Nick spontaneously applauded when I had finished.
"I think we'll let Chloe go first since her dish seems to have a short shelf life," Anastasia said.
"Wow!" Nick gushed as he broke the little stained-glass candy spire and the smoke poured out. I was giddy as I watched them eat.
"You know," I said, "in the Middle Ages, people were actually pretty loose compared to the Victorians. There was a lot of sleeping around and general debauchery. The desserts, limited as they were by the available ingredients at the time, were also pretty wild."
I could feel Jack’s gaze on me. He ate a piece of the honey-covered cheese with a snap of white teeth.
"Debaucherous," he said.
I half wondered what would have happened if I hadn't left his apartment last night.
"This is amazing," Nick repeated. "I'm speechless."
"This is the type of dessert you would expect at a Michelin-star restaurant," Anu said. "There's so much to unpack—the layers of smoke, the way each piece on the skewer is thought out and prepared. The timing of this dish was perfect, and the stained-glass spire evokes the medieval tradition of soltetie. This is exactly what you want when the challenge is medieval dessert."
20
Jack
Chloe's dish was blowing up Instagram. She had pictures of herself posing with the smoking gun, and everyone wanted to know what it was.
One of the Platinum Provisions social media people was on Chloe's Instagram answering questions about our products. Buzzfeed picked it up, and several stores upped their orders of our products.
"Are we ready to launch?" Liam asked at the marketing meeting the next day.
"The engineers didn't have changes on my design for the snow-maker attachment," I said. "It's been sent off to a factory in the Midwest. We should have the product in stores within the next couple of weeks."
"Are you going to be able to make the deadlines?" Liam asked. "It seems like a short timeline. Also, is it enough time to even market the limited-edition Christmas products?"
"We already have a ground game in place," the marketing director said. "And we're featuring the devices on the show."
"There were millions of viewers," I told them.
The marketing director laughed. "You haven't seen the latest numbers. The show has gone viral. Ellen DeGeneres talked about it; the Kardashians put it all over their Instagram. The first episode has 200 million views."
I whistled. "That's impressive."
"It’s an advertising gold mine. Your brother is a genius," the director said to Liam.
"Hopefully Gunnar's genius turns into a check for rent," I said to Liam after the meeting.
"Have you had more interest in the tower?" he asked.
"I'm afraid that because we're in that dead period between Thanksgiving and Christmas, I won't have much interest. I still don't have a restaurant lined up."
"Your lobby looks nice. It's very festive," Liam said, throwing an arm around my shoulders. "Has your heart grown three times its size? Are you going to be the Christmas cheermeister?"
I shrugged off Liam's arm. "I don't do Christmas."
"But do you do Christmas bakers?" Liam asked.
I stopped in my tracks. "What are you talking about?"
Liam wagged his finger in my face. "Midnight photography sessions. I saw the photos on Instagram. I know what your dog, Milo, looks like. No billionaire in the world does a late-night photo session in a park in the dead of winter unless they really like someone."
"It's just business," I told him. "She's selling our products."
