The Chocolate Lovers' Christmas

  Crush bangs me on the back and I cough some more. But I still don’t cough up the offending and potentially lethal chocolate. Now Crush tries standing behind me and performs his very own version of the Heimlich manoeuvre. My boobs burst out of my bra, but I’m still choking.

  ‘Think of it as a fur ball,’ he advises. ‘Make a gravelly noise. Gurgh. Gurgh.’ He does a passable impression of a cat sicking up a fur ball.

  I make a similar gravelly noise, but nothing happens. No fur ball. No chocolate.

  ‘This could be serious,’ Crush says, alarmed. ‘I’m taking you straight to hospital.’

  I manage to indicate my clothing. Or lack of it.

  ‘I’ll get you a coat.’

  I’d rather die than rock up in A&E looking like this. Then I realise that death might be a very real option, so I nod vigorously.

  So he throws my coat over me and hustles me towards the door. There is blind panic in his eyes now and I’m starting to be more than a little concerned, too. Is this how it ends? With me choking on a chocolate while wearing skimpy underwear?

  Crush bundles me into his car. Thankfully, the hospital with an A&E department is a minute or two down the road. I’m still making cat fur ball hawking noises to try to dislodge it.

  ‘Hold on, Gorgeous,’ he says. ‘We’ll be there before you know it.’

  So Crush drives like Lewis Hamilton in a bad mood, cutting up taxis and buses, until we reach the hospital. As there’s nowhere else to park, he throws the car onto a double yellow line and rushes me inside.

  ‘She’s choking,’ he shouts at the nearest nurse while I point helpfully at my throat and gasp.

  ‘Straight through,’ the man says and leads us into a curtained area. The burly nurse with a five o’clock shadow zips the curtain around us. ‘Take your coat off.’

  I shake my head vigorously. If it was a woman, I might think differently.

  Crush snatches it from me.

  Yet, if the nurse is surprised by my attire then he says nothing. The ultimate professional.

  ‘She’s swallowed a chocolate with a diamond ring hidden in it,’ Crush says.

  Have I? That makes me jolt upright and cough with surprise. The chocolate and diamond ring combo slides happily down my throat unaided.

  ‘I’ve swallowed it,’ I say hoarsely.

  For some reason, Crush looks relieved. ‘Are you all right?’

  I nod weakly.

  ‘Thanks,’ Crush says to the nurse. Who frankly has done nothing, but now stands here looking bemused. ‘I thought she was a goner.’

  ‘Maybe getting down on one knee would have been the way to go, mate,’ he suggests. ‘But congratulations.’

  ‘She hasn’t said yes yet,’ Crush notes.

  ‘Yes,’ I say.

  Crush laughs and takes me in his arms. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes.’ Tears fill my eyes. ‘Yes, please.’

  The nurse looks embarrassed now. ‘I’ll give you a moment to get dressed, Miss.’ He leaves, pulling the curtain behind him.

  ‘So are we actually engaged?’ I ask.

  ‘Well,’ Crush says. ‘I had planned for the ring to be on your finger rather than in your digestive tract, but yes we are.’

  I throw my arms round his neck. ‘I love you. Even though you nearly choked me to death.’

  ‘I might have known that it wouldn’t be straightforward with you, Lucy Lombard. Nothing ever is. But, despite that – and possibly because of it – I would very much like to spend the rest of my life with you.’

  We kiss in a manner that’s probably not quite appropriate in a hospital.

  When we break apart, I say, ‘What about the ring? How am I going to get that back?’

  Crush grins at me. ‘There’s only going to be one way, I’m afraid, Gorgeous.’

  When I realise what that way might be, all I can say is, ‘Oh.’

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  So the nice nurse advised me to take some laxatives and wait for nature to take its course. I have done just that. I’m lying in bed, unable to speak as my throat is swollen due to all the coughing, waiting for things to happen.

  Crush phoned Autumn as soon as it was light and asked her to take over at Chocolate Heaven today. Bless her, she was not only concerned for my welfare but selflessly agreed to help out. Honestly, where would I be without my girls?

  ‘Anything yet?’ Crush comes back into the bedroom.

  I shake my head and whisper, ‘No. I’ll take a couple more.’

  ‘You’ve probably had enough.’ He gives me a worried look.

  But I swallow two more laxatives. I want that diamond ring out of me and I want it out now.

  ‘Be patient. It might take a while,’ he advises as if he knows about these things.

  I wish it would hurry up as I want to be wearing it on my finger. After scrubbing it thoroughly in bleach, of course. Bleach doesn’t dissolve diamonds, does it?

  ‘I’m going to pop out to the chemist and see if they can give me something to help soothe your throat.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I manage to croak.

  ‘We don’t want both ends suffering at once.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I’ll be half an hour at most. Anything else you want?’

  I shake my head.

  Crush comes to kiss me. ‘Text me if you think of anything. Love you.’

  I lie still until I hear the sound of the front door slamming then, as soon as I’m sure that Crush has left, I jump up and grab the camera out of my wheelie bag. I need to upload the compromising photographs of me with Tarak and file them for safekeeping. Sometimes Crush takes his camera to work and there’s no way that I want these doing the rounds of Targa’s offices. They need to be deleted from the memory card as soon as humanly possible.

  Crush’s desk is set up in the corner of the living room and, as we’re currently sharing the computer, I need to make sure that I bury this deep. As I sit down my stomach starts to gurgle. Ah, finally, something seems to be moving. I can’t wait to see this diamond ring as I didn’t get a glimpse of it before I ate it. What a nice surprise it will be. Once cleaned.

  I hook up the camera and upload the images. Wow. They look pretty good. Pretty good in the sense that they’re quite candid shots, perfect for blackmail purposes should they ever be needed. I do look quite startlingly slutty in my underwear, though. No wonder that poor male nurse couldn’t look me in the eye last night. The one of me jutting my breasts towards the camera over Tarak’s head is particularly lewd. Blimey. I can hardly bear to look at it myself. Still, I did what I had to do, all in a good cause. I hope that Tarak now stops coming on to Nadia and lets her get on with her work and her life.

  Then I’m gripped by the most alarming sensation. It feels as if a whirlwind is whipping through my guts. ‘Oh, no. No, no, no. Not now!’

  I don’t even have time to unhook the camera from the computer before I have to make a frantic dash for the bathroom. Really, Mo Farah could not have covered my living room any quicker. I make the loo just in time. Thank goodness. Who knows what damage an internally lodged diamond could have done? Explosive is the only word I can think of to describe my current situation. My head is in my hands, ready to weep with relief, when I hear the front door open.

  ‘I’m back,’ Crush shouts. ‘Are you OK?’

  Oh, no. I’ve left the photographs open on the computer screen. No, no, no! How can Aiden fail to see them?

  ‘Yes,’ I call back, heart pounding. ‘In the loo!’

  Then I hear him say, ‘What the hell . . .’ and I know that he’s seen the very thing that I didn’t want him to see.

  The bottom might be about to drop out of my world but, thankfully, the world has stopped dropping out of my bottom for a moment. I jump from the loo and rush into the living room.

  Crush is stood frozen in front of the desktop, mouth open, eyes agog. In front of him is the worst photograph – the particularly lurid image of me pushing my boobs towards the camera above Tara
k’s shiny, bald head.

  ‘I can explain,’ I say.

  He turns to me, ashen. ‘This, I can’t wait to hear.’

  ‘It was for Nadia,’ I tell him. ‘Her brother-in-law has been coming on to her at work and she didn’t know how to stop him, so I thought—’

  ‘You thought?’

  ‘Well, it was sort of my plan.’ It sounds like a bad one now. ‘We lured him to a hotel and then, when he thought he was about to get down to it with Nadia and me, Chantal took some photographs.’

  His jaw tight, he asks through clenched teeth, ‘So why isn’t Nadia in the photo?’

  ‘Because I was the only one wearing . . . um . . . lingerie.’ His face darkens now and I realise that might not be what he wanted to hear. ‘The other girls were supposed to be in their skimpies too, but they all bottled it.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  His jaw tightens. ‘At some point they probably realised that it was a really stupid, stupid idea.’

  He looks as if he might explode. I don’t think I’ve ever really seen Crush angry before – not really angry – but he looks as if he might be now.

  ‘I’m not saying it was a great plan,’ I offer.

  ‘I don’t know quite what to say.’ Crush rubs his hands over his face. ‘I thought I could cope with you, Lucy. I thought all this ditzy shit would be fun. You might be infuriating, but you’re also kind of endearing.’

  That’s good, isn’t it?

  ‘I also think I’ve handled the fact that your ex-boyfriend is always somewhere lurking in the background remarkably well.’

  ‘Marcus is out of my life,’ I plead.

  Crush holds up a hand. ‘But this,’ he says, pointing at the screen. ‘I never know what you’re going to do next. Why did you think that getting naked with another man in a hotel bedroom was ever going to be anything but a seriously bad idea?’

  ‘I’m not quite naked,’ I counter.

  ‘You’re probably worse than naked. Look at yourself.’

  To be honest, I don’t really need to.

  ‘You liked it well enough last night,’ I point out a little petulantly.

  ‘But I thought it was for my eyes only.’

  ‘I did it for Nadia,’ I say apologetically.

  ‘And what do you do for me?’ he asks, bleakly. ‘When do I ever come in the equation? At what point do you ever consider what I would think? Why didn’t you tell me you were doing this? Did you think you were going to hide it from me for ever?’

  ‘Yes,’ I confess.

  ‘What the eye doesn’t see the heart doesn’t grieve over?’ He paces up and down while blowing out ragged, unhappy breaths. ‘Well, I have seen it and I am grieving.’

  I don’t know how we’ve come to this. Last night I was an engaged person, albeit with a slightly indisposed diamond ring. Now Crush seems to be questioning whether he wants to be with me at all.

  Panic starts to rise in me. ‘How can I make this right?’

  He shakes his head, seemingly robbed of speech.

  I’m on the verge of tears. ‘I’m sorry. Really sorry.’

  ‘You’re not, Lucy. You’re only sorry that I found out. You would have been quite happy to keep this secret from me.’ His expression is agonised and I realise that this is more than just a hissy fit. This is deadly serious. ‘I thought I wanted you to be my wife . . .’ His words tail away.

  My voice is so quiet that even I can hardly hear it when I ask, ‘But now?’

  He stares at me levelly and the love that I normally see in his eyes simply isn’t there. It’s gone. Perhaps for good. And it’s all my fault.

  ‘I need to leave,’ Crush says.

  ‘No.’ I grab his arm. ‘Don’t do this. We can talk about it.’

  ‘I need to be alone, Lucy. I need to think about this.’

  He goes into the bedroom and I follow him. Crush gets a bag out of the wardrobe and throws in some clothes.

  I can’t believe that he’s really leaving.

  ‘Is this because I swallowed my engagement ring? Are you cross about that?’

  ‘Oh, Lucy.’ He looks at me again. This time with something approaching pity. ‘Grow up.’

  ‘I’ll try,’ I promise. ‘I’ll try very hard. I’ll never do anything stupid ever again. Never. Cross my heart and hope to die.’

  His shoulders sag and, for a brief moment, I think he might change his mind. Then there is an almighty rumbling and groaning from my stomach.

  ‘Oh, no.’ From my experience of a few minutes ago, I know exactly what’s going to happen and I know that I have only a couple of seconds to make it to the loo. ‘Don’t go,’ I beg. ‘Please don’t go. Wait for me and we can talk it through. But I have to dash. This might be my ring.’

  Before he can speak, I bolt for the bathroom. As I sit on the loo waiting for my diamond ring to make an appearance, I hear the wardrobe door close, then the bedroom door.

  ‘Aiden,’ I shout. ‘I love you!’

  But I hear the front door close and even though I sit on the loo and wait patiently for nearly an hour, until both my bottom and my heart are numb, he doesn’t come back.

  Chapter Seventy-Three

  Nadia was dreading seeing Tarak after the weekend. She had half-expected him to text or call her to say that she needn’t come back into work, but she’d heard nothing. Perhaps that was a good sign.

  ‘Come on, Lewis,’ she said. ‘Auntie Autumn will be here to collect you in a minute. Have you brushed your teeth?’

  ‘Yes, Mummy.’

  ‘Coat on then.’

  She followed Lewis through to the hall and handed his coat down to him from the rack. As she did there was a knock at the door. Lewis jumped into Autumn’s arms the minute she was through the door.

  ‘Whoa,’ Autumn said. ‘You are so getting too big for this.’ She lowered him to the ground. ‘Or I’m getting too old.’

  ‘Hey.’ Nadia hugged her friend in a more sedate manner.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Autumn asked.

  ‘I’m fine,’ Nadia said. ‘Just a bit tired.’

  ‘You and me both. I’m dead on my feet. I had to step in at the last minute to work at Chocolate Heaven yesterday.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Crush proposed to Lucy on Saturday night . . .’

  ‘Really?’ Nadia brightened instantly. ‘That’s fabulous. I’m so pleased for Lucy.’

  ‘. . . but there’s more. He put the ring inside a chocolate and Lucy nearly choked on it.’

  ‘Nooo!’ Nadia laughed. ‘I shouldn’t find that funny, but it’s so like Lucy. Is she OK?’

  ‘She’s fine now. I believe she was permanently attached to the loo hoping for it to reappear, but other than that unharmed. I’ll catch up with her later and see how she’s faring.’ Autumn lowered her voice so that Lewis couldn’t hear. ‘Make sure that you take it easy today. There was far too much excitement on Saturday.’

  ‘Yeah.’ Nadia rolled her eyes. ‘I still can’t believe we actually did that.’

  ‘No regrets?’

  ‘Lots,’ she admitted. ‘It was complete madness. I can’t believe that we let Lucy talk us into it.’

  Autumn laughed. ‘There is no one quite like her. It was a rush at the time, but it’s probably catching up with you. Will you be OK going into work?’

  ‘I confess that I’m more than a bit nervous.’

  ‘I’m sure that Tarak will be fine. He seemed very contrite. But you know where we are. Any trouble, just call one of us.’

  ‘You’re a lifesaver, Autumn.’ She kissed her friend’s cheek.

  ‘Come on, Lewis,’ Autumn said. ‘We’ve got a date with the park.’

  ‘The proper park,’ Lewis observed.

  ‘Yes.’ Autumn smiled. ‘Normal service resumed.’

  Tarak was in the shop when she arrived and Nadia felt the urge to turn and run. It was only that there were a couple of customers that stopped her from bolting down Brick Lane.

/>   ‘Nadia,’ Tarak said, tightly. ‘These ladies could do with your help.’

  ‘I’ll be right there.’ She smiled at the customers, who were leafing through the racks. ‘Give me a second to take my coat off.’

  In the grubby staff room, she hung up her coat and shook out her hair. When she turned Tarak was standing right behind her and she jumped.

  ‘You didn’t have to do that, you know.’ He avoided looking directly at her. ‘You could have said no.’

  ‘I felt that I had. You weren’t listening.’

  He sucked in a breath and she was worried that he was blocking the way back out to the shop. There was just the two of them in here. What could she do if he decided to make things difficult for her?

  She summoned up her courage and said, ‘Is it going to be hard to work together, Tarak? If it is then I’ll leave now and you can explain it to Anita.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ he said. Though he didn’t sound convinced. ‘It was a misunderstanding. Nothing more. Just make sure that those photos never see the light of day.’

  ‘They won’t,’ she promised.

  Tarak flicked a thumb back towards the shop. ‘The ladies are looking for outfits for a Christmas party.’

  ‘I’ll go and help them. Straight away. Is Anita coming in today?’

  ‘Later,’ he said. ‘I’ll be out of your hair soon. I’m going to the warehouse to get some stock.’

  ‘We’re family, Tarak,’ she said as he went to walk away. ‘For Anita’s sake, we should be able to get along. In time we could even be friends. I’m prepared to give it a go, if you are. Let’s forgive and forget?’

  He nodded and said, non-committally, ‘Let’s see how it goes.’ However, she was relieved to see that he didn’t look quite so cross as he had a moment ago.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  I’m sick with worry. So sick that I have eaten no chocolate this morning. None. I fear I might fade away to dust if Crush doesn’t return my calls. I know the fashion is to play it cool, but I have left him a hundred begging messages on his voicemail and I’ve texted him a million times, too.

  But nothing. No reply.

  Sod it. I am going to have some chocolate. Calories are the best way to mend a broken heart. And heartbroken I very much am.