Better Than Chocolate by Sheila Roberts Read Free Book Online

with
this?”
    “Long story,” Samantha said, “and one I don’t want to tell.”
Having shut the door on a fresh lecture, she then shut her office door on the
world, plopped down at her desk and stared bitterly at the array of pictures on
the wall.
    Generations of successful family smiled at her. Great-grandma
Rose and her husband, Dusty, wearing their best clothes, stood in front of the
newly purchased building that would house Sweet Dreams Chocolates. Then there
was Great Aunt Fiona and Grandma Eleanor posing in their aprons behind the
counter of the retail gift shop in the fifties, and Grandpa Joe, smiling over
his shoulder for the camera while he worked the line in the factory with a young
José Castillo and George Loomis. There was a shot of Mom before she married Dad,
sitting at the receptionist’s desk. And one of her and Grandpa, displaying the
logo Mom had created for the seal on the candy boxes. There was Dad in front of
the store, posing with his three daughters, the whole Sweet Dreams team gathered
around and beaming. A caption beneath it read Success, How Sweet It Is!
    She felt sick. She laid her head on the desk and closed her
eyes.
    A moment later Gwen Stefani started singing on her cell phone.
Cecily again. Head still on the desk, she fumbled the phone to her ear. “Tell me
you’re calling because you had a vision of money falling from heaven.”
    “Sorry, no pennies from heaven. I had a feeling you might need
to talk.”
    What she needed was a rewind button. “I blew it at the
bank.”
    “What, did you walk in and shoot the new manager?”
    “Worse. I gave him chocolate.”
    “Bribes are good.”
    “And then took it away.” What the heck was wrong with her,
anyway? Was she having a psychotic break? Maybe she had multiple personalities
and didn’t know it.
    “Oh,” her sister said weakly. She could imagine Cecily falling
into a chair in her little pink office at Perfect Matches.
    “I started out charming, I really did,” Samantha defended
herself. “But then he just sat there looking all smug, repeating that he
couldn’t help me—like a big dumb parrot in a three-piece suit—and…I blew it,
pure and simple.”
    A sigh drifted over the phone line. “What would Dad say if he
was here?”
    He’d say, “What were you thinking,
princess?” Or maybe he’d say, “You should have punched the guy’s face in.”
Okay, probably not that.
    “I don’t know,” Samantha said miserably.
    “He’d say temper…”
    Oh, yeah, that. “…and good business don’t mix,” Samantha
finished with her. He’d told her that often enough, especially when she was
young and impetuous.
    And now she was so mature. Ha!
    There was a long moment of silence before Cecily asked, “Maybe
you should apologize to him?”
    “Apologize! As in, ‘Gee, Mr. Dragon, I’m so sorry I got mad at
you for breathing fire and devouring my village’?”
    “He’s trying to save the bank like you’re trying to save Sweet
Dreams.”
    Ever the mediator, Samantha thought sourly. “He’s just trying
to save his butt.”
    Her sister heaved another sigh. “Well, you’re the business
major. You know best.”
    “Oh, that was cute.”
    “Sorry. It’s just that, well, when it comes to business, you’re
usually more in control than this.”
    Samantha scowled. She hated it when her sister was right.
Samantha was the oldest. She was supposed to be the most mature, the one who
always knew what to do. Except when it came to Sweet Dreams, she seemed to lose
all perspective.
    “I wish I was up there to help you.”
    “I’ll be okay,” Samantha said with a sigh. “No more meltdowns,
I promise.”
    “Call me if you need to.”
    “Thanks I will. Meanwhile, go make some money.”
    “Yeah, I should go. I’ve got a match-up cocktail party to plan
and a client coming in ten minutes.”
    Finding rich men for beautiful women, throwing parties at
swanky restaurants—no wonder Cecily had opted for L.A. over Icicle