The Oddest Little Chocolate Shop in London (8 page)

  
‘Another
lost soul,’ Clementine remarked when Dominic appeared to watch her feeding the
animal. He leant against the doorframe in the cold sunshine while she emptied
the tuna onto a saucer for the cat, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘She’s such
a gorgeous creature, isn’t she? I wonder who she belongs to.’

  
‘Somebody
very, very lucky,’ he said softly, then disappeared back inside before
Clementine could look round at him in wonder.

At the end of the day, Clementine was
exhausted, and only too happy to obey Dominic’s order to go upstairs and wait
for him in the flat while he locked up. It was ages since she had spent all day
on her feet like that, and her poor calves and toes were throbbing. She let
herself into the quiet flat, its white walls stained gold by the setting sun, and
found the fluffy Persian curled up asleep on his sofa. And no surprise. The
heating must have kicked in automatically because the flat was warm and cosy,
and the sofa looked very welcoming.

  
Too
weary even to shoo her away, Clementine kicked off her shoes and squeezed onto
the sofa too, careful not to squash the animal as she made herself comfortable.

  
It
was so wonderful not to be standing anymore! She pulled her bare feet onto the
sofa, rubbing and soothing the reddened toes and heels.

  
‘Ohhh,’
she moaned, and let her head fall back.

  
 
At that moment, the telephone rang.

  
Clementine
looked at the phone, lying on a low table at the end of the sofa. Dominic had
still not joined her.

  
The
phone continued to ring.

  
Gingerly,
she leant over the sleeping cat and picked it up. ‘Hello?’

  
There
was silence on the other end. Then a very male, very husky, and alarmingly French
voice spoke. ‘Allo? Dominic?’

  
Oh
shit.

  
‘Hello,’
she repeated, not even trying to speak any French. Her brain was just too
utterly zonked. ‘Erm … Dominic … not here.’

  
The
cat stirred, a little outraged at being squashed. Her tail rose and tickled
Clementine’s nose.

  
‘Et
votre nom, mademoiselle?’

  
Her
French was by no mean brilliant, but she was able to grasp that the man was
asking who she was. She tried to push the white fluffy tail out of her face. Caution
told her not to give too much away.

  
‘Erm
… je suis a friend? Une amie?’

  
Another
baffled silence.

  
To
her relief, she heard Dominic’s tread on the stairs. ‘Ah, erm, il arrive! Il
arrive!’ As he appeared in the doorway, she sat up, releasing the cat –
who sprang up at once to stretch her back – then held out the phone with
a conciliatory smile. ‘Sorry, your phone was ringing and I didn’t know what
else to do. It’s a man. A Frenchman. Asking for you.’

  
Dominic
stared, then took the phone. ‘Oui?’ He listened for a moment, frowning, then
nodded abruptly, and shot off a long, incomprehensible reply in machine-gun
French.

  
Without
further conversation, he suddenly said, ‘Non, au revoir,’ and rang off, chucking
the phone down on the sofa unceremoniously.

  
She
retrieved the telephone as it threatened to slip down behind a cushion, and
replaced it on the table. ‘Problem?’

  
But
Dominic did not seem in the mood for conversation. He shook his head, then yawned,
stretching his arms above his head as though he had just got out of bed, not
worked a full day.

  
‘Not
at all.’

  
There
was something mesmerizing about the long, powerful stretch of his body, his
white cotton shirt slightly untucked, and Clementine had to remind herself not
to stare.

  
Dominic
threw himself down on the sofa beside her, despite the fact that there was not enough
room for him, her, and a fluffy white Persian. The cat raised her head in disapproval
as her cushion tilted like the deck of the Titanic, then yawned too, revealing
white teeth and a long pink tongue, and stretched out both pure white paws. He
leant over Clementine and stroked the cat’s head.

  
‘Belle,’
he murmured, then looked into Clementine’s face, their mouths suddenly only a
few inches apart. ‘But not as belle as her companion.’

  
Knocked
off balance by his intoxicating proximity, Clementine found her pulse racing
and her poor brain melting. Which immediately made her suspicious. Her new boss
had barely looked at her today, except for that brief interlude by the till
before the old lady came in. She had been beginning to think he was no longer
interested in her romantically, that Dominic had only kissed her, in fact, to
keep her malleable in case he needed her again.

  
Which
was a very cynical attitude, she told herself crossly. Though not necessarily
inaccurate.

  
‘Who
… who was that on the phone?’

  
‘Nobody
important.’

  
She
met his gaze, holding it sternly. ‘Is that why you’re trying so hard to
distract my attention from the phone call, Dominic?’

  
He
threw himself back against the sofa cushions and closed his eyes, shrugging.
‘Bien alors, it was my father.’

  
‘That
was your dad on the phone?’ Much to her embarrassment, her voice came out
squeaky. She counted to ten in her head, then tried again, hoping to sound less
like an overwrought gerbil this time. ‘I have to admit, I’m surprised to hear
that. You didn’t speak to him for very long.’

  
‘It’s
complicated.’

  
She
sighed. ‘Families always are.’

  
‘He
lent me the money to get this place off the ground,’ he explained, opening his
eyes to stare at her broodingly. ‘I paid it back, of course. I paid his loan
back within the first six months. But he still thinks he has a right to ask for
every detail of my business.’

  
‘He’s
probably just worried about you.’

  
‘He
is not worried. He is … how do you say it? … nosy! My father knows we reopened
today, and wanted a breakdown of our first day sales. I told him to … to go
stuff himself.’

  
‘Dominic!’

  
His
shrug was eloquent. ‘My father is always interfering in the way this shop is
run, telling me which lines to sell, how to arrange the displays, when to run
my promotions. It was partly because of the endless pressure from him that I
closed in the first place, having to explain our sales figures at the end of
every week. He has a very successful chocolaterie business in France, several
shops spread across two departments, and he thinks the same approach will work
here. I keep telling him, Londoners are not French. They have different ways of
shopping, so I need to try new approaches to marketing and promotion. But he
refuses to listen.’

  
‘I’m
sorry to hear that,’ she said, a little primly, perhaps deliberately snarking
him. ‘Your father sounded like a very nice man on the phone.’

  
His
mouth twisted in a half-smile. ‘The ladies have always liked him, bien sûr.’

  
‘Like
father, like son?’ she murmured, a little daringly.

  
Dominic’s
smile changed, became more teasing. Perhaps even a little sexual. ‘What are you
saying? That you think the ladies like me too?’

  
‘You
wish!’

  
‘Oui,
I do wish. Sometimes I wish that very much. You know, it's the strangest thing,
but every since I met you, I've wanted to ... ’

  
'Wanted
to ... what?'

  
'Do
this,' he muttered, and his hand snaked its way up her back, then tangled in
her hair. 'And this.'

  
She
was still staring, a little bemused by his change of mood, when Dominic jerked
her towards him and their mouths met.

  
She
felt dazed, her chest tight. He was more forceful than she had expected. But she
was perfectly willing to give in to him. She had never been able to get excited
about a man she had to chase, yet always seemed to end up as the one in
pursuit. Being chased for once felt like a liberation.

  
They
kissed for some time, lying warm against each other on the sofa. Then he drew
back, and his hand cupped her cheek, one thumb stroking across her parted lips.

  
‘Clementine,’
he breathed. ‘You are … adorable.’

  
So
are you, she thought, staring into his dark eyes. Bloody gorgeous, in fact.
With bells on. But did not dare break the spell by saying any of that.

  
Meanwhile
his other hand had found her breast under her shirt, and was cupping and caressing
her there, bringing her nipple to life. Her weariness seemed to fall away, her
body tingling with physical awareness. Suddenly she felt sexy and alive, and
very definitely up for whatever he was offering. Even if it was only a short
term fling. His touch seemed to be doing magical things to her nerve endings,
and it had been such a long time …

  
‘You
want this?’ he whispered, kissing her throat. ‘You’re sure?’

  
She
nodded without even stopping to think, and found she was breathing more
quickly, her lips soft and compliant, kissing him back.

  
Ever
since she had walked into his chocolaterie and found him looking so vulnerable,
so very much on the edge of giving up, she had been dreaming of how it would
feel if she and Dominic were an item.

  
And
now it looked as if her dreams might be coming true.

  
Okay,
things had moved slowly between them so far, but that was not necessarily a bad
thing. There was nothing worse than rushing into a steamy clinch, she thought, only
to discover that the clinch was disappointingly moist rather than steamy.

  
His
kissing skills were far from disappointing though. In fact, she could feel a
strange tugging sensation inside her, as though she was being drawn towards him
magnetically. Like they were two lost halves of the same soul, finally fitting
back together.

  
Her
heart began to thud. Loudly.

  
She
wound her arms about his neck and let herself relax into his kiss. Things were
happening to her heart that she had not bargained for when she let herself think
about Dominic that way. And tonight, at long last, she was going to find out if
the wait had been worth it.

  
The
violent thudding of her heart grew so loud, she became alarmed. Was she about
to have a heart attack?

  
Death
seemed a steep price to pay even for great sex.

  
It
was only when he drew back, and she saw the frown on his face, his brows
knitted together in annoyance and frustration, that Clementine realised it was
not her heart she could hear but someone hammering on the shop door below.

  
‘Dom?
Are you up there?’ It was a woman’s voice. ‘Ah, mon dieu! Dominic? Ouvre la
porte!’

  
Dominic
released her at once. He stood up in one fluid motion, striding to the window.
Twisting two fingers between the closed blinds, he glared down through the gap into
the street.

  
‘Merde!’

  
Dragging
her shirt down, suspicious she must look thoroughly dishevelled, Clementine
struggled to her feet with rather less grace than he had managed. ‘Who … who is
it?’

  
Dominic
turned away from the window. He ran a hand through his dark hair, smoothing
down the spiky strands she had disturbed, and swore again in French, this time
under his breath. She understood a few words among his obscenities and guessed
most of the rest, storing them up for future occasions when she might need to
make her own frustration known in his native language.

  
‘It’s
my cousin, Chloe, back from France,’ he growled, looking furious. ‘Only she’s
not alone. Now I understand that phone call. My father's down there with her!’

CHAPTER SIX

Clementine's Darkest Hour (In Which She Presents
Dominic's Father With A Tampon)

Feeling very much in the way, Clementine
waited in the flat while Dominic brought his dad and cousin upstairs. After a
quick dash to the window to check out Chloe, she happened to glance at her
reflection in the glass oven door. She nearly shrieked in horror; she looked
awful, her hair all over the place, her face tired and, quite frankly, a little
bit sweaty.

  
And she was about to meet Dominic's father!

  
Her
eyes stretched wide, she ran back to the sofa, and rummaged through her handbag
for damage control items. It might not be very sociable of her, but at least
staying in the flat gave her a chance to redo her make-up and tidy her hair.

  
Clementine
perched on the edge of the sofa, making a fish-face at herself in her compact
mirror to see where her lipstick needed repairs, then dug her favourite lippie
out of her bag. She was still reapplying her lipstick with a less than steady
hand when Monsieur Ravel Père walked through the door ahead of his son.

  
She
had not been expecting Dominic’s father to enter the room first, and her hand
jerked nervously upwards. Not much, but enough to ruin the line of her shiny
plum lipstick.

  
‘Holy
crap!’ Clementine exclaimed, and saw Monsieur Ravel’s eyes narrow.

  
The exact same eyes as his son.

  
Unnerved,
Clementine fumbled to put her lipstick away, then stood up too abruptly. Her open
handbag tumbled off her lap, its contents spilling with a terrible clatter. Loose
change, compact mirror, iPod and headphones, a long-lost necklace – so
that was where it had got to! – and the usual pointless, tangled mess
that seemed to accumulate at the bottom of every handbag she owned.

  
Cheerily,
a plastic-wrapped tampon rolled across the polished wooden floor and stopped at
Monsieur Ravel’s feet.

  
The
grey-haired Frenchman looked down at it, expressionless. Then back up at her.

  
‘Holy
crap,’ she repeated, but this time under her breath.

  
Get
yourself together, she told herself crossly, and forced a smile, hoping she did
not look too much like a clown with her lipstick smeared and her hair probably
standing on end in sheer fright. Monsieur Ravel was a man like any other. The
fact that he was startling similar to Dominic in looks – though about
twenty-five years older – should not have sent her nerves jangling all
over the place. So this was what Dominic would look like when he was older.

  
Rather
impressive, in other words.

  
‘Sorry
about the holy crap thing, Monsieur Ravel,’ she said quickly, and thrust out a
hand with an encouraging smile. ‘I’m Clementine. We spoke on the phone earlier.
You should have said you were so close to the flat. I … I could have put the
kettle on.’

  
Dominic
appeared behind his father, frowning down at her outstretched hand as though
she had committed some terrible faux pas by not waiting to be introduced. Or
perhaps by throwing her sanitary protection at his father. It was not obvious
to her which had offended him more, her gabbling or her tampon.

  
Chloe
slipped past both men to stare at her too, clearly entertained.

  
The
other girl was a slender brunette with shining, shoulder-length dark brown
hair, her head tipped to one side, her smile wide and false. Her looks were decidedly
on the sexy side. She looked very, very confident.

  
The opposite of Clementine, in other words.

  
Clementine
considered the very real possibility of throwing herself out of the window but
then decided she would not fit through the narrow frame. Attempting a dramatic
suicide and getting her hips stuck would not help matters. Or salve her wounded
ego.

  
'Papa,
Chloe, this is Clementine, my new shop assistant,' Dominic said tersely.
'Clementine, my father, Monsieur Ravel, and my cousin, Chloe Ravel.'

  
'Hello,'
Clementine said uncertainly, addressing them both this time. 'Pleased to meet
you.'

  
There
was a long and intimidating silence after this introduction. Chloe put her
hands on her hips and grinned. She reminded Clementine of a hyena, slinking and
hungry, and no doubt scenting blood. His eyebrows raised, Monsieur Ravel Père said
nothing but continued to examine her and the wonderful handbag mess she had
created just for him.

  
She
suddenly wondered if he spoke no English. Had she just made a total doofus of
herself by addressing this man in a language he did not speak? Or perhaps the
lipstick smear was worse than she realised and he thought she had been snacking
on Dominic's jugular before he arrived.

  
Her
hand slowly dropped, and she looked to Dominic in appeal.

  
That
was when she noticed two disturbing things: one, Chloe was looking her over
with contempt dripping from her eyeballs, and two, both male Ravels were
staring at her chest. Intently.

  
Bemused,
she glanced down, and froze in horror.

  
‘Merde!’
she muttered, wasting her apology for the ‘Holy crap!’ exclamation by throwing
in a French ‘Shit!’ for good measure.

  
Two
of her shirt buttons had somehow come undone. (Probably something to do with
all that squeezing and moulding Dominic had been doing earlier.) Her breasts,
encased in a far too revealing white lace bra, were now clearly visible to all
three of them.

  
Oh good grief!

  
Not
content with the clown-in-lipstick look, she was also parading herself about
her employer’s flat half-clad, probably looking as though she had just been groped
by a sex fiend.

  
As
indeed she had. Well, not the sex fiend bit. But the groping.

  
‘Did
we interrupt a naughty little tête-à-tête, Dominic? And with your new shop
assistant too, how terribly embarrassing for the poor girl,’ Chloe drawled,
then sniggered behind her hand, adding something incomprehensible in French.

  
It
sounded offensive. Though to be fair, Clementine thought, slitting furious eyes
at Chloe, everything she said sounded offensive.

  
Chloe
looked a little older than Clementine, maybe twenty four or five, and had a tall,
skinny figure, all angular hips and flat belly like a model. She also had a
breathy voice, clearly put-on in an attempt to sound sexy, and a thick French
accent, perhaps exaggerated for the same purpose. Wearing hipster jeans and a
midriff top, Chloe was effortlessly attractive and smug about it in equal
measure.

  
‘Can
we speak English while Clementine is here?’ Dominic’s eyes had narrowed, like
his father’s. ‘And no, you didn’t interrupt anything. Though I could have done
with some advance notice of your arrival. I know you’ll have somewhere to go
for the night, Chloe; there’s always some poor sap willing to take you in. But
my father will no doubt need a place to sleep. So he can take my room and I
shall make up the sofa bed for myself.’

  
Chloe
seemed unmoved by his anger. Her shrug was dismissive. ‘So your evening is
spoiled. Quel dommage!’

  
Clementine
found her teeth grinding at his cousin’s unpleasant attitude. His father had
still not spoken, though he appeared to be listening to their exchanges with
close attention.

  
‘Well,’
she said sharply, turning to Dominic, ‘it’s been a long day. Maybe I should
head off home now, Monsieur Ravel,’ she added, throwing in his formal title as
though to indicate that nothing had gone on between them – even though it
was clearly a lie – ‘and we can discuss those sales figures tomorrow.’

  
Dominic
nodded curtly. ‘Thank you, Clementine.’

  
She
bent to pick up the spilt contents of her handbag, and heard Chloe snigger
again.

  
‘I’ll
walk you downstairs,’ Dominic said, crouching to help her. She glanced up and
their eyes met. ‘I haven’t thanked you properly for helping out today. I could
not have done it without you.’

  
She
felt warmth spread through her at his words, then looked at his mouth and
remembered how he had kissed her. That had felt like a proper thank you!

  
‘You’re
welcome,’ she murmured.

  
His
father stooped to retrieve the tampon she had all but thrown at him, and handed
it back with a withering look. ‘You lost this too, I believe. So good to meet
my son’s newest petite amie. I was told you were an accountant, mademoiselle.’ His
French accent was very strong, but his English was excellent, just like his
son’s. He looked her up and down, making his disdain obvious. ‘Dominic always
did have a talent for ... um … exaggerating the truth.’

  
Newest petite amie?

  
How many did Dominic get through in
a month, for god’s sake?

  
Shit.

  
‘Come
on, Clementine,’ Dominic said roughly, and pulled her away, his tight grip
almost cutting off her circulation. 'Time to go.'

  
Her
cheeks were burning. It was obvious what ‘petite amie’ was supposed to suggest
in that context. Not just girlfriend, but something infinitely more sleazy.

  
Oh please, let me die now.

  
Dominic
accompanied her down the steep stairs into the chocolate shop, the place oddly
dark and quiet now without its uplighters on and with no customers milling
about. At the closed door into the street, he put his arms about her and kissed
her again.

  
Clementine
tried to respond, but everything had changed.

  
She
no longer knew what she was feeling. It was like having a numb spot in her
heart.

  
An
edge of urgency entered his kiss when she failed to respond, and there was a
hollow sense of frustration inside her when Dominic pulled back, his gaze
searching her face.

  
‘You
must forgive my father. He is not usually so rude. He was shocked to find you
in my flat so late, that is all. He knows we only recently met, so when he saw
you ...’ He looked angry. ‘Non, I will not excuse his behaviour. He should
never have spoken to you like that. He is very old-fashioned in his views about
men and women, so when he found you in my flat – ’

  
‘I
understand, it’s fine,’ she lied, interrupting him.

  
He
kissed her again, temporarily making her forget the embarrassment of his
father’s cold behaviour.

  
‘I’m
sorry we were interrupted tonight, Clementine,’ he whispered, kissing her
throat.

  
‘Me
too.’

  
‘I
like kissing you. It’s addictive, je crois. In fact, before my father arrived, I
was going to ask if you wanted to stay the night.’

  
Clementine
was not shocked by this, and probably should have been. But a night with
Dominic would have been marvellous.

  
Oh hell.

  
She
pulled away and felt her cheeks burn under his stare. ‘If you had asked me to
stay tonight, I would almost certainly have said yes,’ she admitted, not
entirely sure she should have replied at all.

  
'Vraiment?'

  
‘But
that was then, and this is now.’

  
‘Indeed
it is.’

  
His
arms tightened about her. This time he kissed her more lingeringly, his mouth
exploring hers, his fingers tangled in her hair. The kiss lasted so long, she began
to wonder if he had forgotten his guests upstairs.

  
‘Don’t
go cold on me, Clementine,’ he murmured in her ear, his voice husky. ‘I don’t
think my father will stay with me for long. Maybe when he’s gone back to France
… ’

  
She
backed away, made inexplicably nervous by this casual invitation to have sex
with him after his father had returned to France.

  
‘Well,
let’s play it by ear,’ she said quickly, then fumbled with the door. ‘You never
know what’s going to happen. See you tomorrow!’

  
Dominic
watched her go, his face expressionless. Then he closed the shop door and she
heard him lock it behind her.

  
There
was an awful finality to the sound.