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I sneak a peek anyway.

Derick Voss looks exactly how I expected. Nice haircut, an expensive coat that doesn’t belong in the mountains, and a confident smile that says he doesn’t care about looking like an outsider. He spots Gideon and lights up like he just found the last bachelor on earth.

“Gideon Stone.” He slides off the stool. “Twice in one week. It’s fate.”

“More like bad timing,” Gideon whispers to me in a flat voice.

Derick’s gaze flicks to our linked fingers, then to me, then back to our hands.

“And you brought a date. Or—” He tilts his head. “Is this the reason you keep turning me down?”

I step half a breath closer to Gideon, the way we practiced in the truck without practicing. “Lila Harlow. I’m here for the Pie Palooza.”

“Lila Harlow.” Derick repeats, his eyes narrowing in recognition. “Éclat. The gala.” He gives me a toothy smile. “Your dessert broke the internet. I follow you on social media, bold move, you coming here to take the prize. Very bold.”

My stomach flips at the thought of a director as famous as him scrolling through my Insta feed, but I need to stick with the plan and keep his attention away from Gideon.

“Then you know why I’m here,” I say. “I wasn’t playing. This contest means everything. After I take first place, the publisher I was working with might remember my name for something other than a disaster.”

Derick laughs. “I like her. She’d be good on camera. Better than you, Stone, and that’s saying something. You two are … together?”

Gideon possessively strokes my knuckles with his thumb. “Engaged,” he says.

The word lands over the bar noise like someone dropped a tray of glasses.

Derick’s eyebrows climb. “Since when?”

“I don’t share the details of my private life. You know that Derick.” Gideon’s smile doesn’t reach his eyes. “She’s not a story you get to tell. She’s mine.”

“Convenient timing,” Derick says lightly. “Pie week. Media in town. A baker with a scandal and a lineman who crashed my show to save his brother. People will eat that up. We could film a short. Hometown love. Second chances, and all that. You wouldn’t even have to do the full bachelor thing.”

He leans in a fraction, as if we’re collaborators. “Between you and me, my producer friend at Foodie Network saw that post too. The one where you tagged the Grizzly Grind. Nice. But the network’s more interested in your scandal than the comeback. Unfortunately, humiliation gets more clicks than pie.”

“So, you want me to lose the contest?”

“We could do a redemption-arc episode,” he goes on, obviously in his creative zone. “Not as a chef, as a character. The fall, the mountain, the man. Audiences love a woman who has to be saved from her own failures.”

I realize, with a clarity that makes my head throb, that the only way some people want to see me is as a joke. My attempt to control the narrative is already being co-opted by the exact media machine that destroyed me.

“No,” Gideon says.

I squeeze his hand and step in, sweet and bright, any other way, and I’ll end up crying, and Derick will probably film it. “If you want a story, you could shoot me baking pies. I’ll be practicing tomorrow at the Grizzly Grind. That could be a good angle.” I shrug. “It’s why all the tourists are here.”

Gideon sends me a private smile while Derick studies me. “I already have B-roll of Passion Pines. What I don’t have is you on a stool talking about what it feels like to start over in a tiny town like this.” His eyes flick to Gideon. “And him looking at you like that.”

Gideon goes still.

“Like what?” I ask.

“Like he’ll take apart anyone who makes you cry on camera again.” Derick shrugs. “It’s good television. Think about it.”

He drifts back toward the Foodie Network booth with a little wave, already pulling out his phone.

Gideon doesn’t let go of my hand. He leads me through the crowd, past a pool table, past a couple dancing, until we’re at the far edge of the floor where the lights are dim.

“That was not diverting,” he explains. “That was Derick cataloguing you.”

“That was me doing the deal.” My voice comes out thinner than I want. “He follows me, Gideon. He already knew. The scandal came with me on the train.”