Chapter 3
three
. . .
Natalie
The elevator glides upward so smoothly it feels like we’re not even moving.
Victoria is beside me, scrolling through her phone with the kind of casual focus I envy, her thumb moving in clean, efficient flicks.
Nothing rattles her. Not studio notes, not last-minute schedule changes, not even the fact that I am about to sign the biggest contract of my life and my heart is currently trying to punch through my ribs.
“You ready for this?” Victoria asks, glancing up long enough to take me in.
“I’ve been ready for seven years,” I say.
She smiles, pride showing on her face. “You earned this, Natalie. I hope you take a moment and really soak it in.”
“I’m trying to.”
The elevator dings and the doors slide open onto the fifteenth floor of Hays & Cole. The reception area hits me with that uncanny jolt of recognition mixed with foreignness. I’ve been here a few times, but today feels different. I’m not here as Ryan Cole’s kid. Today I’m here as a client.
The receptionist looks up as we approach. Her face brightens the second she recognizes me. “Natalie!” she says, already half out of her chair. “We are so excited for you. Your dad has been talking about your show nonstop.”
“Sorry,” I say, leaning in to return her hug.
“Oh, trust me, we love it,” she says. “It sounds amazing.”
A flutter starts somewhere under my ribs. People who don’t share DNA with me think Spellbound sounds amazing.
“Let me take you back. Can I get you anything? Water? Tea?”
“Water,” I start, then pause. “Actually…orange juice?”
She blinks, surprised, but recovers quickly. “Absolutely. I’ll bring it in.”
Orange juice? I don’t even like orange juice that much. Too acidic. Too morning-y. But right now the idea of cold citrus pulsing into my bloodstream sounds perfect.
We walk down the hallway past glass-walled conference rooms, each one alive with early-morning negotiations. The machinery of Hollywood is grinding away around me and today I’m part of it.
“Here we are,” the receptionist says, opening the door. “Your father will be right with you.”
She steps aside and Victoria and I enter the conference room.
The table stretches the length of the room, dark wood gleaming under recessed lights.
The floor-to-ceiling windows frame downtown LA like a city-sized movie still.
Sunlight glints off skyscrapers. Cars crawl along streets far below.
The whole thing feels big and alive and somehow not quite real.
But there, in the center of the table, is my contract. Seven years of work, distilled into paper and ink and clauses. I walk toward it without thinking, fingers brushing the edge of the folder.
This is real.
Behind me, the door opens.
“There she is.”
I turn, already smiling, because I know that voice. Dad is crossing the room with his arms already opening, and for a second I am twelve years old again and he is arriving at the school play in a suit and tie with a bouquet of flowers he swears he got “for the whole cast.”
“Hi, Dad,” I say.
“Hi, kiddo.” He pulls me into a hug that is all warm cologne and familiar. The kind of hug that says everything without words. “Big day.”
“Huge day,” I agree, my voice muffled against his shoulder.
He pulls back, but keeps his hands on my shoulders like he needs the physical proof that I am here and this is happening. His eyes shine in a way that makes my throat tighten.
“You did it,” he says, like he still cannot quite believe it, even though he has seen every stage of this journey. “You really did it.”
“I did,” I reply, and even saying it out loud feels surreal.
“I am so damn proud of you, Natalie.” His voice goes rough around the edges. “You know that, right?”
“I know.” I smile up at him. I do know. He’s not exactly been subtle about it.
He grins, the emotion easing back into his usual composed, charming, lawyer face. He gestures toward the table, toward the folder. “Ready to make it official?”
“More than ready.”
And that’s when I see him. My stomach drops straight to my shoes, then bounces back up and lodges somewhere in my throat.
He’s standing near the windows, one hand resting lightly on the back of a chair, the other holding a legal pad and pen. Charcoal suit. Light blue shirt. No tie. The sleeves of his jacket pull just enough to hint at the muscles I already know are underneath, because I’ve had my hands on them.
Jake.
I take a moment to admire him in the daylight.
He's tall, easily over six feet, with an athletic build that comes from actual training, not just genetics.
His hair is cut close and neat, the kind of precise fade that requires maintenance and looks effortlessly sharp.
Those eyes, pale green with hints of blue, are striking and intense.
They looked at me like I was the only person in the world that night.
A faint scar cuts through his left eyebrow.
I remember tracing it with my thumb as he hovered over me.
He carries himself with the easy confidence of someone who knows exactly what he’s good at and doesn’t need to prove it. For a second, my brain just blanks and I can’t speak.
This is karma. What else could it be? The man to whom I very specifically said “this is just one night” is standing here in my father’s conference room, looking like an ad for a competent, trustworthy attorney who will absolutely rail you against a headboard and then kiss your forehead.
What the hell is he doing here?
As if he hears the question, he looks up.
Our eyes meet across the table and the recognition hits like a physical force, like someone snapped a rubber band between us. For half a heartbeat, his expression shifts into a surprised flare, and maybe excitement, but then I watch him pull it back.
His features smooth. His mouth settles into a polite line. His whole face rearranges itself into professional neutrality like someone flipped a switch labeled “courtroom demeanor.”
He’s so fucking hot.
“Jake, this is my daughter, Natalie,” my dad says, completely oblivious to the emotional car crash currently occurring inside my chest. “Nat, this is Jake Reyes. He is one of our top attorneys. I asked him to sit in today, make sure everything is airtight.”
There is a hot little spark of humiliation blooming under my skin now, tangling up with the nausea and adrenaline that were already there.
Have they worked together for years? Has Dad ever said his name in front of me and I just didn’t connect the dots?
Did I really sleep with someone who shares an office with my father and not think to ask?
Jake takes a step forward. “Ms. Cruz,” he says, extending his hand like we haven’t already had our hands all over each other.
His voice is that same low, steady baritone that sent chills down my spine in his bedroom, except now it is dressed up in polite vowels and professional distance. “Pleasure to meet you.”
The formality scrapes across my nerves. For a second I just look at his hand, then at his face, searching for any crack in the mask.
Any sign of the man who gave me one of my most memorable nights ever, who told me I was beautiful, who looked at me like he wanted more and then actually respected me when I said I did not.
Nothing. He is a wall. It’s what I should want.
I’m the one who said one night. No relationships, no complications, no messy aftermath.
And it’s not like he could do anything here.
This is him honoring what I asked for. So why is there a tiny, petty voice in the back of my brain going, “Seriously, that’s it? Not even a flicker?”
I make my fingers move, step forward, and slide my hand into his.
His hand closes around mine, warm and solid and too familiar.
For half a second, my body forgets where we are and my brain flashes back to his weight above me, his grip on my hips, the way he held my gaze when he moved inside me and it felt like my whole life shifted half an inch.
I shove the memory away so hard I almost stumble.
“Mr. Reyes,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady. “Nice to meet you.”
His eyes hold mine for a fraction longer than necessary, and that is the only evidence I get that he remembers too. Then he releases my hand, stepping back like this is just another day in Conference Room 3.
Thank God he’s being professional. Thank God he’s not making jokes or letting his expression slip or doing anything that would make my dad tilt his head and go, “Wait a second.”
The last thing I need is Ryan Cole realizing that his golden girl and one of his star attorneys have already met. Intimately.
“Heard great things about your script,” Jake says, still in full attorney mode. “Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” I reply, not trusting myself to say anything more.
We step apart, and I take the opportunity to put a respectable amount of table between us.
Dad gestures toward the chairs. “Why don’t we all sit?” he says. “Natalie, come here next to me. Victoria, Jake, wherever you like.”
I sink into the seat beside my dad, my legs suddenly made of gelatin. The room feels both too big and too small now. Too much glass. Too many reflective surfaces where I might accidentally catch Jake looking at me or he might catch me looking at him.
Jake takes the chair directly across from me, which feels personal even though I know it’s not. It gives him a perfect view of my face and me a perfect view of his.
This is fine. Everything is fine. I am a grown woman who can handle sitting across from the man she slept with while her father explains the fine print.
“So,” Dad says, flipping open the folder. “Let’s walk through this. Natalie, the contract is straightforward. Victoria and I have gone through it, but I wanted another set of eyes today.”
“Sounds good,” I say, even though my heart is pounding so loudly I am pretty sure everyone on the fifteenth floor can hear it.
Jake leans forward slightly, pen poised over his pad, the picture of attentiveness. “Everything looks solid from what I have seen,” he says to my dad, then glances at me. “Terms are fair, language is clear.”
Dad nods and starts talking, his voice slipping into that rhythm I know so well, the one that has soothed nervous actors and terrified studio execs alike.
He goes clause by clause. Credit. Fees. Writers’ room guarantees.
He walked me through all this on the phone, but hearing it out loud, with this view and this table and this pen in front of me, makes it feel like the universe has slid into some new position.
Victoria jumps in every so often to clarify a point in plain English or to remind me where this matches our wish list from the first round. Jake makes small notes in the margins, his handwriting neat and each stroke deliberate.
I try to stay anchored in the conversation and focus on the pages in front of me.
This is my show. My name is on the title page, these are my weird witches with supernatural powers, and my chance to prove I am not just a girl in a yoga studio promising people that stretching their hamstrings can change their lives.
But there is an annoying, insistent part of my brain that will not stop narrating.
Jake is three feet away from you. Jake has seen you naked. Jake has heard the sounds you make when you are falling apart and now he is saying “morals clause” with a straight face like none of that happened.
I drag my focus back to the page as Dad reaches one of the big sections we fought hardest for.
“As we discussed, the created by credit is locked,” he says, tapping the paragraph.
“Your name appears on screen with that language and cannot be removed. You are guaranteed a producer role for season one with an option to continue, and they are committed to a writers’ room where you are present and participating, not just handing in drafts from the outside. ”
I rest my fingers on the edge of the contract. This is it. The thing I have wanted since I sat on my mom’s couch as a kid and watched TV like it was religion.
I take a slow breath and let it out. I’m not going to let anything distract me from that.
Not even him.