Seduced by Chocolate (4 page)

Sneaking a peek at her clock once more, she realized that now wasn’t the time for memories, but for getting her ass in gear and downstairs. The store was set to open in ten minutes and she didn’t have a moment to spare.

Rolling from the bed, Charly padded to the bathroom and took stock of her appearance. Her hair was wild and bedraggled, needing a good redo which wasn’t something she had time for this morning. In a fit of desperation, she went with the old woman’s standby: a ponytail.

Hair up and out of her face, she hopped into the shower. She enjoyed their combined scents, but she was pretty sure her customers wouldn’t appreciate the smell of sex with their chocolate.

Toweling off quickly, she made sure her nooks and crannies were dry before tossing on her normal “Charly’s Chocolate Factory” uniform of shorts and a “Charly’s” T-shirt.

A knock on the front door spurred her on, causing her to race through her makeup application and dash for the entrance to the shop. Since the light was dim this early in the morning, she flicked switches, heart racing, as she jogged from her apartment through the kitchen and into the main area of the store.

Charly slid to a stop just inside the shop area, and cursed a blue streak when she saw who was busting down her door just before opening time. “Damn it.” She stomped toward the door and threw one bolt after another to open the crystal clear glass door. The woman on the other side held two cups of what Charly could only imagine was freshly brewed heaven in a cup, and the woman knew it, too.

Charly would do nearly anything for a good cup of coffee…for something as good as the greatest Moonbucks brew. She’d even let her best friend and partner-in-crime in before the factory officially opened. “Come on, bitch. Get yer ass in here.”

The moment Mina stepped across the threshold, Charly locked the door up tight once again. Any other customers could wait a few moments while she got her coffee on.

“Moi?
Bitch?
Woman, I brought you the newest brew, the perfect thing to go with some shaved chocolate, and that’s the welcome I get.” Mina sniffed and turned her head away.

Woman could never act worth a damn. Though, the position of her head and body did give Charly a chance to be bowled over by her best friend’s beauty, and not for the first time. And certainly not the last. Mina looked like the perfect woman. Perfect hair that was never out of place, perfect pale brown skin that never had a blemish and a perfect body that didn’t curve too much like hers did.

Just damned perfect.

Charly sighed internally. And she was the perfect best friend to top it all off.

“Just give me mine and I’ll get you some chocolate shavings. Come on to the back.” She reached for her cup of joe and Mina pulled her hand back.

“Oh, hell no. Not till you tell me what’s got you glowing like the Fourth of July in the middle of December.”

Charly blushed, her face growing hot under Mina’s scrutiny. “I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

She reached for her coffee once again and Mina danced out of her reach, heading toward the employee area and the kitchen. “Oh, I think you do, ho.”

Charly followed her. Nothing to do but follow the whirlwind that was Mina. “No, I really don’t.”

“Woman, we’ve been best friends since we could crawl—”

“I wasn’t a baby two years ago when I moved in here, Mina.”

Mina waved away her objection. “Pfftt… Details.” She took another breath and a sip of her coffee before plunking it down on the kitchen counter. “It seriously needs chocolate.”

“You have chocolate sauce at Moonbucks.”

“Not freshly shaved dark chocolate with a dash of milk chocolate… Just sayin’.” Mina tilted her head. “Come to think of it, I was saying something else too.” She snapped her fingers. “Right. Your glow. You got laid or you masturbated. A lot,” her friend stated with a twinkle of mischief in her eyes. “And if it was the latter and not the former, I don’t want to know. Seriously. And I want to watch you wash your hands before you give me some choccy, either way.”

“Bitch.” She glared at Mina while padding toward the sink. After putting soap onto her palm, she turned on the water and washed her hands thoroughly, regardless of the fact that she knew they were free of sexin’ germs.

“Dirty ass ho. But how dirty is what I want to know.” Mina winked and held out the two cups when Charly had finished washing her hands.

With a sigh, Charly grabbed the cups and went to the cooler and pulled out the chocolate, shaving off a generous amount into each cup. “Here, bitch. And the answer is…sex. A lot. Messy and hot and damn good.” She almost moaned at the memory of Linc between her thighs, coating her in chocolate and then licking it all away. “Boy laid it down like never before and I can barely walk this morning. Happy?”

“Yes, but not as happy as you. Lucky bitch.”

Charly smirked and blew on her coffee, cooling the still steaming brew. “What can I say? He came in and conquered, and damn, but it was good.”

Mina plunked her cup down on the counter. “Wait. He was a customer? You don’t even know this guy?”

“No,” she said, exasperated by her friend’s conclusion. “He works here with the building management.”

“Uh huh. And what is the god of sex’s name?” Mina took a sip of the coffee…

“Linc Robinson.”

…then spat it all over her.

Charly froze, coffee mixed with saliva coating her from head to waist. “Bitch, there had better be a good reason for that.”

Mina wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, but Linc Robinson… He’s the new building manager.”

“Okay.” So, what was the big deal?

Mina pulled a letter from her back pocket and handed it over to her. “Read this.”

Unfolding it, Charly immediately recognized the name and address of her family’s shop in the upper left corner with the building management’s contact info just below that. Okay, so yeah, it was a letter from building management. “And?”

“Did you read it?”

“It’s just another bullshit letter from management. Probably about parking in your designated area or some shit.” Charly folded the note back up. “Who cares?”

“No, hon. Read it. Mr. Robinson from Gino’s Pizzeria just got one of these yesterday.” Mina pushed at her hand holding the note. “Read it.”

Rolling her eyes, she opened the note and read the typed words one by one. It didn’t take long to realize exactly what management wanted, regardless of what the letter said. Charly plopped down on a stool, coffee and chocolate forgotten.

“They want me out by the end of the month. It’s the twenty-fifth. They’re not renewing my lease. We’ve been here since groundbreaking.”

“Yup.” Mina pulled up a stool and sat across from her, elbow leaning on the counter.

“Where… Where’d you find the letter?”

“Taped to your front window. Notice who signed it?”

Charly licked her now dry lips and stared at the pristine paper with its watermark and gorgeous printing. Yeah, she’d read who signed it. Read it loud and fucking clear. “Lincoln Robinson.”

Tears burned her eyes, searing away whatever feelings had formed for Linc the night before. All of it, every whispered word and gentle promise they’d given one another, was now dashed among the rocks. This man ruined everything with one simple sheet of paper. Her heart shattered, breaking into a thousand tiny pieces. They hadn’t known one another long, but she’d felt something for the man…and now? Nothing. Nothing at all.

* * *

Linc seethed, staring at his administrative assistant, hatred and anger pouring off of him in waves. He knew he was overreacting, but, damn it, it’d been something and with one simple, conniving action it was turned into nothing. Nothing at all.

He glared at his assistant, Janet. “You mean to tell me you used my signature stamp to deliver eviction notices?”

“Well… I always…” Her hands fluttered, her voice faltered. “That is, it was on the agenda of the last manager th—”

“Do I look like the last manager? Did I give any orders? Any directives?”

“N-no,” his assistant stuttered, her face burning bright red.

“Just checking.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose, his temper riding high. He couldn’t fire his assistant. Then again… No, he couldn’t fire her. He’d just go around to the tenants that had received the notices and talk with them. Assure them that all was well and blah, blah, blah. The building management had once talked of evicting some of the tenants, but instead decided to talk to them about the “issues” the owners had to try and see if something could be negotiated before eviction took place.

Only now he was sure that whatever he’d been building with Charlene was well and truly destroyed by this woman’s one thoughtless act.

“Mr. Robinson, the owner of the pizza place, is in the reception area and he’s pretty pissed…”

He sighed. His visit to Charlene and Charly’s Chocolate Factory would have to wait for now. No way would he be able to sneak out of the office with another tenant in the waiting room.

“Tell him I’ll see him now. Send him in.” Linc trudged toward his office. “And you.” He pointed at his assistant. “Under no circumstances are you to use the stamp ever again. Understood?”

Janet nodded, a quick, sharp dip of her head, and Linc nodded in return, satisfied that she’d gotten the message.

Nothing he could do about Charly just yet. Nothing at all.

Some women turn to chocolate when depressed and drowning their sorrows. Charly turned to vanilla ice cream. Nary a bit of chocolate in sight. She gulped down another spoonful and then held out the carton to Mina, seeing if she’d like a bit.

“Nah. I actually like chocolate.” Mina dug into her carton of double chocolate fudge brownie ice cream.

Oh well, to each their own. Charly scooped out another bit of the frozen confection and downed the whole spoonful in one gulp.

“You know, it could have been a goodbye fuck,” Mina guessed.

Tears burned Charly’s eyes. She didn’t want to think of their time together as a quick fuck. Crazy? Absolutely. But there’d been something there between them. More than just a quick screw, but less than love. Just something… She sniffled. “It wasn’t. It was…”

“A one-night stand,” Mina cut in. “Charly, honey, don’t put more emotion into this than there really is. I know you’re not ‘Miss Night on the Town’, but you’ve got to admit…”

Charly glared at her friend, possibly ex-friend. “Mina, have you ever wanted a man so much you thought you’d die if you didn’t get your hands on him?”

“Oh, yeah, there was this guy in Vegas…”

She shook her head. Mina wasn’t getting it. “No, I mean…”
How to put this so she’ll understand.
“Okay, you run Moonbucks. What do you think of coffee?”

“Ew. Gross.” Mina wrinkled her nose. “I’m around it all day. I hate it. Unless you put chocolate in it…”

Okay, great, she had an analogy that would work. “So, have you ever met a man you’d lick coffee off of?”

“Oh, hell no, bitch. That man does not exist. Like anywhere. And if he does, he needs to stay gone, ’cause coffee equals gross.” Mina scooped another ball of chocolate ice cream out of her tub and swallowed it whole. Her friend shuddered, mumbling to herself. “Coffee. Gross. Ew. Nasty.”

“Mina.” She was serious now. Needed her friend to pay attention. When Mina focused on her, Charly continued. “I licked
a lot
of chocolate off the man.”

There, her big secret. It was out there and she wasn’t going to be ashamed of it. She’d done it and would do it again in a heartbe— Okay, maybe she wouldn’t considering what she knew, but if the man hadn’t been a snake in hot man’s clothing, she totally would do it again.

“You didn’t!”

She nodded. “I did.”

This apparently got her friend thinking. “Wow. You really met a guy you’d down chocolate for? Wow,” she whispered. “Just wow.”

Charly slurped up some vanilla ice cream. “Yeah.” She’d found him and lost him in twenty-four hours. Woo-hoo for her.

Mina lowered her ice cream to her lap, dumbfounded. “You found him and now…”

“Yup.”

“Wow.”

Dumbfounded friend needed to be replaced by “cheering-up friend” now.

“So, what are we gonna do about it?” Mina plopped her container of dessert on the coffee table and turned to face Charly.

“What do you mean ‘do about it’? Nothing.” There was nothing to do.

“Well, it’s not like he did it on purpose…”

“He signed the letter,” Charly deadpanned. “I think that was pretty purposeful.”

Mina waved her away. “Pfft. Whatever. Bitch, don’t you know how the corporate world works? I bet he was forced to—”

“By the signature Nazis?”

“Yes! Now you’re thinking!”

Lord, she needed help.

* * *

Lord, he needed help.

Every single letter elicited exactly the type of reaction he’d anticipated. Rage. A lot of it. Directed at him.
Thanks, Janet.