“Wow.” Reluctant humor sprang into Sylvie’s tired eyes. “Less than twenty-four hours after the stupendous sex, and the romance is already dead.”
“I think we can manage at least one more day. But I suspect you’d rather have a nap and slightly less of an audience.”
“Mmm.” So quickly even he barely had time to register the movement, she slipped her fingers under his tie, between the buttons of his shirt, and stroked a fiery line up the trail of hair between his abs. His muscles jerked, and she returned her hands primly to her lap and looked over at the contestants. Her mouth turned down. “Emma’s out, right?”
At this age, it was good to know he wasn’t entirely at the mercy of his hormones. Despite the reactive twitch behind his zipper, his brain shut down for two seconds at most. “Unless something goes even more catastrophically wrong with the last presentation.”
“Why would it?” Sylvie muttered. “Libby’s already secured her place in the final. Please God that Adam takes out the title. Or at least Terence.” Her fervent prayers were interrupted by a large yawn, but as her hand went to her mouth, her eyes widened. “What’s that?” she asked faintly.
Like everyone else in the studio, Dominic was already looking.
It was a little hard to miss the man wheeling a tabletop cannon into the room.
To what Dominic now suspected would be the detriment of them all, Terence, the middle-aged naval officer–turned–cupcake fanatic, had opted for a literary theme for his presentation. He’d declared it an homage to his favorite novel, Treasure Island, and apparently he’d taken the idea and run all the way into the realm of rudimentary ballistics.
“It looks like the baby version of those machines that fire tennis balls across a court,” Sylvie said warily. “He also drew gingerbread from the flavor wheel, right? Please tell me he’s not going to cannonball biscuits onto the celebs’ plates.”
“Little judgmental from the woman who built a sponge-cake siege engine.”
Shooting small, hard objects at litigious celebrities. What could possibly go wrong?
On closer inspection, however, the cannon was constructed extremely well from fondant and blown sugar. Impressive. And upon being questioned, Terence responded with some annoyance, “I’m not going to shoot anything at people. What an excellent way to knock someone’s eye out.”
Incredible. Sanity finally prevailed on this set.
The celebrities, who had rapidly retreated behind their table at the sight of the cannon, all crept cautiously forward.
As filming recommenced, Terence produced his bake, a series of gingerbread cakes he’d designed as a map of Treasure Island, intricately decorated. Out of spun sugar, he’d woven the ghostly outline of a pirate ship, sailing elusively on a sea of twinkling crystals.
Sylvie was so enamored that some of the color came back into her cheeks.
Terence had clearly worked incredibly hard for hours. And if he hadn’t set the studio on fire, he would have been a lock for the final.
The cannon itself merely spilled out a gust of rolling steam and crackling sparkles, but he simultaneously ignited the interior of the pirate ship. It was intended to melt, folding into itself, and sink defeated into the sugar “sea.”
Instead, the entire front of the ship cracked in half moments after he lit the spark. Tiny flames licked along the sugar and reached the replica grog barrels on the adjacent dock. As it later transpired that Terence—experienced military sailor and apparently a bit of a fuckwit—had filled them with real brandy, the whole thing went up like kindling. Blue-tinged flames billowed outward in a whoosh of crackling heat, until the entire tablecloth was ablaze.
Dominic yanked Sylvie out of the way; she shoved him out of the way; and those respective immediate instincts almost canceled each other out as they lost their balance and collided.
Mariana’s right hand grabbed the back of his collar, then she took hold of Sylvie with her left, and calmly pulled their entwined bodies clear of the flaming table.
“Time and place for canoodling, children,” she said with mock severity.
“Thanks, Mamá,” Sylvie said, grinning, and Mariana flicked her affectionately on the forehead.
As a crew member whipped out an extinguisher and blasted the desserts into soggy oblivion, the burnt and broken remains of the crow’s nest drooped sideways, teetered and fell.
And it was Libby, Adam, and Emma for the final.
They had to follow protocol and evacuate, but nobody had their coat, and it was freezing in the outside courtyard. Ignoring the perpetually interested gazes of various colleagues, Sylvie huddled in Dominic’s arms, shivering against his chest.
“Well,” she said at last through chattering teeth, cuddling in closer, “that seems about par for the course.”
“The studio’s insurance premiums will be through the roof after this season.” As Dominic’s arm tightened around her, he added cynically, “If they forced you into a multiyear contract, expect further cost cutting disguised as efficiency.”
“It’s certainly had its moments.” Sylvie made a humming noise under her breath. “Makes my tiny little miscalculation with the unicorn cake seem negligible, really, doesn’t it?”
“Don’t push it.”
Chapter Fifteen
The road to Primrose Cottage the even more twee Petunia Park.
Shorter than the road to Calvary.
But with Pet along for the ride, it doesn’t necessarily feel like it.
Sylvie was becoming increasingly fond of Pet. Dominic’s sister was a sweetheart. A cheeky, cheerful soul with a razor-sharp brain. Despite the ten-year difference in their ages, she could foresee the development of a solid friendship.
However, she was also beginning to appreciate Dominic’s point about the book recapping.
For all her many delightful qualities, Pet did not possess an appreciation for restful silence. Any pause in conversation seemed to rattle her completely. Sylvie suspected it was situation specific, Pet’s transparent desperation to bond with Dominic emerging as relentless chatter. She was entirely sympathetic to both De Veres, and a psychologist would undoubtedly find the whole situation fascinating. However, she’d spent the past ten minutes mentally designing a pair of invisible noise-canceling headphones.
She’d been given to understand, through Dominic’s absinthe-slurred whinge, that Pet was reading romance novels. Sylvie also enjoyed romance novels. Sylvie would fucking love to hear every last nuance of a romance novel right now. Unfortunately, the book club Pet had joined over the summer—and Sylvie could now recite the names, occupations, and personality quirks of all twelve members—had since moved on to a painstakingly graphic horror novel.
Although she’d mostly recovered from the food poisoning, Sylvie was now feeling slightly carsick. Her stomach was not ready for detailed descriptions of seeping wounds and wiggling maggots, especially recounted with a Pet level of enthusiasm. Despite numerous interruptions from Dominic’s GPS app and the competition of the rain pounding the car windows, the gore from the back seat continued on and on. And if Sylvie was keeping track, they’d only reached chapter eight in the narrative.
A particularly twisty turn in the road coincided with an anecdote about severed heads, and she had to physically gulp. Dominic briefly took his gaze from the unfamiliar country lane and glanced at her.