The Chocolate Lovers’ Wedding by Carole Matthews

bedroom,’ I remind him. ‘Not behind the counter of a small café and chocolate emporium.’
‘Oh yeah.’ He winks at me. ‘I remember that too, now you come to mention it.’
I abandon my brownie – that’s how bad it is – then I pick up my wig and my sunglasses. ‘I need to think about it. I need to discuss it with my fiancé .’
Marcus does flinch at that. He reaches out and touches my arm as I go to leave. ‘I’m begging for your help. Only you can dig me out of this hole. Please don’t let me down.’
‘I’ll call you,’ I say.
I walk out of Chocolate Heaven. I either return here as the manager or I never come back again. The choice is as stark as that. And you might think I’d be happy that the boot is on the other foot for once – that Marcus needs me more than I need him. Yet all I can think of is the number of times he’s let me down in the past. I so want to believe that we could work together and get my old job back on a wonderful salary. It’s very tempting. But is Marcus Canning nothing more than a power-crazed, cheating bastard who still has his sights set on my heart? Can he really have changed this time?

Chapter Nine
    Another day, another inferior café that isn’t Chocolate Heaven. We are all sitting staring miserably at the measly offerings on our plates. Sadly, Chocolate Lovers’ Club meetings aren’t quite what they used to be. I’m not even going to describe this place to you as, frankly, it’s too flipping depressing.
    ‘We have to up our game,’ Chantal says. ‘We are failing to maintain basic standards here.’ She scowls at the soggy, chocolate-free shortbread in front of her. ‘The only plus side is that I’m losing loads of weight. I’m finally back in my pre-baby clothes and then some.’
I glance up nervously. ‘I could go back to Chocolate Heaven.’ ‘No.’ Chantal is vehement in her objection. ‘Absolutely not.
    We will find somewhere else. Don’t do it.’
‘Marcus is desperate,’ I venture a little more boldly. ‘I went
there yesterday and it’s looking so neglected. It breaks my heart.’ ‘Oh, Lucy,’ Nadia says. ‘I know you really want to do this,
but Marcus would wrap you round his little finger again in no
time. You can’t say that your life hasn’t been a lot easier without
him in it.’
Never a truer word has been spoken.
‘What does Crush say?’ Autumn asks.
‘He’s never going to be mad keen on anything that involves
Marcus,’ I confess. Which should tell me something. We look around at our miserable surroundings. Worn wooden
chairs, scuffed flooring, no wonderful chocolates. There’s only
the whiff of cleaning products in the air rather than the heady
scent of vanilla and cocoa.
‘There are thousands of cafés in London,’ Chantal protests. ‘Yes, but they’re all ghastly, impersonal chains and we need
somewhere intimate and quirky.’ One exactly like Chocolate
Heaven.
‘We just have to find the right one,’ Chantal insists. ‘We did find the right one. The perfect one,’ I point out.
‘And it was cruelly taken from us.’
‘Bloody Marcus and his meddling,’ Chantal says. ‘He’s the
cause of all the misery in your life. Never forget that.’ ‘He’s offered me a massive salary.’ I pull a discontented face.
‘Ridiculously massive. It would go a long way towards paying
for our wedding.’
‘If you let Marcus back into the mix, you might never get
to the altar,’ Autumn says. And Autumn never sees the bad in
anyone.
‘If you could only go there and see what’s happened to it in
our absence, you might think differently. There’s a horrible,
surly French woman behind the counter. She didn’t even say
hello. She just threw my coffee and brownie at me.’ ‘This woman doesn’t happen to be extraordinarily beautiful,
does she?’
‘Er . . . yes,’ I admit.
‘There you go. If Marcus appointed his management with
his brain rather than his cock, he wouldn’t be in this mess.’ ‘I think he’s realised