1. Leo

1

LEO

Real men like chocolate. And they aren’t afraid to show it.

I have no shame over my love for this substance. I love it when it’s dark, when it’s bitter, when it’s semisweet. I love it slathered on ice cream; crafted into truffles, bars, and squares; or filled with nuts, fruit, or liqueur.

But there’s one form I can’t stand.

Chocolate fountains.

We’re talking the hardest of hard limits, especially here at The Big Chocolate Show in the heart of Manhattan.

As I head down the aisle in hot pursuit of the next rising star, I’m transfixed by a guy in the booth a few feet ahead. He has a bushy beard and gnarly hands, and he swipes his index finger through the chocolate stream in front of him.

Then licks said finger.

He wipes the chocolate drops from his beard.

And proceeds to lick that off his fingers too.

Shuddering, I jerk my gaze away from the Finger-Licking Good booth. This is worse than going to see the latest Ed Helms F-bomb laden comedy and getting hit with a preview for a “snowman came to life and eviscerated me with an icicle” flick. I don’t want horror trailers before my adult comedies, nor do I want to see cesspools of chocolate when I’m hunting for the next great chocolatier.

I adjust my cranberry-colored tie and turn into the Heavenly booth, admiring the classy layout, from the simple oak tables to the stone bowls the chocolates lounge in invitingly with silver tongs beside them.

Yes, tongs. Because chocolates should be distributed in public by tongs, not fingers.

With her usual cheery grin, our freckle-faced marketing director waves me over from her spot manning the table. Or womanning the table, as Ginny likes to say. She scans left, then right. Coast is clear. There’s a lull in the booth action. She drops her voice to a clandestine whisper. “Leo, I pilfered some goodies for you.”

“Ginny, you are brilliant and also quite nefarious.”

“I take that as the highest compliment, especially since when I was a little girl growing up in Sydney, I had secret dreams to become a chocolate thief.”

“Glad to see we’re making all your dreams come true.”

She slides a green ceramic plate at me then presses her finger to her lips, her heart-shaped necklace dangling perilously close to the table. “But I don’t want anyone to see you tasting someone else’s chocolate. It would make us look bad.”

I shoot her a look. “It would make us look like we were on a mad hunt for the next rising star to partner with.” As the exec in charge of business development, that’s exactly my role at this show—finding that person.

She waves off my reply. “C’mon. Play along with me.”

“Fine. Fine. Cover me, Ginny. I’m going in.” I glance behind me, like I’m checking for sniper fire.

“You’re all clear. Go for it. I’ve got you.” With a sly backhand move, she wields the tongs—God bless her—and drops a small truffle into my palm. “This is your kind of chocolate.”

“Do tell. What is my kind?” I take the chocolate, half-expecting her to say “bitter,” since she knows me well enough.

But her reply surprises me.

“Spice.”

I arch a brow. “Is that so?”

“Absolutely. You tell it like it is, just like a pepper.”

Laughing, I ask, “Is that what a pepper does?”

“Of course. All good peppers give it to you straight.”

“Then I will give this my true and honest appraisal, as if you’d given me Veritaserum.”

“I love it when you talk Harry Potter.”

“You only forced me to read them.”

Her jaw drops. “There was no forcing. That was love. That was only love I forced on you.”

“And several thousand pages of reading too.”

“That you adored.”

“I did,” I concede, since wizard battles rock, then I sniff the chocolate. It tickles my nose with a little hint of fire. I pop it in my mouth, the sharp, peppery taste tangoing over my tongue. “That’s a helluva kick.”

She pumps her fist. “I knew you were a spice. I have others for you to try too. But first, have you found our next rising star for our fabulous boss? She’s damn eager since the first partnership went so well.”

“No one who’s wowed me enough with his or her artisanal creations. Who does this deliciousness belong to?”

“I’m not telling you yet. You need to taste the others first.” She grabs another small square, placing it in my palm. “Try this one now. But smell it first.”

“As if I’d do anything but sniff it.” I draw a deep inhale, letting it fill my mind with . . . a most familiar scent.

Dark chocolate. A touch of vanilla. A little bit of coconut.

And like that, I’m thinking of her .

A woman who smelled like chocolate. I imagine she’d taste like chocolate too. I’ve wondered about her far too much for my own good.

As the memory of her scent floods my mind, I can see her face, her cheekbones, her mismatched eyes—one green, one blue. Or as she liked to say, one green, one not so green .

An impish smile.

She was bright, bold, and a little crazy in all the good ways.

She’d convince you to dance on the rooftop, climb the fence at Gramercy Park, and order the hottest dish on the menu even though you wouldn’t taste anything for days afterward. You only live once, she’d say. And when it came to chocolate, her favorite assessment was, “It’s so good it should be criminal.” Then she’d add, “But thank God it’s not.”

“Is it so good it’s criminal?”

At the sound of that voice, I snap to attention.

Am I hearing things? I spin around. Maybe I’m seeing a mirage.

Here she is now. The woman herself, in the flesh.

“Not that chocolate being illegal would ever stop you from eating it,” I say, since you can’t greet Lulu Diamond with a “Hello, how the hell are you?” or “It’s been forever.” Lulu must be greeted in medias res, and then you simply must keep up with her.

My eyes rake over her, drinking in the sight. She always looked like she’d ridden in astride a rainbow-colored unicorn while fireworks rained down on all of us.

Today is no different.

She’s decked out in an orange dress with sapphire-blue heels, and her Sarah Jessica Parker curls are piled high in a bun. She used to tell us she was mistaken for the actress, circa the Sex and The City years.

She gestures to the chocolates. “Nothing would ever stop me from eating my favorite treats.” Lulu glances at Ginny, meeting her eyes then pointing to me. “Also, you nailed it. Leo’s totally a spice.”

Ginny pats herself on the back. “Knew it.”

“But he’s also a coconut, don’t you think?”

“Is that so?” Ginny jumps right into it, like she went to the Lulu school of How to Talk to Strangers.

“You heard our entire conversation?” I cut in.

“It was either listen in or cover your eyes with my hands and shout boo! ” Lulu says.

“But that sounds exactly your style.”

“You have me on that one.” Lulu extends a hand to Ginny. “Lulu Diamond. I love your necklace, and you have the best hair.”

Ginny pats her red locks, her smile blazing as Lulu does what Lulu does—makes you feel like the center of the fucking world.

“Ginny Perretti. And you’re hired. For anything and everything.”

Just like that, Lulu is making best friends with whomever she meets. The woman I’ve known since that fated day ten years ago flashes a grin at my friend and colleague. “Excellent. I’ll be there tomorrow morning at nine a.m. on the dot.”

As a group of chocolate connoisseurs heads into the Heavenly booth, Ginny trains her attention on them. Lulu looks at me then smiles again. It’s the warmest grin I’ve ever seen, and with it, her boldness momentarily melts away. It’s replaced by something else entirely—a sweetness, a tenderness. She has that in her, too, in spades. “How the hell are you?”

At last, we can greet each other like normal people as we drop the rat-a-tat banter.

“I’m . . .” My voice trails off as I consider all the ways to answer her. Busy? Focused? Alone? Ambitious? Determined? Kicking unholy ass? Lonely? Escaping from the world? “I’m all good.”

“So glad to hear.” She glances around, surveying the aisles of the show. “I didn’t expect to see you here. It didn’t occur to me. That’s so dumb. Isn’t that dumb? Of course you’d be here.”

Laughing, I scratch my jaw. “I didn’t expect you to be here either. Maybe that’s dumb too.”

“I thought you were still in . . . Where exactly were you for the last year or so?”

“South America. I thought you were in California.”

She needed to get away from New York, far, far away, she’d told me the last time I saw her, nearly two years ago, through tears and mascara-stained cheeks.

“I’m here now. Now you see me.” She gestures to her trim frame. She’s a sexy carrot today.

“You look . . . great.” That’s the understatement of the century. She’s always looked fantastic, but the happiness in her eyes has been restored. At least I hope it has.

For a moment, her smile slips off, and in that sliver of time, I can see all the ways the last decade didn’t go how she expected.

How any of us expected.

I blink away the past, shucking off the pangs of regret. Fuck regret. I hold out my arms for a hug.

She moves in closer, and I tense for a moment. But as she embraces me in return, I don’t feel what I used to feel.

I swear I don’t.

Years of training has paid off.

Lulu Diamond, I am so over you.