Better Than Chocolate

Hyperventilate! A bag, where was a bag? She couldn’t breathe. She was going to be sick. She needed chocolate! Her cell phone rang. The ring tone—Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape”—told her it was Cecily and she grabbed it like a lifeline. “Cec, we… Oh, I’m going to pass out. Where’s a bag?” She rifled through desk drawers, but came up all she came up with was an old cigar, paper clips, rubber bands and—what was this? A stress ball. She scooped it up and strangled it.

“What’s wrong?”

“We— The bank. Oh, my God, I can’t believe this!” Samantha wailed, and burst into tears.

Now she’d made so much noise that Elena had rushed into the office. “What’s going on?” One look at Samantha and the blood drained from her face. “Madre de Dios.”

“Get me chocolate,” Samantha panted, and squeezed the stress ball again. These things were useless. She threw it across the room and grabbed a fistful of hair as Elena rushed off to find a dose of restorative chocolate.

“Sam, tell me what’s going on,” Cecily demanded.

“The bank is calling in their note. As if everything wasn’t already enough of a mess. As if we didn’t already owe the whole friggin’ world! My God, what did I ever do to deserve this? Is it because I bossed you guys around when we were little? I’m sorry. And I shouldn’t have stood up Tony Barrone for homecoming. No, that’s not it. It’s because I yelled at Waldo.”

“Sam, please,” Cecily pleaded. “You’re scaring me.”

Be afraid. Be very afraid. What old movie was that from? Probably one where everybody died.

Samantha laid her head on the desk and pulled a newspaper over her. Now she understood why the groundhog went back underground when it saw its shadow. She wished she could dig a hole and pull it in after herself and never come out.

From a distance her sister called, “Sam? Sam!”

“I give up,” she moaned, pulling the phone under her paper tent and back to her ear. “I surrender. Match me up with a millionaire. I just want to lie around on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean and drink ChocoVine.”

“No, you don’t,” Cecily said firmly. “You’re not wired that way and you’d be bored out of your mind in a week.”

“I’m not wired for this,” Samantha whimpered.

“It’s going to be okay.”

Elena was back now, slipping an open box of truffles under the newspaper.

“Thank you,” Samantha said. She shoved a handful in her mouth.

Elena lifted a corner of the paper and peered under it. “What else do you need?”

“A new life.” Samantha pulled the newspaper off her head and forced herself to sit up and push her hair out of her eyes. “I’m fine,” she told both Elena and herself. “Just a temporary meltdown.”

Her secretary hovered, looking doubtful.

“Really. It’s okay.” What a big, fat liar she was.

Elena still looked dubious, but she got the hint and left, shutting the door behind her.

Samantha picked up her phone. “Okay. I’m okay now.” No, she wasn’t. Who was she kidding? Where were they going to get that kind of money?

“Maybe you could go over to the bank and charm the new guy in charge into giving you a little more time,” Cecily suggested.

They’d given her a little more time. Very little. “This is business. Charm doesn’t enter into it.” Damn.

“Charm enters into business more than you realize,” Cecily said.

Samantha sighed. “You’re right. I’ll have to go over there and talk to the new manager. Sweet Dreams is a vital part of the town’s economy. It’s in everyone’s interest for the bank to work with us and help us get through this rough patch.” That was exactly what she’d say to him. Rules could be bent if everyone benefited in the long run.

She took a deep cleansing breath and told herself she felt better already. Big, fat liar.

“There you go,” Cecily said encouragingly.

“And I’ll take him some of our wares,” Samantha decided. “Who doesn’t like chocolate?”

“Charm and bribery, a businesswoman’s best friends.”

Samantha sure hoped so. She thanked her sister for the shrink session, then buzzed Elena on the office phone.

“You okay now?” Elena asked.

“Yes,” Samantha lied. “Call down to Luke and tell him to put together the mother of all gift baskets.”

* * *

At 10:00 a.m. Samantha walked into the bank bearing a cellophane-wrapped basket filled to the brim with goodies from Sweet Dreams Chocolates. If this didn’t melt Blake Preston’s heart—well, then, he had no heart to melt.

Speaking of, there he sat at the manager’s desk in the far corner, a sandy-haired tackling dummy in a suit. Blake Preston looked more suited to a WWE Friday night smack down than to sitting behind a bank manager’s desk, deciding the fate of local businesses.

Lauren sent Samantha a welcoming smile from her teller’s counter, but the one she got from Blake Preston when he saw her approach his desk wasn’t quite so friendly. Wary would’ve been a better word for it. Even wary, it qualified for a toothpaste commercial. Whoa, that was some wattage, and she felt the electricity clear across the room. She couldn’t help checking his left hand for signs of a ring as he stood to greet her. None.

Never mind his ring finger or any other part of him. You’re here to do business.

She could almost hear her sister whispering in her ear, “Charm enters into business more than you realize.”

She donned her most charming smile and said, “Hi,” injecting her voice with goodwill. You like me. You want to give me a longer extension on my loan. “I’m Samantha Sterling from Sweet Dreams Chocolates. We went to high school together,” she added, hoping that would earn her some brownie points.

He held out his hand for her to shake. She took it and felt an even bigger jolt than she’d gotten from his smile. Maybe that was a good sign. Maybe they were going to hit it off. Maybe he’d be happy to grab a mop and help her clean up the mess she was in.

“I remember,” he said.

Right. You were older and too busy partying and cutting classes to pay attention to a nerdy underclassman. “I was just a lowly freshman, but you made quite an impression.” There, that was pretty darned charming if she did say so herself. “I thought you might enjoy some samples from the best chocolate company in Washington,” she said, handing over the gift basket.

He took it and stood there as if uncertain what to do with it. His computer and several piles of papers were taking up all the surface space on his desk. “Well, thanks. That was…nice. Have a seat.”

She sat and he sat, still holding the goodies.

“You’ll really like the chocolate-covered potato chips,” she said, pointing to her basketful of bribes. “Those are our newest product.”

“Interesting.” He shifted the fortune in chocolate sitting on his lap as awkwardly as though he were an old bachelor who’d just been handed a baby.

Okay, that took care of the charm. Next, she decided to play the sympathy card. “I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but we’ve had a few challenges in our business. We just lost my stepfather.”

“I heard. I’m sorry,” he said, and looked properly sympathetic.