Truffles and Troubles: Book 1 in The Chocolate Cafe Series Read online

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  TRUFFLES AND TROUBLES

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Truffles and Troubles

  Book One in The Chocolate Cafe Series

  By

  Valley Sams

  Copyright 2016 Summer Prescott Books

  All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication nor any of the information herein may be quoted from, nor reproduced, in any form, including but not limited to: printing, scanning, photocopying or any other printed, digital, or audio formats, without prior express written consent of the copyright holder.

  **This book is a work of fiction. Any similarities to persons, living or dead, places of business, or situations past or present, is completely unintentional.

  Author’s Note: On the next page, you’ll find out how to access all of my books easily, as well as locate books by best-selling author, Summer Prescott. I’d love to hear your thoughts on my books, the storylines, and anything else that you’d like to comment on – reader feedback is very important to me. Please see the following page for my publisher’s contact information. If you’d like to be on her list of “folks to contact” with updates, release and sales notifications, etc…just shoot her an email and let her know. Thanks for reading!

  Also…

  …if you’re looking for more great reads, from me and Summer, check out the Summer Prescott Publishing Book Catalog:

  http://summerprescottbooks.com/book-catalog/ for some truly mysterious stories.

  Contact Info for Summer Prescott Publishing:

  Twitter: @summerprescott1

  Blog and Book Catalog: http://summerprescottbooks.com

  Email: [email protected]

  And…look up The Summer Prescott Fan Page on Facebook – let’s be friends!

  If you’re an author and are interested in publishing with Summer Prescott Books – please send Summer an email and she’ll send you submission guidelines.

  TRUFFLES AND

  TROUBLES

  Book One in The Chocolate Cafe Series

  PROLOGUE

  Her son’s friend was obviously raised with no manners whatsoever. Victoria Dunleavy could recognize his lack of breeding the instant he walked into the solarium. Even through an admittedly heavy dosage of sedatives, she determined almost instantly that he was not only from lower stock but had been raised with no respect for social niceties whatsoever.

  She raised the carafe of lemonade, doing her best to not spill. Had this crystal thing always been so heavy?

  “Lemonade? I’m sorry, I forgot your name?” She spoke to the poor unfortunate who had sprawled himself across her antique sofa. His legs were spread wide, taking up so much space that her own son was practically stuffed into the corner.

  “Mark. His name is Mark. I covered that already, Mother.” Cameron spoke in the condescending tone of someone forced to communicate with someone of lesser intelligence—patient and annoyed at the same time. Victoria failed to recognize that her son spoke to her using the same disdainful attitude with which she regarded his uncouth friend, Mark. He glared at her, both arms and legs crossed.

  Such a handsome boy, even without Victoria’s conventional beauty. With high cheekbones and dark eyes, he resembled a shark with impeccable bone structure. She had to admit, as much as it secretly peeved her, that her son’s beauty was strange—intimidating, like some kind of pale Saxon prince. She was relieved that she had popped those two pills before his arrival.

  “Of course, Mark.” she said, “Forgive me. My memory isn’t what it used to be.” She attempted a light laugh. She then tried to pour the lemonade, but the ridiculously heavy carafe slipped from her control like a struggling cat. Lemonade splashed everywhere.

  The Mark boy was up at and at her side in an instant. His large, lineless hands wrapped around hers, steadying her grip.

  “That’s better.” Victoria breathed. When he was this close, she could get a better look at Cameron’s roommate. Perhaps he wasn’t the bad influence she’d initially believed.

  He smiled at her, “I’m happy to help,” he said, gently. “It looks delicious.”

  Victoria took the glass Mark offered her and took a sip. She was sure that it was cold and sweet, but as her taste buds were in the grip of her little chemical helpers, it could have been anything.

  “Mother has a whole grove of lemon trees she imported from Italy. Don’t you, mother.” Cameron spoke without looking at his her. He lazily stared around the glass-walled room, scratching his regal nose in severe boredom.

  “Is that where lemons come from?” Mark asked. Victoria spun herself toward the right side of the atrium, sending a wave of lemonade to splatter onto the floor. She didn’t notice.

  “Well, the Italians grow the best lemons, dear. I had them plant the grove right over there so I can smell them when they blossom through my… bedroom…” her stumbling words tapered off as shouting suddenly filled the room.

  The sound of a man’s voice, distressed and high pitched, came from behind the doors that led into the house.

  “When you give me a date, you give me a date. I don’t care who didn’t speak to whom or who didn’t pay you on time. I have tenants needing these repairs. You…”

  The three in the conservatory stood frozen during a loaded pause. Victoria turned a shade of parchment and she wavered for a moment.

  “Oh dear. Again?” she breathed. Mark took the glass from her hand and steadied her once again with those large hands of his. How could she ever have thought him ill mannered?

  “Again?” Cameron spoke, his voice low.

  “No!” Victoria’s fiancé, a diminutive man named Brad, began to yell again, now with even more force. “I won’t be threatened. Not by a deadbeat. That’s what I said. Now… I expect it done by this weekend or not only will you not be paid, but you’ll never work again. I can destroy you. You know this. I can ruin you.”

  Victoria’s poor, sedated heart tried to accelerate in her chest –pushing for that extra effort to help her register panic. Her hands fluttered up to her neck where her veins visibly pulsed.

  “Not again. Oh, that awful man.”

  “Mother.” Cameron took his mother’s cashmere-clad arm and helped her to the couch. “Who is it? Who is Brad talking to like that?”

  Sitting with the two young men on either side of her, Victoria did her best to pull herself together. Maintaining serenity was getting harder and harder with every one of these confrontations.

  “Bradley isn’t a young man, you know.” Victoria shook her head, “These people he hires to help. Some of them give him such grief. Give us such grief.” She dabbed a few tears carefully away from her perfectly made-up eyes.

  “How long has this been happening? I could ask Mark to talk to them. Couldn’t I, Mark?”

  Mark nodded, his eyes on the door, as he listened intently to the shouting behind.

  “Of course not, Cameron.” Victoria sat up straighter, horror that her son should have to resolve the matter giving her some of her strength back. “He can handle his own affairs. You have enough on your plate with school. My Yale man.” She patted him awkwardly on his leg, her bracelets tinkling as she did so.

  Brad’s shouting grew fainter as he moved from the door and deeper into the house. When
it was finally silent, Victoria drew a deep breath and smiled at Mark gratefully.

  “Some people,” she said, “There’s no pleasing them.”

  ***

  The two young men stood outside the estate, dwarfed by the sprawling entranceway. The house spread around them like the lifeless limbs of a giant, dead spider.

  Finally away from his family, Cameron reached into the back of his black jeans and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. Wordlessly, he slipped one between his lips and handed the squished box to Mark. He began to walk down the stone steps toward the roundabout driveway where his car waited for them.

  Mark wasn’t quite finished admiring the view. Lighting his smoke and stuffing the pack into the inner pocket of his team jacket, he turned to survey the mansion behind him. He knew Cameron was rich. Hell, everyone knew Cameron was loaded, but this was a whole other level .

  “This is like Donald Trump rich.” Mark grinned, aggressively exhaling. “This is crazy, man. No wonder you’ve got that car.”

  Cameron shrugged, “I need a new one.” He scraped his feet in the gravel as he made his way toward his silver Porsche. “This one’s getting boring. Come on…”

  Mark, now away from Cameron’s doped-out mother and raging future stepdad, felt free to express himself for the first time that afternoon. He hopped down the steps, tossing his blond bangs back like a prize pony.

  “I would kill for a life like this. All this money? All this stuff?” he ran to catch up with his roommate, “Dude, when I am done with this scholarship and deep in the major leagues, I’m going to buy this place out from under you.”

  Cameron scoffed, “Oh you think so do you, Trailer?” He watched for the flicker of rage that passed over Mark’s eyes every time he called him that. Cameron knew his friend had been raised in a trailer park as squalid as his own home was magnificent. When Cameron had been hiding in his room to get away from the photographers of Architectural Digest as a child, his roommate had been hiding from his mother’s drunken boyfriends behind a plastic accordion door somewhere. “We better get you back on the field swinging that little bat of yours then…”

  “Tell you what.” Mark squashed the cigarette under the heel of his worn down sneakers. He opened the passenger side of the Porsche, glaring at Cameron. “I could just work my way into your mother’s affections. Not only would all this be mine,” he swept his muscular arm to encompass the sprawling property. “But I’d have you both calling me daddy.”

  It was Cameron’s turn to anger. However, unlike his unpolished companion, he had years of experience hiding it. Rather than the hotheaded look that contorted Mark’s face when he was angry, Cameron cocked his head to the side and smiled the smallest, most delicate smile imaginable.

  “Isn’t that a lovely picture?” His cigarette still burning, he swung into the driver’s seat and started the engine.

  Mark sat down beside him, wondering, “Shouldn’t you put that out? You’ll gross up the car. Burn the upholstery.”

  “Like I said.” Cameron’s shark eyes darkened again, mesmerizing Mark. Never breaking his gaze, Cameron stubbed the smoke out on the dashboard. The smell of singed leather filled the car.

  “I need a new one.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  The smell of chocolate has a particular effect on the mind. All scents do, of course, but there is something about the heavy, complex tang of chocolate that speaks to a deeper and more primal level of a person’s brain. Whereas the smell of broiling steak can cause the mouth to water, the smell of chocolate seems to bring a response that goes beyond visceral.

  Really, the only thing that Catharine Mackenzie could compare her reaction to chocolate to was physical lust. That smell was a physical and intellectual stimulant equaled only to that moment when someone touched you the right way or looked at you like they’re ready to pleasure every last inch of your being. Of course, Mac wasn’t the most reliable when it came to that comparison. Her sex life was as dusty as the cabinet she was currently tidying up.

  Catharine was far from unattractive. She was just continually occupied—especially lately. That’s not to say she wasn’t busy prior to moving back to Mackenzie Bay. For the past three years, she had been fully immersed in her undergraduate career at Harvard. A Harvard degree was all her late grandfather had ever wanted for her. And really, when the mayor of the town is your only guardian and he’s been priming you since childhood, what else could you do?

  Of course, her studies had to be put on hold when he passed a few months ago. She left her tiny dorm room and her few friends to return to her hometown and the house she had grown up in. And how it had all changed…

  Mac stopped her dusting and stood at the window to look out onto the city street. What had always been a charming Victorian town was rapidly becoming a creepy, Pixar version of itself.

  Generally, the damp from the nearby ocean did an excellent job of causing paint to peel and roofs to crumble in a way that made the town grow more alive with every storm rather than weaken. Now everything was shiny, bright and frankly… soulless. Mac placed her hand on the warped window. It was original glass from 1800-something and she had fought against replacing it.

  “It’s not safe,” Mrs. Dunleavy, their landlord, had warned her. “This whole area has to be upgraded. It’s a new Mackenzie Bay now that your grandfather is gone. You can’t stand in the way of progress!”

  Let the rest of the town renovate the character out of their little shops, Mac thought. She intended to celebrate every original detail and every lovely little flaw as loudly and for as long as she could.

  Of course, it was easy to overlook the cracked plaster when the shop smelled the way it did. Lust, Decadence, and Joy… like some endorphin-pumped law firm.

  “You should look more exhausted.” Mac jumped at the sound of her friend’s voice.

  “Don’t do that!” She threw the dust rag at Sabrina, who stood near the back counter, bike helmet tucked under her arm. Her hair was piled into a bun reckless enough to shame any carefully constructed hipster. Used to her friend tossing things at her, Sabrina ducked it. Actually, she was used to ducking things tossed her way—she brought it out in people.

  “Missed me,” she taunted, tossing her helmet on the marble countertop. It was so covered in offensive stickers that there wouldn’t be room for even one more. Mac had to work to convince her not to have a spike installed on the top—she already had enough of a reputation. “What’s with the face, Miss Mopey-Pants? Someone poop in your cornflakes?”

  Mac looked at her reflection in the mirror behind the counter. Sabrina was right. The dark circles under her eyes weren’t doing her any favors and the brown at the roots of her blond hair had become less than subtle overnight.

  “Oh my gosh, you’re right. I have to find someone to do my roots. Is there anyone in town who can pull off a balayage?” She tried to play her sudden anxiety over her appearance with an offhand hair comment.

  As the mayor’s grandchild, she had been raised to be far more snobby and high maintenance than her beloved ‘Brie.’ Mac would be the first to admit that Brie could seriously care less.

  “A belly what?” Sabrina walked behind the counter and opened the display case. Her large, moth wing brows furrowed slightly as she decided on a chocolate. “A belly lag? Sounds rude.”

  Mac sighed and rubbed her eyes. Sabrina’s fingers hovered over a pyramid of truffles she had made the day prior. She took as much care in displaying and naming each of her chocolates as she did in making them. This morning she chose her newest creation, Gun Nut, a cluster of candied nuts and ginger wrapped in dark chocolate. Brie asked Mac, “Remember Jay, The Gun Guy I dated a while back? These are named after him!” She popped one in her mouth. The friends paused while Sabrina’s face slackened in chocolate-fueled ecstasy.

  Mac watched, reminded once again of her friend’s beauty. No taller than the display case itself and thin enough that she could still fit into Baby Gap tee shirts, Sabrina was undenia
bly gorgeous. Her features were wide, sensual, and rosy... as if she’d just jumped out of a slow-moving historical drama. Mac knew, however, that there was no one who would be more out of place in one.

  “That’s awesome.” She smiled widely like a delighted child. “That ginger worked amazingly with the Brazil nut cream. Didn’t think it would, Brazil nuts taste like dirt but… but it did.” She pumped her fist and declared, “Those townies are going to eat it up.”

  “Literally.” Mac mumbled.

  Sensing her friend’s miserable mood, Sabrina straightened up and clapped her hands together like a manic cheerleader.

  “Gotta get to work…” she announced, with forced enthusiasm. “Come on up with me! That miserable face of yours will keep the ghosts away.”

  By ‘up,’ Sabrina meant the spacious upstairs of the two-story Victorian storefront the two girls had begun renting only a few months earlier. It was one of the oldest buildings in Mackenzie Bay. It looked every inch its age and smelled it, too. If it weren’t for the incredible scent of Brie’s creations, one might have thought the two of them were selling dry rot.

  They made their way up the poorly lit staircase to what Mac referred to as her friend’s laboratory. Sabrina preferred to call it her ‘Wonka Den.’

  Mac had to admit it was an accurate description. Brie had filled the center landing and the three warped wooden rooms with as many boxes of imported cacao beans, exotic essences, and eccentric foodstuffs as possible. She spent days up there, nights even… fiddling with her equipment and devising the kind of chocolate treats that had started to bring the entire city in for weekend tasting adventures. It was dramatic, yes. But it was also absolutely and brilliantly Sabrina.

  Mac stood behind Sabrina at the top of the stairs. Immediately, the smells of chocolate and old wood surrounded them both like a fog spilling out from under the door. Sabrina flipped through the antique key ring she kept chained to her jeans like some kind of lady-of-the-manor gangster.