Jennifer Greene - Blame It on Chocolate

The truth was, that guilt had chewed on his nerves ever since the night—around seven weeks ago—when she’d called him with the news about her experiment’s success. Until that night, he’d had no measure of how strong her crush on him was. Until that night, she’d never been this awkward around him.

He’d screwed up. Nick took all the blame because it didn’t matter what Lucy had done. What mattered was that he’d been in a far better position, life-wise, to anticipate and cope with certain kinds of awkward problems. She was naive. He wasn’t. It was as simple as that, and although he’d been ultracareful around her ever since, it hadn’t helped. If they got a good working arrangement agreed on, though, he had high hopes they’d click a ton more naturally.

Right?

Right.

He pushed open the door, still mentally coaching himself into an upbeat frame of mind. She wasn’t expecting him for another half hour, but he knew she always got in early. With any luck, they could get this conversation finished before she was really busy—or he had to leave for his flight.

The lobby was empty and silent except for the pitiful moans of the Great Danes left outside the door. The lobby, predictably, was empty, but right after that came the long hall to the offices. Lucy’s was empty, but he heard the sound of her voice from the coffee room down the hall.

Reiko, the young mom of a four-year-old boy, seemed to be counseling her. “I just think you should go home. Get some rest, Lucy. You’re obviously exhausted.”

“Honestly, I would if I could get any rest at home. But he didn’t go into work today, so I know he’s still there….”

Nick hesitated just outside the door. He didn’t want to eavesdrop, but he also didn’t want to interrupt some personal, traumatic conversation. His pulse gave an unexpected buck at the idea of some man living in Lucy’s house—someone keeping her up all night, somehow making her afraid to go home.

“You don’t think he had an affair?” Reiko questioned.

“No, no. He’d never do that.” Lucy’s voice sounded wearier than a lead weight bell. “I just couldn’t sleep all night. He was up every hour, needing something—”

“You can’t work all day and take care of him all night, Luce.”

“I know. But I couldn’t turn him away in the middle of the night! And I don’t know whether to try to help the two of them. Or stay out of their problems. Whether to let him stay, or insist he find another place. So far it’s only been the one night, so I just can’t see doing anything until he gets his head on straighter.”

“You stayed with them forever.” The cadence of Reiko’s voice had a hint of her Japanese mother’s. There was a musical softness, a rhythm and gentleness—with steel behind it. “Where my father grew up, a child was responsible for his or her parents their entire lives. But this is America. There should only be two people in a marriage.”

“Yeah, well, as soon as I finally felt I could leave home, they almost immediately started fighting again.”

“But that’s not your fault. It’s theirs.”

“I know, I know. But that doesn’t help me figure out what to do about the situation now. I mean, would you have turned your own dad away—”

Nick had been becoming more and more confused until he heard the word dad. Finally it clicked. She’d been talking about her father. Not a man. Not a lover who may or may not have been having an affair, who was wearing her out at night with his demands, with…Nick swallowed hard. Ridiculous, to realize how high and hard his blood pressure was pounding over something that was none of his business to begin with. Reiko spotted him.

“Hey, Mr. Nick, how’s it going?”

“Fine, fine. How’s the little one?” he asked, referring to her little boy, but at that moment Lucy spun around and spotted him, too. She promptly turned peach-pink and dropped her porcelain mug…which, of course, promptly shattered in a half-dozen pieces, coffee spilling everywhere.

Talk about immediate chaos. Both women immediately yelped, and then both talked ten for a dozen as they ran around for paper towels or rags. Nick just scooped up the porcelain shards and carried them to the closest wastebasket, both women fussing the whole time.

“You’ll cut yourself, Nick—”

“Let me clean that. It was all my fault. Neither of you have to help—”

Okay. Once they recovered from that minor debacle, he managed to finally slip in a word. “I know I’m early, Lucy. But I just need a few minutes with you—” That wasn’t strictly true, but he figured if they started out with a productive, short meeting, they’d have a better shot working out the hairier issues the next time.

“Sure, sure, of course. But unless we need to be sitting at a desk, let’s walk toward the greenhouses, okay?”

He definitely liked the idea. It was always easier to walk and talk than to be stuck sitting still. Besides which, they had to go through the labs to get to the greenhouse area, and he always loved wandering through the lab. Bernard’s major manufacturing kitchens had similar equipment—conchers, winnowing machines and all. But everything was in smaller size here, with more done by hand. And the best part, of course, was getting to sample some cacao nibs or the latest experimental chocolates, or just poke a finger in whatever liquid concoction the staff was stirring up next—at least if someone didn’t slap his hand.

“Don’t touch,” Lucy scolded.

“The last I noticed, I own the place,” he reminded her.

“I know, I know. But every process in here is a serious secret. And touching anything could monkey with an experiment’s results.”

“Nothing’s supposed to be a secret from me,” he said, his eyes narrowing on a fresh batch of roasted shelled cacao beans in a tray on the far counter.

She steered him firmly toward the door to the greenhouse marked BLISS, saying patiently, “I know you’re the boss. But you’re just a teeny bit dumb, Nick, as much as we all love you. Your gramps has the touch. The understanding. The instinct. You don’t.”

“Hey,” he said, in his most injured voice, but he wasn’t offended—even remotely. It was always like this. Lucy was a wreck around him outside, or in the offices, or up at the house. But the closer she got to her own venue, the more comfortable and bossy she got—and the more fun. It was like watching the transformation from an obedient, boring Cinderella into a fine, confident, sassy wicked witch.

She key-coded herself—and him—into the greenhouse, then motioned him in first. “Now, Nick, I totally realize that you’re the brilliant one from the business side of the fence. Orson has told me a zillion times how Bernard’s was just a small-potatoes family chocolatier until you were a teenager and started nudging him with marketing ideas. And then taking the whole thing over. So I know you’re brilliant. But you need people like me to do the dirty-hands stuff—”

“You’re just saying that so I’ll stay out of the chocolate samples.”

“True.”

“I’m kind of offended that you think I’d mind getting my hands dirty. It’s not true. As a kid, I played in mud nonstop.”

“That’s nice,” she said as she smacked his hand one more time—he’d almost reached another sampling plate right before they entered the greenhouse wing. After slapping him, twice now, she just went on doing the miniature wicked witch thing—albeit in sneakers. “You just don’t understand how delicate the process is. You have no reason to. It’s not your problem. But everything has to be right.”

“You think I didn’t realize that?”

“Oh cripes. I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. Of course you know all that, but in your job, you need all that knowledge at an intellectual level. Where in mine…well, I just don’t know how anyone could do my job well if they weren’t an obsessively fussy perfectionist.” She said it tactfully, as if she felt sorry for him that he couldn’t have that character trait. “You also have to be messy. And those two things usually don’t go together. Which is why it’s so darn hard to create really good chocolate.”