and reshape her in any way that suited him. And she kept seeing that little girl in a lavender field. A proud little girl. A strong little girl. A little girl only her mother truly needed. A little girl who just could not stand to let herself change, ever again, for people who would forget her.

The key felt so warm, tucked into her bra. It shouldn’t have slipped in there so easily. It should have warned her, all cold and metal, of what it was trying to do.

She turned suddenly, like a whip. “No,” she said, low and fierce. “No kids. No little girls in lavender fields.” Her voice was so ugly, compressing the tears so tightly, they came out like a junked car. “Don’t you tear me apart. You don’t fit in my life, Philippe. Stay the hell out.”