Hilary Fields - Bliss

Sera was left alone with her nemesis.

She tried not to look at Blake, afraid that if she had him in her sights, she’d flay his skin off inch by inch with a dull apple peeler. But Blake had no such qualms. He strolled over to Sera’s side of the counter and helped himself to one of her cannoli. “Delicious,” he said, smacking his lips. “Not as good as my dessert, of course, but I will give credit where credit is due.”

This was so patently untrue that for a moment, Sera just goggled. It took her a few beats to gather a breath. “If you’re thinking of stealing this recipe, too, Blake, I warn you—”

“Oh, Sera. ” Blake cut her off, painting his face with an expression of pity. “Sera, Sera, Sera. Still delusional, aren’t you? I’d had hopes the fresh air of this desert backwater might have cured you, but I see you’re still the same paranoid, desperate loser I rescued from obscurity years ago—much to my everlasting regret.” He stopped to crunch another cannoli, slurping the filling with a relish that made Sera want to vomit.

“A year ago, you thought you could humiliate me in front of my staff, cuckolding me with some low-life Latin busboy. You thought you could make a fool of me— me! —and walk away scot-free. And today you’re still trying to prove you’re my equal.” He laughed as though the very idea was preposterous. “Well, it won’t be long now until the world sees exactly what I see: a pathetic, fearful, frozen little failure who’ll wind up dipping donuts in some all-night drive-through before long.”

Once, a speech like that from Blake would have driven her to tears—or the nearest bottle. Now, Sera’s fingers curled into fists, and her vision clouded over with a red mist. “You absolute sh—”

Gonnnnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg!

It was a lucky thing someone had rung the damn gong, because as her vision cleared, Sera saw the camera guys were back at their stations, grinning as they recorded footage of her confrontation with the celebrity chef.

Class, Sera. Remember, you’ll win this with talent and class. Don’t rise to the bait. Rise to the challenge.

“Get set, Chefs. Round Three in two minutes!” Vanessa chirped. “We’re all counting on you,” she whispered to Sera out of the side of her mouth.

Thanks, Vanessa. That’s exactly what this situation needed. More pressure.

Sera shook out her hands, rolled her wrists, cricked her neck from side to side. Her second stomped back to his station, breath more than a little boozy from his own relaxation technique. “Ye haven’t lost yer nerve, have ye, lass?” he asked.

“Not hardly,” she gritted.

Malcolm grinned at her through his mustaches. “That’s the spirit!”

“Everyone ready for the final round?” Vanessa trilled.

The audience, flushed and just a bit glassy-eyed from the treats they’d already ingested, gave a lusty cheer.

“All right, let’s see what the chefs have got up their sleeves this time! Remember, the goal is to show who really understands what ‘bliss’ is all about—when it comes to desserts, of course!” She chuckled amiably. “Personally,” she confided, “I’m hoping for chocolate. Nothing like deep, rich, sensual chocolate to satisfy the senses!”

The audience agreed.

The gong sounded again.

For a split second, Sera had a vision of Robbie Markham, laughing as rubber dildos rained down out of her locker and conked her on the head. She saw Blake, smirking as he took credit for her work, mocking her talent as a chef and her worth as a woman, slamming door after door in her face. She saw herself, surfacing from a blackout with puke on her shirt and no idea how she’d gotten home.

And then she looked out into the crowd. There was Pauline, shaking a pair of maracas and chanting her niece’s name like a woman possessed. There were the BRBs, backing her up with hoots and hollers. And there was Asher, standing stock-still in the midst of them, with a look on his face that was unmistakably… love.

I am so gonna win this thing.

“Forget the Wilde-at-Tarte, Malc,” she told the pie maven, a steely glint in her eye. “We’re bringing out the big guns.”

She took a deep breath. “Prepare to drop the O-Bomb.”

She’d never managed it before. The delicate combination of paper-thin dark chocolate; warm, light-as-air passion fruit curd; and tart, tangy raspberry puree was the holy grail of chocolatiers. Something whispered about, rumored, but never seen—at least not in any of the restaurants Serafina had served in. Over the years she’d attempted it only as a hobby, on her off-hours, but the confection had always collapsed like a first-year culinary student’s soufflé. The warm custard always melted the chocolate shell, making a mess on the plate and leaving what looked like a sad, smashed egg where a perfect sphere of sheer, delicious genius ought to rest.

To attempt one now, under these conditions, would be madness.

Sera would make a hundred.

“Spatulas down, Chefs!”

Sera was coated in chocolate up to her elbows, and she was pretty sure she had a glob in her hair. Malcolm had tied his mustaches in a knot under his chin and tucked the ends into his camo-print apron to keep them out of the way. Sweat beaded his brow, and he was breathing hard. Scowling at Vanessa, he defied the host long enough to stick a syringe full of passion fruit curd into the final chocolate shell, squeezing with a delicacy surprising in a man of his bulk. Sera shadowed him with a syringe of her own, holding her breath as she followed the path of the tiny hole he’d made in the chocolate with her own flavor injection of pure raspberry puree. With fingers that shook just a bit, she lifted the half-dollar-sized dessert and placed it, puncture-side down, on a plate with a teeny dollop of the curd to hold it upright. She squirted a shallow moat of raspberry sauce around the rim, just for fun.

On the counter before them stood ninety-nine more just like it—perfect, glossy dark chocolate spheres of deceptive simplicity, resting upon saucer-sized white china plates, waiting for the single bite that would transmute them from mere comestibles into a flavor explosion that had the power to decide the course of Serafina’s very future.

Swiping a forearm across her brow (and incidentally leaving a streak of chocolate behind), Sera looked up as the final gong sounded. The audience was quiet—rapt as if they sensed the significance of this moment, or perhaps were simply in awe of what the chefs had wrought.

She looked over at Blake’s station. He and Sam Everett seemed a bit the worse for wear as well—and judging by the proliferation of plates gently cupping the bottoms of a hundred individual chocolate ganache cakes, each steaming like a tiny volcano and rising from a lake of crème anglaise, they had a right to their exhaustion.

“Well!” Vanessa said brightly. “Looks like you both took my suggestion seriously. Chocolate as far as the eye can see!” She swept an arm expansively to indicate the curving countertop, which was a sea of small plates topped in chocolate confectionery. “What an impressive effort, Chefs! Both desserts look sinfully scrumptious.” She gave a delighted little shiver.

Sera was too tense to appreciate the blonde’s showmanship. Hurry, damn it. Hand them out before they melt… or explode… or disappear into the fourth dimension… She couldn’t believe her luck had held so far. Perhaps it was her last-minute addition of lemon-wafer infrastructure—a tissue-thin lining of sweet, zest-kissed cookie that braced the dark chocolate but would barely provide a crunch, even as it protected the shell from the predations of the warm (and it had to be warm, or the whole experience would be lost) tangy curd and fresh, zingy raspberry at the core. But how long could the waffle-like wafer hold? Talk faster, lady, she silently pled.