“He wouldn’t do that when someone’s genuinely upset.” With a small frown, Sylvie had turned to look over at the contestants. She spoke absently.
He looked at her for a long moment.
Mariana was watching him. Her glance also flickered momentarily to Sylvie, with a ghost of a smile. However, when she spoke, it was merely to incline her head toward one workstation in particular, where Sylvie’s scrutiny was focused. “Are we directing a few faint and fiery suspicions at Libby?”
“I mean, you said it yourself.” Sylvie shifted at Dominic’s side, her hand brushing his again. Just for a moment, one finger slipped inside his cuff, teasing the skin of his wrist. The tiny shiver of pleasure that danced down his spine was increasingly reliable. “It’s a hell of a mistake to make, isn’t it? Sid’s a careful, meticulous man.” Alien abduction claims aside, which had clearly been a blatant lie to get on the show. And had succeeded; so—well done, Sid. “Libby did borrow something from his station earlier.”
“Chili?” Mariana asked doubtfully, and Sylvie shook her head.
“I think it was baking soda. But it was chaotic with the lighting crew throwing cables everywhere, and Sid was away from his station when I left the room. She could have messed up his other ingredients. But once again—”
“No proof,” Mariana finished.
They all looked over at Libby’s station. She was one of the few contestants who weren’t standing with Sid. If she were responsible, at least she wasn’t compounding her sins with hypocrisy. They had already judged her Chicago-themed display. Other than a few minor errors, her dishes today were excellent. The home economist on the crew had privately pronounced her caramel brownie tart the best bake of the series so far, and Dominic didn’t disagree.
Only one remaining contestant still had to present their work, and unless Adam pulled off something spectacular, Libby was going to top the leaderboard again.
It was a high bar to clear—and Adam clambered over it.
“Oh my goodness,” Sylvie said with obvious delight, immediately leaning down for a closer look at the former professor’s Beauty and the Beast spread.
There were iced biscuits, piped well, each in the shape of an animated character. Happily chomping down on a smiling teapot, Mariana cooed, “Look at the gingerbread houses.”
Adam had re-created the central square of a small French-inspired town in gingerbread blocks, chocolate beams, and blown sugar fountains. He’d mechanized the latter to spill out a cascade of syrup, which fizzed like sherbet and tasted far better than Dominic had expected.
Most of the sugar-craft requirements had been checked off on the cake, however, and the sculpted objects that stood atop the icing. Even for a highly skilled, trained sugar artist, it was difficult to pull off a human figure, and Adam had wisely opted for the Beast’s enchanted household: the clock, the candelabra, and so on.
With one exception.
Mariana emitted a strangled squeak, and Sylvie went suspiciously still and quiet.
After a long stare at Adam’s mild-mannered, reserved face—and the twinkle in his eyes—Dominic crouched to look at the figure of Gaston in pride of place.
The legs were a bit malformed and the ponytail more of a mullet, but it was clearly the show’s arrogant, narcissistic villain.
With Dominic’s face.
Dead-on likeness.
Unlike the character, Dominic didn’t spend hours gazing at his own reflection, but even he had no trouble recognizing Adam’s tongue-in-cheek mimicry.
The silence stretched.
From the beginnings of twitching lips, Sylvie was now openly grinning.
Adam was starting to shuffle his feet.
“Some of the sugar work is clumsy,” Dominic said very coolly. “The proportions on a few of the figures are off, and you clearly overboiled this batch. These biscuits are overbaked and there are lumps in your custard.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Emma Abara’s face. She had been entirely unbothered through the critique of her own more mediocre Grease bake, but she was glaring at him now.
Sylvie also noticed that. She perked up even more.
Dominic reached out and plucked Gaston from his perch, carefully holding the sculpture on his palm.
“Just a little joke?” Adam suggested with a shade of caution.
“I wouldn’t call it a joke.” With his other hand, he reached into his pocket and pulled out the little gold disc all the judges were given at the beginning of the season. Engraved with a crown, it could be awarded by each of them only once and earned the recipient an instant cash prize of £1,000. “From the neck up, I’d call it fairly exceptional work. Well done.”
A blinking Adam took the disc, looking a bit stunned as the other contestants broke into applause—notably unenthusiastic clapping from Libby—and Dominic extended his hand.
The other man was completely flabbergasted now.
As he shook Adam’s hand, he turned his head and raised a brow at Sylvie.
Laughter was a dancing light in her eyes. She inclined her head in a silent Touché.
His own amusement was tested when they headed out into the grounds for some fresh air before the journey back to London. He’d been distracted by Aadhya, chattering at him with yet more lunacy—did he think it would be a good idea to stage one of the final rounds on a Thames barge? No, he fucking did not. And nor should she, after what had occurred last year, when she’d made them film an episode on a train to Edinburgh. Rocking surfaces, three saucepans of highly flammable liquids, two blowtorches, and one elderly former judge’s toupee. Jim Durham’s drinking had noticeably worsened after that disaster.
So it wasn’t until they were standing on ice-crisp grass in a spectacular winter garden that he noticed what Sylvie was holding.
She blinked placidly as she gave Gaston-Dominic a pat on his mullet.
“Unless you’re planning to eat that,” he said, “you’d better not be taking it in the car.”
Her look was drenched with pity for his poor straggling wits. “Obviously, I’m taking it in the car.” She smiled beatifically at it. “I’m going to put it in the kitchens at Sugar Fair as our new mascot.”
Before he could voice one of several comments on that, she reached into her bag and pulled out another item she’d purloined from the tables. It was a pink sugar Cadillac, reasonably identifiable and Emma’s one real success today.
Carefully, she propped up G-D in it.
“What—”
“How else is he going to get around with those teeny legs?”
Absolute last straw.
When he started to laugh, the smile in Sylvie’s eyes lifted her mouth. But the humor in her face faded, transmuting into something else. An emerging hint of an emotion that made him feel slightly less alone in new territory here.
Spontaneously, she reached up and touched his cheek, dusting her lips across his jaw in a feather-soft kiss. She paused there afterward, fleetingly, obviously checking his reaction. Lightning fast, Dominic cupped the back of her head before she could lower from her tiptoes and kissed her mouth. Her smile grew against his, and she nuzzled her nose against his cheek before she drew back.
He took a slow, deep breath, trying to clear his head.
Sylvie touched the tip of her tongue to her lips before she pressed them together. Her hands gripped the sugar Cadillac, cradling it against her chest.