Blame It on Chocolate. Jennifer Greene

whisked off her jacket, she heard the housekeeper singing down in the laundry room and the sound of a vacuum upstairs. Didn’t matter. She knew where she was going. There were meeting places all over the mansion, but for small gatherings Orson always choose the sunroom—a six-sided room built of waist-high stone and then glass walls climbing to a hexagonal peak.

      She loved it almost as much as he did, and as expected, she found him ambling from window to window, enjoying every view. Orson was tall and lean, his face a rectangle of expressive wrinkles, his head balder than a pool cue. Never mind his age, he was still more full of hell than any ten men in her own age bracket.

      “Lucy!” His face lit up when he spotted her, and ignoring the employer-employee relationship entirely, wrapped an arm around her shoulders in an affectionate hug.

      “I’m sorry I was late. I don’t even have an excuse. Gordon told me you wanted me here at ten. I just got busy in the greenhouse.” She hugged back before stepping away, thinking that he always made her feel more like a co-conspirator than a minor underling of a major business magnate. He was shrewd and warm and as stubborn as an old goat. Possibly he’d been a bear to work for in his younger days, but Orson was using his retirement to go for dreams he’d never had a chance to when he was younger. And she was one of his happiest co-conspirers.

      “I guess we’ll forgive her, eh, Nick? Get yourself some coffee or tea from the table. The three of us need to have a powwow.”

      She swallowed quick before turning to greet Nick. Then wanted to swallow a second time.

      Nick had suit days and working-clothes days. Today he was in serious navy-blue, and he wore a suit the way a young Cary Grant used to, all careless grace and elegance. Usually she could handle him in a suit, because there was so much natural distance between her dirt-under-the-fingernails and his classiness that they might as well speak different languages. When he was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, though, she had to admit he made her heart thump.

      This morning, the sharp white shirt and formal navy-blue didn’t seem to do the distance-job. Her throat still went dry. Her pulse soared like a leaf in a high wind. He had his grandfather’s long rectangular face, the strong jaw, the strong cheekbones, the startling blue eyes. His hair was a thick dark brown, and no matter how ruthlessly he brushed it, it never lay quite straight. It wasn’t curly or wild exactly, more like it had an irrepressible rebellious streak. Just like him.

      Near anyone else, she didn’t worry about her appearance—between messing with dirt and chocolate, she just didn’t have a job requiring haute couture. Around him, though, she felt hopelessly conscious of her kid-like jeans and flat figure. She could put forty-seven style products on her hair and it’d still be fine and flyaway. She always chewed off her lipstick. If she could afford to shop on Rodeo Drive, Lucy had the sneaky suspicious she’d still end up looking like an all-American kid sister. Glamour just wasn’t her. And that was okay. With everyone else.

      “Nick,” she said warmly, “How’s your Monday going?”

      She’d fantasized about him all her life. Maybe technically she hadn’t met him until she hired on at Bernard Chocolates, but that was neither here nor there. He made her feel hot and achy the way she always dreamed a guy would make her feel. Every cell in her body, every pore, came alive when he was in the same room. His smile gave meaning to the word yearning. His eyes gave in-depth potential to the whole concept of lust.

      It was so tiresome.

      “So far, the Monday’s been a little wild. How’s yours going, Luce?” He handed her a mug, peach tea, a scoop of sugar, without having to ask. It wasn’t the first meeting they’d had together.

      It wasn’t the first time he’d been quietly considerate with her, either.

      Unfortunately, his being nice never stopped her heart from thundering, her eyes from looking, her pulse from hiccupping every time she was around him. She took her mug and settled on a chair next to Orson, hoping that she’d get a grip before she had to kick herself.

      In the beginning, she’d found her reaction to him kind of kicky. She hadn’t had a crush in years; it was kind of fun—and God knew, he was a sexy hunk, so why not enjoy it? But time passed. She was serious about her work, and both wanted and needed to be taken seriously—which he did. The crush thing just stopped being cute. It shamed her to respond in such an immature way to a guy who’d always been good to her—in a big-brother, thoughtful-employer kind of way. Nick Bernard may only be in his early thirties, but they might as well have been a century apart in experience and lifestyles.

      When she and Orson settled in the thick, soft upholstered chairs, Nick pulled over an ottoman and hunkered down, then motioned for his grandfather to start the dialogue.

      “Lucy…you know we’ve got our miracle. The quality of those experimental plants is beyond anything we’ve ever dreamed. But now it’s time to do something about it.”

      “Yes, sir.” This was exactly the subject she was expecting and she couldn’t agree more.

      “It’s not time to stake the company on it, or to put all our bets in one basket yet.”

      “Of course not, sir.”

      “But it is time to make a move. If this develops the way we hope, we’ll be buying land and creating an extensive cacao forest in several locations. But for now, we have ample space to put up five or six more greenhouses—enough expansion to play with some products and real production. Obviously we’ll want to stagger the plantings, so we’ll have varied ages and varied crops coming into production at different times.”

      “Of course, sir.”

      “I’m unwilling to take this off-property where there’s such a huge security issue. As I know you understand, word of what we’re doing could have an explosive effect on the Coffee and Sugar Exchange. We’re talking an immediate effect of millions, if not billions. But that’s potential. All we know right now is that we’ve got a taste of something that looks like gold. It hasn’t been completely tested.”

      She put down her tea. Somehow she couldn’t finish a hot drink to save her life this morning, but for darn sure, she was too excited to drink it now. “I know, I know. And I just totally agree with everything you’re saying.”

      “Well, good. Because this is really your brainchild, Lucy.”

      “Oh, no. Not really. I mean, I think of it as my baby—but you both know I only hired on after the whole experiment had been started. It wasn’t originally my experiment—”

      “Yes, but you’re the one who took it on. Who brought it to fruition.”

      “Only because Ludwig was such an incredible teacher.” She hadn’t forgotten the old man—Orson’s horticulturalist—who’d brought her into the fold, made mincemeat of her botany degree, and then taken the time to give her the intensive, practical education that mattered.

      “This is no time to be modest, Lucy. I know what Ludwig did. But I also know what you accomplished on your own in the last few years. More important yet, we know that we can completely trust you, right, Nick?”

      Lucy glanced at Nick, only to feel uneasiness stir. Whatever was on Orson’s mind, Nick clearly didn’t agree with his grandfather. His handsome face went still, his expression cool. “Yes. We trust you, Lucy.”

      He didn’t say but, but she mentally heard it. Orson continued on.

      “When we take all this public—several years down the road—I don’t know what kind of management setup we’ll need. Or what part you’ll want to play in it. But right now, we want to expand and yet stay private. Put serious money into more extensive experiments and yet not take untoward financial risks.” Orson leaned back and crossed his leg over a knee the same way his grandson did. “Lucy, I wonder how much you feel you could handle.”

      “Me?”

      “I’d like you to manage the project. Handle the labor to get the additional greenhouses up and running. Plan the planting program.