Page 31 of The Perfect Ingredient
I blink at him from where I’ve collapsed, half-sprawled over my pastry mess.
“To Lyon?”
“Yes. To start.”
I frown.“To start?”
He stands, brushing a nonexistent speck of dust from the sleeve of his robe, and begins to pace. Not for movement’s sake, I know that for sure, but as if he’s physically unveiling a new world in the space between us.
“We begin here,” he says, circling around the kitchen. “Somewhere familiar. Close. Not too overwhelming. Just enough lace and silverware and impossibly tiny portions to make him feel the taste of a different life.”
I tilt my head, a slow smile forming despite myself.
“…You want to take our farm boy to a Michelin-starred room?”
“I want to give him silk against his skin and foie gras between his teeth,” he says, his eyes gleaming. “I want to watch him forget he was ever afraid of the world.”
“He blushed when we told him to use our first names. You think he’ll survive a maître d’ calling himmonsieur?”
Hessou smiles. “Oh!That’s thevery bestpart.”
“And then?” I ask, no longer pretending my heart isn’t hammering against my ribs.
“Then Lyon becomes too small.” He crosses behind me, brushing his fingertips along the curve of my lower back as he passes. “We board a train. South, at first. Let him see the azure of the Mediterranean from a villa in Nice. I want to know how his scent reacts to the sea. I want to expose him to the sun and let everyone see he’s made of it. Salt on his mouth, gold on his skin, the entire ocean watching him discover pleasure in being seen. Then we lose a week and a modest fortune in the casino at Monte Carlo, just to scandalize him a little.”
I chuckle and he smiles widely, robe flying when he turns around.
“Then we go north. I want to see you on your knees for him in a château built for kings. I want to watch you drink him down while the portraits of dead men look on in envy.”
He closes the distance between us in a single stride, his hands cupping my face. His thumb brushes my lower lip.
“Then Paris. We’ll take him to Théâtre de l’Opéra—let him hear a tenor’s voice so powerful it cracks the ceiling of his little provincial heart. Let him walk the Rue Saint-Honoré in boots that cost more than his father’s land. Let him drink champagne before noon and see what he does to waiters when he saysmerciand blushes.”
He kisses me, hard and quick.
“We could fuck him in the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur,” he murmurs against my lips, “until he’s trembling, praying for salvation and sin in the same breath. Let God himself watch us corrupt a saint in the place that hates us the most. I’ll bottle that blasphemy and wear it every day.”
I bite my lip, the image so vivid I can almost taste it.
“He’s going to combust.”
“Beautifully. And he’ll rise from the ashes, brighter.” Hessou says, releasing me to spin around the kitchen again. “We’ll take him to Vienna in the spring. Munich for beer. Maybe even London—”
“Ugh.”
He laughs. “Yes, yes.I knowyour feelings on London,mon cœur, but there’s so much to see there.”
“Jean will hate the British gloom.”
He raises his hands in a theatrical surrender. “A mere suggestion.”
He comes closer again, his expression softening. He reaches out, his thumb brushing the corner of my mouth where I’m smeared with something sweet.
“But then maybe somewhere warmer. America, maybe. Somewhere with sun.”
“Brazil?”
“Eventually.”
