Sylvie eyed the phone. Clearly, Dominic had told his sister nothing on this subject, and Pet hadn’t seen the photographs Sylvie had taken at Abbey Hall—as far as she knew. Patent mistake to underestimate the sheer balls of Petunia De Vere. But she probably hadn’t had access to the envelope with the Oxford address. “If the name of the property is different, how do you know it’s Primrose Cottage?”
“And what do you mean, you booked ‘us’ in for a tour?” Dominic added pointedly.
“Maple-Moore is hardly a common name. And there are very few members of the family living in England. Most of them are still in Ireland, FYI. Jessica was born in County Clare. Once I found Kathleen’s website, I ran the records of her property and found it was legally retitled twenty-six years ago. It took about ten minutes. I’m a very good PA,” Pet said with a roll of her long-lashed eyes. “Incidentally, I’m currently your PA.” A pointed aside to her brother. “And this concerns bakery business.”
Complacently, she finished, “Also, Primrose Cottage is now Petunia Park. Which is even more twee, frankly, but I took it as cosmic confirmation that I ought to tag along.”
Tucking his hands into his pockets, Dominic raised his eyes to the ceiling.
Sylvie couldn’t help a giggle, which turned out to be a mistake. Her abused abdomen was not sufficiently recovered. She puffed out her cheeks at the twinge of residual nausea.
Pet studied her with alarm. And edged back a few inches. “Are you feeling poorly again? Did you say cheesecake was the culprit?” Yes, and she would thank everyone never to mention the word again. “Dominic said it came from the Starlight Circus. Whose owner, by the way, put up a trash post about De Vere’s on Facebook this morning.”
Sylvie stopped counting the rhythm of her deep breaths. She looked up. “He what?”
Pet was thumbing through her apps again. “Someone tagged me. Don’t worry—he sounds like a moaning dickbag. Nobody will take it seriously. But you must have pissed him right off, big brother.”
She turned the phone around and handed it to Sylvie.
Sylvie read the post with increasing fury. While skating around the edges of libel, Darren had insinuated a number of things about quality control at De Vere’s—ragingly ironic from the man selling salmonella. He’d thrown around terms like “overrated” and “overpriced,” and he’d called Dominic a “hulking thug who dominates the industry with all the integrity of a Corleone.”
First of all—Dominic was not “hulking.” He was broad-shouldered, huge-handed, and terribly elegant.
And secondly, Oh, I think not.
Ignoring the lingering weakness in her limbs, Sylvie calmly handed Pet back her phone and reached for her own. She started typing and soon found the number she was looking for.
Dominic had scanned the Facebook post with no interest at all. “Who are you calling?”
“The Food Standards Agency.” She lifted the phone to her ear. “I think Darren is due a surprise inspection.”
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 Sylvie was 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.