Spotlight feature: Devious Minds by Collenn Helme + a giveaway

Excerpt 3 – Devious Minds

My mouth watered at the thought of chocolate, and I eagerly followed him into another maze of buildings and cobbled streets. We passed a few outdoor cafés before Blake stopped at the one he wanted. We sat outside, even though it wasn’t real warm, and ordered lunch. My order of a buckwheat galette filled with ham, cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms seemed to melt in my mouth.

After finishing up and, after a quick restroom break, we left for the chocolate store. On the way, we passed the real, honest-to-goodness, Louis Vuitton shop. I swallowed and glanced inside at all those expensive and non-knock-off handbags. Blake slowed down and studied me. He was thinking I had that glazed look of a woman just about to spend more money on a purse than it was worth.

That settled me down some, and I snapped my mouth shut. Letting out a breath, I caught up with him. He shook his head at me, and I only looked back once before we continued on. Several twists and turns later, we came upon another shop with a sign above it that read “Henri Le Roux Chocolatier et Caramélier.”

I understood the chocolatier part pretty fast and eagerly stepped inside. All the chocolates were displayed behind the glass case just like jewelry in a jewelry store, and I took my time looking at them all. A young woman came out to help us, and Blake spoke to her in French, so I didn’t know what they said. She got out a box and wrapped it up, then handed it to him.

“For you madam?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

“What do you like?”

“Chocolate covered marshmallows,” I replied.

“Ah… I have just the thing.” She left and came back with a circular shaped plastic container with lots of square chocolates inside. “These are chocolate outside, and inside is a tender cocoa marshmallow heart. You will love it.”

“Oh, thank you… uh… merci beaucoup… très bien!”

“De rien,” she said with a smile.

While Blake paid for the chocolates, I couldn’t wait to try a piece and opened the container. I pulled out a square and carefully placed it on my tongue, then closed my mouth around it. As the chocolate flavor burst along my taste buds, I tried not to moan, but I did anyway. Next came the sweet marshmallow center, which sort of melted in my mouth. It was the most perfect chocolate-covered marshmallow I’d ever tasted in my life.

“Come on, Shelby.” Blake steered me out of the shop and checked his watch. “We have just enough time to see the Eiffel Tower, but we’ll have to take the metro. There’s a station this way.”

I followed him in a daze. I didn’t know if it was the jet lag finally catching up, or the excitement of being in Paris, or all of that chocolatey goodness. I only knew that if magic existed, this was how it felt. We came to a stairway with a railing around it and a metro sign posted above. Several kiosks lined the wall at the bottom of the stairs. Blake inserted his credit card into a kiosk and tapped on the screen until several tickets came out. He handed me half of them.

“Keep these for later.”