The Cake King (Sugar & Spice Book 1)

by Rosie Chase

He pulled me close, hugged me to his chest so I felt the smooth softness of his t-shirt and the strong, hard muscle underneath, and the steady thump of his heart inside it all.

  “That’s not true,” he said.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Will I see you again?” I asked him.

  We were standing in his room. Unlike mine, he actually did let maid service in to clean up. Also unlike mine, he had a suite. The pictures up here weren’t old timey portraits of horses. They were some kind of abstract, lively storm of brush strokes that vaguely resembled horses on bare canvas by local artists.. And there was a tray of chocolates. And a bottle of wine. And, instead of a mini-bar, there was an actual bar. Fully stocked with bottles of liquor that cost more than I made in a month.

  Looking around, I tried hard to ignore the answer my brain kept trying to produce.

  No it said. He will throw you away. You are nothing to him.

  I tried to push the thought away.

  You are trash. Your own parents didn’t even want you.

  But that couldn’t be true. My grandmother had wanted me. Eric and Nellie had wanted me. Is it possible that Michael wanted me?

  “Only if you want to see me,” he said, packing the last of his clothes into a battered old leather suitcase. It occurred to me that his suitcase could be fake old. That all of this was fake. That everything about him could be nothing more than some rich man’s game. That the hot baker contest really was just a scheme to get laid while looking for someone who could bake a cake for his sister.

  “I…” my voice caught and croaked. “I want to. I want to believe that all this is real.”

  “Oh, Sam. This life. This crazy Cake King stuff and this competition and all this… I never expected any of this. I never expected you.”

  “You didn’t intentionally put together a Hot Baker Contest?”

  “Well… Tom may have been trying to round up baker chicks I might be interested in. He’s been trying to get me to stop being such a sad workaholic. So… “

  “The hotness.”

  “Yeah,” he laughed. “The hotness was not my doing. But it didn’t matter. Those first few days, all I could do was watch you. The way you do things, the way you make food with your whole heart, the way you think so deeply about every single thing you put together… like it’s the most important thing in the world. I just… I needed to get close to you. I needed to know you, Sam. But I can only know you if you’ll let me.”

  He opened his arms to me and I walked into them, closed my eyes, breathed him in. I wanted him. I wanted this. I wanted us.

  I just didn’t know how to take it.

  Didn’t know how to reach for something so perfect because I was afraid that whatever was broken about me would break that thing, too.

  His phone buzzed but he went on holding me.

  “Michael—”

  “I’m sorry, Sam,” he whispered into my hair.

  Then a kiss on the top of my head, my forehead, my cheek. So light and sweet and gentle. They were so delicate, so precious, so pure.

  A kiss on my lips, pressing with passion and delicious desire and a frank, messy hunger.

  “I have to go,” he said. “But we will talk about this… when all this is over. I will see you again.”

  “Can you promise me that?”

  He smiled.

  “Yes.”

  Another kiss and I took away as much of him as I could. His taste—like good coffee and cheap chips. His smell—like cloves and bergamot oil. His feel—like warmth and goodness and strength.

  “I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  And it was one of the hardest, most painful things I’ve ever done—just letting him go. Just letting him walk away and get into a car and fly away from me. Just letting myself believe, with the tiniest shard of hope, that he would be back.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The next morning, when Rei and I went down to The Bakery, Maya was standing outside the double doors, talking to Tom in low tones. When we approached they straightened up and smiled at us and Tom held the door open. Rei and I walked through but Maya didn’t.

  “What’s going on?” I asked.

  Maya shook her head, “I’m done. It’s just the three of you now.”

  “But…”

  She gave a little laugh, “Trust me, Sam. It’s for the best. You, Rei, and Danielle are the best three. You deserve to be here.”

  “Jesus, Maya,” Rei huffed, oozing her typical eloquent grace. “Way to leave me hanging? Now who am I gonna pick on?”

  Maya narrowed her eyes at Rei but still broke into a smile.

  “I’m just fucking with ya,” Rei said. “I’ll still pick on you over text.”

  “I look forward to it,” Maya said.

  Rei stepped back through the doors to hug Maya and I did the same.

  “Good luck,” she said to both of us as we broke apart. “And good bake.”

  The brief that had arrived that morning had said, Talia’s favorite dessert is nougat. She likes it sweet.

  My counter was prepared with all the ingredients I’d used for last Christmas’ nougat at Apple Butter. The little bite-sized squares had sold faster than I could whip them up and I was hoping the same recipe would serve me well in The Bakery.

  Tom came into the room, followed by Megan, and together they watched as we got started. We’d barely got into whipping the egg whites when a loud hiss cut through the noise.

  “Shit,” the voice said. I looked up. It was Danielle.

  Her hands were shaking. Her face was flushed. She had tears in her eyes.

  “You okay, there Hot Stuff?” Rei asked.

  Danielle scraped the back of her wrist against her nose and eyes and pulled the bowl out of the mixer, dumped the eggs in the trash, and went to the sink to wash it out.

  “It’s fine,” she ground out. “I missed some yolk. Have to start over.”

  She didn’t look fine.

  But none of us did. The room was more jittery now. More on edge. There were three of us left and any of us could walk away with the job. Or maybe none of us would. Maybe at the end of this contest, we’d all walk away with less than we had before. Not even the ability to put this on a resume. How would I list this?

  The Cake King’s Quest For One Hot Baker

  I snickered, brought up the temperature on the stove, put my candy thermometer into the sugar mixture I’d just combined on auto-pilot. But then my thoughts drifted down confusing avenues. I wasn’t even back on Sexy Street and I was way the fuck off Win The Contest Avenue. I was standing firmly at the intersection of What Is Family Boulevard and How Do You Know What Love Is Road.

  And then I looked down. My sugar was scorched.

  I rolled my eyes. Dumped it. Started over.

  “You girls need to get it together,” Rei snapped in my direction just as she realized she’d overbeaten her eggs. “Well, fuck.”

  Megan and Tom traded nervous looks as each of us started over, got back on track, tried to clear our heads. Concentrate on the bake.

  Somehow, we got through it. We left the nougat to chill. We’d come back the next morning and cut and present it before we started whatever fresh hell awaited us then.

  Rei bowed out of dinner and Danielle disappeared as usual so I went straight to my room, took a long shower, and tried not to stare at my phone. What was I expecting? A call from Michael? Yes. That’s exactly what I was hoping for.

  In the end, I went for a walk. I needed to clear my head.

  I tried to breathe deep as I made my way to the waterfront but I felt jittery and anxious. I felt like I needed to be at Apple Butter. I needed to be with Michael. I needed to come to terms with exactly what I wanted.

  I stopped in my tracks when I saw Danielle sitting on a bench, her fluffy white dog sniffing around at her ankles. I hadn’t realized she’d brought the dog I’d so often seen on Bakestagram and wondered why the hotel even let her do it. As far as I knew, it was a pet free place. Maybe Ol
iver made an exception for Michael’s contestants.

  As I approached, the dog cocked its head and looked at me. I tried to remember his name from Danielle’s Bakestagram. Cody… or… Moby…

  “Toby,” Danielle said, and the dog sat and panted happily, its pink tongue lolling out of its mouth as it looked at me. She followed his gaze.

  “Oh, hey Sam.”

  Danielle’s smile turned on me and, wow, it was gorgeous. But I’d seen her when we finished up. We all looked disheveled and sweaty but she looked worse.

  “You doing okay?” I asked. It wasn’t my natural inclination but, weirdly, I felt a strange kinship with everyone I’d been baking beside since I came here. We were competitors, not chums. And we were all here to win.

  But in that moment, all I wanted to do was make sure she was alright. Make sure she’d show up again the next day so we could bake alongside each other one more time.

  “I’m tired,” she said. “This whole thing has been… surreal.”

  I sat down beside her and we watched the afternoon light bounce off the river. A few geese flew by and then a pair of rowers followed.

  “I know what you mean,” I said. “I feel like so much has changed but it’s only been… geez, a couple of weeks?”

  She nodded as if she understood perfectly.

  “Before all of this,” Danielle said, meeting my eyes. “I had everything worked out. My whole life. Now? I feel like it’s all upside down and yet…”

  “You’re happier?”

  She nodded. Her dog, Toby, snuffled around her ankles and then put his paws on her knees. She ruffled his ears and looked, thoughtfully, into the pink and orange sky.

  “I don’t know how to go back to the way life was before,” she said, almost a whisper.

  “Me neither.”

  We sat together for a few more minutes, silently observing the rolling river, and then we got up and walked back to the hotel.

  “Here’s my number,” she said, taking an honest-to-God card out of her wallet. It was pink and emblazoned with the words “The Cupcake Queen” in gold foil. “I’ve missed being around other bakers. I’d love to hear from you.”

  In spite of myself and the bougey card I held in my hand and the little white dog and the complete ridiculousness of our entire situation, I grinned at her.

  “Yeah,” I said, honestly. “That sounds great, actually. Let’s keep in touch.”

  When I got back to my room, I felt a little lighter. I texted Nellie.

  Sam: How is everything? Did the guy Michael sent work out?

  Three dots. Pause. Three dots again.

  Then a smiley face.

  Nellie: He sure did!

  I didn’t reply. Instead, I started milling around the room, cleaning everything up. I pulled all my dirty clothes into a pile, cleaned off the table, wiped down the bathroom counter. I checked my phone. Then I made the bed, sorted all the briefs we’d been given into a neat stack, threw away all the take-out menus I’d collected. I checked my phone again. Then I pulled all the take-out menus out of the trash and started going through them in case there was something I wanted to remember to make when I got home.

  My phone buzzed and I grabbed it.

  Nellie: You doing ok?

  Sam: Yeah. Just nervous.

  I paused, the keyboard under my fingertips. I listened to the sounds of the city outside the hotel. The sound of the hotel itself. People coming and going.

  Sam: And homesick.

  Another pause before I typed, And I miss Michael.

  I didn’t send it. I looked up from where I was sitting on the edge of the bed, saw my reflection in the television, and said, “I miss him. And I need to be brave.”

  I hit send.

  Three dots. Then, I’m sure he misses you too.

  I laughed a little. I’d barely even told Nellie about Michael but I appreciated the support.

  Sam: You sure you’re okay without me?

  Nellie: Yep. Doing great! Dinner rush now!

  Then a heart and I knew she was gone. I glanced at the clock. She was probably pulling corn pudding out of the oven right now. And soon she would ladle helpings of chicken ‘n dumplin’s onto the plates leftover from when her grandparents owned Apple Butter.

  I didn’t feel like going down to the hotel restaurant or ordering room service. Instead, I cracked open another bag of chips and crunched on them while I watched a baking show. When it went off, one of Michael’s old episodes came on. He was in Rome, chowing down on some tiramisu and looking about ten years younger. About ten years less mature. I could tell, just by looking at him, that this version of Michael would never tell a woman to get herself off on a vibrator while he came on her belly. He’d never fly her to Georgia at a moment’s notice because he wanted her opinion on his aunt’s mayonnaise cake. He’d never organize a baking contest to give someone else a shot at being the next Cake King. Or Cake Queen.

  He hadn’t waited yet. He hadn't waited for me.

  The phone buzzed and I saw Michael’s name. He wasn’t texting though. This was a real life phone call. And I was glad. I realized, suddenly, that I wanted to hear his voice. Not just on the TV. But talking to me. Just to me.

  “Geez, what time is it there?” I asked when I answered.

  “What?”

  “In London. It must be like… actually now that I think about it I have zero idea how far ahead you are. You’ll never guess what I’m watching on TV.”

  “What?”

  “An old episode of Eat The World with Michael Godwin.”

  He groaned and I could almost hear him dragging a mortified hand down his face.

  “Shit, wasn’t there something better on? Like… I don’t know… anything?”

  “You’re in Rome,” I said.

  “Rome’s not really my kind of city. I found that out there.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” he said, all rumbly and sexy. I settled back into bed, muted the TV, watched the old version of Michael as I talked to the new one. “Where would you go, Sam? If you could go anywhere?”

  I watched Travel Michael zoom down a cobbled street on a bright green Vespa and thought about it.

  “When I was a teenager, I thought I wanted to work for National Geographic.”

  “You wanted to be a photographer?”

  “Not really. I mostly just wanted to see all the places in the magazine… all the places you used to go on Eat the World. But then one thing led to another and I ended up pretty much never getting out of my town.”

  “Do you want to stay at Apple Butter now?”

  I thought about the question, about the idea of home, the idea of family.

  “I used to think I’d always be there. I think… just because it felt so safe. But Nellie and Eric started asking me last year if I wanted to go to culinary school, be a real pastry chef. I’m not sure that’s what I’d want to do either. I feel like… like I just don’t know anything about the world. I know I love to bake. I love to make food. I love—”

  But I stopped myself. Stopped before I got too carried away.

  Travel Michael stopped at an old lady’s house. They sat on a patio together and drank coffee out of tiny cups. I could tell the lady was enchanted. Who wouldn’t be?

  “I miss you, Sam,” he said.

  I couldn’t help it. I grinned.

  “I miss you, too,” I admitted. And it didn’t even hurt like I thought it would. It didn’t carve a chunk out of my heart. I didn’t feel some piece of my soul slide off into the abyss.

  It had never seemed possible, to me, to give something so precious of myself and still feel whole. But I’d done it. Sort of.

  “I spent so much of my life just trying to get to the next thing. The next level. The next paycheck. I wanted to make sure I could take care of my family. Make sure I could be there for Mattie and Germaine after all they’d done. But then I sort of… just got stuck in that pattern. And by then I was…”

  “The Cake King,” I offe
red as Travel Michael leaned against the old lady’s back wall, pointed out at the ocean, flashed his trademark smile, his eyes the same burnished gold as molten caramel.

  “And then I could never seem to find the kind of girl who…”

  “Who could truly value collard greens and mayonnaise cake and spontaneous sex on the beach?”

  He chuckled.

  The channel went to commercial and I turned the tv off. I listened to Michael sigh and pictured him lying on his bed, his hand on his tight belly, his head propped against a pile of fancy pillows. Not Travel Michael. Not the Cake King.

  Just Michael. My Michael.

  My Michael.

  I laughed to myself and we fell into a companionable silence before I heard him shift in the bed. Actually, it didn’t sound like some high end hotel bed. Not like the one I was currently in. It sounded small and old and creaky.

  “Tell me what you’re wearing,” he said softly.

  I looked down at my ratty t-shirt and last ditch underwear.

  “A beautiful negligee. It’s probably lace. Probably made out of… I don’t know, fairy hair or something.”

  “Alright,” he admonished. “If that’s the way you want it—”

  “No,” I said...laying the phone down and turning on the speaker as I shrugged out of my shirt and kicked my underwear across the room. “No, I’m actually completely and totally naked.”

  That deep chuckle rumbled through the room and I settled back against my pillows.

  “Close your eyes,” Michael growled.

  I did.

  “I know you already got that vibrator in your hand,” he said.

  He was right.

  “If I were there, I would stand at the end of your bed and I’d look at you. Just look at you. For a good long time. As long as I wanted. Because those pale legs and those golden curls on that sweet pussy and that way your belly quivers when I look at you… that’s what I want. Run your hands up those sexy thighs for me, Sam.”

  I did.

  “And I’d look at those perfect tits and I’d watch your nipples get hard just because you’re thinking about how I’m gonna fuck you. How I’m gonna make you come.”

  I kneaded my aching nipples, already hard, already tight.