Chapter 6
“Not if it airs live,” I shot back, refusing to back down, tilting my head up to hold his burning stare. “The clause specifically states: *On a verified, unedited live broadcast feed distributed to network affiliates.* If it goes out to thirty million households without a delay cut, the network can’t claim it was an internal personnel matter. It becomes a matter of public regulatory record. The FCC logs it. The affiliate boards log it. They can't cover it up without committing broadcast fraud.”
Julian looked at me, his gaze sweeping over my face, taking in every line of stubborn, desperate defiance. The anger in his eyes slowly shifted, softening into something far more dangerous—something dark, aching, and overwhelmingly protective.
“You’re insane,” he whispered, his voice catching slightly. “You’re putting your head in a lion’s mouth and hoping the lion chokes on your skull.”
“I don’t have another choice!” The words tore out of me, shattering the cold, analytical composure I had clung to for days. My voice broke, cracked with the exhaustion of three years of carrying the weight of a ruined family name alone. “I don’t have thirty million dollars, Julian! I don’t have a team of corporate lawyers! I have a boarded-up bakery with broken windows in Cape Cove and an eighty-year-old grandmother who thinks she ruined my life because she got sick! This is the only weapon I have! And if I have to stand on that stage and let Nolan Vance spit on me for three days to use it, I will!”
The silence that followed was deafening.
My breath came in ragged, furious gasps. I looked down at the stainless steel table, my knuckles white where I gripped the edge, fighting back the humiliating prickle of real tears that threatened to ruin my control.
Then, I felt a hand on mine.
Julian didn’t pull his hand away this time. His long, calloused fingers closed over my white-knuckled grip, warm, solid, and unyielding. The heat of his touch was like an electric jolt through my skin, grounding me, pulling me back from the edge of the abyss.
“Clara,” he murmured, his voice so soft it was almost a caress.
I didn’t pull away. I couldn’t. For three years, I had believed I was entirely alone in this fight. To feel the steady, protective warmth of his skin against mine was an agony of relief that nearly broke my knees.
“You’re not alone in this kitchen anymore,” Julian said, his voice dropping into a register that made my chest tighten with a sudden, breathless ache.
I looked up at him.
He was standing inches from me. His amber eyes were dark, dilated, searching my face with an intimacy that felt far more terrifying than Nolan’s cruelty. The scent of him—cedar, rain, and the faint, bitter trace of black espresso—filled my lungs, pushing out the smell of stale studio grease.
“What are you saying?” I whispered, my voice barely audible above the hum of the prep refrigerator.
Julian slid his hand from my knuckles up to my wrist, his thumb resting right over my galloping pulse. His touch was gentle, reverent, yet coiled with an underlying strength that made my breath hitch.
“I told you yesterday,” Julian said, his baritone steady, absolute, and completely devoid of doubt. “I’m not the boy who held the clipboard three years ago. I spent three years watching this corporate machine chew people up and spit them out. I spent three years hating myself for not walking out of that room with you when you signed that paper.”
“Julian, you had a career to protect—”
“I didn't protect you,” he cut in fiercely, his fingers tightening slightly around my wrist. “That’s what matters. I saw what they were doing to you, and I looked at my own paycheck and stayed silent. I’m not staying silent this time.”
He reached across the table with his other hand, picking up the folded contract, and set it aside. Then he looked straight into my eyes, laying everything bare.
“If you’re going to blow up Nolan Vance,” Julian said, a grim, dangerous half-smile touching his lips, “you’re not going to do it with a dull knife. And you’re not going to do it alone.”
My breath caught in my throat. “Julian… you could lose your license. You could be blacklisted by every syndication house in the country.”
“Let them blacklist me,” he said, not blinking. “I’d rather direct local news in Bangor for the rest of my life than spend another morning using high-definition cameras to document a coward bullying the most brilliant baker I’ve ever known.”
The compliment hit me like a physical blow. It wasn't flattery; it was an acknowledgment of my craft, my identity, the part of myself that Nolan had spent three years trying to convince the world never existed.
A hot, stinging tear finally slipped past my lashes, tracing a path down my flour-dusted cheek.
Julian’s gaze followed the tear.
Before I could move, before I could raise my sleeve to wipe it away, Julian reached up. His thumb, rough-edged and warm, gently brushed against my cheekbone, catching the tear and wiping away a streak of white flour with it.
The gesture was so tender, so impossibly intimate in this cold, sterile room of stainless steel, that my entire body went motionless.
His hand lingered on my cheek, his fingers curving around my jawline. He was so close I could feel the heat radiating from his chest, could see the tiny gold flecks in his dark eyes, could count the steady, heavy beats of his heart.
“Julian,” I breathed, my lips parting.
“Listen to me,” he whispered, his thumb lightly stroking the sensitive skin just below my ear. His voice was husky, strained with a restraint that was visibly fraying at the edges. “Tomorrow is Day Three. The live finale. An hour of unbroken airtime. Nolan’s ego won't be satisfied with compote. He knows the numbers for today’s broadcast peaked during the argument. Tomorrow, he’s going to go for the kill.”
“What is he planning?” I asked, leaning into his hand almost unconsciously, seeking the comfort of his touch against the cold dread pooling in my stomach.
Julian’s jaw hardened, his thumb still tracing my jawline. “He ordered the maintenance crew to calibrate the master convection oven on your station tonight. He thinks nobody pays attention to the digital heat sensors on the secondary line.”
My eyes widened. “The thermostat?”
“He’s having the internal sensor offset by forty degrees,” Julian said, his eyes flashing with disgust. “The display will read 375, but the cavity will run at 425. High enough to scorch the sugar in your laminated dough within twelve minutes, turning whatever you put in there into carbon while the center remains raw. He wants you to pull a burned, smoking ruin out of that oven on live television during the final eight minutes of sweepstakes week.”
A cold shudder ran down my spine, followed instantly by a surge of white-hot adrenaline.
“He’s going to frame it as gross negligence,” I said, the puzzle pieces clicking together in my mind with terrifying clarity. “He’ll claim I don’t even know how to set an oven. He’ll make it impossible for me to ever find work in a kitchen again.”
