Sinful Chocolate

“Gisella! Don’t tell me there’s a wild side to you.”

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” she sassed with a shrug of indifference. “Anyway, I’m no closer figuring out the recipe now than when I first started a couple of years ago, mainly because I have to rely on memory. But I will figure it out,” she vowed.

“So whose bones did you jump when you ate this magical stuff?”

Gisella’s smile faded when her mind tumbled back. “Robert’s.”

“Oh.” Anna sobered. “There I go shoving my foot into my big mouth.”

“Don’t,” Gisella said, waving off the apology. “The past is the past. All I can do is learn from it and move forward and create new memories.”

Her sister’s eyes narrowed on her. “Do you already have someone else in mind?”

“What? No!” Gisella lied, her face heating up with embarrassment. “I’m just saying that you never know what’s in the future. That’s all.”

“Humph!” As usual, Anna rolled her eyes at Gisella’s romantic fancy. “I already know what my future holds—a lot of romance novels and gallons of ice cream.”

Gisella laughed guiltily as she turned toward the refrigerator and took out the milk, butter and eggs. “As much fun as that can be, I’d much rather curl up to a warm body at night.”

“You’ll learn. Men aren’t worth half the trouble they cause. All a woman needs to be happy is a great career, some nice toys and a hearty stock of copper-topped batteries. Trust me.”

Masters Holdings now operated with a skeletal crew. Commercial and housing construction in Atlanta had slowly ground down to a complete stop in the last four years. While puffed up economists, Wall Street analysts and the same tried-and-true politicians argued whether the nation was in a recession or not, companies like Charlie’s were hemorrhaging money at a record pace.

When the first signs of trouble emerged, Charlie foolishly believed that his company could survive an economic slow down. But this was like a financial drought that was on the verge of wiping him out.

Not that it should matter anymore.

Charlie’s gaze drifted to his computer inbox and noted the number of messages from Dr. Weiner’s office in the last week. He sighed and waffled again over picking up the phone. Why was he putting off making the appointment for the bone marrow test?

He leaned forward and put his elbows on the desk. Maybe he just didn’t want to know the truth. He didn’t know how to go about the business of dying.

How was that for denial.

“Mr. Masters,” Jackson Boyett, Charlie’s executive assistant chirped over the intercom. “You have a call on line one.”

Charlie reached for the receiver, hesitated and then asked. “Who is it?”

“It’s your mother.”

Charlie’s heart dropped. He’d been avoiding his mother’s calls like the plague. Though a part of him was feeling incredibly guilty about it, another part of him knew it was vital not to let his mother even suspect that something could be wrong. But Arlene Masters’s intuition was always sharp as a tack.

Today was Tuesday, and Charlie and his mother had a standing Tuesday night date. If she didn’t have something planned at the senior center, his mother would usually cook him dinner. What was he going to tell her? What should he tell her? If he told her about his aplastic anemia, he knew she would move into his apartment before the end of the workday.