Chapter Nine
J ules, we have a problem with 5B.”
Julia looked up from the footage she’d been marking and frowned as she squinted blearily at the clock. It was nearly midnight, and she had a six a.m. call time. “What kind of problem? Is she sick?”
Greg—another producer who’d worked with Stephen before—shook his head. “A PA was reviewing the van footage—Stephen had her ride to the house with 5A—and apparently there was some kind of indication that she didn’t like it here or might not want to stay. I don’t know. The PA’s probably freaking over nothing, but Stephen wants you on it.”
Julia hissed out a curse under her breath and got to her feet, snatching up her tablet. “Can you send the audio to my tablet?” she asked, already moving toward the exit.
Freaking Stephen.
It was too early to put Mac and Magda in a car together. She’d told him that, but he was so convinced he was right about everything. Right about the show’s new concept. Right about blindsiding half the contestants. Right about pitting them against each other right off the bat.
This was Julia’s fourth season of Cake-Off . She’d started out as a PA, but she’d had good instincts, and the show’s previous showrunner had noticed her rapport with the bakers from the start. Deanna had believed in mentorship—and she’d quickly moved Julia from being a general PA to her personal on-set assistant. She’d taught Julia a metric ton about how reality television—good, positive reality television—was made. Julia had been promoted to producer and started nurturing her very own bakers through the process last season.
But then Deanna—kind, wonderful Deanna who had grown the American version of Cake-Off into the success that it was—had a stroke. Her doctors told her to stop working such insane hours. To go home and spend more time with her grandkids. So Deanna—who was Cake-Off to so many of the crew—had abruptly retired. And the network executives had panicked.
They needed a seasoned showrunner to take over their precious ratings-winner baby. And there was Stephen. Fresh off the most successful season ever of the most cutthroat competition series on television. He knew how to make audiences tune in week after week—even Julia had to admit that the man knew how to craft a compelling hour of television. The tension crackled on his shows, and something dramatic was always right on the verge of happening.
But that wasn’t Cake-Off . At least it wasn’t supposed to be.
In the past, the most significant difference between the British version of the show and the American one was that all of the Americans were professionals who made their living from baking in some form, while all of the Brits were hobbyists with other jobs. But both were warm and fuzzy.
Until now.
Stephen had easily sold the network execs on the Archrivals Edition—the man was persuasive. When he wasn’t being a dictatorial ass, like he was to most of his crew.
Julia had voiced her dissent, along with most of the other long-term Cake-Off producers, but they’d been overruled—and told to get with the program or get out. So Julia had gotten with the program. She’d wanted Magda on the show for years—ever since she first saw her in casting—and the feud with some guy in her hometown seemed ideal.
Until today. When Julia had seen that raw, hurt look on Magda’s face when he’d walked into the Cake-Off kitchen. That didn’t look like a harmless small-town feud. It looked personal.
And now Magda was considering leaving?
Julia cursed under her breath as she drove the two miles between King Arthur and the inn they’d taken over. At least Stephen had stuck with Deanna’s original plan to film this season at King Arthur—even if accommodating the needs of the baking school had been a logistical nightmare.
As soon as her tablet pinged with the incoming audio, she listened to it—and then cursed some more. She took the stairs up to the room Magda had been assigned and knocked gently at the door, holding her breath as she waited.
She didn’t know what she was going to say to convince Magda to stay. She never planned this stuff out. She was good at her job because she listened , because she made the bakers feel comfortable and let them guide the conversation. She never tried to manipulate. She coached. She encouraged.
But for her to do that, Magda actually had to open the door.
Julia started to knock again—then caught sight of the time on her tablet and silently kicked herself instead. Of course Magda wasn’t answering. She was sleeping . That conversation had been recorded nearly an hour ago, and Magda’s call time tomorrow was almost as early as Julia’s.
Okay, this is fine. I’ll just catch her first thing in the morning. Julia gave herself a silent pep talk. It wasn’t like Magda could go anywhere. The contestants had no transportation of their own and there were PAs on all the entrances 24/7 to make sure no reality show vloggers tried to sneak onto the property and get information about the upcoming season or its contestants. Which also meant none of the contestants could leave without being spotted.
Magda was sleeping. And everything was going to be fine. Julia would talk her into staying—and do her best to protect her bakers from Stephen’s machinations. He was not going to ruin Deanna’s legacy if there was anything Julia could do about it.
Now she just had to get some sleep herself. They were filming a marathon Skills Challenge tomorrow, with one of Stephen’s special twists thrown in. Julia needed to be on her game almost as much as the contestants did. It was going to be a very long day.
“Can’t sleep?”
Magda froze when she stepped into the inn’s common room and was greeted by that question. The last thing she wanted was to have to be “on” for one of the crew people. Well. The second to last thing, after running into Mac again.
She didn’t want to play the perfect little contestant, but what she saw when she squinted into the shadows was actually a cluster of van B—now Red Team—bakers, huddled together around one of the small tables in the breakfast area, illuminated only by the glow of the pendant light over the coffee station.
“Not a wink,” Magda admitted, resuming her progress into the room.
Leah and Josh were in pajamas, while Eunice had almost completely disappeared inside one of the inn’s fuzzy bathrobes. The inn’s resident dog—a scruffy little terrier Magda had fallen instantly in love with—was curled up on a small dog bed in the corner, paws twitching and making little noises in his sleep.
Magda nodded to the mug in Leah’s hands. “I thought some tea might help.”
“Might I suggest something stronger?” Leah held up a flask, tilting it invitingly.
“Sold.” Magda was a lightweight, and she rarely drank, but right now she needed something to unknot the fist of tension that had kept her from being able to sleep. Her brain wouldn’t stop spinning, but she needed rest, or she was going to fail as spectacularly tomorrow as she had today.
Magda got a mug, filling it with chamomile tea, and sat across from Leah, nodding her thanks when Leah tipped some amber liquid into the tea.
“Scotch,” Leah explained. “The good stuff. My father got it for me to celebrate my wins.” She eyed her own cup. “Somehow today doesn’t really feel like a win.”
Leah had been one of only two Red Team bakers to make it through to the winner’s bracket with an exquisite cardamom and vanilla bean cheesecake. But Magda knew what she meant. All of Leah’s enthusiasm and vivacity was dimmed now, their shared excitement for the show tainted.
“Did you know about the twist?” Eunice asked softly.
“Not a clue,” Magda admitted.
“It’s so unfair,” Josh complained, matching Magda’s internal indignation. “How can they tell some of us and not others? After all that business about no one getting information about the competitions early.”
“I’m learning fair doesn’t really play into reality television,” Leah said with a grimace.
“But Cake-Off is supposed to be different,” Magda said. “It’s not about feuds and backstabbing. The Baker’s Dozen always support one another. They become friends. It isn’t supposed to be like this.”
“I guess they wanted more drama,” Leah said.
Josh tipped his head, studying Magda. “Your nemesis is the hot ginger with the arms?”
“Josh,” Leah scolded.
“I’m sorry. Am I not supposed to notice that he’s hot?”
“No, he’s hot,” Magda confirmed. “You’re not wrong.”
“You’re hot, too,” Josh assured her.
Which was a very sweet lie. Magda wasn’t hot. She was the prototype for cute. Sweet and pleasant. So unbelievably pleasant . But sex appeal? Yeah. No. That was more Leah with her crystalline confidence. And Mac, who always made everything look so easy.
“He your ex?” Josh asked. “My station was behind yours, and I thought I picked up on some tension.”
“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Magda rushed to explain. “He’s just from my town—competition for my bakery—and we’ve never been able to stand each other.”
“Really? It seemed personal.”
Because it absolutely is.
“We just…” Magda shook her head, diverting the conversation away from her. She looked to Leah. “What about yours?”
“Lying, cheating, scumbag ex-husband.” Leah lifted her mug in a mocking toast.
Magda winced. “Ouch.”
“Yeah. Tim. And he’s a good baker too, the bastard. We were all lined up to have our own show on the Food Network—until I caught him sleeping with a twenty-two-year-old makeup artist. This was supposed to be my fresh start, and now I get to spend the next month talking about him. Seeing him every day. Being reminded why I needed a fresh start in the first place—and, God, if he wins…” She shuddered.
“May his bottoms be soggy and his dough underproved,” Josh said, raising his glass.
They all clinked their mugs against his.
“I talked to the others,” Leah went on. “Abby’s is her estranged little sister. Walter said something about his business partner cheating him. And Taylor was Caroline’s best friend for fifteen years before she slept with Caroline’s husband.”
“Damn,” Josh marveled. “No wonder Caroline was so pissed when she got eliminated.”
The first baker to go had definitely seemed more angry than sad.
“They’re lucky no one got punched in the face during the first bake,” Leah said. “Though they probably would have loved that.”
Magda looked to Eunice and Josh. “Who are your rivals?”
Eunice made a face. “Mine’s not that bad. Just the guy from culinary school who always made me feel like I was worthless and wasting my time.”
“Mine’s my dad,” Josh said into his mug. “Whom I haven’t spoken to since he told me that he doesn’t have a problem with my sexuality, but couldn’t I just break up with my fiancé and try dating women so my mother could save face with her church group?”
“Josh,” Magda whispered, horrified as she put her hand over his. “I’m so sorry. It’s so horrible of the producers to do this to you.”
“Yeah, well, they did it to all of us.”
“I think Stephen might be Satan,” Leah speculated, her tone managing to lighten the mood.
Mac made Magda feel unhinged—and like she was still that desperate eighteen-year-old girl, but things could have been a lot worse. “I think I got off the easiest.”
“I don’t know,” Leah said. “I suspect Walter and Roy might be pretending to hate each other for the show.”
“The adorable bowtie grandpa and Idris Elba’s sexy uncle?” Josh asked. “Say it isn’t so.”
Magda took a sip of her whiskey tea. “It’s so unfair that some people knew in advance. It obviously affected how we baked— five out of seven Red Team bakers lost. You and Abby were the only ones who weren’t thrown.”
“Oh, I was thrown,” Leah corrected. “But I bake when I’m angry, so I’ve had years of practice.”
Magda shook her head. “We weren’t supposed to have to bake angry. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. I was ready for the challenges. Nervous, but ready. I wanted to test myself. To push myself to my limits and see if I’m really as good as I think I am. It wasn’t supposed to be about them.”
“Forget them. Don’t let them ruin this for you.”
Leah made it sound so easy.
“I actually considered leaving earlier,” Magda admitted—and raised a hand in surrender when they all chorused their objections. “Just for a second. I performed so badly today, but it wasn’t even that. I felt cheated . This was supposed to be our Cake-Off . I just wish we could have a regular season. Only us. No more Blue Team.”
“So let’s do it,” Leah said. “Let’s knock them all out of the competition, and then finish as just us.”
“Like it’s that easy?” Eunice asked softly.
“All those people who say ‘don’t get mad, get even’ have it wrong,” Leah said. “Your anger is your superpower. Get mad. And then get even. Use the anger as fuel. Let it focus you. And then destroy the other side. Forget Tim. Forget—” She glanced at Magda.
“Mac.”
“Forget Mac and Josh’s dad and—”
“Zain.”
“And Zain. This is our Cake-Off . And we’re not going to let the bastards take that from us. To winning.”
Leah lifted her mug and they all clinked theirs against it.
“Do you really think we can knock them out?” Eunice asked, as uncertain as Magda felt.
“Don’t you? You had to know you were awesome to get this far. So own it. Use it.”
Magda smiled—she’d never been good at knowing she was awesome, but when Leah said it, she could almost believe it. “You give really good pep talks, you know that?”
“My dad’s a basketball coach. It’s in the blood.”
They all went upstairs not long after that—the morning was going to come whether they were ready for it or not. They split up to head back to their rooms, and Magda lay down on her bed feeling… well, if not better, at least less alone.
She’d been off-balance even before she arrived, doubting herself, wondering why they’d picked her, terrified of not being good enough. But Leah was right. This was their Cake-Off .
Magda wasn’t going to be thrown again. She shouldn’t have let herself be thrown in the first place. It was just Mac. She’d been competing against him for years. She knew him—which meant she knew his weaknesses. He’d never survive sugar working. She could beat him. As long as she stayed focused and stayed in the competition.
Mac may not think she belonged here. He didn’t think she was cut out for the pressure of the Cake-Off kitchen? Fine. She’d just have to prove him wrong. Just as she had when she’d started her own business.
She had a plan. And Magda was always amazing at executing a plan.
She wasn’t that eighteen-year-old girl anymore. She didn’t need Mac’s approval.
And she was going to destroy him.