Dark Chocolate Murder Read Free

promotion.  He had convinced her that the hours would be too long and erratic.  He told her he was ready to settle down and wanted a wife with a nine to five job.  At 33 and eager to marry, Belinda had quit her job at the hotel and fallen prey to the corporate grind.  Even during the best days of her marriage, the few that there were, Belinda had regretted the decision.  Since her divorce, Belinda was slowly becoming embittered from her bland job and didn’t like the taste at all.
    “Baking?” Justin repeated, amused.  “Gotta watch the waistline.”
    Belinda flinched.  Although she was not slender, she considered her body beautiful.  She was proud to be shaped like the voluptuous Hollywood stars of yesteryear who looked like women, not malnourished stick figures.
    “My wa istline is just fine, thank you,” Belinda said with a false smile.  “I guess you prefer the waif supermodel type?”
    “Can’t blame a man, can you?”
    Belinda didn’t respond, but instead chose to remember all the catcalls and doting attention she had received from men over the years, men who went gaga over her lush curves.
    “Let’s order, ” Belinda clipped.
    As she stared at the menu, she dared to revisit a dream she hadn’t contemplated in years.  Tucked away in the hidden recesses of her mind was a fantasy that seemed too incredible to ever happen.  Opening my own chocolate shop.   The words danced around playfully in her head, and she smiled at the prospect of it.  Then she frowned, wondering all of a sudden what was holding her back.  She was single again, had a fair amount of money saved, and was stuck in a job she deplored.  What’s stopping me?
    Years of watching The Oprah Winfrey Show had taught her the importance of a woman’s “aha moment.”  She felt very strongly that she was having one of those right now, in this stuffy restaurant, sitting across from a man she wanted to send on a boat to Antarctica.
    What’s stopping me?  The question would not leave her alone.  All throughout the painful dinner date, that one question silently tugged at Belinda as though leading her to some unknown but inevitable place in the future.
     
    *****
    “ Bonjour, ma soeur ,” Belinda greeted her younger sister, Crystal, for their weekly Sunday phone call.
    Across the Atlantic Ocean, Crystal replied, “ Bonjour! Tu me manques beaucoup .”
    “I miss you so much, too, ” Belinda answered sadly.
    Ever since Crystal had married a French businessman and moved to Monaco two years ago, the sisters had only seen each other once.  Crystal and her husband, Jean-Jacques, had flown into Boston to attend a relative’s wedding.  But since then, the close-knit sisters had been forced to communicate only by phone, kept apart by thousands of miles and different time zones.
    “Then why don’t you finally visit?” Crystal implored.  “You need a vacation!  When was the last time you took any time off from work?”
    Belinda reflected on that for a moment.  The last day off she had was in February when she came down with a nasty cold.  But before that?  She couldn’t remember.  And the memory of a vacation was even hazier.  Belinda thought in disbelief how her last vacation had been…her honeymoon?  Was that right?  She and Daniel had gotten off to a rocky start on their stressful honeymoon in Wyoming.  Pigheaded Daniel had insisted on going camping and roughing it in the wilderness. Belinda loved nature but had always pictured her honeymoon in a more romantic and relaxing venue than the inside of a vinyl tent.
    “You know, I do need a vacation!  And I would love to see Monaco.  Maybe I could even kick my high school French up a notch,” she laughed.
    “That’s my girl! Let’s plan your trip right now!” Crystal enthused.
    “Slow down, Crystal.  Actually, I wanted to talk to you about something.”
    “Is Daniel bothering you again?  Tell him you don’t want to get back together!” Crystal said