Page 14 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
“Not anymore.”
“New hobbies, then? Or are you more the partying type?”
Candace couldn’t hold back a bubble of nervous laughter. “No, never. Even in college, I hated parties.”
“So, more about hanging out, quiet nights?”
Candace gave up on eating and turned to look at him. He was staring right back at her, all green eyes and deep dimples and delightfully roughened cheeks from an extra day without shaving. He was crazy handsome, and Candace had already caught the eyes of at least half the women at the camp lingering a little too long on his backside. If he was bored and looking for some on-set action — it certainly wouldn’t be the first dalliance to occur during filming — he had a line to choose from.
Not just crazy handsome, either, but crazy charming. Thirty people were staying at the camp, and he waved to every one of them, greeted them all by name. He stuck with the contestants at meals, but he chatted with everyone throughout the day and was constantly helping the crew when they needed extra hands. It was nauseating how friendly he was, and everyone ate it up.
So why was he wasting time badgering Candace? The questions he asked certainly didn’t sound like he was forging a professional relationship. He seemed to want to be her friend. Which was crazy.
His eyes lit up with excitement, as though he’d just gotten a small victory. Was that it? Was he so competitive and did he expect women to fall so readily at his feet that Candace had become a challenge he needed to win? If so, there were plenty of women ready to dry his tears when he lost.
“Quiet nights,” she told him, refusing to give up more. She absolutely could not let herself get sucked in by him. If nothing else, it was a matter of self-preservation.
“Big on TV, then? No, you haven’t turned ours on at all yet. So then if you’re not big on hobbies or TV, and you don’t seem much on the social scene, then what do—oh, I get it!”
Candace quirked up a curious eyebrow.
“You’re a gym rat!”
Candace sputtered out a laugh. “Hardly. I hate the gym.” Not that she disliked physical activity, she just preferred to actually go somewhere when she peddled her butt off. “Why does this even matter?”
Laurin frowned, and even that look was attractive on him, very stern and brooding. “I guess it doesn’t. It’s not helping you in the competition, though, is it? Whenever they do challenges where you’re supposed to get inspiration from your life, you never have very interesting stories. And now they don’t even mention your bakery.”
Candace sighed. If she didn’t say it, someone else would. “I don’t have one anymore. It got destroyed. Flood water. No flood insurance.”
“Not that she wants one,” Belle spat from the other side of the table. “Too much work for you, isn’t it?”
The glare Candace shot her could have melted steel, but that woman was forged out of brimstone and hellfire. “I’ll get another bakery,” she hissed through gritted teeth. “It’s just taking time.”
“If you really wanted one, you’d ask daddy to buy it for you.”
“What’s that mean?” Laurin asked, but Candace was already standing so fast her chair fell over. He grabbed for her hand, but she dodged him.
As she passed through the doorway, she heard Belle say, “Honey, she’s a Coale. Like, the Coales. King Coale, you know? The investment firm? She’s a billionaire.”
Episode 2:
Christmas Cookies
Chapter 6
Laurin didn’t wantCandace’s background to bother him. This wasn’t an income-based competition. There wasn’t a salary cap here. In prize winnings alone, Patty had made over a quarter of a million in her tenure, and he didn’t have any ill feelings about her competing. Laurin had been an athlete most of his life; no one understood better than him that the prize was rarely as valuable as the victory itself.
But he couldn’t help wondering if Candace’s attitude came from how little she valued that kind of money. Perhaps she truly didn’t care about the victory or the prize. She was a bored, rich priss who didn’t have anything better to do but screw around with other people’s goals. She was the wild card, the monkey wrench, the albatross.
Not this time, Laurin vowed. He needed that money. His mother was still running a mixer older than he was, and the ovens weren’t doing much better. He was also an old pro, literally, at carrying a team with dead-weight players. The sport was different, but Laurin was a winner.
In his experience, most dead-weight teammates didn’t improve without way more effort than Laurin wanted to spend, so he avoided Candace during the rest of the break. He didn’t invite her to the contestant table in the dining hall, and her seat remained conspicuously empty. He didn’t offer to deal her into penny poker in their kitchen, and she holed up in her room all night. He even caught her darting into the bathroom to refill herwater bottle from the tap, even though there was filtered water in the fridge.
He felt a little bad about that. When she peeked out of her room to see where everyone was, his eyes caught hers, and for a split second, she looked like she wanted to be invited before she scrunched up into a scowl.
Then again, she probably wanted to be invited just so she could tell him to piss off.
An announcement was made that filming would resume at ten the next morning, so Penny Poker was shut down early to ensure a good night’s sleep. Laurin got up early to get himself a cup of coffee before Candace awoke — she’d yet to emerge from her room before nine, so he figured she’d push that ten o’clock call. He was tempted to only brew enough for himself, but he wasn’t that petty.
