Page 85 of Holly Jolly Cake Fight
She was called into the office immediately and was surprised at how big it was. That jerk Lucas had little more than a walk-in closet here. This one was spacious enough to have a desk in the center of the room, a set of comfy wingbacks on one side, and a huge bay of screens on the other side. In between that was a wall of windows giving a surprisingly picturesque view of Atlanta for being only the third floor. She always got twisted and turned navigating the confusingly laid-out city, so she hadn’t noticed before that the building was up on a hill.
Leaning against the windows, his back turned toward her, was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a fine suit, incongruous to the typical garb of Food2Love. Most people dressed casual here.
“Mike?” she said hesitantly, wondering if she’d somehow wound up in the wrong office. Food2Love shared the building with three other networks, but they should have all been on the upper six floors. “Hey, I’m—”
“Candace Coale,” the man filled in, his voice smoother than it had been on the loudspeaker, but that system had looked like it was part of the campground and sounded tinny. He turned to her as he said, “We’ve met, of course.”
Candace blinked hard as she hissed out a “Oh, holy crap” and then covered her mouth.
Yeah, she’d met Mike before.
Twice, at incredibly fancy banquets. Both along the same vein as what she’d be doing for New Year’s with Laurin: tickets as a thank you for catering because “you’re a face people might want to see.” That’s not why Mike was at those banquets, though, because Mike wasn’t a mid-level reality show producer scrabbling to get a cushy salaried position at corporate.
Mike was Michael flipping Robbins, CEO of Robbins Hall Communications Network, the conglomerate that owned all the stations in the building.
“Why is your office on the third floor?”
He broke into a broad grin and a hearty laugh. “I like you, Candace. I never know what to expect from you. My office is on the third floor because it’s directly above Lucy Miller’s kitchen, so I always know when there’s a treat for me to go steal between shots.”
Michael Robbins was gigantic. He was in incredibly good shape, the sort of build that had caused many people to speculate about how he looked beneath the fine suits and several conspiracy theorists to juxtapose his photo over professional bodybuilders, so the sweet tooth was a surprise, but Candace immediately held out the box to him.
From twenty feet away. Like a crazy person.
“See there?” Michael said as he graciously crossed the distance to her and accepted the box. “I did not expect you to bring me a Christmas gift.”
“Croissants,” she blurted out. “Leftovers. Why did you produce the Christmas special?”
“Croissants from Laurin’s bakery?” Michael asked as he gestured to one of the comfier chairs.
“I baked them in Laurin’s bakery.”
“And how is Laurin?” Michael asked with a look so mischievous that Candace’s tongue glued to the roof of her mouth, and she was lucky to make it to the chair without tripping over her own feet. “The Bake-Off is one of my favorite programs,” Michael explained as he sat next to her. The chairshad a table between them with two envelopes, a folder, and a pen on it, and were tilted enough that they could talk without twisting awkwardly but weren’t staring each other down. “After the incident at Summer Bakes, I took—”
“I’m so sorry about that.”
Michael waved her away. “You will never again apologize for that. My apologies, both for what happened and for not rectifying it sooner. I should have met with you before the Christmas show, but I had to know your heart was still in it.”
Candace furrowed her brows, confused. “What do you mean?”
Michael held up the two envelopes. “I have two offers here for you. I’ll let you choose which one you’ll take, but I’m hoping you’ll take this one.”
She didn’t understand what was going on, but she took the one he handed to her and eased it open. Inside the envelope, she found two forms and a check.
For one hundred twenty-five thousand dollars.
“What? This is too much.” She’d already received her per diem, directly deposited into her bank account. Not yesterday’s, of course, but that wasn’t even close to the extra twenty-five-thousand.
He gestured for her to look at the two forms. The first was a Nondisclosure Agreement, something she had to sign for every show she did, so the words blurred together too easily for her to understand how it was different from all the others she’d seen, although she did note the phrases Summer Bakes and Lucas Barrett on it in bold print. The second form was a contract — for three more seasons of the Bake-Off.
She’d never seen a contract like this. It was unheard of. No one was ever guaranteed a spot in future seasons.
Before she could ask questions, he handed her the second envelope. The same NDA, no additional contract, but this one came with a check for two hundred thousand dollars.
“Lucas Barrett has been terminated,” Michael said gruffly. “He’ll never work at any of my networks, and frankly, I have done and will continue to do everything in my power to make sure he never works in the industry again. I personally have a zero-tolerance policy about sexual harassment, and the fact that we have it on film leaves him without any recourse.”
Candace’s eyes dropped back down to the NDAs. He wanted her to agree to never speak of what happened to her. “You . . . you knew what happened, and you’re only now . . .?”
“We didn’t, not until September. Lucas was caught confessing to it. The audio crew was doing a soundcheck, picked it up off Jax Nougat’s mic. They were . . .” He paused and gave them both a pained look, like he didn’t want to keep going but had to. “They were laughing about it. He didn’t outright state that he accosted you, but he was obvious enough about it. I promise you, Candace, that I did not make the decision to keep this from you for this long lightly. I want you here. Yes, your reputation took a hit, and there was a fair amount of concern about how the audience would take your relationship with Laurin, but—”
