Battle Royal by Lucy Parker
Chapter Fourteen
Hartwell Studios
The Operation Cake semifinal.
Will a single dish survive intact? Will any contestants make it to the final?
We’re all undoubtedly on the edges of our seats.
Dominic knew Sylviewas still hoping for some epic romantic ending to the series, no doubt with Emma and Adam embracing beside their future wedding cake as the credits rolled. But unless the couple commenced a grand seduction scene in the next half hour, those hopes were sinking fast.
Emma’s chance of making it to the final currently looked slim. She’d had a decent night initially, with relatively minor errors—a concave soufflé and a separated topping on her toasted marshmallow butterscotch pie. But her star dish, a gingerbread dollhouse, should have pushed her close to the top of the leaderboard tonight.
It currently lay scattered across the studio floor, shattered into at least fifty pieces.
“I’m so sorry,” Libby apologized again, her hands to her mouth as the two women stood amidst the biscuit carnage.
“It was my fault.” Emma was still clutching the empty platter on which the previously impressive structure had rested, her knuckles taut. She was clearly wresting back tears. “I tripped.”
A piece of the dollhouse had rolled to rest against Dominic’s shoe. He picked it up, laying it against his palm. It was a miniature Tiffany lamp, constructed entirely from molten sugar. The candy “glass” had cracked, but he could still see the structural lines. Slightly clumsy in places, but—
“Really quite beautiful,” he said, turning it to watch the light shimmer and sparkle through translucent pink sugar that reminded him of Sylvie’s hair. Crouching, he collected a few intact pieces from the wreckage—a gingerbread table, a beam covered in spun sugar cobwebs, a fondant teapot—and carefully set them on Emma’s tray. She let out a long, shaky sigh. “Visually, it was a triumph, Emma.” As he spoke, her wet eyes jerked to his face, widening. “One of the best bakes of the season. I’m truly sorry that we can’t award you the points.” It was engrained in the competition rule book—they could only score what was placed on the judging table, or in tonight’s case, the banquet table. Emma had literally fallen short by about four feet. “Nevertheless, you should be very proud of yourself tonight.”
She swallowed hard, but gave him a quavering smile. Sylvie and Adam had also bent to salvage what they could of the dollhouse; and Sylvie paused where she crouched, a piece of tiled roof in her hand. She looked worryingly ill still, her face sheet-pale, but she was looking thoughtfully at Dominic—and as Emma straightened her shoulders and touched a finger to the Tiffany lamp, Sylvie skewered him without warning. She had a variety of smiles, and he’d always been able to tell whether she liked the recipient by which she pulled from her repertoire. He’d been on the receiving end of Sylvie smiles from both ends of the scale over the years, but very few people were ever hit by her ultimate weapon, the one that seemed to start in her heart and encompass her entire being.
For a good five fucking seconds, he was almost prepared to believe in her spells and potions, because he literally couldn’t move.
When Sylvie’s gaze traveled to his left, that gorgeous smile immediately slipped into a small scowl. Despite being absolved of guilt, Libby was still fluttering and tossing out apologies, keeping herself in the camera frame.
In fairness, the collision had occurred so quickly that Emma might have tripped entirely by accident. Once again, there was no evidence to suggest otherwise, and even she seemed genuinely convinced of her own culpability.
However, throughout his career—both in the kitchen and here on set—Dominic had encountered his fair share of life’s natural cheaters, the people whose sense of morality, if it existed at all, was easily overridden by ambition and greed. He recognized the behavorial patterns. He knew the verbal tells. And Libby wasn’t even a particularly subtle instance; nobody was legitimately that artless. She was consistently overacting the part, and unfortunately it usually worked on television.
Aadhya called a break then, and Sylvie released a breath and reached for the nearest chair. When she almost stumbled because her legs were so weak, his patience snapped. He took a step forward, ready to carry her out of there and straight home to bed if necessary, but Chuck Finster had already broken away from the cluster of celebrity judges. The footballer leaned over her, his brow creased with obvious concern.
He’d done a surprisingly decent job tonight. As each contestant presented their work, Finster had engaged them all in conversation, offering thoughtful, legitimate feedback. He was built more like a basketball player, standing over two meters tall, and possessed very symmetrical features for a man who’d taken a ball full to the face during the World Cup. When off the field, he raised millions of pounds for children’s charities and was reading history at Cambridge.
And could still spare the time to guest-judge Operation Cake and flirt with Sylvie all night.
“Are you growling?” Mariana asked mildly at Dominic’s side. Her gaze followed his as Finster stroked Sylvie’s shoulder with his thumb. Sylvie looked down at his hand. “Ah. Poor Chuckie. A veritable god amongst us mortals, yet he still hasn’t noticed he’s shooting his shot at a brick wall. When Sylvie’s not tottering about half-dead, she’s eye-fucking you.” Across the room, Sylvie firmly removed and returned Finster’s thumb. “No need for the jealous alpha wolf act.”
Coolly, he said, “Jealousy is a destructive, pointless emotion and a complete waste of energy.”
“Fairly annoying, then, that it’s seeping from your pores right now?”
“Very.” And apparently he could add pettiness to the score of new emotions Sylvie was foisting upon him, as she delivered a severe-looking comment and Finster’s handsome face fell.
“Imagine thinking that woman is in any mood for seduction right now. She’s so pale her makeup looks like someone smeared lipstick on a porcelain doll. Is it definitely food poisoning or have you two been guzzling absinthe again?”
He didn’t immediately reply. Sylvie had taken out a water bottle and was sipping from it slowly. Whatever she’d said to Finster had sent the footballer packing. Her eyes met Dominic’s over the bottle, and she lifted her free hand, touching it to her cheek in a quick gesture. More studio-speak. The sign for keep going. All good, carry on, continue filming, ignore the horny, overpaid athlete.
Subtext: And drop the unexpected mother hen act; it’s freaking me the fuck out.
When he narrowed his eyes, so did she.
A little smile tugged at her mouth, and he couldn’t help the twitch of his own.
When he turned back to Mariana, the amusement and teasing in her expression had faded. She looked at him silently for several moments before she said, “Do you know what’s strange? I would rank you as one of the most inscrutable people I’ve ever met. For the entire first year on this set, I wondered if you were adopting a deliberate persona. The requisite Demon King in the pantomime.”
“I have as many failings as the next person. Possibly more—”
“Since I’m the next person, definitely more,” Mariana mused.
“But dishonesty isn’t one of them.”
However, even as he heard himself say the words, his eyes were inexorably drawn back to Sylvie. She was sitting in almost exactly the location of her onetime workstation, where he’d seen her for the first time four years ago. When his usual brief glance across the new contestants had paused for three thudding heartbeats.
Just that handful of seconds, and later that night, as the taste of her garish glitter-bomb cupcakes stuck to his taste buds like superglue, her face had been similarly fixed in his memory. He’d seen the freckles on her nose, the mole on her neck, even the way her Cupid’s bow curved fractionally higher on the left side.
Maybe he’d always tried to be honest in his dealings with others.
But clearly not always with himself.
“Oh, I know you’re honest,” Mariana said with intense wryness. “Footnote: honesty is a more palatable virtue when paired with tact. But you give nothing away. By comparison, Sylvie is an open book.”
Something in her tone made the muscles in his gut momentarily tighten.
“Your heart was in your eyes just then, mi amigo.” He turned his head, and Mariana held his gaze with great frankness. “It was always at least fifty-fifty odds you two would eventually hit a mattress. For the most part, even when people dislike each other, they don’t strike palpable sparks every time they meet. Chemistry—true, strong, wild chemistry—is the biggest rush in the world and rare as hell, as I’m sure we’re all sadly aware. It would be a missed opportunity if you didn’t burn up the sheets for a while.” Her scrutiny was piercing. “But it’s not just an affair, is it? On your end.”
Those last three words were a mere echo of his own growing apprehension. He still felt them like an iron fist in his chest.
And yet another self-revelation: in a million years, he couldn’t have imagined divulging any details of his private life to a colleague, but he found himself unable to deny Sylvie in any way. What happened between them was nobody else’s business, yet he couldn’t just dismiss her as if their changing relationship were something to be ashamed of and not the greatest blessing of his life right now.
Potentially ever.
“I’ve had many feelings where Sylvie is concerned.” The note of irony slipped in, a well-worn protective shield. “None of them have ever been casual.”
For all her digs about his own lack of tact, Mariana rarely beat about the bush herself. “And Sylvie? Is it only an affair for Sylvie?”
His jaw clenched. Again, he looked across the room, where Sylvie was still sipping water. She wrinkled her nose at him with gentle playfulness, and he inhaled sharply.
He couldn’t reply. For a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he didn’t know the answer to that question. It wasn’t that Sylvie was hiding her feelings. She obviously cared about him. From her expression last night, she cared quite deeply.
But as to the future—
One day at a time.Their mutual words last night applied in this and every situation.
Logical. Unsatisfying.
Perhaps reading the tension in his expression, Mariana diverted the subject. “Word in the greenroom is that you two are nose to nose on a very lucrative commission. Is it a bit strange to be . . . personally collaborating, shall we say, while you’re competing professionally?”
It was so bloody bizarre that it wasn’t strange. And not only were they “personally collaborating”—if that were the polite term for kissing her mouth, nuzzling in the scent of her skin, feeling her nipple bead against his thumb and her wet, silky muscles tighten around his erection, and a million tiny moments that were for the two of them alone—they were doing joint investigations for rival proposals. Somehow standard contract prep had turned into the adventures of Nancy Drew and Frank bloody Hardy.
And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed his work so much.
The camera crew had almost finished setting up for the final part of the shoot, and Aadhya called a five-minute warning before waving Mariana over.
Dominic crossed to Sylvie’s side. Regardless of any watching eyes or cameras, he reached out and lightly stroked the top of her head with the side of his thumb. One day at a time. But whatever their future held, he’d never take that increasingly natural intimacy for granted.
She reached up and softly flicked his palm with her fingers. Her eyes searched his. “Are you okay? You look a bit odd.”
“And you look like a wrung-out dishcloth.” He touched the backs of his fingers to her forehead, checking her temperature.
“Wow.” Reluctant humor sprang into Sylvie’s tired eyes. “Less than twenty-four hours after the stupendous sex, and the romance is already dead.”
“I think we can manage at least one more day. But I suspect you’d rather have a nap and slightly less of an audience.”
“Mmm.” So quickly even he barely had time to register the movement, she slipped her fingers under his tie, between the buttons of his shirt, and stroked a fiery line up the trail of hair between his abs. His muscles jerked, and she returned her hands primly to her lap and looked over at the contestants. Her mouth turned down. “Emma’s out, right?”
At this age, it was good to know he wasn’t entirely at the mercy of his hormones. Despite the reactive twitch behind his zipper, his brain shut down for two seconds at most. “Unless something goes even more catastrophically wrong with the last presentation.”
“Why would it?” Sylvie muttered. “Libby’s already secured her place in the final. Please God that Adam takes out the title. Or at least Terence.” Her fervent prayers were interrupted by a large yawn, but as her hand went to her mouth, her eyes widened. “What’s that?” she asked faintly.
Like everyone else in the studio, Dominic was already looking.
It was a little hard to miss the man wheeling a tabletop cannon into the room.
To what Dominic now suspected would be the detriment of them all, Terence, the middle-aged naval officer–turned–cupcake fanatic, had opted for a literary theme for his presentation. He’d declared it an homage to his favorite novel, Treasure Island, and apparently he’d taken the idea and run all the way into the realm of rudimentary ballistics.
“It looks like the baby version of those machines that fire tennis balls across a court,” Sylvie said warily. “He also drew gingerbread from the flavor wheel, right? Please tell me he’s not going to cannonball biscuits onto the celebs’ plates.”
“Little judgmental from the woman who built a sponge-cake siege engine.”
Shooting small, hard objects at litigious celebrities. What could possibly go wrong?
On closer inspection, however, the cannon was constructed extremely well from fondant and blown sugar. Impressive. And upon being questioned, Terence responded with some annoyance, “I’m not going to shoot anything at people. What an excellent way to knock someone’s eye out.”
Incredible. Sanity finally prevailed on this set.
The celebrities, who had rapidly retreated behind their table at the sight of the cannon, all crept cautiously forward.
As filming recommenced, Terence produced his bake, a series of gingerbread cakes he’d designed as a map of Treasure Island, intricately decorated. Out of spun sugar, he’d woven the ghostly outline of a pirate ship, sailing elusively on a sea of twinkling crystals.
Sylvie was so enamored that some of the color came back into her cheeks.
Terence had clearly worked incredibly hard for hours. And if he hadn’t set the studio on fire, he would have been a lock for the final.
The cannon itself merely spilled out a gust of rolling steam and crackling sparkles, but he simultaneously ignited the interior of the pirate ship. It was intended to melt, folding into itself, and sink defeated into the sugar “sea.”
Instead, the entire front of the ship cracked in half moments after he lit the spark. Tiny flames licked along the sugar and reached the replica grog barrels on the adjacent dock. As it later transpired that Terence—experienced military sailor and apparently a bit of a fuckwit—had filled them with real brandy, the whole thing went up like kindling. Blue-tinged flames billowed outward in a whoosh of crackling heat, until the entire tablecloth was ablaze.
Dominic yanked Sylvie out of the way; she shoved him out of the way; and those respective immediate instincts almost canceled each other out as they lost their balance and collided.
Mariana’s right hand grabbed the back of his collar, then she took hold of Sylvie with her left, and calmly pulled their entwined bodies clear of the flaming table.
“Time and place for canoodling, children,” she said with mock severity.
“Thanks, Mamá,” Sylvie said, grinning, and Mariana flicked her affectionately on the forehead.
As a crew member whipped out an extinguisher and blasted the desserts into soggy oblivion, the burnt and broken remains of the crow’s nest drooped sideways, teetered and fell.
And it was Libby, Adam, and Emma for the final.
They had to follow protocol and evacuate, but nobody had their coat, and it was freezing in the outside courtyard. Ignoring the perpetually interested gazes of various colleagues, Sylvie huddled in Dominic’s arms, shivering against his chest.
“Well,” she said at last through chattering teeth, cuddling in closer, “that seems about par for the course.”
“The studio’s insurance premiums will be through the roof after this season.” As Dominic’s arm tightened around her, he added cynically, “If they forced you into a multiyear contract, expect further cost cutting disguised as efficiency.”
“It’s certainly had its moments.” Sylvie made a humming noise under her breath. “Makes my tiny little miscalculation with the unicorn cake seem negligible, really, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t push it.”