Free A Wish Upon Jasmine by Laura Florand Page A

second. “I’ve got work.”
    “Plus, I wanted to see this Jasmin Bianchi Tante Colette gave her shop to. You think Tante Colette might have given her Niccolò and Laurianne’s perfume recipe book, too?” Tristan’s tone grew hungry. That missing perfume recipe book from the founders of their family had gotten them into all kinds of escapades as children and teenagers, as they thought of ever more dangerous places to hunt for the war-lost heirlooms. But this past year, Tante Colette had given both Raoul and Matt family treasures that proved she had had at least two of those missing heirlooms up in her attic all that time. Either they had been really crappy at hunting in the attic when they were kids or else their Resistance-honed aunt was wilier than five wild boys raised in peacetime had ever started to imagine.
    “I’m taking care of Jess Bianchi.” Damien used his mean voice. You’re the mean one . “If she has anything else that belongs to this family, just leave it to me.”
    “Yeah, but I want to meet her.” Tristan angled to see beyond Damien again, up the street to the shop. “The woman who single-handedly destroyed an entire art form. Spoiled Brat.” He shuddered.
    “It’s an industry, Tristan,” Damien said, annoyed for no reason he could define. Heat and frustration still wanted to explode out of him everywhere. “And she makes money.”
    Tristan rolled his eyes. “You would say that. She’s probably just your type.”
    Damien’s fingers curled slowly into a fist on the far side from Tristan. “I’m in the middle of—negotiations—to get back that shop. Stay away from her. I don’t want you to screw anything up.”
    Tristan’s eyebrows went up a little. He flicked a glance over Damien’s face that made Damien tamp down on his expression all the harder. Of all his cousins, Tristan was by far the most difficult to beat in poker. Matt he could completely fleece, and with Raoul he was pretty evenly matched, but Tristan saw things, even when Damien didn’t have one single damn tell.
    “I can play good cop,” Tristan said. “Hell, if she’s been negotiating with you , she’ll probably throw herself into my arms as soon as I walk in the door. I bet you I can have her selling it back to us by the time I finish this ice cream.” He took a step forward.
    Damien blocked him. “I said leave it, Tristan.”
    Tristan’s eyebrows flew higher. He savored his ice cream, gazing at Damien. The two were the same height, both black-haired, both with a similar long, lean strength, as they’d grown up doing the same sports together—rock climbing, windsurfing, dirt biking. Strangers assumed they were brothers, not just cousins. But Tristan played through life, and it showed in all the relaxed lines of his body. Whereas Damien…Damien suddenly wanted to grab that cone from Tristan and walk off to eat it himself, in private, sucking cool sweetness down his throat until he could calm down.
    “Okay, now I really want to get a look at her,” Tristan said. “What is she, gorgeous?”
    No. She was pretty. Like a child’s bouquet of handpicked wildflowers in the middle of a host of hothouse roses. Funny. Most of the famous actresses he knew could look past all the bouquets sent them on opening night and clutch to them their own child’s handpicked, wistful bouquet as the truest, most beautiful thing there. But nobody thought he could.
    Like…what the actual fuck? Who on this whole planet was so jaded and indulged as to actually prefer two dozen roses to a fistful of wild flowers picked with great hope just for you?
    Yet people thought he wouldn’t know the difference. He’d crush the wildflowers in his fist. His own family fucking thought that.
    Yet she…hadn’t. Leaning on that terrace beside her over New York that cold February night, the fragile cocoon of warmth from the patio heaters battling the chilly air, he’d felt almost as if they were holding a single daisy between them, taking turns