In the Age of Love and Chocolate (Birthright #3)(37)

Sophia snorted as if it should be obvious. You must understand that Sophia thought everyone was against her.

“Sophia, I did not ask her. She asked me.” I looked at my hands. “Did you want me to ask you?”

“No. Why would I want that? I’m disappointed that you would choose to socialize with such a fake person. I thought you were better.” She stood up and left.

The next time I saw her, she did not mention Phil, and I thought the matter had been forgotten.

The day before the dance, Sophia was not in classes. I went to the dormitory to find her. The girl who lived across the hall from her told me she had gone to the infirmary with a case of food poisoning.

I went to the infirmary to see her, but she wasn’t there either. The poisoning was so severe she had been moved to a hospital.

As the hospital was off campus, the school would not let me visit her until the next evening. When I got there, she was hooked up to an IV. She had been vomiting the entire night. She looked very pale, very weak, but her eyes were sharp. “Sophia,” I said, “I was worried about you.”

“Good,” she said. “That was the point.”

“There is no one in the world more important to me than you, except for my family,” I said. You must remember, I was a boy far from home, and when we are far from home, friendly intimacies seem even greater.

She smirked at me. “Silly boy,” she said. “Your dance is tonight, is it not? You’re missing it.”

“I don’t care,” I said.

Her father was a lesser chocolate manufacturer in Germany—you know this, I imagine. But the way he got into the business was as a chemicals manufacturer. From the time she was a little girl, Sophia Bitter knew a lot about poison.

Yuji began to cough. His face was turning blue. “Should I call a doctor?”

He shook his head. In a minute or two, though it felt much longer, he was fine.

“What exactly is wrong with you?” I asked.

“We will come to that part of the story soon.”

“Did Sophia poison herself so you wouldn’t go to the dance with that other girl?”

“Very good, and yes.”

“Were you angry?” I asked.

“I wasn’t. I understood her. I was young, and at the time, I took it as a sign of the great love she had for me. I felt—and still feel to an extent—that that kind of loyalty should be prized.”

I cannot say that I was swept-off-my-feet in love with Sophia. Perhaps I am incapable of that kind of love. But I know that we would have done anything for each other and that she knew my secrets and fears, and I, hers. We were intimate in every way two people can be intimate.

We graduated from school. My father had died and I went to take over the Ono Sweets Company. She left to make a name for herself at the Bitter factory. The reason the Bitters had always struggled is because their chocolate tasted rotten. An education in chemicals is not necessarily the optimal background for making quality chocolate. She hatched a plan to distinguish the Bitters by making inroads into the American territory. Since the death of Leonyd Balanchine it was known that the American chocolate business was weak, and Ivan Balanchiadze, who is a loathsome man, had all but washed his hands of the American operation. Your father and my father had been friends, so Sophia asked my counsel. I suggested that she arrange a meeting with Mickey Balanchine, who had been a handful of years ahead of us at school. It seems they hit it off, and the next time she called me, she told me they were engaged.

It was, I believe, a political marriage on both sides. Your cousin probably believed he was strengthening his position in your family with a strategic alliance.

“I have a thought, Yuji,” she said to me one night when I was in Germany. “What if I create a small incident in America?”

“An incident?”

“Timed with my arrival, there could be a problem with the American Balanchine supply. I sweep in as Mickey’s fiancée and suggest replacing the Balanchine supply with Bitter chocolate.”

“What kind of problem?” I asked.

“The kind I’m good at making.”

“Innocent people could die,” I said.

“No one will die. We’ll tip everyone off before it comes to that.”

I thought it was too risky. And as I mentioned before, your father and mine had been friends. I had no particular interest in seeing the American Balanchines brought down.

“I need your help. Please, meine Süßer. I can’t do this alone. It will be your wedding present to me.”

I did not refuse her.

A month or so later, she called me. “It is done, Yuji.”

I came to New York for her wedding.

“It’s ridiculous,” Sophia said. “Mickey is an idiot. I can’t stand these people. I detest this country. A couple of years will pass. I’ll divorce him. I’ll marry you. I’ll run the Balanchines and the Bitters. We’ll have everything we always wanted.”

You might wonder if I was sad to see my dearest friend married to another man.

I should have been, I suppose.

But I happened to meet the daughter of Leonyd Balanchine that afternoon. I speak of you.

We had met once before but you had been a little girl then. At the wedding, you were almost an adult—a young adult, at least. Very tough. I liked you. And Sophia’s poisoning of the Balanchine supply had had an unintended effect. It had made you the star of the American Balanchines. Everyone that afternoon was watching you. Could you feel their eyes?