The Cake King (Sugar & Spice Book 1) Read online

  The Cake King

  Sugar & Spice Book 1

  Rosie Chase

  Edited by

  Rainy Day Reads

  Under Hill Press

  For Cake.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Epilogue

  Devil’s Food Duke Preview

  Gratitude

  Chapter One

  I stood at the back of “The Bakery”. There were seven of us left. And, one by one, I knew we’d all disappear. Until there was one. Just one.

  And I would do whatever it took to be that one.

  “Psst.” The hiss came from my left. I ignored it.

  “Hey—pastel chick. Hey… you with the pink hair! HEY!” it was a whisper yell and people were beginning to look over their shoulder.

  “WHAT?!” I breathed back.

  It was the effortlessly cool chick who always wore kitschy 80s button-ups and skinny jeans. Her short-cropped black hair was never not impeccably groomed and her smile was always a million kilowatts of sizzle. I’d like to pretend I didn’t know her name (Rei Silva) or where she was from (Los Angeles) or where she worked (Velvet—the blink-and-you-miss-it bakery in Sawtelle Japantown with lines around the block every. single. morning.)

  “Did you get today’s memo?”

  I shrugged, tried to pretend to be as cool as I’d like to have been.

  But inwardly: Shit. What memo? Fuck. What did I miss? I knew I shouldn’t have gone for a run. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I was deep in the midst of something that, at first glance, resembled a reality show. Except there were no cameras or tequila-fueled fights or (so far) table flips. It was just a bunch of bakers applying for a job in an extremely weird way.

  Every day we got to our stations at 10:30 AM. Then, we were given a time limit and, if applicable, more details about the day’s bake. Then we were told to start cooking. At the end of time, we left our bakes on the edge of the counter and, sometime in the evening, they were judged. But, before all of that, almost every day began with a memo.

  The memos always arrived at the hotel at dawn, slid under the door. They always came in an envelope with a gold wax seal (unnecessary, I thought, but what part of this wasn’t ridiculous?) and we never saw the person who brought them. They always gave us a minimal-to-the-point-of-comedy brief. Either a list of ingredients we’d be using or the name of the dessert we’d prepare or some cryptic clue as to the theme of the day.

  Only, today there’d been no memo. We’d been told, at the start of this, that there would be days we’d be coming in blind. I’d supposed this was one of them. But could I have missed one? This morning, I hadn’t been able to sleep so I’d pulled on my sweats and gone for a jog by the waterfront. When I got back there was nothing so… Fuck.

  “Hey…Pink Hair,” Rei Silva whispered again. “I’m fucking with you. There was no memo.”

  I only barely managed not to chuck my whisk at her.

  But it was a very good whisk. There was no way I could afford to lose this whisk. Or this place. This place in the back of the room where I could, hopefully, fly under the radar and just… not be the worst long enough to be the best.

  “Fuck off,” I hissed.

  I turned away from her and faced the front again. Any minute now the doors would open and the next day would begin in earnest and I would bake for my life. Again.

  “Hey…”

  I didn’t look at her.

  “Hey…”

  I just needed to be perfect. Absolutely perfect. Today. And for one more week. And if I could do that then maybe I could…

  “Hey…”

  “Oh my God, what?!” I spat.

  “I was just going to ask your name—”

  “Why?”

  She shrugged. And she really did seem cool. Like it wasn’t just an act. Like she could chill panna cotta just by glancing at it. Rei Silva didn’t have to pretend. She was the real deal.

  “Sam Davis,” I said. “Now leave me alone.”

  I’d only meant to whisper but it somehow it came out like someone had clanged the dinner gong. The Bakery was so quiet. I looked forward and saw why. The doors had opened and there, at the front of the room, stood Michael Godwin. Pastry Chef to the people more rich and famous than the stars.

  Once upon a time, he wrote a couple cook books that led to a baking show and then a travel show about baking and, all the while, private gigs with big deal celebrities. But then he dropped away from the spotlight and somehow only became more famous. At one point a magazine had called him, the King of Cake and now everyone in Bakeland called him, the Cake King.

  Born and raised in some cutesy southern town, he was almost reclusive now. His sister Megan, an A-list actress/activist, definitely didn’t avoid publicity and her romance with country music crossover star, Talia Bennet, was everywhere. But Michael Godwin was simply too fancy for press. Rumors said Michael lived on a private island and only baked for world leaders during peace talks and that his cakes had changed the fate of nations. He was that good.

  And he was looking right at me from across The Bakery.

  “The Bakery,” as it was known, was actually the smallest ballroom of a swanky 20’s era hotel—The Bonneville. It was built with old money and refurbished with older money and now it was owned by Michael Godwin’s equally well-known and equally intimidating bestie, Oliver Kline of the Louisville Klines. It was said that bourbon ran in his veins but, from what I’d seen, it couldn’t be anything but ice water. Kline had made an appearance on Day One, surveyed the room with his cold, beetle-black eyes, and then he’d left. Those eyes had given me the heebie-jeebies for reasons I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

  But now it was Michael Godwin’s eyes I needed to be concerned with. An unsettling shade of honey brown, they were striking. Penetrating.

  I looked away.

  It’s not just that they were the color of dark, molten honey. It’s that when he looked at you, it felt like… magic.

  At least, it felt like magic when he looked at me.

  As far as we knew, Michael Godwin was the sole judge of the contest but I suspected that Tom, his assistant, was also doing some kind of point system to make sure everything stayed as fair as possible.

  “Samantha Davis,” the Cake King said. He’d been addressing the room every day but I had no idea he actually knew who I was. And that voice? God, it was like melted chocolate and spicy cinnamon all at once. And tinged with that deep south country-boy accent? It disrupted my senses. Put me off kilter. I didn’t want to feel this way.

  I just wanted to bake.

  “Yes?” I croaked.

  “Is there something you’d like to share with the group?”

  I cleared my throat in an effort to retrieve my voice from the bottom of my guts where it had run off to hide. Possibly behind my liver?

  “No, sir,” I managed.

  Was it my imagination or did the corner of his mouth quirk up into something like an entertained smirk? Oh man. I hoped not. As much I’d love to cozy up to the Cake King in a very naked way, that kind of thing had to be reserved for fantasies. And we all had those fantasies. Everyone in this room (and that probably included cooler-than-lime-sherbet Silva) had been having dirty daydreams about Godwin for years. But righ
t now? No.

  Right now I couldn’t let my mind wander down Sexy Street. I needed it to stay right here in Cake Town.

  Keep your mind on the bake, Sam. It’s the one thing that might save you, everything, and everyone you love.

  When I looked back up, Michael Godwin was no longer laser-beaming me with those impossible eyes. Instead, he was looking over a clipboard.

  Beside him, his assistant Tom opened a folder and began today’s briefing. Tom, equal parts perky and grumpy, seemed the sort of man who only barely managed to conceal his epic nerdiness under an absurdly thick layer of adorable Britishness. His plastic-rimmed glasses, perfectly pressed suits, poof of black curls, and “Oh, dah-ling” accent were almost too much.

  “Today you will be making an angel food cake with meringue icing, topped with strawberry ganache.”

  We all nodded. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  We could all make angel food cake. We could all make meringue. We could all make strawberry ganache. I looked around The Bakery. Something was missing. An important something.

  “There are no mixers,” I mumbled, as I realized with a bitter laugh, the cruel joke Michael Godwin was about to play on our forearms and wrists.

  “That is correct,” Godwin said.

  And everyone turned around to look at me.

  “Pastry chefs have been making all of these cakes for years without the use of an electric mixer. Prove to me that you can do the same.”

  That last sentence seemed to be directed straight at me. As if it were a personal challenge. As if he were laying the gauntlet down not for the seven of us still left in this room. But to me. Personally.

  “And,” he continued, a wicked gleam in his eye. “When you are finished you will pipe this design around the top edge.”

  Tom came around with handouts and I had to force my jaw to keep closed when I looked down at the intricate, lacy pattern in my hands.

  I shook my head, doubt seeping in around the edges of my confidence.

  But then I thought about Eric and Nellie. The space they’d made for me when I lost everything. The job they gave me when they had no reason to. The purpose they’d helped me find when I’d lost my footing. The way Nellie had smoothed her hand over my back, in soft circles, as I cried at her kitchen table the night before I left. The way the letter from Michael Godwin had sat there, in front of us, open and full of terrifying do-or-die potential.

  Ms. Samantha Davis,

  In two months, my sister Megan is marrying the love of her life, Talia. I want the wedding to be perfect. I want the food to be perfect. And I absolutely, without compromise, want the cake to be perfect.

  To that end, I am looking for a pastry chef who can give Megan a cake that she will remember for the rest of her life.

  If you are interested, please report to The Bonneville Hotel in Louisville, Kentucky on June 5th. Your room and board will be provided over the course of two weeks as you are put to the test along with eight other bakers who are also competing for this job.

  Needless to say, this is an uncommon arrangement and an even more uncommon opportunity. My sister’s wedding (and the food eaten there) will certainly gain media coverage. If you are uncomfortable with a high level of scrutiny, please do not attend.

  Good luck,

  Michael E. Godwin

  And now here I was. About to turn my forearms to cement in an effort to fulfill a crazy brief given by an arrogant rich guy so I could cater his sister’s wedding.

  Was this a dream? A nightmare? Some kind of deranged fantasy cooked up by my overclocked brain while I slept with my head on Nellie’s kitchen table, drooling onto a stack of unpaid bills?

  Whatever it was, I was determined to see it through.

  I didn’t care how penetrating Michael Godwin’s eyes were. How he looked, again, intently at me from the front of the room, how he gave me a quick nod before exiting out the art deco doors.

  “You have four hours.” Tom said after Michael had left. Tom always stayed behind to watch over us. He walked around the room every so often making notes on an old school clipboard. Occasionally Michael stuck around or sometimes he would pop in and out.

  I tried to focus. It didn’t matter who was or was not watching.

  “Good luck,” Tom said as he started a big timer at the front of the room. “And good bake.”

  I cracked the first egg.

  Chapter Two

  The night was cool when I stepped onto the patio. Food from the hotel was free but I wanted something less… hotely and hoity-toity. Less unnecessarily ostentatious. Less Oliver Kline. I wanted a burger and fries and I wanted grease to oil my aching, inflamed elbow and wrist. Just the thought of it made my mouth water.

  But of course, as soon as I stepped outside, there was Rei Silva. She was sitting at a metal table talking to one of the other bakers, Maya… Something. Maya was an awkward overachiever but, in spite of her tendency toward detailed perfection, she was adorable in a neurotic kind of way and, I thought, if it weren’t for this ridiculous contest, we might be friends. Not that I had any friends.

  Not that I wanted any.

  Between Maya and Rei was Adrienne… Something, who (with her blood-orange hair, deep blue eyes, and luscious curves) was so gorgeous it actually hurt to look at her.

  “Hey, Pink Hair!” Rei shouted louder than necessary.

  Oh. My. Fucking. God.

  “You know my name, Asshole,” I said with an eye roll equal to my annoyance.

  “Sorry,” Rei said, definitely not sounding sorry. She pushed out from the table and stood up. “Come sit with us.”

  To my surprise, the offer seemed genuine. I was surprised to find myself actually tempted, as I looked at the three of them. I’d been lonely and homesick since I got here.

  “No,” I said. “I’m gonna grab some dinner.”

  “Oh!” blustered Maya, “Where are you going? I’m exceedingly hungry.”

  My resolve was beginning to crack.

  “I uh…I read about a burger place on this downhome foodie blog. It’s just a couple blocks from here so…”

  “That sounds great!” Rei clapped her hands together as if sealing the deal and Maya and Adrienne both pushed back their chairs.

  “I uh… I mean, it’s just… “

  But Maya was rifling through her purse and Adrienne was staring at me with those endless blue eyes and all I could do was shrug. I guess it was going to be a party of four.

  It turned out that, as much as I hadn’t wanted company, I’d wanted a real, actual dinner even more. A server with dimple piercings and unicorn tattoos brought us burgers, endless fries, and dark beer and I found myself grinning with tipsy exhaustion as we all alternated between scarfing down the grub and massaging our sore forearms.

  “I mean… it has to be Jonathan,” Adrienne said in a barely hushed whisper.

  Maya nodded wisely. “His cake…”

  “It collapsed,” Rei said. She was building a little tower of sugar packets and I watched her long fingers work. I could barely lift my arms and she was screwing around with precariously balanced condiments. Why wasn’t she as shaky as the rest of us? “There’s no way he’ll be back tomorrow.”

  And that’s how it worked. We baked according to the brief. We did our best. We left whatever we’d made on our counter. And, the next morning, someone might or might not have disappeared. We’d started with nine. We’d been here just under a week. Now there were seven.

  There were the four of us at that table. Then there was Jonathan, the lead baker at the upscale Patty Cake in New York. And then Jasper, the dude who, with his ropey muscles and tanned skin, looked more like a rock climber than a baker. And there was Danielle Green. Danielle was Bakestagram famous thanks to the beautiful photographs she took of her even more beautiful cupcakes. Oh, and Danielle herself was gorgeous. Pouty lips, dazzling smile, and shimmering brown eyes, Danielle was the perfect picture of “I eat cupcakes for breakfast and it all goes to my biteable booty. Are
n’t you jealous?”

  And the answer to that was, of course, yes.

  Danielle lived in an all-white, post-modern wet-dream of an apartment in Denver with her all-white, post-modern designer dog and her all white, post-modern lingerie collection. That last part, I admit, was direct from my imagination and not her Bakestagram feed (with its million followers).

  “But it’s weird… right?” Rei was saying. I’d zoned out.

  “What?”

  “That we’re all so hot.”

  I snorted into my beer.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Maya was nodding and she leaned, conspiratorially, across the table as she whispered, “She’s right. How many top of the line pastry chefs could Godwin have sent that letter to? But he didn’t send one to Marjorie Sneed or Jeff Rogers or Tony Perez.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But maybe he just wants to discover the next big baker or something.”

  “Or something.” Rei said. And she seemed to say it more with her eyebrow shimmy than her actual mouth.

  “So maybe he is looking to shine a light on some unknown baker,” Adrienne said with a shrug. “It’d be good press for him as much as for whoever he decided to hire.”

  “Sure, but it still doesn’t explain why all nine of us look like we stepped out of Hot Bakers Monthly,” Rei said.

  “That’s not a thing.” I smirked.

  “No, but that’s my point. It’s not a thing. People write steamy romance novels about sexy billionaires or sexy bikers but not sexy bakers.”

  “Michael Godwin is a sexy baker biker billionaire,” Maya pointed out, blushing a little. And it was true. Pictures had been posted online of Godwin on his priceless Japanese speed bike, his thigh muscles pushing at the seams of his leathers.