Chapter Eight
T hey’d been set up.
That was Mac’s first thought when the door to the van he’d been waiting in for ten minutes opened and Magda was ushered inside.
The producers were no fools. Magda had been playing nice in the kitchen, in front of the cameras and other contestants—quiet, contained—but now her eyes flared with the fire he was used to seeing in them and she snarled “You.”
“Hey, Mags.”
He was pretty positive the vans were all wired for audio and video. Connor was a contract lawyer and he’d gone over everything Mac had signed with a fine-tooth comb. He’d told Mac that according to the contracts, only bathrooms and their designated rooms at the house were considered off-limits. Everywhere else—vans, green rooms—they should assume was fair game.
Mac had never seen them include any footage when the contestants didn’t seem to know they were being recorded—but this was the Archrivals Edition, and he wasn’t sure the same rules applied. The entire day had been different from what he had expected. Cake-Off was a cuddly teddy bear of a show, but this… this was something different.
He had a feeling Magda was relying on the way things had always been done when she flung herself onto the seat beside his.
“I hope you’re proud of yourself,” she snapped.
“Well. It was a pretty great panna cotta.”
Shit. Why did he say that? What was it about her that always made him want to goad her when he knew he shouldn’t? This was his chance to clear the air between them, and here he was making her eyes flare with anger and her face flush scarlet.
Which always made his own heart beat faster. There was just something about her when she was all fired up.
“You let me make a fool of myself. You let me stand there and tell you I was going on the show.” She buckled herself in almost savagely, only a narrow empty seat separating them.
“I mean, technically you assumed I already knew—”
“Which you did. But it wasn’t George at all, was it?” Blue eyes bored into his in the low light of the van, the darkness making it feel like they were the only two people in the world.
Mac lowered his voice. “Look, Magda, I wanted to tell you, but they had me sign all these nondisclosure agreements. It’s shitty that they blindsided you—”
“And you helped them do it.”
“What was I supposed to do?” he snapped, guilt sharpening the words. “They recruited me.”
Her eyes flared again. “Are you serious? I auditioned for three years and they came to you ?”
“One of the producers saw something about our feud on social media—”
“You barely bake! What are you even doing here?”
And because it was Magda, and he couldn’t help himself, he heard himself quipping “Winning?”
He half expected her to lunge across the empty seat and strangle him, but her next words were icy cold. “Is this revenge?”
“What?” The insult rippled through him, stirring his own temper. “You really think I’m that petty?”
“You knew how much I wanted this—”
“I’m not the one who has a history of taking something just because the other one wants it, cupcake,” he growled.
“It was ten years ago! And do you honestly think I started a business just to piss you off? Do we need another van just to fit your ego?”
“You could have started the bakery anywhere. You didn’t have to take my location—”
“If it was your location, I wouldn’t have been able to sign the lease, would I? It’s not my fault you were too slow.”
“You only knew it was coming available because of me!” he growled.
“And you only wanted to move the Cup because I wrote up a business plan for you. I was the one who talked you into expanding the menu! You’d still be an espresso stand if not for me.”
“Don’t give yourself so much credit, cupcake. I wanted to expand long before I started that baking class.”
“Will you stop calling me cupcake! Cupcake is my dog .”
“You’re the boss, sugarplum.” Her glare could have melted metal, those blue eyes searing hot. “Look, I’m doing you a favor by being here.” There. That was back on message. Though he had thrown the words at her a little more aggressively than he’d intended.
His best intentions had a tendency to go up in flames where Magda was concerned. He’d been wanting to talk to her all day, but the second they were alone—nuclear meltdown. No survivors. There was something about them, some chemical reaction, that made his brain shut off.
“A favor ?” she yelped. “Oh, thank you so much for nearly getting me eliminated from the competition on day one.”
“You think you would have gotten into the Archrivals Edition without an archrival? Think , Magda.”
“If the only reason you’re here is to do me such a favor, then why try so hard to beat me?”
“I didn’t have to beat you, sugar. You beat yourself today.”
Her eyes widened—but this time there was hurt blended in with the anger, making him feel like absolute shit. She leaned away from him, only then making him realize how much they’d been leaning toward each other, the air between them charged with an angry magnetism.
“You’re a real asshole, you know that?” she whispered, her face suddenly illuminated as the van pulled into a brightly lit parking lot.
“So you’ve said.”
The van stopped and in the front seat the driver spoke into a walkie, “5A and 5B arriving at the house.”
But Magda didn’t move to get out. She was too busy looking at him like he’d poisoned her dog. “You knew I was about to be blindsided on national television, and you didn’t say a thing.”
“The contract—”
“Bullshit. You wanted the advantage. You wanted to knock me out, and you knew you couldn’t beat me unless I was rattled.”
He hadn’t been consciously thinking that. But he’d seen some of the things she could do. Exquisite pastries and magnificently decorated cakes that must have taken hours of precision work. Stuff he genuinely couldn’t have accomplished in any amount of time. She’d been off her game today, and he’d definitely benefited from that, but that wasn’t the only reason he’d won.
This show would eat Magda alive.
“Maybe I was doing you a favor,” he said. “Shows like this aren’t for everyone. The person who wins Cake-Off isn’t going to be rattled by a few surprises. You’re right—you’re a better baker than I am. You’re probably better than all of us. But you almost got eliminated tonight—and I killed it. And it wasn’t because I knew you were going to be there. It’s because I thrive on this. I love a challenge. And some people are better at home, safe in their own kitchen where everything is under their control and no one ever rocks their narrow little world.”
“I despise you,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I know, honey,” he said—his own anger retreating enough to let the feeling-like-shit portion of his interactions with Magda begin. Mac didn’t have a temper—except with Magda. And he almost never said things he regretted—except to her.
He’d actually thought about what he wanted to tell her—that they didn’t have to feud here. That just because she’d had an off day didn’t mean she wasn’t the best damn baker here. He’d meant it when he said she was better than him. By far. He’d meant to console her. To tell her that the show wasn’t everything, that it didn’t determine whether she was great or not. There were so many factors—the heat, the time constraints—these shows weren’t the real world. Losing on here didn’t mean anything.
And he’d said a lot of that. In the most dickish way possible.
Why were his emotions always turned up to eleven whenever she was in the room? He was nice , damn it. He liked that about himself. But he always ended up hating himself with her.
His eyes caught on that escaped curl, lying against the curve of her neck. The rapid pulse there.
“Look, you should be flattered. They wanted you badly enough to recruit me,” he said. “It’s the Archrivals Edition. Just think of me as the price of admission. You wanted to be on the show, didn’t you?”
“Not like this.” The look in her eyes killed him. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This isn’t Cake-Off . This is… I don’t even know what this is.” She swallowed thickly. “Maybe I should just leave…”
“Magda…” He reached out a hand on the unfamiliar urge to comfort her—there was something so uncertain about her in that moment, so vulnerable, and he just wanted to hold her—but the van door was suddenly whisked open by a production assistant.
“Hi.” Her gaze flicked back and forth between them, as if sensing something uncomfortable in the air, and then she spoke into her headset. “Eyes on 5A and 5B.”
Magda climbed quickly out of the van, but she paused to throw a final poisoned glance over her shoulder. “Do me a favor, Mac. Stop doing me favors.”
“Good idea,” he muttered to himself after she’d stalked into the building with the PA scrambling at her side. A glorious baking goddess on the rampage.
He followed more slowly, giving her a chance to put some distance between them.
The “house” wasn’t actually a house at all. The production had taken over an inn for the week. Mac had overheard two of the producers discussing the impossibility of finding the kind of house they usually used that could accommodate all of the bakers within range of King Arthur. Apparently filming in smaller towns rather than a city was a giant pain in the ass logistically, and the Cake-Off crew veterans were annoyed.
It was fascinating, seeing the way the sausage was made. There were so many people—dozens of them—behind the scenes of the hit show. It always seemed so quaint and cute. The American version was more cutthroat than the British one, but it still had an air of wholesome warmth.
A wholesome warmth Mac had yet to experience during filming. Though it was early days. And maybe they were skipping the wholesome warmth on the “rivals” season. Going edgier. More table flipping. Less hugging.
Magda didn’t seem terribly pleased with the changes. But would she actually leave?
Mac didn’t mind a little fabricated drama—he actually found it all kind of fascinating. Like a Broadway production. But Magda was so sensitive. Too sensitive for this. And she wanted it too badly.
He wanted to win, but he had the distinct impression that it meant something different to her. Like it wasn’t just about money and the chance to build her business, but like winning and losing actually said something about her.
And he hadn’t helped with his diatribe in the van.
He would apologize, but he’d long since learned that attempts to apologize only turned into worse fights. There were times when he liked bickering with her—when it made him feel alive and awake and present in a way that was downright electric—but then he’d see a flash of hurt in her eyes and feeling like shit would take over. Better just to avoid her.
Thankfully, she was already out of the reception area by the time he made his way in there. The production assistant was waiting there with his room key and instructions on when to be ready in the morning.
“You aren’t allergic to pets, are you?” the PA asked anxiously as Mac accepted the key. “The inn has a cat and a dog we didn’t know about, and we already had to move Javier—”
“No allergies,” Mac confirmed, cutting off the panic. He glanced around, telling himself he wasn’t looking for Magda. “Are there cameras around here?”
The PA blinked in shock. “At the house? This isn’t Big Brother . We don’t care what you’re doing when you’re not baking. As long as you aren’t cheating. You know about the anticollusion rules, right?”
“Right. Yeah.” At least they wouldn’t be on camera here.
He made his way up the stairs. The inn was similar to several in Pine Hollow—converted from a historic building and therefore full of creaking stairs and narrow, zigzagging hallways. A gray cat twined around his legs, and he knelt to greet the true master of the house, offering pets in tribute. After the cat swaggered away, Mac straightened and walked past several doors before finding his own—wondering which one was Magda’s. Not that it mattered. He needed to avoid her. Pretend they were strangers.
As if that would work. As if he hadn’t always been aware of her the second she walked into a room, everything in him going sharp and alert before he even saw her.
They were gasoline and an open flame—and they somehow needed to avoid exploding for the next four weeks. Or until one of them got eliminated.
Four weeks. Barely any time at all.
All they had to do was avoid fourteen years of bad habits.
No problem.