Battle Royal Page 6

  Sylvie had started to relax into the rhythm of the filming the moment she’d seen Mariana’s twinkling eyes and heard Aadhya’s voice weaving through the mess of tech and wires, but it was the contestants who’d really banished her own qualms. She knew how overwhelming the experience was in the beginning, how intensely emotions amped up. The producers didn’t always need to prompt the drama. With camera operators in your face, the judges watching every move, and the awareness of the viewers at home hovering over the scene like a critical ghost, even minor mishaps could come with an appallingly easy threat of tears.

  With a sympathetic smile, she gave Byron’s arm a little squeeze, and he managed a weak grin in return.

  After one long, considering stare, Dominic leaned forward and cut a slice from the scone with crisp movements. A muscle flexed in his lean jaw as he bit down. Sylvie flinched as hard as Byron at the resulting crack.

  God, she hoped that hadn’t been Dominic’s tooth.

  A handful of seconds passed in which Dominic’s expression had all the animation of a frozen video screen, and then he reached up and withdrew a small object from his mouth, turning it in the light to observe the metallic sheen.

  “What’s that?” Byron blanched, leaning forward to see. “A . . . button?”

  Dominic’s dark eyes lifted from the button. Wordlessly, he mimicked Sylvie’s earlier movement, reaching toward the young man’s arm; without making contact, he flicked the air over Byron’s sleeve.

  They all stared down at his cuff, where a thread hung loose. Tucking his mouth to the side and sinking his teeth into his lip, Byron fidgeted with the other cuff, where a matching silver button was still intact.

  “Um. Oops?” he offered lamely, and Sylvie watched as Dominic’s wide chest lifted in a silent inhalation.

  “And ironically,” he drawled, “the button is the most edible part of the bake.”

  “I think that’s a bit of an exaggeration,” Byron unexpectedly mustered the moxie to toss back, to Sylvie’s pure delight. It was no wonder Dominic was so insufferable in the judging when everyone just toppled over like bowling pins at one severe word.

  Admittedly, Byron’s tone was so uncertain the retort emerged more like a question, and Dominic’s blunt comment wasn’t much of an exaggeration; the scones were fucking bleak. But as the baby of the group had just demonstrated, it was possible to take on constructive criticism without completely prostrating yourself at the feet of the source.

  The room was very quiet, the other contestants all standing sentry at their own efforts, displaying varying degrees of sympathy and apprehension. Sylvie’s gaze caught on the workstation of Byron’s nearest neighbor, Libby, the redhead with the face so ingenuous she could have been pulled straight from a concept board at Disney. And the blue eyes Sylvie remembered from her photograph at the preproduction meeting—shrewd and determined, at odds with her otherwise guileless appearance. The tiniest smile played around Libby’s mouth as she looked at the button in Dominic’s hand.

  Dominic broke the remaining scone apart, with a concerted effort. “It’s like tearing chunks off a baguette. You’ve kneaded a gluten network that could patch a hole in a 747. It’s a scone dough, not a bad back; save the deep-tissue massage for the locker room. This was a flagrant waste of time and ingredients. You fought hard to be here. Prove me wrong and stop fucking up.”

  Off set, Aadhya tossed her hands up. Between the judging panel and the contestants, a lot of expletives were heading for the cutting-room floor and the blooper reel.

  They left the set while the contestants were completing the blind bake round, Mariana disappearing outside to take a call.

  “As usual, your critiques have all the subtlety of a Lancaster bomber,” Sylvie said as she accompanied Dominic into the greenroom. Dropping into a wheeled chair, she spun back and forth a little. “I’ve been on the other side of the counter. The pressure is intense. They’re trying their best, and most of them are probably nervous as hell.”

  Dominic unscrewed the cap of a water bottle. “If that was Byron’s best, he’d have no business even applying,” he said flatly. “There’s some marginal skill there, and currently a lot of lazy vanity. He produced a semi-edible pastry in the prelim round, however revolting the filling, but those scones could have been dropped from that bomber during the Blitz. He didn’t follow the recipe and he ran short on time because he was too busy checking his reflection in the oven door. We won’t even go into the hygiene failure.” One hand went gingerly to his jaw, and he grimaced. “Just about lost a molar.”

  A muffled crash echoed through the wall. She heard the distinct sound of bakeware rolling along tiles.

  “Is your tooth all right?” she asked, slipping her hands into her back pockets as she studied him. “That was a nasty crack.”

  His attention briefly fixed on her face, his unreadable gaze colliding with hers before dusting over her cheeks and temples like a physical touch. Like Mariana, the man had undeniable presence; she felt like she was seriously letting the team down in the X-factor stakes. “It’s fine.” A frown ghosted over his brow. “Thanks.”

  The light overhead was creating interesting shadows and angles along his profile. Visually, he would have done quite well as a debonair hero in a ’40s film. Until the pouty bombshell tried to engage him in flirtatious banter and he cocked a suave eyebrow, swept a slow, sensual look over her body—and told her she was blocking the optimal path of movement in his kitchen.

  He swallowed a mouthful of water and rolled one shoulder as if his neck were stiff. He needed to enlist Byron’s overly zealous kneading on his trapezius. “I’ve said nothing that wasn’t straight fact.”

  “I’m taking issue with the delivery, not the content.” Sylvie kicked a foot back, holding it in a stretch of her own; she was restless. Obviously, the producers had always got a lot of mileage out of contrasting Dominic and Mariana. Every marketable tale needed an antagonist. But still—“It’s easier to absorb and act on constructive criticism if it’s softened by the acknowledgment of successes. You could aim for one proper compliment every hour. Maybe an occasional smile.”

  A fraction of a scowl appeared instead. “Our job is to perform an honest critique.”

  “I’m not suggesting you go overboard. We don’t want to stun the nation senseless. Two or three teeth at most.”

  “According to the billboards, it’s a legitimate competition, not tiny tots’ baking hour at the local nursery. They’ve already got you cradling one hand and Mariana holding the other.” Dominic leaned forward to set the bottle on the table. He’d pushed up his shirtsleeves. There was still a small streak of raspberry jam on his forearm. Charlene, the possessor of the multiple mysterious exes, had dropped a jar. The glass had exploded, and her workstation currently looked like a bloody crime scene.

  “Probably feels right at home,” Sylvie had heard a grip mutter.

  “A handshake,” she suggested. “When a dish is really spectacular.”

  “In the unlikely event that situation arises for the first time in seven seasons, I’ll consider it.” She barely had time to wrinkle her nose before he added unexpectedly, “If you were nervous during your time on the show, you didn’t show it. You still prioritize flashy decoration over the essential foundations now, but you were never openly rocked by criticism. You took it on the chin and until that last fucking disaster”—a tinge of heat lit up his tone; clearly the unicorn hoof did still rankle—“you listened to all of us and your bakes improved accordingly.”

  Good grief.

  Apparently, bread-baking Sid was right on the money about the alien abductions. She didn’t know what they’d suddenly done with the original Dominic, but cheers for the substitute.

  Sylvie could feel a reluctantly pleased flush creeping into her cheeks.

  “To the extent of your ability,” Pod Dominic finished.

  Before she could stand up and accidentally insert her metal straw into his nearest artery, a production assistant tapped on the d
oor and approached with iPad in hand to take them through the upcoming schedule changes.

  They had finally wrapped things up when Mariana glided in from the hallway and swayed into a chair, with suspiciously perfect timing to skip the tedious briefing. “Judge B. Judge C. How are we doing?”

  Sylvie smiled, and Dominic did a sort of man-greeting chin jerk.

  “Pretty appalling showing this morning, wasn’t it?” Mariana went on cheerfully. “I’m going to be tasting Adam’s custard for a week. Did this bunch have to so much as beat an egg during the audition process, or was it all about the weird sob stories this year?” She swiveled toward the silent presence Sylvie was going to consider Judge C. “So, how is that talented sister of yours?”

  Sylvie had fully intended to spend the rest of their break elsewhere, but for some reason she was still sitting here and now listening to their conversation. Or, more accurately, to Mariana’s monologue and Dominic’s quiet breathing and obvious desire to not exist in this building.

  “I framed the silhouette she made.” Mariana crossed her legs and admired her own shoes. “She doesn’t work on commission, by any chance? Because friends of mine recently got engaged and they’d love a dual portrait for their wedding invitation.”

  “Pet works in a matter of minutes, usually while chattering a dozen words a second. I’ll give you her number. She’ll want to help, and she’ll try to do it for free. I’d appreciate if you didn’t let her. She has an incurable case of people-pleasing, frequently to her detriment.”

  “Which one of you is adopted?” Mariana possibly didn’t mean to ask aloud, and a sound like a squeaky bicycle wheel escaped Sylvie’s throat before she could think better of it.

  In an ideal world, the buzzer to summon them back to the studio would have sounded at that moment. However, it was an awkward three minutes of heavy silence before Aadhya’s assistant came to usher them back on set for the next round of stomachaches.

  “Probably one of those think-before-I-speak moments my wife likes to mention,” Mariana murmured to Sylvie as they returned to the studio floor and gazed with equal dismay at the results of the blind bake. The early episode nerves really were hitting this bunch like a sledgehammer. Only one person had produced a dish that was recognizable as crème regis. Ten quid said the entry on the end, the dead ringer for cat sick, had come from Byron’s stove. “Speaking of which, she’s a big fan of Sugar Fair. She went to a party in your booze dungeon and still rhapsodizes about what she can remember of it. She’d like to meet you properly—I wondered if you’d like to join us for drinks later?”

  “Any other day, I’d love to,” Sylvie said with genuine regret, “but I have a meeting at five today, and no idea how long it’ll run.”

  A meeting she’d been doing her best to keep simmering in the back of her mind until the first significant event on today’s calendar was complete.

  A meeting that had been arranged in person, via an inconspicuously dressed, smooth-speaking, plummy-toned stranger like something out of a ’70s spy flick.

  A meeting at motherfucking St. Giles Palace, because Sugar Fair had been short-listed to bake the royal wedding cake.

  She’d hoped like hell, she’d had faith in her team, her own skills, and Princess Rose’s badass love of Caractacus, but it still wasn’t quite sinking in that they’d crossed the first—huge—hurdle. Every time she thought about it, the prospect hopped and skipped around her mind like droplets of oil dancing in a hot pan.

  It didn’t help that the only person she was allowed to tell at this stage was Jay, who wasn’t exactly cool under pressure. He’d rung her at three this morning to propose the hypothetical scenario in which they won the contract, spent months on the cake, and then unintentionally killed off the entire royal family with a lethal dose of listeria from bad eggs. Thoughts?

  Her fricking thoughts were that it had taken half a bottle of concealer today to control her eye bags.

  Speaking of bad eggs—

  “The only dish that looks remotely correct tastes, for some ungodly reason, like onion soup,” Dominic was saying, with obvious exasperation, as they conferred privately over the anonymous dishes. He set down his spoon. “For my part, first place has to go to either the scrambled eggs or the congealed mucus.”

  “The scrambled eggs are far too sweet.” Mariana made a gesture like an old-school game-show hostess presenting a prize. “Blue ribbon to the congealed mucus, it is.”

  The congealed mucus belonged to Libby, who accepted her status at the top of the leaderboard with a self-deprecating blush. As Sylvie had guessed, Byron fell squarely to the bottom again, with his chunky, burnt mess. According to Aadhya’s murmured aside, even Hades would have wiped sweat from his brow at the temperature in that stove.

  As Mariana delivered the results, Byron managed a wavering smile for the cameras regardless, but he seemed slightly puzzled. With an air of uncertainty, he looked from the row of unappetizing dishes to his fellow contestants, seated on their stools for the verdict.

  Libby smiled sympathetically back at him.

  It was probably an unwritten rule of her employment here that judges didn’t play favorites, but Sylvie had already ranked the bakers in her head—not from best crème regis to worst, but from morally-deserves-to-win-the-whole-shebang to probably-trolls-people-online. Her personal top spot was veering between Emma Abara, a knitter and pattern designer from Manchester, who’d sacrificed her own bake time to comfort a younger contestant who’d left the set in tears; and Adam Foley from Glasgow, an absentminded former professor straight out of a novel.

  “Adam spotted Byron’s mistake with the oven temperature,” one of the production assistants whispered at her shoulder. “No comment, no fuss, just quietly corrected it. Unfortunately, it was too late to save it. Typical twenty-year-old wannabe ‘influencer,’” she added with a scathing glance at the depressed-looking Byron, “too busy admiring himself to get the job done.”

  “Hmm.” Sylvie contemplated the assembled contestants again. “I’m surprised he was that careless again.”

  After Dominic’s unique variety of pep talk, she’d actually thought Byron had looked quite determined going into that round.

  The assistant shrugged without much interest. From the crew’s perspective, the more disasters, the better.

  Sylvie was navigating the winding warren of back hallways to her dressing room when she passed close to the contestants’ lounge and heard muffled voices.

  “But you did say the oven was meant to be set at—” Byron was cut off by Libby’s distinctive Welsh tones.

  “That’s not what I said, but—I mean, it was an initiative task, Byron. Sorry, but you really should have been making your own decisions anyway. We all found that round difficult and it sucks that yours turned out so grim, but it’s not my fault if you weren’t listening proper—”

  The remainder of Libby’s offhand response faded out as they must have moved into the next room.

  Incontrovertible fact of life: even when the exterior was Ewok-level disarming, you could always spot the mean girl at the party.

  “Little shit-stirrer,” Sylvie muttered, trying to push open the door to the staff corridor. It stuck every damn time.

  A large hand reached over her shoulder. “How ungenerous.” A silky murmur near her ear. “Don’t forget, she’s nervous as hell.”

  Regrettably, it appeared that hours of sugar consumption resulted in Dominic not only remembering but continuing a conversation.

  “She’s cool as ice, and just as sharp.”

  “And she’s correct. Whatever shit others pulled, he should have been owning his space and decisions.”

  He managed to jolt the handle upward, but they both stepped back at the same time to let the other pass and ended up nose to nose.

  Half her mind was entwined around the approaching meeting at St. Giles; the other was wrapped in annoyance over Libby’s saccharine ruthlessness—but as if every bit of noise in her busy brain just whited out for
a few frozen seconds, she looked up at him and went completely still.

  And just for that instant, beneath the unflappable chill, she saw a flash of startlement and something . . . else.

  For the first time, she realized his eyes were very slightly different colors. The left eye was a fractionally lighter shade of brown than the right.

  His veiled gaze flickered downward. Returned to hers. A spasm of movement passed through his expression, a sort of abbreviated, curt denial, almost a flinch. He turned away.

  With a tiny little breath through parted lips, she ducked her head and slipped through the door.

  What the fuck was that?

  He walked at her side in silence until they reached their dressing rooms. They were small, poky cupboards located either side of Mariana’s, but Sylvie’s teeny space contained a mini-fridge she’d stocked with truffles and a pink kettle she’d really fancy adopting on a permanent basis.

  Dominic stood with his hand resting against his door, head tilted downward; then he looked at her. “You’ve obviously picked your favorites from the cast.” Did his voice, too, sound just a bit—off?

  She cleared her throat. “Emma and Adam.” His expression was blank now. Possibly had no idea who they were. Possibly just his face. “She’s the—”

  “Nice woman who completely squandered her time to pacify the attention-seeker. And he’s the Scottish academic who tried to rectify somebody else’s mistake but lost half his own equipment and at one point returned from the bathroom and forgot which was his station. Even with the small clue of his name emblazoned in massive letters.” Dominic unlocked his door. “They’ll both do well in the long run.” He met her curious gaze with a very direct look. “Regardless of who makes it to the final, the weeping-heart contestants with the public sympathy vote can always leverage their exposure.”

  His door shut behind him.

  One point in Dominic’s favor—that last comment distracted her from a good five minutes of nerves over her pending royal rendezvous. And any other reactions obviously provoked by the mounting pressure.