Chapter Twenty-One
M agda slammed into her room at the inn, feeling like she’d just narrowly escaped… something . But something terrible or something incredible was anyone’s guess.
What the hell had just happened?
Well. She knew what had happened. Mac had kissed her. And she’d definitely kissed him back. Her brain hadn’t even registered the shock of it until after the fact because she was so busy participating with every fiber of her being.
Until they’d been interrupted—and thank goodness they’d been interrupted. Or maybe not? Obviously nothing could happen here and now. They were still competitors. There were rules. So yes, definitely thank goodness.
Except her heart was still beating in triple time. And she couldn’t even call Charlotte and Kendall to tell them about it and ask them what the hell she was supposed to do next. She couldn’t talk to Leah and Eunice about it because that was absolutely not supposed to have happened.
And the PA had seen them. So the production knew. Would they be kicked out? Magda had signed dozens of policies about sexual harassment and not colluding with other bakers—though at the time she’d been snickering at the idea of how one even colluded at a baking competition and hadn’t really paid attention to the finer details. She’d never expected it to be a problem.
Could they be kicked out for that? Surely not. Right?
Because I don’t want to be here without you.
Magda pressed a hand to her chest, feeling her heart thudding against her palm. Did he mean that? She wanted to beat him. She wanted to outlast him. But she’d felt so horrible today when he was in the bottom three. She’d told herself that it was just guilt—he’d helped her and the idea that he might be punished for it was excruciating.
She had wanted so desperately for him to survive elimination. She’d nearly cried out in relief when they’d said Walter’s name. Which had made her feel like a horrible friend to the older man, but there it was. Her relief had been so acute, so sharp, but then as soon as Mac was safe, her brain had begun to spin.
Why had he done that? Why would he risk it?
Magda paced over to her bed, then back to the door, wondering if she needed to reach out to Julia. Apprise her of the situation. Julia had seemed to be somewhat on her side. At least more so than anyone else in the production. She’d even felt bad enough about the Celsius mistake—though it hadn’t been her fault—that she hadn’t asked questions when Magda asked for Mac’s room number at the inn, on the pretext of needing to thank him.
But really Magda had needed to know why .
Because I don’t want to be here without you.
Had he really meant that?
And the kiss—that insane firestorm of a kiss—what had that meant? Did he want her now? Had he wanted her before?
Why now?
A whisper of uncertainty crept into her spiraling thoughts. Mac was smart. He was tactical. He’d helped her when the cameras were watching, when it would make him look like a hero and make America fall in love with him. And then he’d kissed her in a darkened hallway—which was, quite possibly, the one thing he could have done that would have had her retreating to her room even more confused than when she’d arrived.
She didn’t think there was any possibility he was playing her… but if he’d wanted her off her game, he’d succeeded. And if she went home because she was distracted by never-ending questions about what it all meant , she’d only have herself to blame.
He would win—not just the competition but the contest for the viewing audience’s hearts and minds. He’d be a fan favorite. They’d give him his own baking show. He’d walk away with her dream.
And she would never forgive herself.
But what if—perhaps even more terrifyingly—it wasn’t a ploy? What if this—whatever this was—was real?
Her heart tried to lurch up happily at the thought, and she smacked it down. It was impossible to know the truth as long as they were both in the competition. How could she let herself trust him completely in this insane environment?
She thought she knew Mac, but $250,000 was a lot of money. People would do a lot worse than mislead a girl who’d had a crush on them since she was eighteen for that kind of money. Not that she still had a crush on him. At least she didn’t want to. She’d never wanted those feelings that lingered beneath the surface, but they might still be there nonetheless. Making her susceptible to him. Gullible. She wanted too badly to believe that kiss. Her body and her stupid heart had leapt into it without looking back.
Yes, absolutely thank goodness they’d been interrupted.
As long as they were both in the competition, she needed to keep her wits about her.
Which meant absolutely no more kissing Mac.
“A PA just caught Mac and Magda making out in a hallway at the inn.”
Julia looked up from her tablet and swore under her breath.
She wasn’t surprised. There had been plenty of signs that those two had some very hot unresolved feelings for each other—and she’d heard the audio of Magda telling her friends about their history in the common room last weekend. So she’d definitely suspected things were moving in this direction.
The problem was Stephen.
Julia had done a good job of keeping Stephen from learning the whole truth behind their feud—there had been plenty of other drama with the almost-slap and them being forced to work together to keep him happy—but this was the kind of thing he would definitely want included in the edit.
“Is there footage?” Julia asked Greg, who had appeared with the news. The man seemed to know everything that happened anywhere on the production.
“Just an eyewitness,” Greg said—and Julia breathed a small sigh of relief. Only the kitchen and the common area at the inn were bugged, since the tiny hidden cameras were expensive and hadn’t been deemed a necessary production expense by the higher-ups.
“But apparently it was pretty hot,” Greg went on. “He had her up against a wall, and it appeared to be extremely consensual.”
“Right. Thanks.” Julia nodded, her brain already working on how to get in front of this so Stephen didn’t find some way to use it against them.
Should she go talk to him? Or try to hide it from him like she had the previous audio? Though this was much juicier than a few contestants shooting the breeze over drinks. And Greg already knew. Which meant the PA was obviously blabbing, and there was no realistic way to keep Stephen from finding out.
Okay. So how to work with this? How to turn it in their favor?
Maybe play up the showmance? Convince Stephen that audiences loved shipping the contestants, and if they leaned into that it would go better than using this to somehow throw the bakers off? But keep it vague to keep the audience interested? Don’t let on that they’ve already kissed?
It wasn’t great, but it might actually be the best way to maintain any privacy for Mac and Magda. By partially invading that privacy.
She could talk to them both in the morning, get a sense of whether they would go along with a little flirtation subplot, but first she needed to talk to Stephen—to make sure he hadn’t already heard about the kiss and to get a sense of where he stood on all the different contestants, just so she knew what she was working with.
Julia rose, tucking her tablet under her arm, and made her way through the darkened hallways of King Arthur toward the space that Stephen had set up as his lair.
Julia heard raised voices when she was still several feet down the hall. Multiple raised voices, but Stephen’s was definitely the loudest, per usual.
But then a phrase jumped out from the mish-mash of voices and Julia stopped in her tracks.
The lawyers. Stephen had definitely just said the lawyers .
Something was very wrong.