looked around, picturing her favorite spaces in her mind and superimposing them on the room around her. “Pretty much the same. Just fresher. Maybe some new chairs and stools for the bar, a softer color on the walls.” The white was a bit bland with no other design to highlight, but it was a lot better than burnt orange. “Some updated light fixtures.” She glanced up at the chandelier, which was the one piece she wouldn’t change. It was huge and gorgeous, all crystal and platinum swoops of sparkle. “Maybe a ceiling medallion to highlight the chandelier.”
“And what about the floors? The bar? The poor use of space?” He squeezed her hand and heat shot through her. “Julia. We have to make changes.” His dark eyes seemed to tilt down at the corners. “We can’t leave it as it is and expect anything else to change.”
“We could. With the marketing campaign, we’ll gain new business.” All they really needed was for people to remember they were there, to walk through the door and taste the food for themselves.
“But they won’t come back.” He let go of her hand and sat back. “They’ll take one look at this place and decide it’s not cool or hip or whatever.”
“This isn’t about being cool or hip or whatever.” La Petite Bouchée was classic and would stand the test of time.
Donovan ran a hand through his hair. “Actually, it is. We need the social scene to give it the stamp of approval. Once we’ve got that—”
“But we’re not a bar,” Julia interrupted. She understood where he was coming from. The part of the industry that relied on the young and pretty to fill their tables and their coffers. But a restaurant was different. And she felt as if everything was changing so fast. As if her life was once again in upheaval. “We need the foodies.”
“Julia, the foodies are the social scene. And right now, you and your food are being wasted.”
She sat up straighter, stinging from the implication that her food, her staff wouldn’t be good enough on their own. “I think my food speaks for itself.”
He reached out and caught her hand when she started to stand. “The decor, the layout, even the menu is working against you right now. I want to bring everything in line to work together.”
His hand was large and strong but held her fingers loosely enough that she could break free if she wanted to. She should want to. His eyes drilled into hers, searching. “Why are you so afraid of change?”
“I’m not afraid.” But her pulse pounded in her ears and made her vision shimmer for a second. “I just don’t think we need to change for the sake of change.”
It felt as if her whole life had been nothing but change for the past two years. A sick mother, taking over the restaurant, dealing with Alain’s death and then the nightmare that had been Jean-Paul’s reign. And now the Fords also wanted to do things their way.
Was it so wrong to want a little stability? A little time-out so she could get her legs under her and figure out what to do next?
She studied his hand as it curled over hers. They looked good together. Strong and supportive. “I just don’t want to see this place turned into a replica of every other restaurant out there. I don’t want us to lose what makes us different, special.”
The parts that reminded Julia of her mother and the traditions she’d built during her ten-year tenure as executive chef in the kitchen.
Suzanne Laurent had been part of the heyday of La Petite Bouchée as a junior kitchen slave, and she’d always believed that with hard work and a concerted effort it could be a top-tier restaurant again. Given a little more time and money, maybe she’d have been able to get it there. Now it was up to Julia.
“And you think that’s what I want?” His voice was low and serious. Sexy.
Julia looked up from their hands. It wasn’t a connection she could pursue anyway. Even if they did look like something sculpted by Michelangelo. She tugged free and put her hands in her lap. “I don’t know what you want, Donovan. You say you want to sell the restaurant and know that I’m an interested buyer. Yet you don’t include me on the decisions that will affect the future of the restaurant. Wouldn’t it make more sense to get my opinion?”
There was a pause, a long, silent pause. She could hear the rumble of voices outside, tourists braving the February weather to visit the popular market next door, and the whoosh of cars and wind. He nodded slowly. “Of course. You’re right.” He stood. “Come and look.”
He led her to another table to a trio of poster-board mock-ups. “These are just some ideas based on my suggestions and work the designer has done for us in the past.” His arm brushed hers as he pointed, and his scent filled her head. That spicy, clean scent that made her think of the windowsill herb garden she’d had in Paris.
Julia prepared herself for shiny white and lots of cold, oversize mirrors. A restaurant version of Elephants. Instead, she saw something more beautiful than she’d imagined.
Louis XVI oval-back chairs in dark wood and a silky ivory moiré. The golden parquet floor replaced with light gray wood. The walls were no longer slabs of plain white decorated only with scattered pictures, but had strips of white wood installed as panels, and the walls themselves were a foggy gray with mirrors and other objets d’art. The bar was longer, stretching to fill up that awkward corner that was too small for a table and too big for a plant.
It looked like her restaurant, only better. So much better.
She inhaled, sucking in wonder, excitement and eau de Donovan. God, he smelled good. She shoved that discomforting realization out of her head. No matter what she might personally think of Donovan Ford, he was off-limits.
How could she grow her own name, increase her cachet in a city full of world-class chefs if she allowed herself to be waylaid by the first amazing-smelling man to cross her path?
Julia concentrated on the mock-ups in front of her, on the impersonal wall displays, and her gaze skittered up to the photos that were hung there now. The walls of La Petite Bouchée were currently covered in personal photographs taken by current and former staff that displayed a French life in stunning black-and-white imagery. They were part of the restaurant’s tradition.
“I want to keep the photos on the walls,” she told Donovan, turning her face from the pictures to look up at him. He leaned over her, one hand planted on the table as he, too, reviewed the papers on the table.
He glanced down, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. “Why?”
Julia swallowed, told herself she should really break this eye lock or at least shift in her chair so their bodies weren’t so close to touching. “They’re part of the restaurant’s history. Of all the people who worked here.” At his furrowed brow, she explained. “They’re our pictures. Alain’s photos of his childhood home, a picture I took of the Tuileries Garden my first winter in Paris, one that my mom took of me the first time she took me to France, one that Sasha took when she went to the French Alps last year.”
He glanced behind him at the closest wall and the photos displayed there. “I didn’t know.”
“And now you do.”
He straightened up. “Show me.” He started toward the wall she’d been staring at only a minute earlier. “Which ones are yours?”
Julia stood, too, slowly, trying not to drag her feet and wanting to all the same. There was no reason to think this was anything more than polite interest, and it provided her an excellent opportunity to sway him to her side. The photos weren’t just displayed at La Petite Bouchée; they were part of the restaurant. “This one.”
She pointed to the garden photo she’d taken when she’d first moved to Paris. She could still remember the day she’d taken it. A bad day when she’d been feeling lonely and lost, still working hard to be fluent in the language, and had just been thrown out of her first kitchen among extremely loud and spittle-laden cursing.
She