Battle Royal Read online

  “Yay?” Pet suggested without much hope.

  “Chair. Sit. Now.” Dominic jerked the door wider, and she sighed.

  Looking extremely put-upon, she brushed past him, bypassed the chair, and hopped up to sit on his desk. “I know you were already practically collecting a pension when I was born, and I might be currently between fathers,” Pet muttered, “but I’m a good decade past the parental lecture, bro.” She looked at him. “That money is rightfully yours. Mum left it to you. You’re never going to see the half you generously and stupidly gave to Lorraine again, but I’m not keeping your share.”

  “I don’t have a clue what latent burst of remorse or guilt prompted Lana to leave me a third of her estate, but we hadn’t spoken for over twenty years. I severed those ties at thirteen years old, and that cut was permanent. On both sides. I have no interest in her money. It belongs to you and Lorraine. And you’ll take it.”

  “No. I won’t. You were still her son. And she owed you.” The tiniest quaver rocked Pet’s instant rebuttal, but her gaze was solid. Stubborn. “Stop giving it back. I don’t want it.”

  Dominic looked at her. Those big dark eyes, fixed on him. Twenty-five years ago, those same eyes, in a round little baby face. Trusting. Loving.

  Abruptly, he turned away. “Then donate it to charity. Feed some cats. Clean some rivers. Set up a scholarship fund for gifted bloody chihuahuas, if you like.”

  His office had been cleaned only this morning, but the air felt thick, as if it were layered with dust.

  Voice clipped, he spoke solely to break the intense silence. “What do you mean, you’re ‘currently between fathers’?”

  Gerald Hunt—Pet’s father, Dominic’s . . . stepfather, for lack of a more specific term for a man raising the living, breathing proof of his wife’s extramarital affair—was dead a good five years now. As their mother had also passed, Pet would find it difficult to acquire a new parent.

  The silence took on a new quality. Frowning, he turned.

  Pet had pressed her lips together. For an appalling moment, he thought she was going to cry. The last time he’d seen her in tears, she’d been crawling around in footsie pajamas, clutching a piece of bedraggled, drool-encrusted blanket she’d named “Fizzy” for a reason she’d kept to herself. It had been her first word. One of only two words she’d been able to speak when he’d left that house.

  Fizzy. And “Mink.”

  Dominic.

  “So, funny story,” she said in a sudden rush, as if once she’d decided to speak, she had to get the words out as quickly as possible. “Last year, thanks to a medical test . . .” At his jerky movement, she shook her head. “It’s fine. I’m fine. And also, genetically not the daughter of Gerald Hunt.”

  “What?”

  “Not a single strand of common DNA. Add my bio dad to the mystery list with yours.”

  He shook his head, not a negation, just—the fuck? “And was Lorraine . . .” He cut off that pointless question before it could fully form, and Pet’s obvious tension briefly relaxed into a snort.

  “Lop off Lorraine’s hair, paste it to her chin, and behold! Gerald walks again. She’s his mirror image.”

  In both face and personality.

  “I . . .” Her voice wobbled again. Again, in his mind, he saw the baby she’d once been. The ghost of chubby arms around his neck. She took a deep breath and lifted her chin. She was a fighter. Disastrously soft heart. Spine of steel.

  “There was no sense of loss in that discovery,” she said quietly. “I was relieved. He was a hypocritical, judgmental bully. As I got older, I saw him for the man he was. I saw the way he treated others. I—I know now how he treated you.” She held out her hand, and Dominic realized she was holding a card. He took it automatically. “The DNA is just a technicality. I haven’t felt like a Hunt in a long time.” She nodded at the card. “It’s finally official, so I’m just . . .” Her chin rose higher. “Informing you.”

  He looked down at the business card advertising the credentials and contact information of Petunia De Vere. His thumb moved to rest over the surname.

  “I didn’t know Sebastian the way you did, but he was my grandfather, too.” Her bravado seemed to falter. “I hope he wouldn’t mind my taking his name.”

  Across the distance between them, her anxious gaze fixed on his.

  “I hope you don’t mind, either.”

  Without waiting for him to respond, she turned and left.

  He stared at the business card for a long time, before he tucked it into the photo frame on his desk, next to the silhouette she’d cut, the rendition of Sylvie’s profile.

  After the day he’d had so far, he’d rather flash-boil his own eyeballs than trek across to the Starlight Circus in Holland Park for a few rounds of Johnny Marchmont’s daily vice, but one obstacle stood between De Vere’s and the Albany contract, and she wouldn’t be wasting time.

  For all Sylvie’s rainbow-hued, bejeweled frivolity, there wasn’t a lazy bone in her body. Nor was she a procrastinator—

  —as she proved when Dominic pushed open the ivy-covered door of the coffee shop, set off a night-themed soundtrack of owl hoots and nondescript rustling, and found her perched cross-legged on a floor cushion.

  The door swung shut behind him with a thump. He tucked his hands in his trouser pockets and swept his gaze over the packed interior, from the glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling to the scattering of picnic rugs and cushions.

  There were no tables. No chairs besides two beanbags, both already occupied.

  “If it isn’t Judge C.” Sylvie seemed equally unsurprised to see him, and not at all bothered by the strangers sprawled around her.

  To be fair, most of them were in a world of their own. Many were wearing headphones. One guy had just starfished out on a rug and was napping in a happy pool of his own drool. Only one was paying Sylvie any attention, a young man with a Manchester United cap sitting staring fixedly at the side of her head, lost in admiration of her pink- and lavender-streaked plait. He had “postgrad student” and “optimist” written all over him.

  One look at Dominic’s face and the budding lothario just about hid in his backpack.

  Sylvie was eating a biscuit. She’d been chewing on the same bite for over thirty seconds. “What do you think?” she asked, finally swallowing. Her head inclined in the general direction of—everything. He’d seen less junk packed onto the odds-and-ends stall at a village fair. He didn’t know what to avoid looking at first. “Seventy percent toddler’s bedroom, thirty percent crack den, or the other way around?”

  “I’d throw in at least ten percent low-budget slasher film.” With horrified fascination, Dominic locked stares with an enormous plastic clown and found he couldn’t look away.

  He couldn’t even blink.

  This wasn’t ideal.

  “I was pretty sure you’d turn up tonight, too.” A pause, during which he could hear Sylvie chewing again. It sounded like hard work.

  The clown’s pupils were spinning. Literally spinning.

  Unless that was his own eyes.

  Or his brain.

  Nausea was kicking in a good ten minutes earlier than he’d expected. He hadn’t even ordered yet.

  “This is like a cross between everlasting bubble gum and sawdust. I . . . Dominic?” Sylvie cleared her throat. “Dominic.”

  Two fingertips touched his wrist. Dominic drew in a long breath. Briefly, he closed his eyes.

  Turning deliberately away from the clown, he looked down into a bright hazel gaze. “I currently despise every atom of my existence.”

  The faintest of lines feathered out from Sylvie’s lashes. They deepened now. “Poor baby. Completely out of your comfort zone.” She unwound her long legs to free a foot and nudged a plush purple cushion in his direction. “Pull up a pew and join us commoners. I saved you a cushion, and I hope you’re grateful. The bloke in the bobble hat was eyeing this spot, and in my efforts to secure it for you, I collided with the mechanical bear.�
��

  She turned her arm and brandished her elbow, where the skin beneath her pushed-up sleeve was pink and scraped.

  Dominic was fucking exhausted, and now addled by the Hypno-Clown. He almost reached out and took her arm. The unheard-of instinct that had just propelled into his muscles was to bloody stroke her.

  Politely, Sylvie caught the attention of the barista. “Could you make it two Midnight Elixirs, please? Thank you.”

  She was playing with the remainder of her biscuit, dropping crumbs. Everywhere she went, strewing small atoms of chaos.

  “I would cling to the faint hope this is a dream.” He needed to get off his feet. Unwillingly, he hooked his boot around the cushion. When he lowered himself to sit, an arsehole vertebra midspine screamed that he was edging up on forty and spent his days leaning forward with a piping bag. “But even in nightmares, my imagination doesn’t pull up indoor tents and popcorn cannons.”

  “No shit. I’ve seen your cakes.” Sylvie took another unenthused bite. “This place is way busier than I was expecting. I am seething.” She looked at the remaining piece of biscuit. He could see from here how overbaked it was. It was also glistening under the overhead spotlights and streaked with pink, although that could be traces of Sylvie’s lipstick. Her lip curled. “This tastes nothing like my Celestial Cloud Cookies.” She set it down on a napkin and shot a glance at the demonic clown. “And the décor is ugly.” With obvious satisfaction, she finished, “‘Emerging competitor to Sugar Fair,’ my arse.”

  There was a piece of card under Dominic’s foot. He flicked it around without interest and realized it was the menu.

  Popcorn Cappuccino

  Penny Pops

  Star Bright Fudge

  Darren’s Daringly Delicious Dewdrops

  “Mmm.” He lifted the menu and turned it over to see if it got worse. Darren Didn’t Disappoint. He appeared to be surrounded by escapees from an Enid Blyton book. “I can see where the comparison came from.”

  In life, there were many sudden silences. Awkward silences. Companionable silences. Confused silences.

  And those moments when the world abruptly went so quiet that all you could hear were the icy breaths of your approaching demise.

  He lowered the menu. Any hint of amusement had disappeared from Sylvie’s face. She leaned forward, and her palm landed on the remains of her dry biscuit. She squashed it flat.

  Judging by her expression, she’d prefer it was one or both of his testicles.

  In lethally sweet tones, she inquired, “Are you seriously putting this nightmarish profusion of thrift-store rejects and unparalleled tackiness on remotely the same level as my gorgeous, magical dream come true?”

  “Weak tea, dude.” For a moment, Dominic thought Sylvie’s admirer, the Man U fan, was delivering an unsolicited review of his beverage, but no. Just an indictment on Dominic’s recent life choices. The kid shook his head in heavy disapproval. “Insulting your woman’s work. Not cool, man.”

  And the day edged further into surrealism.

  “I’m not his woman,” Sylvie said, with a level of revulsion usually reserved for blocked drains and maggot infestations.

  Her ally brightened. He whipped the cap off his head and edged closer with a coaxing smile. “In that case, would you like to—”

  “No,” she said uncompromisingly. She shifted her weight sideways so she could pull a small pink ticket from her pocket. “But I appreciate a wise man. Have a voucher for free cake.”

  He looked at her, looked at the voucher in his hand, made an all right, then face, and wandered off.

  The smiling, ponytailed barista bent and placed a steaming metal flagon at each of their feet. “Two Midnight Elixirs. Sorry about the wait. We’re packed tonight.”

  “I noticed.” For the other woman, Sylvie found a smile. “Thanks.” Completely ignoring Dominic now, which would usually be a gift beyond compare but, as the cherry on an endless stream of unsettling experiences, perversely annoyed him more, she picked up her flagon and took her first sip. “Hmm,” she said, and wrote something into her phone.

  Dominic’s jaw shifted a few times, then he picked up his own drink and dubiously examined the contents. Johnny Marchmont’s favorite drink was a dark indigo color, shades of purple when the light hit it. The consistency was thicker than he’d expected, midway between creamy coffee and a milkshake. He brought the cup to his nose and inhaled. There was spice in it. And he was pretty sure . . . He took a mouthful, considered it for a second, and swallowed. Star anise. Followed by a strong hit of berry and intense sweetness.

  He’d rather have an espresso, but the drink wasn’t actually that bad. When he broke down the rest of the contents, it would make for an unusual but palatable cake flavor.

  “So, ‘Darren,’ whoever he is, isn’t amenable to disclosing his recipes,” he murmured aloud as he jotted star anise onto his tablet. An earlier call to the coffee shop had netted only an irritating giggle from the staffer at the end of the line, and “Ooh, no. All our recipes are a Clyde family secret. Darren would never tell. Shhh.”

  “His recipes. Please.” Sylvie’s dislike of Darren and his saccharine alliteration was apparently strong enough to break the silent treatment. “He regularly steals ideas from Sugar Fair. I’d bet my stake in this contract that he didn’t concoct this himself.” She took another sip, a frown of concentration in her eyes. Then she wrote down something else. Dominic’s eyes traveled to her fingers against his will, and she lifted both her chin and her phone, covering the screen. “Unfortunately, he didn’t rip this one off me. And it’s way too . . . not beige to come from your kitchens.”

  “A neutral palette is universally appropriate.”

  “That’s not how you pronounce ‘dull.’”

  They both drank more.

  Dominic wrote down Boysenberry? Definitely vanilla; no more than two drops.

  Finishing their drinks, they ordered another round from the barista.

  “This place would be Byron’s worst nightmare,” Sylvie commented after a few minutes of silence, staring at the clown again. Dominic wasn’t repeating that mistake. “I thought he handled the elimination well today.”

  He accepted another flagon of Midnight Elixir and swallowed a mouthful. It burnt a warm trail down his throat that he quite liked. “He cried for an hour. I’ve seen less moisture expelled by hydraulic dams. Ironic, considering his gâteau opéra was dust-dry.”

  “Don’t be horrible.”

  “Every poignant, quivering teardrop was straight out of school drama. Are you planning to let every evictee faux-snivel into your neck?” Dominic’s thigh was starting to cramp. He shifted irritably. “It’s inappropriate.”

  “Some of us have compassion for others. It’s called empathy.”

  “Some of us would hug a rabid squirrel if it shed a few tears and burbled an improbable sob story. It’s called gullibility.”

  If she kept hurling her eyeballs around her skull like that, he wasn’t going to be the only one with a headache.

  He must have grimaced unconsciously, because Sylvie stopped rolling her eyes and narrowed them on his face.

  “Are you feeling okay?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re all strained here.” Without warning, those cool fingertips touched him again, this time glancing over his temple, a light kiss of a movement. He stiffened, his hand curling around the flagon of Elixir.

  Sylvie’s own hand folded into itself. A tinge of color invaded her cheekbones, until they matched the patchy remnants of her lipstick. “Sorry. Instinct. I didn’t mean to . . . infringe on your . . .” She cleared her throat.

  “I . . .”

  Had apparently experienced a human touch so infrequently lately that one silk-soft tap and the rest of his body almost separated from his skin.

  Except he could still feel that prickle through his nerves.

  Not exactly a reaction he had to every bit of casual physical contact.

  “Headache,” he said
shortly, sitting back. He touched his temple. “It’s been a very long day.” Each word came out with grim emphasis.

  “Staff problems?” Sylvie guessed warily. She was frowning into her Elixir. After burying her nose in the cup and inhaling deeply several times, she wrote down three more things on her list.

  He was falling behind, as his mind wandered down several unsettling avenues. Raising his flagon, he drained half the mixture in one go. The more he drank, the more cloying the sweetness in the aftertaste. It wasn’t so much complementing as cloaking the other flavors. Not honey. Sucralose?

  “Those as well.” He felt damned sorry for Aaron, but hopefully the interim measures they’d taken paid off, because he also couldn’t afford an endless stream of expensive mistakes.

  Especially if they secured the Albany contract. The short-term pressure would shoot into the stratosphere at that point, and he confidently expected a significant increase in knock-on sales once the name of the bakery was released in connection with the cake.

  The royal effect on trade was no joke. Princess Rose could single-handedly exceed the impact of thousands of pounds of advertising budget.

  He could almost hear Sylvie’s voice in his head: She’s a person, not an algorithm.

  What nontheoretical Sylvie said aloud was “Me too.”

  A combination of fatigue and high sugar content was slowing his reaction time. It took a second before he connected those words to a meaning. He glanced up. “You’re having staff problems?”

  “Problem, singular.” Sylvie wrinkled her nose. “Unless you count Jay and Mabel, our senior assistant, constantly squawking and pecking at one another like territorial budgies. Which is doing my head in, but nothing new.”

  Jay . . . one of those surnames with an unnecessary repetition of consonants. Fforde. Dominic had met him a couple of times, and they occasionally crossed paths in the street. Sharp head for figures but flapped under pressure. He’d crumble in a crisis.

  “Jay’s your business partner?”

  “Business partner. Lifelong best friend. We’ve known each other since we were babies. We were born in the same maternity ward, twelve hours apart. Our mothers apparently bonded over how useless our fathers were during the onset of labor. I literally learned to walk holding Jay’s hand.” The dimple by her mouth deepened again. “My aunt said we were crawling around the floor together, playing as usual, and I spotted a packet of biscuits. Motivated by sugar even then. I was determined to get to it, but I kept falling over when I tried to stand up. So Jay clambered to his feet as well, grabbed my hand, and off we toddled.” She lifted one shoulder. “He’s my brother, for all intents and purposes.” As Sylvie spoke of the other man, her preoccupied expression diffused into affectionate softness. The door opened to admit yet another customer, setting off the soundtrack of birdsong and a few piano notes of Moonlight Sonata to accompany her raptures.