Chloe stood in the kitchen of Hugo and Lucie Fleury, marveling again—she’d made herself marvel about this every day for the last three weeks—at what a plumb position she had landed. Her new situation was perfect for her—something else she made herself acknowledge every day—because Hugo and Lucie had grown up in Paris and arrived in New York for his new job only a year ago, so they were about as Parisian as a couple could be outside the City of Light. They didn’t question anything Chloe put on the table, so she never had to explain a dish to them, their Central Park West penthouse was decorated in a way that made her feel as if she were living at Versailles and she was using her second language of French every day, so there was no chance of her getting rusty. Mais oui, all Chloe could say about her new assignment was, C’est magnifique!
So why didn’t she feel so magnifique after almost a month of working here? Why did she instead feel so blasé? More to the point, why hadn’t a single meal she’d created for the Fleurys come out the way it was supposed to? Why had everything she put together been a little...off? And now she was about to undertake a dinner party for twelve, the kind of challenge to which she normally rose brilliantly, and all she could do was think about the last dinner party she’d put together, and how it had resulted in—
Not that the Fleurys had complained about her performance, she quickly backtracked. They’d praised everything she set in front of them, and tonight’s menu was no exception. Not that they’d tasted any of it yet, but, as Lucie had told her this morning, “Ne vous inquiétez pas, Chloe. J’ai foi en vous.” Don’t worry, Chloe. I have faith in you.
Well, that made one of them.
Lucie and Hugo didn’t seem to realize or care that they were paying her more than they should for a party they could have had catered for less by almost any bistro, brasserie or café in New York. But Chloe realized they were doing that. And in addition to making her feel guilty and inadequate, it was driving her crazy. She just hadn’t been at her best since leaving Hogan’s employ. And the whole reason she’d left Hogan’s employ was because she’d feared losing her ability to be at her best.
Well, okay, maybe that wasn’t really the reason she’d left Hogan. But she was beginning to wonder if she’d ever be at her best again.
He’d called her every day the first week after she left, but she’d never answered. So he’d left messages, asking her to meet him so they could talk, even if it meant someplace public, because even though he didn’t understand her desire to not tell him where she was working now, he respected it, and C’mon, Chloe, pick up the phone, just talk to me, we need to figure this out. As much as she’d wanted to delete the messages without even listening to them, something had compelled her to listen...and then melt a little inside at the sound of his voice. But even after hearing his messages, she still couldn’t bring herself to delete them. Deleting Hogan just felt horribly wrong. Even if she never intended to see him again.
I want you.
The words he said the night she left still rang in her ears. She wanted Hogan, too. It was why she couldn’t stay with him. Because wanting led to loving. And loving led to needing. And needing someone opened you up to all kinds of dangers once that person was gone. Losing someone you needed was like losing air that you needed. Or water. Or food. Without those things, you shriveled up and died.
I think you pretty much just told me you love me.
Those words, too, wouldn’t leave her alone. Because yes, as much as she’d tried to deny it, and as much as she’d tried to fight it, she knew she loved Hogan. But she didn’t need him. She wouldn’t need him. She couldn’t need him. And the only way to make sure of that was to never see him again.
Unfortunately, the moment Chloe entered the Fleurys’ salon in her best chef’s whites with a tray of canapés, she saw that her determination to not see Hogan, like so many other things in life, was completely out of her control. The Fleurys had invited him to their dinner party.
Or maybe they’d invited Anabel, she thought when she saw her other former employer at Hogan’s side, and he was her plus-one. Whatever the case, Chloe was suddenly in the same room with him again, and that room shrank to the size of a macaron the moment she saw him. He was wearing the same shirt with the same vest and tie she’d picked out for him the night of his own dinner party, but he’d replaced his battered Levi’s with a pair of pristine dark wash jeans that didn’t hug his form nearly as well.
As if he’d sensed her arrival the moment she noted his, he turned to look at her where she stood rooted in place. Then he smiled one of his toe-curling, heat-inducing smiles and lifted a hand in greeting. All Chloe wanted to do then was run back into the kitchen and climb into a cupboard and forget she ever saw him. Because seeing him only reminded her how much she loved him. How much she wanted him. How much—dammit—she needed him.
Instead, she forced her feet to move forward and into the crowd. Miraculously, she made it without tripping or sending a canapé down anyone’s back. Even more astonishing, she was able to make eye contact with Hogan when she paused in front of him and Anabel. But it was Anabel who broke the silence that settled over them.
“Oh, yum. Brie gougères. Chloe, I absolutely love your brie gougères.” She scooped up two and smiled. “I love them so much, I need to take one over to Hillary Thornton. Talk amongst yourselves.”
And then she was gone, leaving Chloe and Hogan alone for the first time in almost a month. Alone in the middle of a crowd of people who were waiting to try her brie gougères and her choux de Bruxelles citrons and the half dozen other hors d’oeuvres she’d prepared for the evening. None of which had turned out quite right.
“Hi,” he said softly.
“Hello,” she replied.
“How’ve you been?”
“All right.” The reply was automatic. Chloe had been anything but all right since she last saw him. The same way her food had been anything but all right. The same way life itself had been anything but all right.
They said nothing more for a moment, only stood in the middle of a room fit for a king, as nervous as a couple of teenagers on their first date.
Finally, Hogan said, “What are you doing after the party?”
Again, Chloe replied automatically. “Cleaning up the kitchen.”
He grinned, and Chloe did her best not to have an orgasm on the spot. “What about after that?” he asked.
“I’ll, um... I’ll probably have a glass of wine.”
“Want some company?”
She told herself to tell him no. That she hadn’t wanted company for years. Lots of years. And lots of months and weeks and days—she just couldn’t remember precisely how many. But she knew she was lying. She did want company. She’d wanted company for years. Lots of years and months and weeks and days. She just hadn’t allowed herself to have it. Not until one glorious night three weeks, six days, twenty hours and fifty-two minutes ago, a night she would carry with her forever. Even so, she couldn’t bring herself to say that to Hogan.
“Anabel is friends with the Fleurys,” he said. “She told me the view from their roof is spectacular.”
“It is,” Chloe replied.
He looked surprised. “So you’ve been up there?”
She nodded. She’d gone up to the Fleurys’ terrace a number of times since coming to work for the Fleurys. She didn’t know why. The New York nights had turned cold and damp with winter setting in so solidly and hadn’t been conducive to rooftop wanderings. But wander to the roof she had, over and over again. The view was indeed spectacular. She could see all of New York and Central Park, glittering like scattered diamonds on black velvet. But it had nothing on the view from Hogan’s house. Probably because Hogan wasn’t part of the view.
“Maybe you could show me?” he asked. “I mean, once you’ve finished with your party duties. Anabel said the Fleurys’ parties tend to go pretty late, and she hates to be the first to leave.”
“She was the first to leave at your party,” Chloe said.
“That was because she was a woman on a mission that night.”
“What mission?”
Hogan smiled again. But he didn’t elaborate. “What time do you think you’ll be finished?”
Chloe did some quick calculating in her head. “Maybe eleven?”
“Great. I’ll meet you up on the roof at eleven.”
She told herself to decline. Instead, she said, “Okay.”
He looked at the tray. “What do you recommend?”
What a loaded question. All she said, though, was “Try the tapenade.”
She remembered belatedly that he probably had no idea what tapenade was and was about to identify the proper selection, but he reached for exactly the right thing. Her surprise must have shown on her face, because he told her, “I’ve been doing some homework.”
And then he was moving away, fading into the crowd, and Chloe was able to remember she had a job she should be doing. A job that would fall just short of success because, like the hors d’oeuvres and so much more, nothing she did was quite right anymore.
Instead, the party went off without a hitch, and every dish was perfect—if she did say so herself. Even the moments when she served Hogan, where she feared she would spill something or misarrange something or forget something, all went swimmingly. By the time she finished cleaning up the kitchen—which also went surprisingly well—she was starting to feel like her old self again. Like her old cooking self anyway. The other self, the one that wasn’t so focused on cooking, still felt a little shaky.
She had just enough time to go to her room for a quick shower to wash off the remnants of Moules à la crème Normande and carottes quatre epices. Then she changed into blue jeans and a heavy black sweater and headed for the roof.
Hogan was already there waiting for her. He’d donned a jacket to ward off the chill and stood with his hands in his pockets, gazing at the New York skyline in the distance. The full moon hung like a bright silver dollar over his head, and she could just make out a handful of stars higher in the night sky. Her heart hammered hard as she studied him, sending her blood zinging through her body fast enough to make her light-headed. Or maybe it was the simple presence of Hogan doing that. How had she gone nearly a month without seeing him? Without hearing him? Without talking to him and feeling the way he made her feel? How had she survived without him?
Although she wouldn’t have thought he could hear her over the sounds of the city, he spun around the moment she started to approach. The night was cold, but the closer she drew to him, the warmer she felt. But she stopped when a good foot still separated them, because she just didn’t trust herself to not touch him if she got too close.
“Hi,” he said again.
“Hello.”
“It’s good to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, too.”
A moment passed where the two of them only gazed at each other in silence. Then Hogan said, “So I looked up impracticability.”
She barely remembered using that as an excuse to cancel her contract with him. How could she have wanted to do that? How could she have thought the only way to survive was to separate herself from Hogan? She’d been dying a little inside every day since leaving him.
“Did you?” she asked.
“Yeah. I even used a legal dictionary, just to make sure I got the right definition. What it boiled down to is that one party of a contract can be relieved of their obligations if those obligations become too expensive, too difficult or too dangerous for them to perform.”
“That about covers it, yes.”
He nodded. “Okay. So I thought about it, and I figured it couldn’t have become too expensive for you to perform your job, because I was paying for everything.”
She said nothing in response to that, because, obviously, that wasn’t the reason she’d had to leave.
“And it wasn’t becoming too difficult for you to perform your job,” he continued, “since you were excellent at it, and you made it look so easy and you seemed to love it.”
“Thank you. And yes, I did love it. Do love it,” she hastened to correct herself. Because she did still love to cook. She just didn’t love cooking for the Fleurys as much as she’d loved cooking for Hogan. She hadn’t loved cooking for anyone as much as she’d loved cooking for Hogan. Probably because it wasn’t just cooking for Hogan she’d loved.
“So if you didn’t think your job was too expensive or too difficult to perform,” he said, “then you must have thought it was too dangerous.”
Bingo. Because loving anything—or anyone—more than cooking was very dangerous indeed for Chloe. Loving anything—or anyone—more than cooking could very well be the end of her. At least that was what she’d thought since Samuel’s death. Now she was beginning to think there were things much more harmful to her—and much more dangerous for her—than loving and wanting and needing. Like not loving. And not wanting. And not needing. She’d spent six years avoiding those things, and she’d told herself she was surviving, when, really, she’d been dying a little more inside every day. Losing more of herself every day. Until she’d become a shell of the woman she used to be. A woman who’d begun to emerge from that shell again the moment she met Hogan.
“Yes,” she told him. But she didn’t elaborate. She still didn’t quite trust herself to say any of the things she wanted—needed—to say.
“So what was getting too dangerous?” he asked. “Were the knives too sharp? Because I can stock up on bandages, no problem.”
At this, she almost smiled. But she still said nothing.
“Then maybe the stove was getting too hot?” he asked. “Because if that’s the case, I can buy some fans for the kitchen. Maybe get a window unit for in there.”
Chloe bit back another smile at the thought of a portable air conditioner jutting out of a window on the Upper East Side and dripping condensation onto the chicly dressed passersby below. She shook her head again. And still said nothing.
“Okay,” he said. “I was hoping it wasn’t this, but it’s the only other thing I can think of. It was all that fresh, unprocessed whole food, wasn’t it? I knew it. Someday scientists are going to tell us that stuff is poison and that boxed mac and cheese and tinned biscuits are the best things we can put in our bodies.”
“Hogan, stop,” she finally said. Because he was becoming more adorable with every word he spoke, and that was just going to make her fall in love with him all over again.
Then she realized that was ridiculous. She’d fallen in love with Hogan a million times since meeting him. What difference would one more time make?
“Well, if it wasn’t the sharp knives, and it wasn’t the hot stove, and it wasn’t the allegedly healthy food, then what was it that made working for me so dangerous?”
He was going to make her say it. But maybe she needed to say it. Admitting the problem was the first step, right? Now if she could just figure out the other eleven steps in the How-to-Fall-Out-of-Love-with-Someone program, she’d be all set. Of course, falling out of love with Hogan wasn’t really the problem, was it? Then again, she was beginning to realize that falling in love with him wasn’t so bad, either.
“It was you, Hogan,” she said softly. “It was the possibility of falling in love with you.” Then she made herself tell the truth. She closed her eyes to make it easier. “No, that’s not it. It wasn’t the possibility of falling in love with you. It was falling in love with you.”
When he didn’t reply, she opened first one eye, then the other. His smile now was completely different from the others. There was nothing teasing, nothing modest, nothing sweet. There was just love. Lots and lots of love.
“You can’t fight it, Chloe,” he said. “Trust me—I know. I’ve been trying to fight it for a month. Trying to give you the room you need to figure things out. Trying to figure things out myself. But the only thing I figured out was that I love you.”
Heat swamped her midsection at hearing him say it so matter-of-factly. “Do you?”
“Yep. And I know you love me, too.”
“Yes.”
For a moment they only gazed at each other in silence, as if they needed a minute to let that sink in. But Chloe didn’t need any extra time to realize how she felt about Hogan. She’d recognized it the night they made love. She’d just been trying to pretend otherwise since then.
Hogan took a step toward her, close enough now for her to touch him. “Do you think you’ll ever stop loving me?” he asked.
She knew the answer to that immediately. “No. I know I won’t.”
“And I’m not going to stop loving you.”
He lifted a hand to her face, cupping her jaw lightly, running the pad of his thumb over her cheek. Chloe’s insides turned to pudding at his touch, and she tilted her head into his caress.
“So here’s the thing,” he said softly. “If we both love each other, and neither of us is going to stop, then why aren’t we together?”
She knew the answer to that question, too. Because it would be too painful to lose him. But that was a stupid answer, because it was going to be painful to lose him whether they were together or not. Okay, then because she would live in fear of losing him for the rest of her life. But that didn’t make any sense, either, because if she wasn’t with him, then she’d already lost him. Okay, then because...because... There had to be a reason. She used to have a reason. If she could only remember what the reason was.
“It’s too late for us, Chloe,” he said when she didn’t reply. “We love each other, and that’s not going to change. Yeah, it’s scary,” he added, putting voice to her thoughts. “But don’t you think the idea of life without each other is even scarier?”
Yes. It was. Being alone since Samuel’s death had been awful. Although she could deny it all she wanted, Chloe hadn’t liked being alone. She’d tolerated it because she hadn’t thought there was any other way for her to live. But she hadn’t liked it. The time she’d spent living with Hogan and being with Hogan was the best time she’d had in years. Some years and some months and some weeks and some days she didn’t have to keep a tally of anymore. Because she wasn’t alone anymore. Or, at least, she didn’t have to be. Not unless she chose to.
Hogan was right. It was scary to fall in love. No, it was terrifying. But the prospect of living the rest of her life without him was far, far worse.
“I want to come back to work for you,” she said.
He shook his head. “Just come back. We’ll figure out the rest of it as we go.”
Chloe finally smiled. A real smile. The kind of smile she hadn’t smiled in a long time. Because she was happy for the first time in a long time. Truly, genuinely happy. “Okay,” she said. “But I’m still not going to cook you taco meatloaf.”
Hogan smiled back. “No worries. We can share the cooking. I need to introduce you to the joys of chicken pot pie, too.”
Instead of wincing this time, Chloe laughed. Then she stood up on tiptoe, looped her arms around Hogan’s neck and kissed him. Immediately, he roped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, covering her mouth with his and tasting her deeply as if she were the most delectable dish he’d ever had.
Chloe wasn’t sure how they made it to her bedroom on the first floor without alerting the dinner guests still lingering in the Fleurys’ salon, since she and Hogan nearly fell down every flight of the back stairs on their way, too reluctant to break their embrace and shedding clothes as they went. Somehow, though, they—and even their discarded clothing—did make it. He shoved the door closed behind them, then pressed her back against it, crowding his big body into hers as he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her.
By now, she was down to her bra, and the fly of her jeans was open, and he was down to his T-shirt, his belt loosened, his hard shaft pressing against her belly. She wedged her hand between their bodies enough to unfasten the button at his waist and tug down the zipper, then she tucked her hand into his briefs to press her palm against the naked length of him. He surged harder at her touch, and a feral growl escaped him before he intensified their kiss. He dropped his hands to her hips, shoving her jeans and panties down to her knees, then he thrust his hand between her legs to finger the damp folds of flesh he encountered.
This time Chloe was the one to purr with pleasure, nipping his lip lightly before touching the tip of her tongue to the corner of his mouth. Hogan rubbed his long index finger against her again, then inserted it inside her, caressing her with the others until she felt as if she would melt away. With his free hand, he slipped first one bra strap, then the other, from her shoulders, urging the garment to her waist to bare her breasts. Then he covered one with his entire hand, thumbing the sensitive nipple to quick arousal.
Her breath was coming in quick gasps now, and her hand moved harder on his ripe shaft in response. He rocked his hips in time with her touches, until the two of them were this close to going off together. Just as the tightening circles of her orgasm threatened to spring free, he pulled their bodies away from the door and began a slow dance toward the bed. The moment they reached their destination, she yanked Hogan’s shirt over his head, tossed it to the floor and pushed at his jeans to remove them, as well. Taking her cue, he went to work on removing what was left of her clothing, too.
When she turned to lower the bed’s coverlet, he moved behind her, flattening his body against hers and covering her breasts with both hands. But when she bent forward to push away the sheets, he splayed his hand open at the middle of her back, gently bent her lower, and then, slow and deep, entered her from behind.
“Oh,” she cried softly, curling her fingers tightly into the bedclothes. “Oh, Hogan...”
He moved both hands to her hips, gripping them tightly as he pushed himself deeper inside her. For long moments, he pumped her that way, the friction of his body inside hers turning Chloe into a hot, wanton thing. Finally, he withdrew, taking his time and caressing her fanny as he did, skimming his palms over her warm flesh before giving it a gentle squeeze. He tumbled them both into bed, lying on his back and pulling her atop him, straddling him. Instead of entering her again, though, he moved her body forward, until the hot feminine heart of her was poised for his taste.
His tongue flicking against her already sensitive flesh was her undoing. Barely a minute into his ministrations, Chloe felt the first wave of an orgasm wash over her. She moaned as it crested, waiting for the next swell. That one came and went, too, followed by another and another. But just when she thought she’d seen the last one, he turned her onto her back and positioned himself above her.
As he entered her again, another orgasm swept over her. But this time, Hogan went with her. He thrust inside her a dozen times, then emptied himself deep inside her. Only then did the two of them fall back to the bed, panting for breath and groping for coherent thought. Never had Chloe felt more satisfied than she did in that moment. Never had she felt so happy. So contented. So free of fear.
Loving wasn’t scary, she realized then. Avoiding love—that was scary. Loving was easy. So love Hogan she would. For as long as she could. Because, oh là là, living without loving wasn’t living at all.
* * *
It was a hot day in Brooklyn, the kind of summer day that cried out for something cold for dessert. So Chloe decided to add tulipes de sorbet to the daily menu of her new café, La Fin des Haricots. They would go nicely with the rest of the light French fare the little restaurant had become famous for in Williamsburg over the last year and a half, and it would make Hogan happy, since it was a reasonable compromise for the chocolate ice cream he preferred.
They’d compromised on a lot over the last eighteen months. He’d sold his grandfather’s Lenox Hill town house, along with Philip Amherst’s other properties—save the one in Paris, of course, where they planned to spend the month of August every year, starting with their honeymoon last summer. Then they purchased a funky brownstone they’d been renovating ever since, and in whose backyard Chloe had planted a small garden and built a small greenhouse. Hogan’s chain of Dempsey’s Garages was fast becoming reality—he was already operating three in the city and had acquired properties for a half dozen more. And La Fin des Haricots was fast becoming a neighborhood favorite. They worked hard every day and loved hard every night, and on Sundays...
Sundays were sacred, the one day they dedicated completely to each other. Usually by spending much of it in bed, either eating or talking or loafing or—their favorite—making love.
Hogan’s other passion in life was the scholarship fund he’d set up in his parents’ names for kids from both his old and his new neighborhoods. He’d also donated significantly to Samuel’s fund. The losses of their pasts would help bring happiness into others’ futures, and that made the two of them about as rich as a couple of people could be.
Life was good, Chloe thought as she finished up the menu and handed it off to her head waiter to record it on the ever-changing chalkboard at the door. Then she buttoned up her chef’s jacket—one that fit, since she had packed Samuel’s away and wore her own now—and headed back to the kitchen. Her kitchen. She might still be cooking for other people, but it was in her own space. A space where she was putting down roots, in a place she would live for a very long time, with a man she would love forever. It still scared her a little when she thought about how much she loved her husband. But it scared her more to think about not loving him.
He met her at the end of her workday as he always did, on this occasion arriving at the kitchen door in his grease-stained coveralls, since it was the end of his workday, too. They ate dinner together at the chef’s table, then, hand in hand, they walked home. Together they opened a bottle of wine. Together they enjoyed it on their roof. Together they made plans for their trip to Paris in August. And then together they went to bed, so they could make love together, and wake up together and start another day in the morning together.
Because together was what they were. And together was what they would always be. No matter where they went. No matter what they did. No matter what happened.
And that, Chloe thought as she did every night when they turned off the light, was what was truly magnifique.
* * * * *
If you love billionaires, pick up these books from New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Bevarly.
THE BILLIONAIRE GETS HIS WAY
MY FAIR BILLIONAIRE
CAUGHT IN THE BILLIONAIRE’S EMBRACE
ONLY ON HIS TERMS
A CEO IN HER STOCKING
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