Page 61 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
It wasn’t the comfort he thought it was, since they had also looked thoroughly sexed their first appearance in the pavilion that morning, but that wasn’t what she was talking about, anyway. “It’s not that. Patty doesn’t have a poker face. Look at her. She’s had a great day in the kitchen. And she’s practically unbeatable on Candy Week on a mediocre day.”
Laurin groaned quietly, and though Candace knew it was in distress, it sounded an awful lot like the deep but surprisingly quiet sounds he’d made the times he held her close while coming. “We’re not really going into this judging blind, are we?”
Candace shook her head. “We should have talked about how we were going to do this at the cabin.”
“We did exactly what we should have done today,” he said firmly, but there was a grim tone to his words. He held up a finger to the people in the pavilion, indicating they needed another minute, and dragged Candace back to the golf cart. He might have done this so they could privately discuss it, but he wasted no time sliding his hands up her skirt to find the bare flesh above her stockings. “The way I see it,” he said as he massaged her thighs, “we have three options when we go in. We can pick the person we like the most, we can pick the best candy, or we can pick the competitor we’d rather go up against in the finale.”
It was a sobering reminder that they would also be competing against each other, and as he said it, he dug under her thighs to part them. Candace swallowed, a flutter of panicburbling her stomach as the prospect that Laurin might push things way past her comfort level when everyone was just a few feet away, but her thighs were thick enough that the inches between her knees didn’t translate to a real gap. His lids went heavy as his eyes perused her legs, and she decided that the gesture was nothing more than positioning her in an alluring way that made her heart pound. It was also much safer than anything she wanted to do right now, even if it was just an innocent stroke of his cheek. “I don’t like this,” she said softly, grabbing his wrists to hold him in place when he started to back off. “Not that. Don’t stop. I mean this choice we have to make. It turns out I’d rather have been a contestant than a judge, after all. I don’t want to kick Zara off, but I have to pick the best candy. It’s the only right thing to do.”
“Because you don’t want to look like the villain? I can be the one who—”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
Laurin squeezed her thighs harder and leaned in further, giving Candace the impression that he’d be kissing her right now if only he could get away with it. “Share my bed with me tonight. I don’t . . .” He scrunched his face up, discomfited. “I don’t want you in the guest room, I want you withme. My whole family’s gonna be there, so I know it’ll be weird, but I don’t want to hide—”
Candace chuckled. “I get it. You don’t normally bring home flings.”
“You’re not a fling, Candace. And I’m not saying I want you there for sex. I want tosleepwith you. I want to share my space with you.” With a perfectly executed lopsided grin, he added. “Not that I’m saying we won’t have sex. I’m still thinking about caramel sauce.”
Candace rolled her eyes, but really, it was a way to hide her relief that he’d shifted the conversation to something less serious before she had to respond to him. Especially since there was no way her luggage was going into his bedroom. “Maybe Zara will surprise us, and her candies will be better than Patty’s,” she said hopefully before separating herself from Laurin to return to the pavilion.
“Honestly, I can’t believe I even made it that far,” Zara laughed that evening as she sat across from Laurin in his bakery and sipped on an herbal tea. “I don’t think anyone did. They just wanted to make sure their audience liked me before contracting my show. Thanks for being honest. There’s no way I could have beaten Patty on candies. Besides, I wouldn’t have wanted to go up against you and Candace in the finale.” As she said it, her eyes drifted past the counter and into the open bakery, where Candace was chatting with his mother.
The bakery was usually closed by now, but the holiday weekend justified the extended hours. Laurin had called his mom to ask her to stay open later so they could bring the remaining cast and crew members by to see it, only to find out business was so good that they were already planning a late night. Manon, every bit the baker the rest of the family was, even if it wasn’t her chosen profession, whipped up a nice catering spread featuring several quiches and savory pies enrobed in a rough puff she’d whacked together. The nineteen people who’d come down from the campground and up from corporate were more than enough to fill the tiny café. Several had already spilledout to take a walk around the town square. And no matter how many people cluttered around him, he never had any difficulty finding Candace’s champagne blonde ponytail.
Even easier once he realized she was sticking by his mother’s side. He knew she was engrossed in conversation — there was a point where she was so intently inspecting the ancient Hobart mixer, possibly fixing something on it, that she accidentally flashed everyone her panties — but it didn’t take long for Laurin to figure out that was only part of it. When she didn’t have something to occupy her body while she talked, she wrung her hands and wiggled her feet just like she did during competition. Vivvy had been bouncing around them for the last few minutes and had conned Candace into carrying her piggyback, and even with the extra weight, she was tapping one of her toes rapidly on the tile.
She had social anxiety. It was nothing Laurin had much experience with, but Manon struggled with it, and there was a time in their lives when he and Manon were each other’s lifelines. If Candace was anything like his sister, she was both relieved to have someone in the crowd with mutual interests, a stranger who made her look like a normal, social person to anyone watching, and panicking and trying too hard to keep Pauline’s attention without committing an egregious faux pas.
She needed not worry. He could see Pauline was as enamored by her as he was. The anxiety only made her more endearing. They would pair well together, Laurin and Candace, if he could figure out how he could get her to stay here. She didn’t have family she was close with, and she didn’t have a bakery of her own. It should have been serendipitous timing for them both, but he could sense the resistance in her every time he gave the slightest hint of a future together.
“Candace insisted on it,” he told Zara as his attention strayed to Jannie, who was using her cellphone to film a tour of the bakery. The network had already taken some footage of it for Laurin’s reel, but this would be nicer with so many people here. “She didn’t want to be a judge, but she said being honest in it was the right thing to do.”
Zara lifted her teacup to her lips but held it there as she said, “Oh? What else did Candace say to you?”
“What do you mean by that?” Laurin asked as casually as he could.
Zara chuckled. “I’m not stupid. I know there’s something between you two. Anyone could see that.”
“Please don’t tell Candace that.” Not yet, anyway. Laurin doubted there was an editor in the world who’d be capable of hiding the body language between them on Candy Week, but he needed to convince Candace that there was nothing wrong with everyone knowing before the episode aired.
“I won’t. But I like you, and I’m starting to like Candace, too. And if we’re all going to be coworkers of a sort, I don’t want anything . . . I’ve been friends with couples who’ve broken up, and it sucks.”
“You don’t have to worry about that.”
“Because you’re not a couple, or because you’re not breaking up?” Zara asked with a seriously intense glare.
Laurin met that scowl. “I’m working on it.”
Zara attempted to hold firm, but her lips started to twitch. “She’s going to fight you, you know.”
Laurin snorted. “‘Going to’? Did you think she ever stopped?”
Zara shook her head but was saved from answering that by Manon, who swept in and asked if Zara minded if she borrowed her brother briefly. Zara happily headed back over to the food spread after praising Manon’s pithivier, but Laurin was a bit leery as Manon grabbed his arm and took him outside. Instead of the square where everyone else had gone, she headed to the parking lot of the church next door, empty on a Friday night. This was a private conversation.
“I don’t want to talk about it with you,” he grumbled. Pauline and Vivvy wouldn’t have known any better, but Manon was too observant and knew him too well. When everyone arrived, she hadn’t come out to greet anyone, instead holding her hands up to show she was too busy folding croissants to come out but welcoming everyone to join her in the kitchen if they wanted. That was her slick social anxiety escape, and he had no doubt it was also a ploy to watch him like a hawk. She likely caught every single time Laurin touched Candace during the tour.
“Talk about what?” Manon challenged with a sharp eye and a tilt of her head.
