Runaway Bride

She could hear the church bells ringing in the distance as she sat in the backseat, tears rolling down her face. All the planning and hard work that went into today had finally paid off. There she was riding off into a permanent vacation all thanks to a slice of chocolate cake.

A few months ago, marriage was the furthest thing from Dakota's mind. But now, it was all she could think about. Ronaldo was an older man. Nice car, nice house, handsome if he parted his hair the right way. But her favorite thing about him wasn't his hair, his house, or his car, but his last name. Now it should also be mentioned that the Venedere’s were not good people. They fought to tax the poor and keep the rich rich. They supported hunting wild and animals close to extinction, never contributed to the community and treated their workers like dirt. Ronaldo Venedere was not only an heir to a company worth millions, he was the only heir or heiress in the family. Talk about putting all your eggs in one basket.

But one person’s poor planning is another person’s big opportunity. As soon as she was introduced to Ronaldo at a birthday party for some friend of a friend, she knew what she had to do. Within not even a month of dating she already had him right where she wanted. He was head over heels in love and willing to do practically anything she asked. Not just because he loved her but because he had the money to literally do anything she asked. And once she got a taste of that lifestyle, she knew there was no going back. But could she really rely on the power of love to keep them, and his money, together forever? Probably not. She was going to be his fourth wife already and after some intense internet research, Dakota realized they had all signed prenups. So what was a girl to do?

Well her endgame was get the money, drop the man. But how? A divorce a month or so after the wedding was tacky. Dakota was many things, but tacky wasn’t one of them. After going through her options, both ridiculous and plausible, she had decided. She was going to make her husband disappear. But she had to do it in a way that wouldn’t make all eyes fall on her. A woman dating a man twice her age already raised some questions. No, it had to look more like an accident. And what was more accidental than food poisoning? Well at least when it was a big and obvious mistake on the caterers part. Though there were some holes in Dakota’s poisoning plan, overall she’d given it more thought than most things she had done in her life. So that made it a winning plan in her book.

Over the course of their relationship she hadn’t paid all that much attention to facts about Ronaldo that didn’t have to do with the family business or money. Ronaldo was pompous and belittling when he spoke so there was only so much she could take. Dakota was pretty sure he had 2 aunts and one uncle and that he had attended either Stanford or Yale. But one thing she did know for sure was that he could absolutely, positively, not have any cinnamon if his epi pen was not close at hand. He was highly allergic to it and it didn’t take long for him to start reacting to it at all. So when she went to the bakery to go over the plans for the desserts and cake, she was firm. She was repetitive. No cinnamon was to go into any of the desserts. She even went as far as to ask to be there when they were making some of the desserts to be absolutely sure none of the bakers would use any cinnamon.

Because that was her job and she took it very seriously. As the bakers were doing their thing making small desserts and the big five layer chocolate cake, she waited for the perfect opportunities to do her thing and throw in pinches of cinnamon. Into the bowls, onto spoons, even onto one of the cookie trays. She also may have added extra pinches of vanilla to try to counteract the smell of the cinnamon. By the time the desserts were finished, she was sure she put enough to carry out her somewhat thought out plan.

And the night before the wedding, when Ronaldo traditionally had the loves of his life sign a paper that protected him from ever losing his fortune, Dakota was convincing the “love” of her life that they didn’t need one. It took almost all night, and a couple of bottles of wine, but she was able to convince him that he didn’t need any documents or protection with a love like theirs. She would never take advantage of him or his fortune because she loved him for him. And he believed her up until that moment where his body recognized the cinnamon going into his system and Dakota dipped her fork into their slice of chocolate cake and went to feed him another bite.

Now here she was. The happiest day of Dakota's life had finally arrived and her husband was nowhere to be found. Tears ran down her face and a smile slowly formed as she realized she had secured the fortune of a lifetime. She turned to the left and kissed the man sitting next to her. There she was, riding off into a permanent vacation with the love of her life who knows how to make a scrumptious, five layer cake that doesn’t taste at all like cinnamon.

You thought Dakota’s little pinches of cinnamon here and there were enough to poison a whole cake? Get real. Of course there was an insider, Dakota’s plan had too many holes in it and luckily she had a baker boyfriend who could clean it all up for her and help get them the life Dakota had always dreamed of. Or so they thought until they heard the police sirens behind them.