“Speaking of,” I asked my friend. “Don’t you have to go to work?”
She shrugged. “The big architecture project I was working on got canceled, so I have extra time. The couple broke up.”
“Oh no!” I cried. “What’s going to happen to the historic Wynter Estate? It’s so beautiful.”
“You should have been an architect,” Olivia teased. “You care more about the building than the end of someone’s relationship.”
I wrinkled my nose. “You said the client wanted all the original stained antique wood trim to be painted gray because his fiancée had no taste and wanted the house to look like some HGTV monstrosity. As far as I’m concerned, the poor man dodged a bullet.”
“Fair,” Olivia said.
“Only contestants beyond this point,” a man with a clipboard and headset announced, waving me forward.
“Good luck!” Olivia shot me a thumbs-up then disappeared into the crowd. A grandstand was set up with spectators bundled up in winter coats and sipping mugs of hot chocolate. My stomach churned as one of the production assistants fitted me with a microphone.
I wished I was in the stands.
What if I sucked? What if the judges were mean? I looked around at the other bake-off contestants who had been chosen from the casting call. They all seemed confident and ready.
Except for one man.
“What is Scrooge McDuck doing here?”
The ice prince was not amused to see me. And I was ticked off that he was at the bake-off, ruining yet another Christmas event for me.
“Shouldn’t you be trying to get my rent money together?” he sneered, looking down at me.
“Shouldn’t you be off making someone’s holiday season miserable?”
He smirked. “It looks like from the way you’re puffed up that I’m making your Christmas miserable.”
He leaned forward. His breath caressed my cheek as he snarled, “And I’m going to make it even worse if you don’t pay me or vacate my property.”
“Matt!” a woman called. She had similar coloring to him.
He gave me one last glare then stalked off, leaving behind only a faint whiff of mountain woods.
Olivia:OMG, was that…
Merrie:Yes, it was the Christmas-hating Grinch himself.
Olivia:He’s a bit too handsome to be a Grinch!
“Welcome to the fourth season ofThe Great Christmas Bake-Off,” Anastasia, the host I recognized from the last three seasons, greeted us.
“We’re doing things a little differently this year. In addition to our carefully selected group of bakers from around the New York area, we have a wild card round with local small-town bakers vying for a spot in the competition.”
Carefully selected? Ha! I looked over at my landlord. Matt was glowering. I could practically see the Christmas hatred seeping out of him.
Just need to add a few horns.
Matt clearly didn’t want to be there. He wasn’t even listening to Anastasia.
“For this round,” she was saying, “we don’t have formal judges. Instead, your fellow contestants will be voting on who they want to be in the competition with them.”
I was going to be judged on my competence as a Christmas baker by a man who hated Christmas?
Just freaking great.
