12. Neon Orange Looks Good On You
NEON ORANGE LOOKS GOOD ON YOU
DEEPIKA
I arrived fifteen minutes early, which I immediately regretted because it gave me too much time to sit in the private back room of the expensive cafe and strategize.
The cafe was exactly the place where popular people came, with all its dark wood paneling, soft lighting, and staff who looked like they had signed NDAs before their first shift.
Blake had booked the back room specifically with no windows and only one entrance. The room had the kind of privacy that cost a premium and was worth every penny.
I sat with my arms crossed, sunglasses on despite being indoors, a scarf wound strategically around my neck, hair carefully arranged over my left shoulder.
The hickey is not visible. The hickey does not exist.
I repeated the mantra in my head as if I hadn’t spent forty-five minutes applying three different layers of concealer at six in the morning while cursing Liam James under my breath.
Everything is fine.
Blake appeared first, setting her laptop on the table and immediately launching into the terms she was prepared to negotiate. I barely heard her as I was mentally rehearsing my opening statement to be calm, professional, and utterly unbothered.
Then the door opened.
Liam walked in wearing dark jeans and a gray t-shirt that had, unfortunately, looked perfect on him. His hair did that annoyingly effortless tousled thing, making him look like a model who had just rolled out of bed.
He saw me, and his stride faltered just enough that I noticed.
He almost turned around. He pivoted a quarter inch toward the exit before Xavier, his publicist, a tall man with the energy of someone permanently one crisis away from early retirement, put both his hands on Liam’s back and physically propelled him into the room.
We stared at each other across the table.
He sat down across from me, and our publicists flanked us like opposing legal teams in a very expensive and absurd divorce proceeding.
His eyes traveled to my neck, and one corner of his mouth curved upward.
My hand twitched toward one of my high-heeled sandals. How much would he sue me for if I threw it at his perfectly symmetrical face and broke his nose?
I removed my sunglasses instead because I was a professional adult. “I don’t want to do this,” I said in a firm voice. Remember: calm, professional, and unbothered.
“Neither do I,” he said, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. “I’d rather drown.”
“I can help you with that,” I said with a saccharine grin, batting my lashes.
Blake made a sound somewhere between a sigh and a prayer. “Can we please keep the homicidal urges to a minimum?”
“I’ll try,” I muttered.
Liam immediately pitched his voice up and mocked me by mimicking me, “I’ll try—”
“See?” I snapped my face to Blake, hand outstretched like I was presenting evidence. “I told you I can’t work with him. He’s so childish—”
“Says the woman who threw champagne at me and launched a cupcake at my face,” Liam said to the ceiling.
“It was gravity.”
“Gravity,” he repeated it as if he were tasting the word, turning to Xavier. “She’s a nightmare. I told you!”
“Both of you,” Blake said, holding up both hands. “Shut. The fuck. Up!”
We shut the fuck up.
Blake took a deep breath. “You both have to figure out how to tolerate each other without murder involved, because this arrangement works for both of you. It’s just three months, and you can do anything for three months.”
“People climb Everest in less time,” Xavier offered helpfully with a small smile.
“People also die on Everest,” I pointed out.
“Very encouraging,” Liam said with a fake smile, and I resisted the urge to launch across the table and scratch his face.
Blake and Xavier took over then, trading talking points like tennis players, laying out the terms in clean, businesslike language that made our accidental fake engagement sound like a reasonable, mature, and professional decision.
Even though I hated the arrangement, it made sense.
Diya and Yash will be at the wedding. Together. And I would arrive with an Olympic gold medalist on my arm, wearing my grandmother’s ring, looking like a woman who had thoroughly and completely moved on.
And, there was Ananya Mehta. The meeting was already scheduled for next week for a lead role. I knew it in my bones that it’d be career-defining for me.
I thought about Ananya Mehta’s last film. The way she had coaxed something devastating and raw from her actors. This is the job I’ve spent my career trying to get.
My phone had twelve unread messages from Diya. Eight from my mother and fifty-seven from my several aunts asking if the ring was genuine gold.
I hadn’t answered any of them, and the guilt sat in my chest like a stone, but I kept it there and let Blake keep talking.
Then something touched my leg.
I looked up.
Liam was watching Xavier explain the social media protocol, expression politely attentive, but there was a small, dangerous curl at the corner of his lip.
Jerk.
But a handsome jerk, nonetheless.
He looked unfairly, infuriatingly good-looking, and I would rather die than voice it out.
So, I nudged his leg back.
His eyes cut to mine, and they were sharp and amused.
Game on.
The nudging game started small and with discreet play. A gentle pressure of shin against shin while Xavier talked about ‘authenticated couple moments’ and Blake nodded along, taking notes.
Then it escalated.
My foot against his ankle. His knee against mine.
My heel accidentally came down on his foot.
His leg pushing mine sideways. Both of us stared straight ahead with expressions of complete innocence while the entire table trembled slightly, water glasses rippling as if we were in a low-budget earthquake scene.
It wasn’t until we heard the silence in the room that I looked at them.
Blake and Xavier had stopped talking, and both publicists looked at us with the unified expression of adults staring at children who had just drawn on the walls with permanent marker.
“Are you both quite finished?” Blake asked. “Or should we leave the room to give you both time to finish your game of footsies?”
“Sorry,” I said.
“Sorry,” Liam said.
We were not sorry.
“We’ll have the formal contract ready within forty-eight hours,” Xavier announced, closing his laptop. “Three months, standard morality clauses, social media schedule—”
“Fine,” I said.
“Fine,” Liam said.
I sighed, reaching for my bag.
“One more thing,” Xavier said. “We need a photo. Right now, today. Something natural.”
“Nothing about this is natural,” I said, moving my hands in the air. We were in a luxurious cafe with so much lighting that I could count the pores on Liam’s face (unfortunately, I could barely see any) and planning a fake-dating agreement to better our careers.
“Something natural-looking, then. The story needs fuel.” He gestured between us. “Something simple like… hands on the table.”
I looked at Blake, and she gave me the look that meant, don’t argue, just do it.
Liam and I both placed our hands on the table, the space between us approximately the width of the Pacific Ocean, and then Xavier was making impatient gestures, and I slid my hand across the wood, and Liam slid his, and—
Our fingers met.
The warmth hit me first. His hand was larger than mine, slightly calloused from years of training, and when his fingers folded over mine, the sensation traveled up my arm as if he had closed a circuit.
Neither of us moved.
I stared at our joined hands on the dark wood with his thumb resting over my knuckles, my grandmother’s ring catching the light between us, and forgot what I was supposed to be doing.
He cleared his throat, and I cleared mine.
Xavier took the photograph.
We pulled apart simultaneously, both reaching for our water glasses, and both taking very long and very necessary sips.
I was almost free. Double doors, one exit, fresh air, and then I could go home and process everything from the privacy of my tiny apartment while eating cereal directly from the box.
I pushed through the door, heel catching on the raised threshold in a way that sent me pitching forward, and for a moment I was absolutely going to eat the pavement in front of a very expensive cafe—
Strong hands caught my waist and pulled me back, flush against the hard and familiar chest. Rain and musk wafted around me, and I grabbed his chest instinctively, fingers curling into the fabric of his t-shirt.
We froze.
His hands were on my hips, with his chin nearly resting on my head. We were so close, and I could feel the solid, infuriating, warm reality of him.
The hotel came back in a rush. The same hands, the same warmth, and considerably fewer clothes.
My heartbeat was doing something medically concerning.
“Let me go, Fish Boy,” I said, keeping my voice steady through sheer force of will. “I’m fine.”
“Just preventing a lawsuit, Sharma.”
But he didn’t let go.
“We haven’t signed the contract yet.”
“Future lawsuit.”
His face was inches from mine, close enough that I could see the gray of his eyes had gone darker. I remembered the same look when I was spread—
No, I will not think about it.
We glared at each other with the intensity of two people who were shooting daggers because the alternative was something neither of them was ready to name.
He released me slowly, and I stepped back.
Then he leaned in, his mouth brushing my ear, voice low enough that only I could hear.
“Neon orange looks good on you.”
I blinked.
He pulled back, smirking, and turned to walk away with hands in his pockets and whistling while the words turned over in my brain.
Neon orange? I looked down and—my bra.
I gasped so hard I nearly choked on my saliva. “Asshole!”
His laugh echoed back through the cafe as the door swung shut behind him.
I stood there, clutching my bag, hickey throbbing under three layers of concealer, hand still tingling from where his fingers had been.
I’m going to treat myself to better cereal tonight.