Battle Royal

by Lucy Parker

  Just that handful of seconds, and later that night, as the taste of her garish glitter-bomb cupcakes stuck to his taste buds like superglue, her face had been similarly fixed in his memory. He’d seen the freckles on her nose, the mole on her neck, even the way her Cupid’s bow curved fractionally higher on the left side.

  Maybe he’d always tried to be honest in his dealings with others.

  But clearly not always with himself.

  “Oh, I know you’re honest,” Mariana said with intense wryness. “Footnote: honesty is a more palatable virtue when paired with tact. But you give nothing away. By comparison, Sylvie is an open book.”

  Something in her tone made the muscles in his gut momentarily tighten.

  “Your heart was in your eyes just then, mi amigo.” He turned his head, and Mariana held his gaze with great frankness. “It was always at least fifty-fifty odds you two would eventually hit a mattress. For the most part, even when people dislike each other, they don’t strike palpable sparks every time they meet. Chemistry—true, strong, wild chemistry—is the biggest rush in the world and rare as hell, as I’m sure we’re all sadly aware. It would be a missed opportunity if you didn’t burn up the sheets for a while.” Her scrutiny was piercing. “But it’s not just an affair, is it? On your end.”

  Those last three words were a mere echo of his own growing apprehension. He still felt them like an iron fist in his chest.

  And yet another self-revelation: in a million years, he couldn’t have imagined divulging any details of his private life to a colleague, but he found himself unable to deny Sylvie in any way. What happened between them was nobody else’s business, yet he couldn’t just dismiss her as if their changing relationship were something to be ashamed of and not the greatest blessing of his life right now.

  Potentially ever.

  “I’ve had many feelings where Sylvie is concerned.” The note of irony slipped in, a well-worn protective shield. “None of them have ever been casual.”

  For all her digs about his own lack of tact, Mariana rarely beat about the bush herself. “And Sylvie? Is it only an affair for Sylvie?”

  His jaw clenched. Again, he looked across the room, where Sylvie was still sipping water. She wrinkled her nose at him with gentle playfulness, and he inhaled sharply.

  He couldn’t reply. For a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he didn’t know the answer to that question. It wasn’t that Sylvie was hiding her feelings. She obviously cared about him. From her expression last night, she cared quite deeply.

  But as to the future—

  One day at a time. Their mutual words last night applied in this and every situation.

  Logical. Unsatisfying.

  Perhaps reading the tension in his expression, Mariana diverted the subject. “Word in the greenroom is that you two are nose to nose on a very lucrative commission. Is it a bit strange to be . . . personally collaborating, shall we say, while you’re competing professionally?”

  It was so bloody bizarre that it wasn’t strange. And not only were they “personally collaborating”—if that were the polite term for kissing her mouth, nuzzling in the scent of her skin, feeling her nipple bead against his thumb and her wet, silky muscles tighten around his erection, and a million tiny moments that were for the two of them alone—they were doing joint investigations for rival proposals. Somehow standard contract prep had turned into the adventures of Nancy Drew and Frank bloody Hardy.

  And he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed his work so much.

  The camera crew had almost finished setting up for the final part of the shoot, and Aadhya called a five-minute warning before waving Mariana over.

  Dominic crossed to Sylvie’s side. Regardless of any watching eyes or cameras, he reached out and lightly stroked the top of her head with the side of his thumb. One day at a time. But whatever their future held, he’d never take that increasingly natural intimacy for granted.

  She reached up and softly flicked his palm with her fingers. Her eyes searched his. “Are you okay? You look a bit odd.”

  “And you look like a wrung-out dishcloth.” He touched the backs of his fingers to her forehead, checking her temperature.

  “Wow.” Reluctant humor sprang into Sylvie’s tired eyes. “Less than twenty-four hours after the stupendous sex, and the romance is already dead.”

  “I think we can manage at least one more day. But I suspect you’d rather have a nap and slightly less of an audience.”

  “Mmm.” So quickly even he barely had time to register the movement, she slipped her fingers under his tie, between the buttons of his shirt, and stroked a fiery line up the trail of hair between his abs. His muscles jerked, and she returned her hands primly to her lap and looked over at the contestants. Her mouth turned down. “Emma’s out, right?”

  At this age, it was good to know he wasn’t entirely at the mercy of his hormones. Despite the reactive twitch behind his zipper, his brain shut down for two seconds at most. “Unless something goes even more catastrophically wrong with the last presentation.”

  “Why would it?” Sylvie muttered. “Libby’s already secured her place in the final. Please God that Adam takes out the title. Or at least Terence.” Her fervent prayers were interrupted by a large yawn, but as her hand went to her mouth, her eyes widened. “What’s that?” she asked faintly.

  Like everyone else in the studio, Dominic was already looking.

  It was a little hard to miss the man wheeling a tabletop cannon into the room.

  To what Dominic now suspected would be the detriment of them all, Terence, the middle-aged naval officer–turned–cupcake fanatic, had opted for a literary theme for his presentation. He’d declared it an homage to his favorite novel, Treasure Island, and apparently he’d taken the idea and run all the way into the realm of rudimentary ballistics.

  “It looks like the baby version of those machines that fire tennis balls across a court,” Sylvie said warily. “He also drew gingerbread from the flavor wheel, right? Please tell me he’s not going to cannonball biscuits onto the celebs’ plates.”

  “Little judgmental from the woman who built a sponge-cake siege engine.”

  Shooting small, hard objects at litigious celebrities. What could possibly go wrong?

  On closer inspection, however, the cannon was constructed extremely well from fondant and blown sugar. Impressive. And upon being questioned, Terence responded with some annoyance, “I’m not going to shoot anything at people. What an excellent way to knock someone’s eye out.”

  Incredible. Sanity finally prevailed on this set.

  The celebrities, who had rapidly retreated behind their table at the sight of the cannon, all crept cautiously forward.

  As filming recommenced, Terence produced his bake, a series of gingerbread cakes he’d designed as a map of Treasure Island, intricately decorated. Out of spun sugar, he’d woven the ghostly outline of a pirate ship, sailing elusively on a sea of twinkling crystals.

  Sylvie was so enamored that some of the color came back into her cheeks.

  Terence had clearly worked incredibly hard for hours. And if he hadn’t set the studio on fire, he would have been a lock for the final.

  The cannon itself merely spilled out a gust of rolling steam and crackling sparkles, but he simultaneously ignited the interior of the pirate ship. It was intended to melt, folding into itself, and sink defeated into the sugar “sea.”

  Instead, the entire front of the ship cracked in half moments after he lit the spark. Tiny flames licked along the sugar and reached the replica grog barrels on the adjacent dock. As it later transpired that Terence—experienced military sailor and apparently a bit of a fuckwit—had filled them with real brandy, the whole thing went up like kindling. Blue-tinged flames billowed outward in a whoosh of crackling heat, until the entire tablecloth was ablaze.

  Dominic yanked Sylvie out of the way; she shoved him out of the way; and those respective immediate instincts almost canceled each oth
er out as they lost their balance and collided.

  Mariana’s right hand grabbed the back of his collar, then she took hold of Sylvie with her left, and calmly pulled their entwined bodies clear of the flaming table.

  “Time and place for canoodling, children,” she said with mock severity.

  “Thanks, Mamá,” Sylvie said, grinning, and Mariana flicked her affectionately on the forehead.

  As a crew member whipped out an extinguisher and blasted the desserts into soggy oblivion, the burnt and broken remains of the crow’s nest drooped sideways, teetered and fell.

  And it was Libby, Adam, and Emma for the final.

  They had to follow protocol and evacuate, but nobody had their coat, and it was freezing in the outside courtyard. Ignoring the perpetually interested gazes of various colleagues, Sylvie huddled in Dominic’s arms, shivering against his chest.

  “Well,” she said at last through chattering teeth, cuddling in closer, “that seems about par for the course.”

  “The studio’s insurance premiums will be through the roof after this season.” As Dominic’s arm tightened around her, he added cynically, “If they forced you into a multiyear contract, expect further cost cutting disguised as efficiency.”

  “It’s certainly had its moments.” Sylvie made a humming noise under her breath. “Makes my tiny little miscalculation with the unicorn cake seem negligible, really, doesn’t it?”

  “Don’t push it.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  The road to Primrose Cottage the even more twee Petunia Park.

  Shorter than the road to Calvary.

  But with Pet along for the ride, it doesn’t necessarily feel like it.

  Sylvie was becoming increasingly fond of Pet. Dominic’s sister was a sweetheart. A cheeky, cheerful soul with a razor-sharp brain. Despite the ten-year difference in their ages, she could foresee the development of a solid friendship.

  However, she was also beginning to appreciate Dominic’s point about the book recapping.

  For all her many delightful qualities, Pet did not possess an appreciation for restful silence. Any pause in conversation seemed to rattle her completely. Sylvie suspected it was situation specific, Pet’s transparent desperation to bond with Dominic emerging as relentless chatter. She was entirely sympathetic to both De Veres, and a psychologist would undoubtedly find the whole situation fascinating. However, she’d spent the past ten minutes mentally designing a pair of invisible noise-canceling headphones.

  She’d been given to understand, through Dominic’s absinthe-slurred whinge, that Pet was reading romance novels. Sylvie also enjoyed romance novels. Sylvie would fucking love to hear every last nuance of a romance novel right now. Unfortunately, the book club Pet had joined over the summer—and Sylvie could now recite the names, occupations, and personality quirks of all twelve members—had since moved on to a painstakingly graphic horror novel.

  Although she’d mostly recovered from the food poisoning, Sylvie was now feeling slightly carsick. Her stomach was not ready for detailed descriptions of seeping wounds and wiggling maggots, especially recounted with a Pet level of enthusiasm. Despite numerous interruptions from Dominic’s GPS app and the competition of the rain pounding the car windows, the gore from the back seat continued on and on. And if Sylvie was keeping track, they’d only reached chapter eight in the narrative.

  A particularly twisty turn in the road coincided with an anecdote about severed heads, and she had to physically gulp. Dominic briefly took his gaze from the unfamiliar country lane and glanced at her.

  “Pet, Sylvie’s still not feeling a hundred percent,” he said, taking one hand off the steering wheel to touch hers. She immediately twisted their fingers together. “Cool it with the blood and gore, all right?”

  The rough pads of his fingers were gentle on her skin. Multiple times a day, she was still struck by the fact that she was holding hands with Dominic, kissing Dominic, having sex with Dominic.

  With each passing second, every part of this had started to feel irrevocable.

  And it no longer seemed so strange or unbelievable. Still surprising, definitely not the path she’d imagined her life would take, but a bit wonderful, really. Turning her head and looking at him now, the familiar stubble shadow on his jaw, the bump on the bridge of his nose, the thick, endearingly stubby eyelashes, she was overwhelmed by a sudden surge of feeling. Bubbling joy, possessiveness, protectiveness, lust, a thousand emotions all in a jumble.

  Impulsively, she raised their joined hands to her lips and kissed his thumb. His grip tightened, and a strong flash of heat lit his mismatched dark eyes.

  “Oh. Sorry.” Pet’s chastened tone brought her back to the reality of their surroundings, the stuffy interior of the car, the endless winding Oxfordshire lanes. The property formerly known as Primrose Cottage appeared to be located in a rural labyrinth.

  “Petunia Park must be quite a drive for its aspiring artists,” Pet commented after a twenty-second silence, shifting onto Sylvie’s own train of thought. “Perfect love nest for a clandestine royal romance, though.”

  Dominic released her hand to make a sharp turn in the road, and Sylvie rubbed at the foggy side window with her sleeve. She couldn’t see far beyond the glass, but the sporadic cottages and gardens they passed appeared to be thatched and pretty. It was a scene of quiet serenity and must be idyllic in the summer. Tapping her phone on her lap, she brought up the photograph of Patrick and Jessica, happy and in love on the stone steps, circled by primroses and sunshine.

  Very lightly, she touched the relaxed lines of Patrick’s face. A fleeting moment of perfect happiness, captured forever.

  A short time later, Dominic turned the car through wrought-iron gates and drew to a stop. Jessica’s onetime home was larger than it had appeared in the photo, sprawling backward in a charming hodgepodge of outbuildings. A sort of miniature barn had obviously been converted into studio space; Sylvie could see easels through the windows.

  The rain had slowed to a gentle drizzle, so she left her coat hood down when she got out of the car. The cool air was refreshing after the drive. She stood looking at the front of the cottage, lifting her gaze from the photo to the stone stairs where the couple had sat all those years ago. The surrounding gardens were a tangled mass of bare branches, not a flower in sight, but otherwise—

  She’d looked at that snapshot so many times over the past few days that the setting in person, so entirely familiar, gave her an eerie tingle. Even the crack in the stone by Jessica’s foot was still there. She could see them in her mind, coming out of the house, laughing, kissing, setting the timer on the camera. For some reason, she was convinced they’d been alone in that moment.

  Jessica holding the railing as she sat, Patrick turning his head to look at her, his eyes alight.

  Pet looked over her shoulder at the phone screen and shivered a little. “It’s a bit ghostly, isn’t it?”

  “Part of me expects that I’ll look up from the photo and they’ll be there,” Sylvie murmured, and for once Dominic’s practicality was a welcome shattering of the spell.

  “You’re both under the influence of severed heads and floating corpses. It’s a house. Stones and thatch. Wherever Patrick and Jessica are now, they’re not—”

  “What did you say?” The startled voice came from behind them, and for one moment when Sylvie turned, it was as if Jessica had stepped out of time and back into the scene.

  The woman who stood staring at them had short dark hair, threaded with silver. She was an age Jessica had never reached, her figure lush and curvy in a print dress and baggy cardigan. Her enviably muscular bare calves ended in muddy Wellington boots, a far cry from Jessica’s flowing skirt and neatly laced shoes. Their faces were different shapes—Jessica’s cheeks had been very round; this woman’s face was long and narrow.

  But their eyes were identical. Large and dark with tremendously long lashes, tilted at the outer corners like a cat.

  Pet glanced at Sylvie and Domini
c before she walked forward with a smile and extended her hand. “Are you Kathleen? I’m Pet De Vere.”

  Kathleen took her hand automatically, but her attention remained fixed on Dominic. “Did you say Patrick and Jessica?”

  With a few beads of rain rolling down his temple, Dominic studied her for a moment before he spoke. “I’m Dominic De Vere, Pet’s brother, and this is Sylvie Fairchild.”

  “I know,” Kathleen said. “I’ve been watching you on TV.” She continued to stare at him, recovering enough from her frozen shock that suspicion was creeping in. “I’m guessing you aren’t really here for a studio tour.”

  “No. I’m afraid not.” He glanced at Sylvie, and she stepped forward and held out her phone.

  “If you don’t mind,” she said, “we’d like to ask you about Jessica and Prince Patrick.”

  Kathleen’s frowning eyes were dragged down to the photograph on the screen. Her breath caught in a little hitch. Slowly, she reached out and took the phone from Sylvie, automatically scissoring her fingers to zoom in on the faces of the couple.

  No sound other than the gentle padding of rain against stone.

  Finally, she inhaled deeply and lifted her head. “Well. You’d better come in for a cup of tea.”

  The unraveling of a royal romance.

  The front room of the cottage was delightful, cluttered and cozy, with paintings all over the walls and a fire crackling in the hearth. Sylvie sat on a well-stuffed couch next to Dominic and accepted the cup of tea Kathleen handed her, murmuring her thanks.

  “She was the light,” Kathleen said, sitting on an armchair opposite Pet’s. Sylvie had just repeated the words Patrick had spoken to Rosie, Jessica’s sister listening with tears in her eyes. “She was kind and beautiful, and everything he thought she was. And she loved him so much.”

  “Did you know him?” Sylvie asked quietly, and Kathleen shook her head.

  “I never met him. None of her friends did. I believe I was the only one she told.” She smiled a little. “I was eighteen, and it was the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. A secret romance with a real-life prince. Like something out of a book.” Her smile quivered and faded. “It didn’t end like the fairy tales.”