“But do you have evidence of them actually cheating? Because being a couple isn’t a violation of the contract.”
“What?” Willa marched over to him. “How in the hell can this be okay? A couple that isn’t working together? You buy that?”
“What I buy is the lawyers who put together these contracts. I know the verbiage inside and out.” He turned back to Henry and Tristan. “There’s going to be a lot of paperwork to make sure this is above board. Disclosures, affidavits, that sort of thing. The lawyers need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s on something like this.”
Willa crossed her arms again. “This is completely outrageous.”
“No, what’s outrageous is that this happened in our first season.” McCall tossed his arms out, and the twinge of a smile pulled at his face again. “A scandal like this in the semifinals of season one? Ratings are going to behuge.”
Willa stood gape-mouthed, fuming at all of them. “And what happens if you let them go forward, then find out they worked on every single round together? What then?”
“The winner won’t get the big check for a couple months after filming ends. Plenty of time for us to comb through the footage for any wrongdoing.” McCall nodded at Tristan and Henry in turn. “If we find out that all three of our semifinalists were cheating, then third runner up will get the quarter million, and we’ll have ratings through the roof from the scandal. It’s a very simple setup.”
Was this... working out? Henry struggled against the warm balloon of hope buoying in his chest. The only worry was the chiffon recipe. He knew their recipes were separate though, had returned the chiffon cake recipe to Tristan to be certain. And no one was going to mistake Henry’s chiffon for Tristan’s. Well, no one in this room, with the skill sets they had.
McCall turned to face Tristan and Henry full on and shrugged. “Well, boys, mazel on the love and mazel on making it through to the finals. Just promise me you’re going to duke it out as hard as ever in the last round?”
Henry rolled his eyes and relished the rage burning through Willa’s features as he spoke. “I came here to prove myself against the best. The way I see it, having to go up against someone I’m dating means I have impeccable taste.”
Tristan scoffed. “And an ego. Don’t forget that ego you have to carry around with you, day in, day out. If I let you win, think how insufferable you’d be.”
McCall smiled contentedly, then turned to the judges. “If that’s all the drama you have for me, things will continue on as per usual. We’ll be in touch if anything comes up, boys.” He faced Willa. “As for you, the check will be in the mail to compensate you for your time spent here.” He shook his head, laughing incredulously. “An actual romanceanda blackmailing scandal. We need to get that into the press releases as soon as we possibly can.”
Dexter cleared his throat and pointed toward Tristan and Henry. “You maybe want to bring that up with them?”
“Oh God, of course. I thought that was implied.” McCall cast his gaze over Tristan and Henry one last time. “You guys mind doing about a million interviews? Because I don’t think you’re going to escape it once this hits. But we can try to keep it quiet if that’d make you feel better. No promises, though. These things have a tendency to slip out.”
Henry looked at Tristan and his slowly fading smile. Then he shrugged. “Let’s talk about it after the final. Don’t want anything getting in the way of us competing, right?”
“Right.” Mr. McCall stepped away. “You can get on with any last filming you might need to do.” And off went Mark McCall, savior of the gay romances. At least today.
Willa’s face snarled into a deep frown. But what could she possibly say? Even trying to twist himself around to her way of thinking, Henry saw no argument she could leverage. Not without making an even bigger fool of herself.
And to her own credit, she didn’t try. She just stood there, frowning.
The director scrubbed a hand over his face. “I don’t think we have anything else to film. If we do, well... fucking shit, I don’t know, let’s call it a wrap.” He tore off his headset. “Those two backup cameras better not have stopped working.”
“Backup cameras?” Henry quirked an eyebrow at him. “What do you mean?”
“Whenever we cut the normal cameras, we keep two recording. This is reality TV, boys. Missing out on something like this is not an option. Especially when you’ve all been so terriblyniceto each other up until now.” He gestured to Tristan and Henry with his headset. “You and you, interviews. Willa, if you feel like cooperating, give an interview. If not, don’t. Either way, the editors and I can make good TV out of what happened.”
She snorted. “Pass.”
And off she went, taking every bit of blackmail and stress and cheating with her. Plus apparently the two-ton weight that lifted off Henry’s chest. The lights on the cameras flickered back to life. The cleaver ceremony was somber this time. But damn was it ever sweet to watch that giant knife slam through all of Willa’s chocolate, shattering it apart, just like her plan.
And more importantly, he and Tristan... they got to stay. Together. Henry would have to find out what the hell had happened, what Tristan had been thinking. But for now, he let those questions sit in his stomach.
Tentatively, he offered Tristan his hand.
And on set, in front of everyone, Tristan took it.
“I can’t believe it actually worked out... well.” Tristan slid his key card into the lock and opened up the hotel room. Clean and picture perfect, so obviously housekeeping had ignored the Do Not Disturb sign.
“I know. But I’m not complaining.” Henry held the door open for him and, as Tristan passed through, slapped him on the ass. “Whoops. My hand slipped.”
“Right. Idefinitelybelieve that.”
“Oh, as if you didn’t like it.”
