Suddenly, she sighed. “And I once swore that I’d never let my knees quiver in your presence.”
Chapter Eleven
Sugar Fair
Currently in Mourning
RIP the victims of the Great Gingerbread Witch Massacre.
Sylvie tried not to flinch as the entire trolley of gingerbread witches crashed to the ground. Broken biscuits skittered across the newly cleaned floors. A decapitated witch head landed on the tip of her shoe. They decorated these as good witches, with correspondingly friendly expressions, but the fall had knocked this one’s face askew and she peered up with gleaming malevolence.
Considering that the rest of her body was six feet away under the truffle fridge, she was entitled to be a little peeved.
Mabel pushed through the kitchen door, took one look at the mess on the floor, shot Sylvie a very pointed stare, and turned straight back the way she’d come.
Sylvie lifted her head to meet the wide-eyed, naïve gaze of Penny.
Even as she opened her mouth, the intern’s gray eyes started to fill.
Oh no.
“It was an accident,” she said hastily, but it was too late. The meltdown commenced.
“I’m hopeless!” Penny wailed, flinging herself down onto a stool and scrubbing her hands over her face. She was still wearing her gloves, so green icing smeared all over her cheeks.
With a massive internal sigh, Sylvie stripped off her own gloves and went to pat her on the back.
“It was like sad Elphaba,” she said a quarter of an hour later, knocking back coffee in the office. “Tears streaking down her green face. Have you seen her when she’s crying? She has Disney eyes at the best of times. The slightest upset and she goes full-on Bambi.”
Jay was leaning against the filing cabinet, arms folded.
Before he could say the words obviously scrambling toward his tongue, she set down her mug. “Don’t say it. I can’t fire her over a dropped tray of biscuits.”
Jay tossed down the papers he was holding. “It was an entire trolley of biscuits, and this is only one more catastrophe in an endless stream of incompetence.”
She was tired and on uncertain ground about a lot of things right now, and she was really not in the mood to argue about this again. And it was admittedly becoming frustrating that however hard she tried with Penny, whatever angle she took, it netted no positive results at all. “I know you think I need to be tougher in this part of the business.”
Jay seemed about to respond, probably in the emphatic affirmative, but when he took a closer look at her face, he sighed and came to sit on the edge of the desk. “Look, when it comes down to it, you can’t be anything other than what you are. And nor should you be. You’re almost entirely the reason this business is successful at all.”
His eyes were very warm and affectionate on her, and she reached up to squeeze his hand. “The business is both of us. We built it together, and I couldn’t do it without you.”
Letting her fingers drop, she sat up straighter with a sigh. “I think—I know—I’ve probably been a bit . . . softer on Penny because of her family situation.”
“Her family situation?” Jay reached for the bowl of mints on her desk and unwrapped one, slipping it into his mouth.
“Not having living family anymore. Like me.” It had been something of a bonding moment during Penny’s interview, after the other woman’s nervous small talk had veered into the area of Sylvie’s private life. There had been several candidates with roughly equal qualifications that day; if she were honest, it was Penny’s similar circumstances that had sealed the deal on the job offer. However, as soon as the words were out, Sylvie quickly touched Jay’s knee. “Biological family. I know I still have a family.”
Something in his expression deepened, then. She couldn’t quite read it. And when he spoke, after a noticeable pause, his voice was gruff. “You and I will always be family, Syl.”
Adamant. Obviously sincere.
Yet something in the air was raising a tickling sensation down the back of her neck. Only a couple of times in her life, the most notable instance in the hours before Mallory’s death, Sylvie had experienced that creeping sense of foreboding.
Jay pushed back a falling strand of his dark hair. His muscular chest moved with a long in-drawn breath. “Sylvie,” he said, and although their eyes met, she still couldn’t get a grip on what he was feeling, at all. “Can we talk? Not now. I know you have this meeting with the Albany team. But later. Soon.”
“Yes. Of course we can.” She tapped the tip of her shoe against the chair leg. “Is something wrong?”
“I . . . hope not wrong. No.” He exhaled, some of the stiffness leaving his frame as he smiled at her. “Don’t look so worried. It’s very un-Sylvie. I’m meant to be the family pessimist.”
She smiled back, but that hard, tight feeling remained.
Jay had been a rock in her life for a long time, so why did she feel like that foundation stone had just wobbled?
He stroked her head as he straightened. “I have to go, too. Meeting with that supplier who’s gone rogue.” After grabbing another mint, he headed for the door, but suddenly turned back. “By the way, why did you think Penny doesn’t have family? I heard her talking to her mother on the phone recently.”
She looked up from where she’d been frowning at the desk. “I don’t think so. She definitely said at her interview she doesn’t have family.”
He made a noncommittal gesture. “Maybe I got it wrong.” He touched a finger to his temple in a glancing salute. “See you later. Good luck with the princess’s pompous PA.”
It was a relief to fall back on irony. “Darren Clyde would like to inform you that the title of Asshat Alliterator is already filled.”
Which reminded her that she needed one more unenthusiastic trip to the Starlight Circus. She was missing one ingredient in the Midnight Elixir, the linking note that brought everything else together. It was suitably elusive, slipping away into the darkness every time she thought she had it.
Jay’s low laugh followed her as she grabbed her coat and went out the back door into the side alleyway. It was freezing outside, and she pulled her woolly gloves from her coat pocket as she walked.
Freezing, but busy. After almost five minutes of waiting for a break in the traffic, and a quick selfie with a passing Operation Cake fan, she managed to cross the road safely, and stood looking at the classy frontage of the love of Dominic’s life.
Even with the constant gray drizzle of rain, his windows were perfectly polished under their awnings and the gold fittings gleamed.
With a small smile, she pushed open the door. Immediately, a rush of warm, delicious air hit her in the face—the most welcome knockout blow she could imagine. She breathed deep. Interesting how two businesses with similar wares could smell so distinct. Sugar Fair was caramel, candyfloss, popcorn. De Vere’s was dark chocolate and bourbon—deep, indulgent, sensual.
The front rooms of the salon were beautiful and not her personal taste at all. White walls with just the smallest hint of mint, oak accents, and a general vibe of Paris. The expensive end.
A kind-eyed assistant smiled at her from behind a massive glass cabinet of chocolates. “Welcome to De Vere’s. May I help you find something?”