Free The Chocolate Thief by Laura Florand

looked as if she was biting back an urge to beg.
    Beg?
    Why do you want this so badly? he wanted to ask her. What could you possibly be seeking here that would make someone like you bite back the word please?
    The Corey family owned something like 30 percent of the cacao plantations in the world. Owned them. They funded entire institutes that were the only thing standing between chocolatiers like himself and infestations of witches’-broom that might destroy all the crops. They were even famous for leading the movement to improve worker welfare on cacao plantations.
    The knowledge of their power and generosity should have made him nicer to her, but . . . she had paid for his dinner as if he were a beggar .
    No, worse, as if he was her chocolate gigolo or something.
    “Mademoiselle Corey,” he said urbanely, loud enough that her famous name could be heard by all the other students there. “Of Corey Chocolate,” he added, just in case they hadn’t made the connection. “What a pleasure to have you join us. Are you hoping to learn something new about chocolate?”
    She bit her lip. She was a little bit stuck, wasn’t she, since her eyes had just begged him to let her stay? She couldn’t very well claim she didn’t want to learn something from him about chocolate. Nor could she hit him, which it looked as if she might like to do.
    For some reason, her clear desire to do him violence sent a lick of excitement through him.
    He needed to get control of these licks of excitement. Last night had been bad, with that crème au basilic . He was such a sucker for a pretty, proud woman who savored the finer things in life.
    He maintained a façade of cool superiority, but he could feel his heart thudding as he dueled for control with her.
    “I would love to learn what you do with chocolate,” she said in French, in a clear voice she probably used to carry across boardrooms when billions of dollars were in play, making sure everyone could hear her.
    He pressed his lips together. She had taken the high road, honesty, which gave her moral superiority right off the bat.
    “I told you so two days—” She broke off, fumbling for the right word in French.
    Grégory was right, damn him; her accent was adorable.
    “I told you so it was two days. Before. Two days before,” she managed.
    “Oh?” he challenged. “Not Dominique Richard?”
    “If Dominique Richard is willing to teach me some of his secrets, I would be happy to learn from him, too.” She made sure the name Dominique Richard carried just as clearly through the room as her last sentence had.
    She was doing a hell of a job of keeping her dignity for a woman wearing some fairly ghastly eye makeup.
    And Dominique Richard was a damn flirt. He would probably be willing to teach her quite a lot of things.
    “I’m flattered you should choose me first,” he said. Which was the truth. Flattered and insulted both. Mostly, it pissed him off that she had even had a second choice. Him or nothing—that’s what it should be.
    She bared her teeth at him. “Oh, you were just the only decent chocolatier offering a workshop at a time when it was convenient for me to be in Paris.” Still that clear, carrying voice.
    He narrowed his eyes. He was quite sure her name hadn’t been on the list of students. He would have noticed. But he decided to take the high road, too, and not challenge her false pretenses. No, let that be the little sword he held over her head.
    Decent. Decent chocolatier.
    “Pascal, I think I’ll join you today. Mademoiselle Corey, vous permettez ?” He stepped closer to her, physically crowding her personal space.
    Because she was stubborn, or arrogant, his body was actually brushing hers before she gave ground to share her counter with him.
    Excitement leaped sky-high in him. Worse than last night in the restaurant. She was a good head shorter than he was. He could feel her smallness and arrogance all the way through to his bones, like a beat in him that was