The cake was perfect.
Robin chewed a fingernail as she looked at it from all angles. While slightly shorter than the one she’d made in Paris, this cake boasted more turrets. She’d also taken the time to decorate each turret in its own style.
One of the other contestants wandered over. “You made something awesome!” the gray-haired woman gushed.
And just like that, Robin was thirteen again, hearing her grandma praise her art.Looks beautiful, sweetie. What a talent.Her vivacious grandma was everything Robin aspired to be. A compliment from her helped to quiet the voices in her head about not being good enough.
Except, wait. Was that a rip in the fondant covering the east side of the castle wall? The rules stated that she couldn’t touch the cake after the buzzer except to move it to the judging area. She glanced around. No one was nearby. Sammy was at the sink washing his hands. She could just—
No.
She would leave the flaw. Cleaning it up would be cheating. Besides, this was her best effort, and if her best wasn’t perfect, so be it. Excellence wasn’t always found in perfection.
Around the room, other teams were cleaning up and getting ready to move their cakes to the judging area. Voices rang out in a constant, loud murmur, and the scent of cake hung heavy in the air. She looked over at Sammy. He leaned against the worktop, arms crossed, one knee bent. His left cheek was dusted with flour. She walked over and rubbed it off with her hand.
He caught her hand before it could leave his face and held it there.
“We did it.” His slow smile ignited an inferno inside.
“We sure did,” she said. “Thanks for coming. I couldn’t have done it without you.”
“You’re going to owe me a thousand cupcakes after this.” He winked and added fuel to the blaze in her belly.
She pulled away. “Let’s get this cake in place.”
They had thirty minutes before the first round of judging began. With measured movements, they slid the cake onto a wheeled cart for transfer to the other end of the room.
A movement caught her eye as a man walked up. “Victor?”
In front of them was her old boss. Seeing him earlier had added to her jitters, though she’d tried to ignore his influence. Victor shouldn’t have any hold on her life now. She felt rather than saw Sammy move to stand at her side.
“Hello again, Robin.” Victor’s smooth accent oiled his words. He gave her cake a once-over. A slight sneer appeared on his thin lips. “You finished in time. Congratulations. I see you’re still fond of gold leaf. How quaint.”
A tingling began in her neck and swept up and over her face. Suddenly unsure that Victor could be impartial, she questioned her earlier words to Sammy. She knew all about judgmental people. They didn’t always catch her vision. She’d seen that before in her life.
She clenched and unclenched her sweaty hands.
Beside her, Sammy bristled. A waft of his cologne, spicy with a hint of pine, drifted over her. The familiar scent calmed her.
“What are you doing here?” She crossed her arms.
“Besides judging this contest? I’m scouting new talent. I’m opening a new bakery just outside Paris, in Chantilly, and need a master baker.” Victor looked at his hands. Strange, she’d never known him to be shy before. “Until our…disagreement…I’d thought to promote you. A few more years under my tutelage and you could have been something big.”
“Seriously, pal? Disagreement?” Sammy’s outburst surprised her. “You humiliated her in front of a whole room of people.”
“I think she has sold you a lie.” Victor curled his lip. “It was she who humiliated me. Questioning my authority in front of the whole staff. Correcting me in front of the judge.”
“After you basically stole her cake! Are you calling Robin a liar?” Sammy shot back.
He remembered the story? A warm glow bubbled through her. It would be easy to love someone like Sammy, someone who really saw her. “Sammy, it’s fine.” She looked at him. Color rose high on his cheeks and his eyes blazed.
“It’s not fine. This guy stole your work, fired you, and now has the audacity to say it was all a ‘disagreement.’” A chopping hand motion punctuated his words.
She put a hand on Sammy’s arm. His bicep tensed. “Let’s just get this cake in place.”
“Don’t worry, ma chérie. We will have all the time in the world to talk after this contest. Maybe I will even help nudge along a good outcome.” Victor stood aside and swept an arm in a grand gesture, pointing down the aisle toward the judging area. “I’ll walk you up.” He moved in front of their cart as though he were a royal escort.
Robin pushed at her side of the wheeled cart.
