“Did the cab drop you off in the wrong place?” he asked as they made their way toward the bustling outdoor market.
“What? Oh, no,” she said, realizing he’d probably seen her walking toward him from blocks away. “I took the bus.”
He blinked. “The bus?”
She dug into the pocket of her small backpack and pulled out a card. “My CTA pass. Do you have any idea how convenient these things are? Between buses and the L, I can go anywhere in Chicago,” she said, the amazement in her voice genuine. Learning to navigate around had been an oddly liberating experience for her, invigorating, to jump onto a vehicle and blend anonymously with the vibrant flow of humanity, to become a single cell in the lifeblood of the city.
His eyes gleamed in amusement. “You hold it up like it’s a badge of honor.”
“It is.”
“Étoile would make quite the headline out of that,” he murmured, referring to the French tabloid she hated with a white-hot passion for sensationalizing her life and using it as fodder to sell papers. “Fair-Haired Heiress Caught Slumming It,” he quoted an imagined headline.
“Screw Étoile,” she said succinctly. She hitched her chin at the crowd of people bustling around them, intent on their marketing in the early morning light. “I’m willing to bet they don’t even know what Étoile is, and nor would they care. They could care less about who my father is. They’ve never gobbled up the slop about my supposed love life. Most of them wouldn’t remember my mother’s movies—”
“Or have ever heard of my father’s name, let alone his crimes.”
She came to a halt, startled that he’d mentioned his father. He paused as well and touched her cheek, as if to erase her amazed expression. Her breath caught at the unexpected, tender caress. His fingertips lingered, warm and firm against her skin.
“We are both fugitives here, I think,” he murmured.
“I prefer to think of myself as an adventurer,” she replied in a hushed tone. His flashing smile was like an injection of adrenaline straight into one of her veins.
“You look beautiful,” he murmured, his gaze lowering over the floral sundress she’d donned for the warm summer day.
“Thank you, but I’d rather just look like a chef.”
“An adventuresome chef?” he asked, looking amused and . . . warm. She smiled, fully enthralled.
The delicate, charmed moment fractured when he begun to dig in his jeans pocket, the motion distracting her. He withdrew a wad of bills and handed them to her. “Just get a receipt for whatever you purchase, please.”
She nodded, eyeing the money with an appreciation she hadn’t possessed for most of her life. It took not having something to really get the value of it. She’d learned that much in the past year.
She tucked the money carefully away in her backpack and they continued walking, Elise staring with interest at the colorful vegetables and fruits and smiling at the vendors, suddenly feeling like a kid in a candy store. The smell of wild onion entered her nose, then a delectable, sweet fragrance that she inhaled deeply. A farmer had sliced one of his melons. Her mouth watered as they passed his booth.
You can do this, she told herself.
She’d been marketing with her fellow students and an instructor while at school, hadn’t she? Of course this was different. Lucien was affording her the status of chef. She was in charge, she thought with a thrill of excitement.
“Do you have your list?” he asked.
Her eyes widened in panic as she stared at some brilliantly green Granny Smith apples. She was the chef. She should have made a list.
“I don’t need a list. I’ve memorized the menu,” she said honestly. “And I’ll pick whatever is nicest and freshest for the special next week.”
“All right,” he said. She sighed in relief that he seemed to have accepted her reply. She wanted to convince him of her expertise at all costs. “We usually buy from Jim Goddard over there.” He pointed to a booth with a thickset, gray-haired man sitting behind a table. “He’s got a way with heirloom lettuce and arugula, and his peppers are usually good. If you trust me to do it, I’ll pick up the avocado and snow peas from Mort Sanger over there. I’ll rent a cart and bring it over when I’m finished.”
Elise glanced to the booth where he pointed a quarter of the way down the block. She longed to see, touch, and taste the lovely produce there as well, but she thought it best to handle her bartering without Lucien coolly observing.
Twenty minutes later, she’d forgotten about her anxiety—and even Lucien, momentarily—as she chatted with Jim Goddard and sank her teeth into a fleshy San Marzano tomato.
“Délicieux,” she exclaimed, eyes wide as the sweet, intense flavor flooded her mouth. She grinned widely at Jim. She took another bite and wiped the juice off her chin with the back of her hand. “I don’t understand you Americans,” she chastised Jim teasingly after she’d chewed and swallowed. “How can you put all that awful salad dressing on your salads when you have vegetables like these?”
“I don’t make the salads; I just grow the vegetables,” Jim said, looking a little dazed.
“And you do it extremely well. What’s your price for these delectable gems?” she queried, holding up another pepper-shaped tomato near her mouth and eyeing it hungrily, all too aware of Jim watching her every move with stunned amazement.
Two minutes later, she had finalized the deal with Jim, and he walked away to pack up her order.