"What am I going to do? This was my whole dish!"
I petted her head. I at least could pivot a little more easily. Maria had had hours of work ruined.
Zane and the other camera guys roamed around taking footage of the dessert carnage on the floor, our dirty clothes, and Maria's tear-stained face.
The fire department showed up, the men dressed in heavy boots and protective gear. Jack was right behind them.
"Are you all right?" he asked me, holding me gingerly. I was covered in batter, fruit filling, and fire extinguisher foam.
"I'm fine," I said. "Everything's fine. You didn't have to come here. There's no fire."
"The alarm company calls me whenever there's an emergency," he said. "I’m still trying to secure tenants, and it wouldn't look good if I wasn't on the premises."
Gunnar hurried over with the fire marshal, and Jack left me to confer with them.
"You all need to evacuate the premises," the fire marshal said loudly.
"Is that really necessary?" Dana asked. "We are in the middle of filming."
"I have a smoke-evacuation system in place," Jack said. "This building was designed to handle small industrial incidents. See?" The smoke and mist that had gathered were being sucked out by the huge fans in the ceiling.
Jack handed the fire marshal a tablet. "This is the information on the system. I already explained when going through the permitting process that my tenants cannot be expected to evacuate whenever there is a minor incident. That’s why I spent millions of dollars putting this system in place."
The fire marshal seemed skeptical as he read through the literature. I wondered if the contest would be called off.
"Fine," the marshal said at last, "but I'm leaving one of my men here. And you will of course be paying the department for his time."
"Of course," Jack said smoothly.
As Jack and Dana went to work out details with the fire marshal and his man, Gunnar scowled and turned to us.
"Maria, what happened?" he snapped. "You're supposed to be able to use a deep fryer without burning down the studio."
Maria only sobbed harder.
"It was my fault, so stop yelling at her," I said. "I set the fryer, and it should have been fine. I don't understand what happened."
"Go change," Gunnar said in disgust. "Three more episodes. We only had to last three more episodes."
Across the room, Hartleigh was watching the commotion with a self-satisfied smile.
As I changed, I fumed about Jack's stalker. "She did something to the fryer," I hissed to Nina when I returned to the studio.
"Of course she did," my friend snorted. "How are you going to prove anything, though?"
Jack was cold and professional as he dealt with the fallout of the fire.
"I love a man in a suit, don't you?" Hartleigh said as she walked past me. "He's so dashing and protective."
"Stay away from him," I told her.
She smiled at me. "Shame about that deep fryer. Those things are finicky, aren’t they?"
50
Jack
By the time I finished filling out paperwork with the fire department and dealing with the insurance company, it was time to judge the contest. The contestants looked frazzled—everyone except for Hartleigh, that is. She seemed rather pleased with herself.
