Chapter Fifteen
S he and Mac didn’t speak as the PAs strapped them into their Velcro harness thingies.
Technically they were barred from speaking because they weren’t supposed to plan their bake until the official planning time began, but Magda wouldn’t have known what to say even if they could have spoken.
The harnesses were less involved than they’d looked dangling from Jeffrey Flanders’s hands. It was a padded belt around her waist, attached to one around Mac’s by a very short bungee, and a padded cuff around her left wrist and his right attached by another, thinner bungee. They could move about two feet away from each other before one of those bungees yanked them back.
“Well, this’ll be fun,” Magda muttered darkly—and one of the PAs shushed her before scurrying out of the shot. On the plus side, she’d gotten over her brief this-is-where-it-ends mood. She would not let this beat her. But that meant working with Mac—and they had definitely proven this morning that this was a bad idea.
“All right, bakers, now that you’re all suited up… your ten minutes of planning time starts… now! ” Jeffrey Flanders announced.
Magda turned to face the man she’d been handcuffed to. She’d made a million cakes, and several dozen of those had been wedding cakes. She was amazing at cakes—when she didn’t glaze them too soon. This was her chance to redeem herself. All she had to do was convince him to hand her ingredients and stay out of her way.
“So…”
“Obvious choice, right?” Mac said before she could suggest he be her personal assistant for the afternoon. “The maple cake.”
Her jaw dropped incredulously. “Did you seriously just suggest that we make the secret family recipe you stole from me ?”
He groaned, casting a glance up at the ceiling as if asking for divine intervention. “I didn’t steal it, Magda. I just make a similar cake. But it’s one we both know, it’s unique, and it’s delicious.”
“We both know it because you stole it .”
“I’ve never even seen the recipe. How am I supposed to have stolen it?”
She planted her hands on her hips. “I don’t know. I just know that I made it for you, and when I got back from France three years later, it was a freaking staple on your menu at the Cup. People were raving about it, and it tasted exactly like mine .”
“I thought it was a good idea to have a maple cake—”
“My maple cake! And my idea! I was the one who suggested—”
“Is this still about that goddamn business plan?”
“You took all my ideas!”
“You gave them to me!”
“And you laughed me out of the building—only to turn around and use every idea in that binder.”
“It was a Trapper Keeper. You were a kid .”
“And that makes it okay to steal my ideas?”
“I didn’t steal—” He broke off on a growl of frustration. “I’m sorry , okay? I didn’t take you seriously, and maybe after you left I looked through the binder, and there was some good stuff in there, but it was all stuff we’d talked about together . You’re making it sound like it was all you. Like I needed to beg your forgiveness for growing my business. It was why I enrolled in that baking class. Because I wanted to add cakes and muffins—”
“But I was a part of it, we planned it together and you just dismissed me—”
“What do you want me to do? It was almost fourteen years ago. You left, and when you came back you barely spoke to me for ten years. I just said I was sorry. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to apologize for anymore.”
“You don’t know ?”
“You were just a kid—”
“This isn’t about that!”
A buzzer went off at the front of the room—reminding them both where they were, and that there was a camera crew eagerly catching every word.
“All right, bakers! That’s the end of your planning time! Your three hours of baking time starts… now !”
Magda stared at Mac, her heart pumping hard and her brain still fizzing uselessly. They had a bake to complete. “Maple cake?”
Mac nodded, suddenly all business. “Maple cake.”
The bake could have gone very, very badly. They could have been bickering and yanking each other off-balance and shouting recriminations at each other—there was certainly plenty of that going on around the kitchen. Eunice’s partner berated her to the point of tears. Josh and his father spent more time arguing than baking. The camera crews were actually struggling to keep up with all the drama.
But somehow, miraculously, as soon as the timer started and they both kicked into competition mode, Mac and Magda worked together like a well-oiled machine.
Magda had trained at her fancy high-pressure French pastry academy, and Mac had worked countless rushes in his kitchen at the Cup, so they both knew how to buckle down and get the work done—and how to be aware of other chefs in their space. It was a little different, being physically tied together, but being handcuffed to Magda actually wasn’t as limiting as he’d worried it might be. He was excruciatingly aware of her every move, but they were both very careful not to brush against each other.
After the timer started, the only conversation they shared was about the cake. When she corrected his technique, he listened, because he would never have her level of expertise. When he suggested adding a touch of bourbon to the icing—since it could sometimes be too sweet-on-sweet-on-sweet—she studied him for a long moment, and then nodded, ceding to his touch with flavors.
When the layers had cooled and it was time to ice and decorate, he knew the best thing he could do was make sure she had whatever she needed and stay out of her way. He’d seen the wedding cakes she’d made, and he knew he couldn’t compete with her for decoration. Or for speed. He watched her deftly spin the cakes, smoothing the icing with a long, flat palette knife, and then take up the buttercream bag and begin creating a waterfall of flowers—all while he soaked candied orange peel in bourbon maple syrup.
Magda used tweezers to place the candied peel as the clock ticked down and Flanders called out the numbers like it was New Year’s Eve.
Magda and Mac threw up their hands when Flanders called, “Time!”
Their wrists were still held together by the short bungee—and Mac felt a surge of relief that they’d managed it, they’d actually worked together and created something that looked pretty damn close to perfection, while around the room other bakers were swearing.
The surge of end-of-challenge endorphins must have clouded his brain, because he didn’t even realize he’d pulled Magda into a relieved hug until he felt her soft body stiffen slightly.
“Good job,” he said gruffly, dropping his arms.
“You too.” Magda didn’t meet his eyes as she pulled away, her face flushed. She turned to face their cake instead.
Three tiers. Maple cake with bourbon buttercream, exquisite buttercream roses, and candied orange peel accents. He already knew it would be heaven. He didn’t even need to look around the room to know they had a definite shot at winning this one.
Which was surreal.
That had actually felt… good . They’d been good together. He hadn’t hummed show tunes or made jokes to the camera—they’d both been totally, brutally focused. And intensely aware of each other’s every move. He knew her every breath. Her rhythms. Unbidden, the analogy popped into his head that working together like this was like sex. Really good sex, where they were both fully focused on each other’s movements, so in sync and working, straining, toward the shared goal of pleasure.
Fuuuck.
This was Magda. They brought out the worst in each other.
Didn’t they?
Mac looked over at Magda, his mood feeling off-kilter and his heart beating strangely. Was it possible they actually made a good team? What might happen if they just let go of the past and stopped trying to hate each other so hard?
He’d come here hoping that a side effect of the competition might be burying the hatchet between them, but this felt… different.
The feud was complicated. It had always been this strange, living thing that felt like it was more than the sum of its parts. It hadn’t been just about them for years. The whole town had gotten involved. But now he realized it was also something else. A kind of connection. An unbreakable link.
Then the PAs were there, literally unlinking them from each other, and Magda was moving away from him as quickly as possible, her face flushed. They were ushered toward the Proving Room so the cameras could get shots of all the bakes, and Magda went straight to Leah, Eunice, and Josh, making sure her friends were okay. Asking how their bakes had gone. She didn’t look back at him.
Mac trailed behind, pausing at the Proving Room door to look back at all the workstations. At their three-tiered maple cake.
He hadn’t stolen it. But maybe they could finally settle this. And then…
Then who knew what would happen?
“Hey. Can I talk to you for a second?”
Magda had been in a huddle with her friends in the Proving Room, but she looked up when she saw Mac standing over her. Though she’d known he was there. The last three hours seemed to have attuned her senses to every move he made.
It had been… strange. Working with him. Not horrible. Just odd. For three hours they’d actually communicated without snarling at each other, and now… She didn’t know what was different about his expression, but for once it didn’t make her want to snarl.
“Yeah, okay,” she murmured.
She stood and followed him to the other side of the Proving Room, perfectly aware that the cameras around the room would catch their entire conversation—and hopefully that would keep her from going off the rails. She was tired of fighting with him.
“What’s up?” she asked when they were as alone as they were going to get.
“I have a proposition for you,” he said, blushing slightly when she raised her eyebrows. “Not like that. Think of it as a side bet. A way to finally put the past behind us.”
Magda studied his face, but she saw no sign of trickery. “I’m listening.”
“We wipe the slate clean. I stop giving you shit about taking my location. You stop accusing me of stealing your recipe. And whoever gets the farthest in the competition gets to keep the maple cake on their menu.”
Magda didn’t bother to hide her skepticism. “You want me to stop making my family’s recipe?”
“You think you can’t beat me?” he challenged. “Don’t get me wrong. I want to win. But we both know you’re better than I am when you aren’t panicking and sabotaging yourself.”
She frowned, looking for the catch. “Why would you offer this if you didn’t think you were going to win?”
“Maybe I’m sick of the feud.”
“I thought we had a truce.”
“We still wouldn’t sabotage each other,” he clarified. “This would just be between us. Anyone who doesn’t fight fair forfeits the cake.”
“You would actually stop making the maple cake?”
“I would,” he promised. “Look, Mags, I really didn’t steal it. I adapted a recipe my grandmother had. But I am offering this as an olive branch. Olive cake. Whatever.”
She looked to their left, eyeing the cameras in the corner, designed to catch all the Proving Room conversations. “We’re being recorded right now. I have proof.”
“You don’t trust me?”
“Should I?”
If she didn’t know any better, she’d think he was hurt by that. But she’d long ago learned she didn’t have the power to hurt Mackenzie Newton.
“Deal?” he asked, holding out his hand.
It was her cake, and one of her most popular items at the bakery. She was risking never being able to make it again if he outlasted her. But the truth was, she was tired of the feud, too. She was tired of clinging to her anger where he was concerned.
“Yeah, okay. Deal.” She slid her hand into his, shoving down the strange feeling of rightness as his larger fingers wrapped around hers. This was still Mac. He still didn’t want her like that. But maybe, just maybe, they didn’t have to hate each other anymore.