Battle Royal by Lucy Parker

Chapter Nine

De Vere’s

Mission: Midnight Elixir, the Cake

Attempt 8

9

10

11

“Yes, I did think we were going to be there all night.”

—Liam Boateng, highly paid, highly annoyed sous-chef, De Vere’s

The cake wasperfectly golden, rich, with a good crumb. And it tasted like nothing on Earth.

Liam lowered his napkin from his mouth. His shoulders were still wracked with small shudders. “Literally the first time I’ve ever had to spit something out in this kitchen.”

Dominic leaned both fists on the countertop. If he could develop telekinesis powers through sheer will, that platter would fly into the bin on its own and save him the trouble.

“Reduce the vanilla,” he said over his shoulder to the assistant currently mixing the next batch. “The boysenberry is giving a note far too sour. Need to counterbalance with the white chocolate. And the absinthe—”

“Has to go.” Liam was physically scrubbing his tongue with the napkin.

“It’s an important component of the flavor profile, but it’s overwhelming. And cut the theatrics. I’ve had enough on set.” He reached for a piece of paper and started scrawling with a pen. “Maybe if we introduce that note in the second icing layer. Could use a spray . . .”

“May I make a suggestion?”

He scribbled a diagram, added a ratio of liquid to dry ingredients. “Yes.”

Liam smacked a massive tablet of dark Belgian chocolate on the counter next to the hell cake. “Stick with chocolate.”

Sugar Fair

Sylvie leaned on the counter, darkly eyeing the array of cakes. Two looked great, one would be acceptable if it’d been pulled off a supermarket bargain shelf, the other two would net a failing grade as a school project.

Gingerly, she poked one of the decent-looking examples with her fork, brought another small mouthful to her lips.

Which puckered as soon as the renewed taste of that cake hit her senses.

She dropped the fork and looked up at Jay and Mabel, both lingering for the verdict.

“They’re all disgusting. And pace yourself with those,” she added warningly to Mabel, who was slurping at another of the Midnight Elixir takeaway cups Sylvie had asked Penny to purchase. Partly because they needed the drink for comparative purposes. Partly to keep the intern occupied and not dissolving into tears for the third time that week. “It’s all fun and games until it throws a punch like Mike Tyson and you start complimenting people on their fleshly assets.”

“Sorry?” Jay finished hiding his cake sample in the bin and shot her an amused glance.

“Mabs, how many of those have you had?” Sylvie asked, and her assistant lowered the cup.

“Four. Neither my brain nor my stomach is weak.” Mabel finished the remaining Elixir in the cup, extended an elegant hand and tapped the bottle of absinthe. “And this isn’t going to work in the mix. You need a more subtle delivery agent for the flavor note.”

She sailed out in a perfectly straight line, steady as a rock.

“I’m aggrieved,” Sylvie remarked, and Jay rested his hand on her head.

“Welcome to my world.”

De Vere’s

“It’s not purple.” Pet sounded personally offended.

Dominic looked up from the Midnight Elixir cake. Version #WhoTheFuckKnows. “Why would it be purple?”

“Because the drink is purple.” She took another sip from the takeaway cup. “It’s good, too.” He didn’t need her pointed look at the cake to fill in the unspoken: Unlike that.

“I thought it was black,” Liam murmured.

“Isn’t it brown?” A cluster of assistants gathered around to peer into the cups.

Dominic pressed his thumb and forefinger against his browbone and speculated on the sensation of an imploding brain.

Sugar Fair

“It’s better,” Jay said, chewing thoughtfully. His jaw shifted as he turned the cake over on his tongue, weighing the flavors. “Much better than the last one.”

Sylvie took another bite. The cake was packed with flavor, not in the least dry, and it looked pretty, since she’d added a tiny sprinkling of gold glitter dust. “It is much better,” she agreed slowly, and took another bite. Chewed. Thought. Flung down the fork. “It’s still horrible.”

“Foul.” Jay shoved his own plate away and reached for a bottle of water. He cracked the top and drank a third in one shot. “How goes the second part of the mission?”

Sticking a piece of plain white chocolate in her mouth to melt on her tongue, Sylvie opened her bag and took out her phone. She handed it to Jay, and he flicked through the photos she’d taken of the envelope, the photograph of Patrick and Jessica at Primrose Cottage, and the little glass globe. She’d resisted a latent Bonnie-and-Clyde impulse and not put the latter in her pocket.

Jay zoomed in to read the little handwritten words on the envelope, before he turned to the snapshot of the couple, studying it closely. “Is this relevant to the cake design?”

She propped her hip against the bench. “I don’t know. My instinct says yes.”

Also, she had literally no other ideas right now.

He leaned forward to rest his arms on the wooden surface, running the fingers of one hand through the fall of hair over his forehead. “He was a bachelor prince of the British realm. He must have had lovers by the barrel-load.”

“That’s not a given. But there did appear to be a number of short-term flings, analyzed by the tabloids in tedious, painstaking detail.” She nodded at her phone. “Until he was about thirty-eight. Approximately the age he must have been in that photograph. I can’t find a single press mention of Jessica Maple-Moore. From a research point of view, she’s invisible. A handsome prince, constantly in the public eye, hounded by the press—and not a peep of that affair leaked to the public.”

Reaching out, she flipped back to the drawings. “Teasing. Intimate. Clearly the best of friends.” She returned to the photograph, that moment frozen in time on the steps of Primrose Cottage. “His eyes,” she said. “Look at his eyes. He loved her.” And obviously, Jessie had loved him. A flick of the screen, and she traced the tip of her finger over the inscription on the base of the globe. “All the world and still only you.”

Jay’s own eyes lifted slowly to her face.

“A whole world outside and it could only ever be them.” Her mind was preoccupied, the words coming from some hidden part of her brain in almost a whisper, but in the periphery of her vision and attention, just for a moment, she thought that Jay had stilled.

De Vere’s

Pet was hovering.

Dominic’s eyes were on the bubbling pot of berry syrup under his spoon, but the waves of tension emanating from his sister were stronger than the lingering scent of anise. “Everything all right?”

“Yes.”

Her feet shuffled. Side to side. A few steps forward. Stop. Side to side.

The syrup turned, thickening to the correct consistency in the space of a single stir, and he pulled it from the stove. Nearby, Aaron was dipping truffles into melted dark chocolate and decorating them with sugar flowers.

“Aaron?” Lizzie stuck her head apologetically through the door. “Phone. It’s your grandmother.”

Aaron’s glance immediately went guiltily to Dominic.

“Take it,” Dominic said, taking the chocolate from him. “I’ll finish these.”

When Aaron hesitated, he inclined his head pointedly toward the door. “Go. You’re more than earning your keep.”

Guilt faded into a flush of pleasure, and Aaron stripped off his gloves and went to answer the phone.

“How are you with flowers?” Dominic asked without looking at Pet.

His sister’s feet stopped shifting about.

“As a person landed with the name Petunia, I ought to have an affinity.” She grabbed a pair of gloves and took the bowl of sugar flowers he proffered. “Just plop one on top?”

“I’d prefer ‘neatly place.’” He rapidly dipped one truffle after another. “But essentially, yes.”

As Pet placed a Cosmos on each truffle, she did so with painstaking care. There was nothing pointed or sarcastic about her measured movements.

He finished the last tray of truffles and went to transfer a completed batch of croissants from the pastry ovens to the racks. The hot, buttery smell was a reminder he’d had to skip lunch to reshoot a scene for Operation Cake, and he apparently had plans to burn out his stomach lining in Sylvie’s booze basement this evening.

“Croissant?” he asked over his shoulder, nudging a couple onto a plate.

“Free food? Yes, please.” Pet had a little blooming garden of Cosmos around her.

Dominic set the croissants on the bench in the side alcove. Sitting down for the first time all day, he hooked one boot into the leg of the stool and silently watched his sister finish her work.

Everything she did, she did with the delicacy and attention to detail of her silhouette portraits. As a baby, she’d been endearingly wobbly, tripping over her own knees, knocking over toys. As an adult, she was . . .

In many respects, a stranger.

The fault for that, now, rested largely on his shoulders.

“Have you spoken to Lorraine lately?” He wasn’t particularly interested in the answer to that question, and her sideways glance spoke volumes.

“I speak to Lorraine as infrequently as I can manage.” She pressed the last Cosmos into place. “I can’t stand her.”

Stated placidly.

“You probably ought to keep up at least a minimal connection with her.”

Pet set down the bowl in her hands and turned to face him. “Why?”

Actually, he couldn’t think of a single reason why, other than a token nod to the adage that “family is family.”

But as he’d never believed in maintaining a toxic relationship simply because of a few common threads of DNA . . .

“Because otherwise I’m currently lacking in the family stakes?” Pet inquired. “Mum’s gone. Gerald’s gone, and not who I once thought he was. In more ways than one. I might have a bio dad out there somewhere, but that seems irrelevant as I have no idea who he is, and if he knows who I am, he’s never bothered to drop a text to say hi. My sister’s about as pleasant to have around as a dodgy mole.” She took a deep breath. It shook. “And my brother wishes I’d just go away.”

There was a sharp, sour taste in Dominic’s mouth. He pushed away the plate of untouched croissants. “Pet . . .”

She stood still, staring at him, and he wanted to get up.

He wanted to make this right.

He was unable to move.

Pet bit her lip so hard she left an imprint in her lipstick. When she turned, the words caught in his throat tore free.

“I don’t want you to go away, Pet,” he said roughly, and her head turned a little toward him.

“No?” Her voice was very low.

“No.”

Her eyes searched his. Finally, she came toward him. Momentarily, he thought she was going to hug him, and his hand unfurled from a tight fist. She reached out and took a croissant from the plate.

“I’ll be in Vivienne’s office. I have a line to follow on Prince Patrick.” Her fingers plucked at the pastry. With a tiny spark of animation, she shot him a little smile. “I like Sylvie a lot, and when this contract is over, I have grand plans for drinks at hers, but she’s still going down.”

With a faint curl of his own mouth, he said, “Team De Vere?”

This time, her smile reached her eyes. Tentative and shadowed, but legit. “Team De Vere.”

A cold, heavy weight twisted in his chest. He watched as Pet started to walk away, hesitated, came back.

Her hand closed over the other croissant, and she clutched both to her chest like a squirrel jealously hoarding nuts.

His brows rose.

Her chin, likewise. “This half of Team De Vere is an emotional eater, okay?”

The Dark Forest

9:30 p.m.

Sylvie was sitting at the head table in her—to quote Mariana—booze dungeon when Dominic’s tall form appeared through the trees.

Through curls and swirls of rising purple smoke, she surreptitiously studied his face. He looked deeply tired, beyond the simple exhaustion of a long day and several reshoots on set that had culminated in the elimination of Charlene.

Their Black Widow had taken the decision very well. She hadn’t forgotten to thank the rest of the contestants and the crew for making the experience so memorable.

The whole crew. By name. While smiling gently and looking directly at each face for a full three seconds.

Not unsettling at all.

Dominic reached out to gently touch a tree trunk, his long fingers playing over the embedded lights like piano keys. In the flickering shadows, he turned, boot soles a soft rasp on the stone floor. “Impressive.”

Carefully, Sylvie set a gold-toned cauldron over a burner. “That sounded sincere.”

“I feel like I’m in Disneyland Paris.” His footsteps echoed amidst the quiet bubbling and hissing. His hands came down to rest on the table. “Not a bakery.”

Notcoming across as a compliment.

Without pausing in her movements, she opened a beaker of elderflower syrup and poured the contents into the cauldron.

“But I agree,” he murmured in that dark, satiny voice. “Any comparison between Sugar Fair and the Starlight Circus is an insult.” He was examining every smallest detail. “It’s not my taste any more than De Vere’s is yours.”

“No,” she agreed.

His head turned back toward hers. “It’s brilliant, Sylvie.”

She looked straight into his eyes, searching their expression. The side of her lips slowly curved, and she saw him flick a glance in the direction of her dimple. “I know,” she said complacently. “But thanks.”

A reciprocal flash of amusement in those hard, sculpted features.

She worked amidst the steam and fog down here all the time, but it was making her a bit light-headed tonight. Returning her attention to her work, she made a face. “Apparently, my raspberry toffees have now appeared on Darren Clyde’s menu. As ‘Darren’s Dewberry Dreams.’ Gag. We’ve only been stocking those for three weeks ourselves. He’s on the ball.” Opening a small metal box, she added a pinch of blue salts to the syrup mixture and blew on the cauldron. A burst of smoke puffed up, sending a dusting of glitter particles spinning in the lights. He turned his head to follow the twinkling trail, and she slanted a sideways smile. “Magic.”

“Predictable chemical reaction,” he returned, examining the box of salts. “And once again in your company, I have glitter in my hair.”

“And your stubble. Bit of technicolor glam to liven up the grays. You’re welcome.”

He rolled his eyes, but she thought she saw a slight relaxing of his shoulders. “So Clyde’s still nosing about nicking your work.”

“Mmm.” In a second cauldron, she started mixing cranberry juice and vodka. “Having spent hours today deconstructing his top seller, I should probably feel on shaky ground in my moral indignation. But as I remain convinced that he ripped off that recipe from someone as well—I do not.”

“And how’s your version of the Midnight Elixir cake?” Dominic hooked a stool closer and sat down, watching the motions of her hands.

“Great, thanks,” Sylvie said, plucking a mint leaf and dropping it in the first brew. “As delicious in crumb form as it is in a flagon.”

She handed him a vanilla bean, and with expert precision, he sliced it open and scraped out the seeds.

“So, as inedible as mine, then?” he asked, handing her a knife coated with pure vanilla.

“Tongue-curlingly vile.” Mixing the vanilla into the sugar syrup, she kicked a lever under the table. “But I’ll get there.”

Flashes of lightning lit up the forest, revealing the silhouette of an old country estate house through the branches, a hologram against the far wall. Flapping wings crossed over their heads, dipping close to Dominic’s stool.

He didn’t so much as flinch.

“Throw me a bone and at least squeak,” she muttered, stirring the cranberry vodka.

A second kick of the lever, and six large cauldrons along the central bench lit up one after another: blue, purple, red, green, pink, yellow. Smoke spiraled upward to the ceiling, where little flames licked.

Sylvie lowered her eyes from the burning roof and looked at Dominic.

He looked back.

“Eek,” he said solemnly.

She grinned. Shaking her head, she moved down the bench to where more cauldrons bubbled, keeping sugar solutions on a low boil. Taking a spoon, she took a decent blob of the thickest solution, transferred it to a heated pad, and started rolling it, kneading and pulling.

“Teflon hands.” Dominic turned on the stool. With the bulk of his chest and shoulders, he took up a fair amount of space, was still within touching distance even after she’d shifted position; but his movements were always so light and fluid.

She held up one palm, kept kneading with the other. “Calluses for life.”

He turned his own big hand. “Likewise.”

On sheer instinct, she almost high-fived him. Her special effects might have zero impact on his nerves whatsoever, but she imagined that would have him doing a spooked-cat scarper out the door.

Although . . .

Dolores’s words yesterday. A touch-starved five-year-old. It made her feel like crying every time she thought about it. It made her furious.

And it made her wonder.

Attaching a tiny piece of sugar mass to the end of her blow pipe, she started blowing air into it, keeping an eye on the density as it stretched and expanded. With a thin, delicate syringe, she injected a flavor emulsion into the bubble that instantly flooded the interior with sparkling rainbow. She sealed it off, released it carefully, and started on another.

Dominic glanced over at the silhouette of the old house on the wall. “I understand the location shoot has been moved up.”

Every season of Operation Cake had a special episode shot out of the studio, usually on location in a stately home. This year, they were going to Middlethorpe Grange, an hour outside of London. On the initial schedule, it had been booked for a later date but the owners were planning to fumigate. As nobody wanted insecticide in their cakes—some of the bakes emerging from the contestants’ ovens were bad enough this season without the extra help—they were shooting on Monday.

Sylvie laid a third bubble next to the others, progressively smaller in size, all twinkling under the lights. “It’ll be nice to get out of the city for the day. And I like stately homes. Lets me indulge my Pemberley fantasies.” She realized she was singing softly under her breath and stopped before he pointed it out. “Hopefully it’ll be really romantic.”

His head lifted, and a traitorous heat spread down her neck.

“For Emma and Adam.” Too much emphasis.

There was a heart skip of silence before he reached out and gave her sugar syrup a stir. Just when it needed one. “Thanks for getting Pet hooked on that fantasy,” Dominic said sardonically—and with a note of something else when he spoke his sister’s name. “Evidently, my new daily routine will involve a summary of her reading material, followed by my own contribution, a detailed update on the imaginary romance between two total strangers.”

“It’s not imaginary.” Sylvie had accumulated a little pile of bubbles in various sizes. She took her mint-scented syrup off the boil and poured it into the cranberry and vodka. Turning around, she scanned the towering shelves of little bottles and jars, took down a pink one. “Emma laughed at Adam’s joke today.”

He waited.

She added a few drops of a shimmering lilac solution to the cauldron.

“And?”

“And he’s not funny. Trust me, if she mustered more than a polite titter, she wants to ride him like Space Mountain.”

At one point, Dominic had rarely addressed her with more than two words together.

She appeared to have sent him back into the realms of total silence.

Carefully, Sylvie decanted the whole mixture into a long beaker. Collecting a handful of the sugar bubbles, she floated them in the drink. She popped in a sugar straw and set it in front of him. “The bubbles contain our signature Sorceress emulsion, which releases as they dissolve.”

He picked up the glass, examined it under the light. Ignoring the straw, he tasted it from the side, curling his lip when he realized she’d rimmed it in popping candy.

“Well?” she said, realizing—to her faint horror—that the sensation twisting in her stomach was actually nerves.

It shouldn’t matter whether he liked or approved anything that she did.

It definitely hadn’t four years ago on set.

But it was starting to now.

He took another mouthful. Set the glass down. “It’s delicious.”

Simple, restrained, and obviously truthful.

As she bit down on the inside of her lip, a small crease appeared between his brows.

“In fact . . .” He reached across the table for a spoon and fished out one of the dissolving sugar bubbles, slipping the remnants onto his tongue. “Hmm.”

“What?” She peered into his glass. “Is there something wrong with the bubbles?”

“No.” Dominic retrieved another and held out the spoon to her. Sylvie shot him a curious look, but obligingly opened her mouth, and he fed her the bubble. “Think about what we’ve both been doing for hours today. And re-taste your mystery bubbles.”

Running her tongue over her lower lip to catch a drop of the liquid, she shook her head with a prickle of tiredness and frustration. After a subpar day on the Operation Cake set and a kitchen full of virtually inedible cake, her brain was inching along like a grumpy tortoise right now, and—

And her Sorceress bubbles tasted exactly like one of the main flavor notes in Midnight Elixir.

She snatched up the syringe containing the Sorceress emulsion and shot a stream straight into her mouth.

Judging by the way ever-stoic Dominic was startled into a slow blink, the result was slightly pornographic.

But definite confirmation on the flavor. The anise in Midnight Elixir sat strongly on top of any other notes, and the sweetness was so intense it even drowned out the tang of alcohol, but strip that out and underneath was something very close to her Sorceress bubbles.

Suspiciously close.

“Fucking Darren Clyde.” Sylvie was pissed. She self-soothed with another long stream of emulsion. “How did I not recognize this before?”

“To begin with, the other night we were both boozed to the eyeballs within half an hour. And there’s a fair whack of . . .” Dominic cut himself off, letting the unknown ingredient hide behind silence. No matter. It was only a matter of time before she had that recipe down to the last pinch of sugar. “There’s another ingredient in the Elixir that hits as a top note and initially distracts. Your ‘Sorceress’ concoction is the middle note, before it ends with a lingering renewal of anise.”

He picked up another bubble and examined it. “You were quite right,” he said grimly. “He did rip off the recipe. Or at least part of it.”

“Yup.”

“Going to tell me what’s in this emulsion?”

“Nope.”

He settled the bubble on his tongue. “Boysenberry. White chocolate.” He made a little considering noise in the back of his throat, a honeyed purr that she somehow felt as a twitch on the back of her neck. “Agave?”

“Sorry,” she said, with zero remorse. “House secret.” She wiggled a bottle at him. “But I’ll throw you a bone. You can take this with you. Study to your heart’s content.”

“Which you confidently anticipate will come to nothing.” By his tone, he expected to have the recipe in its entirety in about three minutes. “Thank you.” As he moved to take the bottle, he knocked over her propped-up iPad. “Sorry,” he murmured, rescuing it before it shot to the floor.

Sylvie took it and thumbed back to the news item she’d been reading earlier with disgust. “Did you see the latest headlines on Rosie and Johnny? Having failed to dig out any hot titbits about the wedding, the Daily Spin has resorted to fabricating stories in which Johnny is both a callous heartbreaker, who left a string of weeping maidens around his parents’ estate, and a thwarted lover, still pining for his ex-girlfriend.” She turned the screen and he gave it a cursory glance. “Imagine having such a hate-on for Johnny. He wouldn’t make the most effective figurehead, but it’s not like he’s in line for the top job. And he’s adorable.”

Dominic’s brows shot up. “Is he?”

“Adorable. Like a puppy that hasn’t grown into its feet yet.” He looked slightly revolted. Unperturbed, she went on, “There’s a lot of critical press about this wedding. I know the royals are perpetual cannon fodder for the tabloids, but I always thought Rosie was popular—”

“With younger people, very, according to Pet, the font of royal gossip. Less so with the older guard. Rosie’s not quite the standard pearls-and-pillbox-hat royal, is she, and the press loves to punish individuality.”

“Pet sounds usefully connected, like Jay.”

“Name anyone in London and my sister could probably tell you where they went to school, what they like to eat, and which train they take in the morning.”

Sylvie was smiling. “Has she always been so . . . exuberant?”

Apparently, that was the wrong thing to say. The traces of amusement disappeared from his face as if she’d hit a button.

The silence stretched before he said, “I don’t know.”

Averting her eyes to give him some semblance of privacy, she bent over the cauldron she hadn’t touched yet, in which a thin sugar solution simmered. It was a milky white in color, touched with gleaming pastels when it caught the light. She stirred it as delicately as if she were collecting unbroken cobwebs.

“May I ask you something?” Her voice was low, blending in with the rhythmic pat-pat of raindrops falling on leaves, winding from hidden speakers.

“Can I stop you?”

Her hand paused midstir. Their eyes met. “Yes.”

That muscle in his jaw jumped. “Go on.”

“It’s extremely nosy.”

The faintest flicker of another smile in that watchful gaze. “I would expect nothing less.”

Outwardly, Sylvie redirected her attention to the contents of the cauldron, watching a little bubble rise and pop in a sparkling second. “When Pet came into the studio, she was obviously so proud of you. But she also made a comment about not knowing you very well. Is that just because of the age difference, or—”

“I . . .” Dominic broke in, and then stopped. She shot a quick glance sideways, and saw his hand on the table, fisted so tightly that his knuckles were showing white.

Sylvie dropped the stirring stick and impulsively moved to place her hand tightly over his. “Don’t,” she said softly. “I’m sorry I asked.”

He stared at their stacked hands. “I haven’t talked to anyone about this since my grandfather died.”

“And you don’t have to.” Sylvie started to draw her hand back, but his fingers suddenly turned over and caught hers.

It was a light hold; she could have broken it easily if she wanted to. Her skin was tingling again.

“I was born nine months after my mother had an extramarital affair.” The words were expressionless. “From an early age, I suspected it was one of many affairs, but at the time, I was the only living, breathing result. And Gerald, my stepfather, hated me. Not resentment, not antipathy—hatred.” He looked at her. “I don’t know if you’ve ever looked at someone and seen pure, undiluted hatred seeping out. Gerald’s aggression was of the passive variety—occasional digs if he thought they’d strike home. Which they rarely did. He was a blustering, pathetic, relentlessly dim man. For the most part, he just ignored my existence. But when he did look at me, I could see it.”

Her mouth was dry. “What about your mother?”

“Lana generally backed up Gerald in whatever arrogant, shortsighted comments he made on any topic. I don’t think she actually liked him very much, but she didn’t want to deal with problems in the household.”

“Problems.” The welfare and well-being of her own child.

“I was left in the care of a nanny most of the time.” Dominic’s tone was typically matter-of-fact. “She wasn’t exactly Mary Poppins. Thank God,” he added. “I can’t imagine anything worse than spontaneous outbursts of daily musical theater.”

He had noticed her tendency to bust out random lyrics when she was deep in concentration; his look was both sarcastic and amused, and invited a retort.

For once, Sylvie couldn’t oblige.

Her life so far had been punctuated by periods of soul-shattering loss, but that grief had come amidst decades of warmth and love. She’d known herself the light and center of someone’s existence. No, she’d never experienced hatred.

But as she wrapped her fingers tighter around Dominic’s, she could feel the flickering beginnings of it for two strangers who didn’t deserve to be called parents, and a woman who ought to have been a child’s only hope of comfort.

She was under shrewd observation. “You know some of this already,” he said, and it was a statement, not a question.

“Only that you had a nanny. Dolores didn’t say much more than that.”

His expression didn’t change. “She doesn’t know much more than that. Isobel worked with my mother and used to come around to the house when I was very small. She would always have something for me in her bag. A chocolate bar. A small toy. I’ve never forgotten the scent of her perfume.” A flicker of a smile. “She still uses it now.” There was deepening warmth in his voice. “I’m thirty-eight years old and she still occasionally presents me with a bag of sweets.”

Sylvie was very conscious of the feel of his hand in hers, the skin so silky-warm along his fingers, so shivery-rough on the tips. “Is Pet your only sibling?”

“I have another sister, Lorraine, who’s four years younger than I am. Gerald doted on her, and she’s still his carbon copy in every way. But Pet, she was an unexpected, very welcome surprise, born when I was twelve.”

“And you loved her.”

Another of those semi-smiles. She’d do quite a lot to see a real one. “From just a few months old, she was such a cheeky, happy little kid. Once she started crawling, she followed me everywhere. She almost made living in that house tolerable.” He was looking at their linked hands again, turning them slightly, absently measuring his fingers against hers. “Almost. But when I turned thirteen, I couldn’t take it anymore. I’d been saving scraps of money doing odd jobs around the neighborhood. I was tall for my age. People usually thought I was older. On my birthday, I managed to get a train ticket, and I left for London. I came here. To Magnolia Lane, to find my grandfather. Who took me in without the slightest hesitation. Like your aunt, I don’t think he ever regretted it.”

Opening the door of De Vere’s that day must have been like walking through the Narnia wardrobe: a whole new world and way of life.

Ultimately, the way home at last.

“And Pet?”

“Initially,” Dominic said, “I left a note and took Pet with me. She was still a baby, not even walking yet.”

“You . . .” Sylvie pursed her lips with a silent breath. Barely aware of what she was doing, she stroked his fingers.

“I wanted the only member of my family who felt like my family to be with me. I thought my grandfather could adopt us both.” His thumb ran along her palm before he suddenly released her, sitting back with a grimace of self-derision. “As we weren’t living in a Disney film, however, it didn’t quite work out that way. Lana and Gerald had Pet back by dinnertime, and Gerald contacted the police to see if he could have me charged for abduction, as a minor—”

“Oh my God.” Sitting on the edge of a stool, she stared at him, appalled.

“After Pet was returned home, Sebastian went to see them and spent over an hour talking to Lana. When he came back to the bakery, they’d agreed to abandon any punitive course and sign over full custody of me. I think the former required considerably more finesse and persuasion than the latter,” Dominic added wryly.

There was a slight burn behind Sylvie’s eyes. She blinked it away almost viciously. He’d think she was offering pity. And of the multitude of emotions she’d felt listening to the bare bones of his early years, pity didn’t enter into it. But she was intensely sorry, and helpless, that it was impossible to somehow reach back, to help. “And your grandfather started training you in the family business.”

“A gold-plated legacy to live up to.”

She was quiet. Then: “Sebastian was a marvel. An absolute icon. But you’ve made De Vere’s your own, you know. You’re forging a new legacy here. And I suspect your grandad would be pleased as punch about it.” There was a glimpse of something in his eyes, then, that made her stomach explode into flutters. She looked back at him steadily. “You were happy with Sebastian.”

This was her main professional rival. The man who’d repeatedly insulted and undermined her work. Whose own aesthetic she belittled in return. The man she had, at one time, profoundly disliked.

And if he still hurt, it mattered.

“Yes, I was.” No hesitation now. “He’d been alone since my grandmother died five years before, and my mother rarely contacted him. She’d both inherited and made enough money that she had no use for him or De Vere’s. There was very little emotional attachment on her side. On his, she was a constant absence, a forever loss. He wanted me. He was always interested in what I’d done, what I thought, what I wanted to be. And he made it possible.”

The Dark Forest encouraged confidences, and not just because buckets of alcohol were consumed amongst these tree branches. Sylvie knew from experience that it was easier to talk down here, to open up in the dim light and dancing shadows, to be truthful; with others, with yourself.

Carefully, she said, “In the archives, you said that you and Sebastian had a rocky beginning—”

When he finally responded, she was very aware of how far he was stepping out on the precipice with her right now.

“When I moved in with Sebastian, he enlisted an excellent therapist for guidance in how best to . . . redirect the emotional path I was on. And, hell, did he try. He pushed himself out of his comfort zone in every way to counteract as much of my previous life as he could. He was incredibly generous with his time, no matter how busy he was, and provided everything I needed in a material sense. Including a piano and music lessons, because he believed everyone needs at least two creative outlets for their mental well-being. But . . .” Dominic’s jaw shifted. The tinge of dull red under his cheekbones could have been a reflection from the pink cauldron, but she didn’t think so. She folded her fingers together to avoid slipping a hand back across the counter. In clipped staccato, he confirmed a little of what she’d begun to suspect. “I was a very guarded teenager. I found it almost impossible to initiate any gesture of physical affection. I would want to, sometimes very badly, and I couldn’t. I struggled less on the receiving end, but—that, too. Sometimes.”

Because before the advent of Sebastian, the only person in Dominic’s life who would have offered the comfort of their arms—or wanted his own—was his baby sister.

Jesus. His fucking parents.

He didn’t need to voice the obvious inference, but he added, still curtly, “Thanks to Sebastian, I left the worst of it behind a long time ago. But engrained instinct is hard to shake completely.” And buried pain periodically raised its head; Sylvie knew that. “Outside of purely casual or sexual touch, and unless there’s significant inherent trust, my brain can still throw up a barricade in that respect.”

Exhaling, Sylvie gestured at the table surface where their hands had rested, entwined. “A few times recently, I—we . . .” Heat was pressing back into her own cheeks. “Does it make you uncomfortable when I . . .”

Seemed to be increasingly drawn to reach out to him—and with nothing casual about it.

Abruptly, he rescued her from the pit of awkwardness. “No.” Then, more slowly, with a frown in his eyes, as if he were acknowledging something to himself tonight, as well, “It doesn’t.”

They were both silent again until Dominic said tersely, “Pet was upset today. She thinks I want her to leave.” One brow lifted. “What did you once call me? A human ice block?” She grimaced, hard. “I looked at her and just for a moment, I was back in that house and I couldn’t move. It’s been twenty-five fucking years. Her parents are dead, Sebastian’s passed on as well, and if I’m an ice block, Lorraine could have single-handedly sunk the Titanic. Pet’s a family-oriented person with, to all intents and purposes, no family. I’m not what she’s obviously looking for and needs.”

That comment caused a tiny, deep-buried personal pang, but every instinct in her mind and body was focused outward right then. She leaned forward. “Dominic. At thirteen years old, you loved that girl enough to take her and run. A child and a baby, all the way to London, with only a few pounds in your pocket. Everybody should have someone in their life who cares that much.”

It was some time before he spoke again. “I tried to see her a number of times when I was a teenager, but Gerald blocked contact. I finally managed a meeting when she was eighteen, but she wanted nothing to do with me then. He’d probably been feeding her God knows what poison.” He shook his head. “She asked me not to contact her, so I respected her wishes, and mentally closed a final door on that side of my family. In retrospect, though, she was profoundly uncomfortable that day. Shutting anyone out, it’s not in Pet’s nature. Even when it should be.”

Tiredly, Dominic rubbed his hand over the dark shadow on his jaw. “She started tentatively reaching out a few years ago, just showing up at the bakery for ten minutes at a time, making phone calls on some weak pretense. And then she installed herself as a full-time fixture. At least temporarily.”

“Maybe temporarily in your workplace. In your life, the plan is obviously to become a permanent fixture.” Sylvie hesitated. “And underneath, it sounds like that’s what you want, too.”

The only sounds were the continuing pad-pad of the raindrops and the occasional birdcall.

“Sylvie.”

“Yes?”

“I think I might have hurt you when I said Pet needed a family and doesn’t have one. I’m sorry.”

He caught her so off guard that an unexpected wash of vulnerability made her vision misty.

Feeling like a Beatrix Potter character scuttling back to hide in her burrow, she returned to the cauldron, stirring with extreme concentration. If she didn’t have hips, boobs, and a fairly large head, she might have just climbed on in.

He was still watching her levelly, but with something very unsettling in that usually saturnine face.

It shook something loose. “I’m not alone,” she said, with just the tiniest hint of a wobble. She stopped to steady her voice. Continued. “I still have family—I have my friends. Particularly Jay. I couldn’t love him more. Even Mabel, as horrified as she would be, I think of as a sister. Or a really irascible grandma. Depends on the day. And I have the business.”

Dominic was very quiet, all his attention focused on her. Even his body was angled toward her, his muscles tense and tight.

Keeping one hand on the stirring stick, Sylvie pointed. His gaze traveled to a little ceramic pot, in pride of place on the shelves. It was painted with the simple words: YOU MAKE MYWORLD A BETTER PLACE. “Mallory was a beautiful glass artist, but she dabbled in pottery. She made me that. Not for any special occasion. Just one afternoon, on a Wednesday. She really loved me. I’ll live my entire existence knowing someone loved me that much. The way Sebastian loved you. Death is not the end of love. In any and all of its forms.” She stared blindly into the sparkling pot. “I’m not alone,” she repeated. The sugar solution moved in waves and curls, an iridescent sunset shimmer. “But every so often, just for a second or two, I’ll be in my flat or standing on a busy street surrounded by strangers, and I feel so alone my heart hurts.”

She reached for the smallest size of blowpipe and dipped it in the mixture. “I still have Mallory’s phone. I keep it charged so I can look at her photos. Sometimes, if there’s something I really want her to know and I can’t get to the cemetery, I send her a text message. And once I texted myself from her phone. Just to see a new message from her on my birthday.” Her mouth twisted. “How pathetic is that?”

“It’s not pathetic at all.” Straightforward, implacable.

She stood still and silent, then placed the blowpipe to her lips and drew up a little of the mixture, carefully exhaled. An iridescent sphere slipped effortlessly from the pipe and floated toward Dominic, caught by the faux breeze that rustled the Dark Forest leaves.

His eyes never left hers as he raised a hand and let the bubble come to rest on his palm. This was a finer solution than the Sorceress bubbles, would never stand up to a filling, but it was much hardier than a soap bubble.

He ran his thumb over it, so carefully. “Pretty.”

“Small pockets of beauty, everywhere you look. I hope it’s much more beautiful wherever Mallory is now, but this world has a lot to offer.” Sylvie wasn’t aware of moving, but suddenly she was standing in front of him, touching a fingertip to the bubble.

She had the fleeting thought that they probably looked like a pair of fortune-tellers, hovering over a crystal ball. Looking for portents of the future.

Dominic lightly tossed the bubble back into the air, and they watched it turn and bob in a peaceful current.

Her pulse was a rapid flutter in her throat, a darker thrum low in her abdomen. Nerves, and—not really arousal, her emotions were still too torn on the surface, but that disquieting wanting that kept creeping up on her.

The rise and fall of his chest had quickened. On the table, their fingertips brushed, and they both looked down, Sylvie’s breath catching as his index finger ran, so lightly, along hers.

Slowly, she lifted her gaze back to his. He was close enough that she could see the finest of the lines around his eyes, whispering away from short, incredibly thick lashes. Those eyes were locked on hers, intent, shadowed, growing darker as she watched.

Without breaking that contact, they both moved, crossing a distance both tiny and significant. Their lips touched. Soft. Gentle. Coming apart just long enough that she drew in a shaky breath and felt his fingers tighten on hers, before their mouths were sliding back together, as surprisingly easily as interlocking a puzzle piece.

It was still featherlight and almost dreamy, as if she’d sent her mind floating in a flagon of Midnight Elixir again. His skin was silky, his lips parting a little, just starting to coax hers open. Shivers slipped down her spine, and she moved a little restlessly on the stool, pushing the pads of her fingers against the wooden tabletop, pressing her thighs together.

A tiny sound rose from her throat as the kiss very briefly deepened, and she lifted her hand. Hesitated.

Dominic raised his head, his breathing as unsteady as hers. They stared at each other. Before Sylvie could pull back, his warm hand closed around hers and he drew her palm to his cheek. Swallowing, she cupped the strong bone there, feeling the rough abrasion of his stubble beneath her skin.

Her gaze dropped to his lips. They were still slightly parted. She ran her thumb across the full lower curve and felt his quick inhalation.

Even when his phone rang, vibrating on the countertop, it barely intruded into her warm haze.

Dominic had gone very still. For just a second, his forehead leaned against hers and their noses nudged, the tiniest nuzzle.

Then he was reaching for his phone and a tinny voice on the other end wound out to her ears. One of his suppliers had canceled a weekend shipment at the last minute.

He hesitated, looking at her. His expression was guarded, but there was still a trace of heat there.

Also, a fair whack of how the hell did this happen, which—ditto.

Her fingers were still trembling.

That first soft touch of Dominic’s mouth—why did it feel like turning the corner in the labyrinth and finally, finally seeing a glimmer of the right path?

She managed a half smile. “Business happens. Go deal.” They couldn’t seem to tear their eyes from each other. Quietly, not quite certainly, and not even sure which of them she was talking to, she said, “This is okay.”

Another flicker in his expression.

Something twinkled in her peripheral vision, and she realized with some surprise that the bubble was still drifting in the lights.

It felt as if an hour had passed since she’d sent it toward him, not merely minutes.

Dominic’s mouth was set tautly.

Small pockets of beauty.

Without a sound, in a tiny sparkle of glitter, the bubble burst.

Sylvie hoped that wasn’t an omen.