All's Fair in Love and Chocolate (Marietta Chocolate Wars #1) - Amy Andrews Page 0,32
the winner. No one with a trained palate could take a sip of Delish’s hot chocolate and not declare it the winner.
“Mmm.” He nuzzled her throat. “You are very sexy when you’re being righteous.”
His warm breath stirred goose bumps up and down her neck and farther south to her nipples, which tightened and rubbed erotically against her lacy bra. Up until Reuben had walked into the store, Viv had been eagerly plotting her hot chocolate domination of Marietta but the only thing she was plotting now was getting him naked.
But not here. This was a commercial kitchen with strict health rules about the exchange of bodily fluids no matter how much she wanted to do him on the central prep area bench…
*
The next morning, Viv launched the opening salvo by placing a sandwich board outside the store boasting in her best and boldest chalky calligraphy that Delish sold the best hot chocolate in Marietta. At the same time, Sage was putting another outside Copper Mountain Chocolates. It didn’t proclaim anything, just gave details of the competition between Marietta’s two chocolate shops.
Viv braced herself for the town’s reaction. Which was swift. The outrage at such a cocky suggestion was palpable. Who did this big-city upstart think she was, blowing into town and picking a fight with Sage? Sage!
How dare she.
Two days after the sandwich boards went out, the Courier ran an article on the competition, which meant even those in Marietta who had been hiding under a rock were suddenly talking about it—hell, everyone was talking about it—and taking sides.
But…it got people through the door. It got the cash register humming and sales ticking over and people talking about the variety and selection on offer and how cute those stirrers were—even if they were loath to! There were some hours of the day Viv even had a little queue of three or four people waiting to purchase their beverage because the rules were, you didn’t get a ballot paper until you’d purchased a hot chocolate and, all the better to ensure that Sage won the popular vote, every time you purchased one you got another chance to vote.
Which meant, repeat customers!
Customers who, while waiting to be served, found themselves wandering around the store and buying other things too. Not chocolate though—or not in the volume Viv would have liked. Not yet anyway! Viv had learned quickly that the townsfolk were reluctant to buy anything that was in direct competition with Sage because it felt disloyal. But—they would buy the house, bathroom and skin lotion products and she was happy to pander to the whims of her market.
So, with Reuben’s help on Thursday night, after closing, Viv did some shelf rearranging to place those items at the front of the store and around the counter. Normally, in every Delish store, the chocolate took pride of place and the other products were there as a sideline but, desperate times required desperate measures and Viv was nothing if not adaptable.
She needed to make a profit and at this stage she didn’t care how.
If chocolate vanilla moisturizing cream, milk chocolate bath bombs and dark-chocolate-and-honey-scented candles were what Marietta wanted, then she was happy to oblige. And Marietta—and the weekend tourist traffic—brought them by the truckload.
By Sunday, customers had increased enough for Viv to finally place an ad for the manager position on Marietta’s popular online community noticeboard. Given that there was no managerial experience required—all training was done on-the-job by Viv—there were two dozen applications and, on Tuesday night after the store had closed, she interviewed the four best candidates.
On Thursday, twenty-eight-year-old Roberta—call me Robbie, everybody does—Lang, had her first day behind the counter. She wasn’t from Marietta but two years prior had married a local Marietta guy who worked at the courthouse after meeting him when he’d been holidaying in her hometown of Chicago. She was tall, with a funky kinda style, and a quick smile.
Of both Latino and African-American heritage she had a background in retail and her current job in admin at the Graff was too cloistered for her liking. Robbie thrived on customer interaction—that was obvious—and she was also a massive chocoholic who was very much looking forward to getting to know the Delish line.
In other words—she was perfect!
Not to mention that these kind of ties to the community helped to increase local loyalty and bring more people in to the store. Everyone at the courthouse, Robbie had assured her, would be coming to Delish. She’d see to it.