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.”