Chapter 5
Bex
I go straight from the airport to Emil’s offices on West Fifty-sixth, where a receptionist politely ignores the coffee I’ve spilled on my blouse as she leads me to a conference room.
Theo is already here—broad shoulders straining the seams of his charcoal suit, perfect nose flared as he sets his phone face down on the table to meet my gaze.
He’s even more handsome than I gave him credit for the first time, too fuckable to say no to if he offered, though you’d be mad at yourself later because he’d be such a dick afterward.
I look less fuckable, thanks to the six-hour flight from LA—in a middle seat between two men hogging the armrests—and the coffee I’ve spilled.
I wish I could forget that I kissed him. It’s humiliating, and he’s already so arrogant that he hardly needed the ego boost.
“I didn’t know if you were coming,” I say as I sink into a seat and reach for a bottle of water from the center of the table.
He tips back in his chair and raises a brow. “I still don’t entirely believe you got us this meeting. I’m assuming you called up the first Emil you found online and asked if he wanted to shoot up. I’m here to thwart a kidnapping.”
Theo, like everyone else, assumes I’m too incompetent to ever do anything significant on my own. I won’t bother to correct him because that’s fairly accurate.
I wet a napkin and attempt to blot the stain off my blouse. When I glance up, his eyes are on my chest and the now damp shirt before they jerk away. “So what kind of outrageous lies did you tell in order to make this happen?” he asks.
Yes, I lied my ass off to reach Emil Harris—I claimed to be his daughter, Steven Spielberg’s wife, a senior VP at Sony.
But I lost my entire family because a fucking reality show made them late.
I lost my entire family in a train crash that did not kill a thousand other passengers.
The fates did not worry about what was fair or right, so why the fuck should I?
“No lies,” I reply. “But if it comes up, you were Prince Harry’s bunkmate in Afghanistan and are currently dating Angelina Jolie.”
“Rebecca,” he sighs. “Seriously?”
“You can just call the thing with Angelina ‘complicated’ if that helps.”
He doesn’t laugh, so I give up with a tired exhale. “I just told him what dicks Baby Makes Three have been and how they’re trying to steal our show idea.”
“Unless he comes in here with a plan to murder the owners of Baby Makes Three, I don’t know how he can help.”
“Let’s hear your big idea, then. Since you’re British, I assume it involves recruiting a few cash-poor wizards from Slytherin.”
“I’m beginning to fear you think Hogwarts is a real school,” he says just as the door opens and Emil Harris enters the room with his team.
Introductions are made: there is Lars, middle-aged and handsome, with an accent I can’t place; Paula, who I immediately deem the Competent One because she’s officious and older than everyone else; Katrina, who is all smiles and appears to worship Lars; and finally there’s some douchey kid named Caden, unbearably smug as he tells each of us, in turn, that he’s studying film at NYU.
It’s not as impressive as he thinks, but I should let someone else inform him since I myself never got around to graduating.
Emil drops into a rolling chair and spins toward us. “We’ve spent a good part of the day going over the situation. And you are well and truly fucked, as Bex charmingly informed me last night.”
He grins when he says it, but my stomach tenses. If I’ve dragged Theo into the city for no reason at all, I’ll never hear the end of it.
Well, I will hear the end, because I’ll block his number at some point, but the next few days will be rough.
I glance at Theo. “I guess we’ll need to murder Kylie and Jasper. I wish I’d had some time to practice murdering first.”
“Rebecca,” Theo says wearily, pushing a hand through his hair, “you’d blurt out what you’d done to at least five people while leaving the crime scene.”
Lars smiles at Emil, then us. “I do have an idea that isn’t murder, though you may find it nearly as unpalatable.”
I hold my breath as Lars leans back in his seat, tapping a pen against his mouth.
“First of all, you’re very attractive,” he says to me.
It’s less unpleasant than I’d expected…but Katrina’s mouth gapes open and Theo doesn’t seem to love the compliment either. He leans forward, his jaw locked tight, his eyes narrowed. “I don’t know what—”
“Both of you are,” Lars continues as if Theo wasn’t speaking. “We couldn’t hire models more attractive than the two of you, and Theo is fairly well-known because of his last company. So I think we can sell this show.”
Theo looks as if he’s in the path of a speeding car as I clap my hands together. “I knew Two Whorish Singles Take On the World was a good idea.”
“Not so fast,” says Lars. “Like I said, this won’t be pleasant for either of you on a number of levels. The way we sell this to the network is if we position it as a triumph over tragedy. You’ve both suffered unimaginable losses. I’ll need you to be willing to talk about it. On camera.”
Theo and I exchange a glance. I’d sort of forgotten that Theo has suffered too, that he only came into possession of his half of the company when his brother jumped off a hotel balcony after catching his wife cheating. So I guess his story is somewhat tragic, though not nearly as tragic as mine.
“If there’s really no other way, I’m willing,” Theo says. “But I still don’t see how that turns into a show.”
“I wasn’t done,” says Lars with another smile. “And that wasn’t the painful part, which is this: we need a story. Humans are wired for stories—it’s how we’ve learned since time began. And that story is that the two of you are together.”
My jaw falls. “Together.” My idea has really run off the rails, which is a bad analogy under the circumstances, but he can’t possibly mean together together.
“You’re far more photogenic than the nitwits at Baby Makes Three.
That part is an easy sell. But the two of you on your own gives me nothing to work with.
So instead, the story is this.” He spreads his arms wide as if revealing words on a marquee.
“Brought together by tragedy. United by devastating circumstances, the most unlikely pairing turns into true—”
“No,” Theo and I say simultaneously.
“Love,” Lars continues. “And now you’re…engaged?” He looks at Emil and then Paula, rather than us, the people upon whom he’d inflict this terrible fate.
“Married,” Emil says. “That raises the stakes.”
“I love those optics,” says the little shit from NYU. I’m not sure how it’s possible to hate someone as much as I’ve grown to hate him in such a short period of time.
“And this trip…it’s your honeymoon,” Emil continues, getting more excited with each word he utters.
“A whirlwind romance you kept out of the press—a rushed marriage. Will it work or will it go down in flames? Wait…you’re saving the company, and each other.
I like that. Katrina—write that down. ‘They’re saving the company. And each other.’ ”
Theo and I exchange a horrified glance. A, because that is such a cringey tagline. B, because this whole idea absolutely sucks for both of us.
“I’m not telling the world I’m married to her,” Theo growls.
Asshole. I’ll ignore how offensive I find his distaste since the sentiment is shared. “No reasonable person would think I’d marry him. We have nothing in common—the lie would be obvious.”
“Except it wouldn’t be,” Lars says, leaning forward, pushing his blond-gray hair off his forehead. “If you actually marry Theo, it will simply be the sort of deliciously incongruous pairing that makes for great television…and would absolutely destroy Baby Makes Three.”
I love hearing the words “destroy Baby Makes Three,” but not when accompanied by the words “actually marry Theo.”
“And everyone will believe it,” Emil says. “The two of you have chemistry.”
“They bring a very Sam-and-Diane energy,” says Paula, nodding.
I have no idea what that means, but I assume Sam and Diane were a married couple who eventually died in a murder-suicide, and I still don’t see why we can’t do this my way.
Why we can’t bicker on camera while traveling—I’m sure that would come easily—and they could even edit it so we appear to be attracted to each other.
Will they or won’t they has carried loads of shows through multiple seasons.
There’s no reason ours has to kick off with they will and, in fact, they already did.
Emil rises. “I know I’ve dropped a lot on you here, but I’ve got another meeting so I’ll leave you in Lars’s and Paula’s capable hands. Take a few minutes to discuss and then they’ll proceed from there. Assuming you’re on board, I’ll see you both next spring at the show’s premiere.”
We are not on board, which I guess means I’ll never see Emil Harris again.
Emil leaves and Lars and Paula rise. “Take five minutes,” Lars says, as if he’s being generous. “We’ll be back.” He and his crew walk out together, leaving Theo and me behind like middle school students at their first dance—hardly able to make eye contact.
“This is insane,” he says.
The thick carpet sways under my dragging foot. I’d thought I was willing to do almost anything, but this is too wrong, even for me. “I agree, obviously. Let’s just tell him we talked and decided against it.”
He glances up as if he’s just realized I’m even in the room. “Insane,” he repeats.
“Right.” I rise from my seat. “I’m slow, but I got that part on my own. Let’s—”
“It’s insane, but…”
The first hint of terror sparks to life in my stomach.
I cannot marry the man Bronwyn chose for herself, even if it’s fake. I can’t.
“There’s no but,” I reply, returning to my seat.
He swallows. “I don’t want to fake-marry you any more than you want to fake-marry me, but it could work.
If you were capable of feigning normalcy for an entire season—I do realize what a stretch that is—the public would eat it up.
Everyone would keep their jobs and we could sell the company for a fortune when we’re done. ”
I slap a hand to my face. “Are you crazy? We can’t even sit in the same room for five minutes without fighting. I’m not spending a year married to you.”
“You wouldn’t be. We film this rubbish and go our separate ways afterward. I don’t even live on the same continent as you. We’re talking a few weeks together at most to save everyone’s jobs and make a whole lot of money.”
I hate how completely rational this argument is.
I also hate that I care just enough about my dad’s employees to be considering it.
Linda doesn’t have enough saved for retirement because her worthless son is always hitting her up for money, and our communications director is a single dad with a very sick daughter.
If only I’d tuned those details out when my dad would discuss them over dinner.
“Don’t you have, like, a girlfriend?” I ask. “The woman you were meeting last winter?”
I catch the vaguest hint of guilt in the way he doesn’t meet my gaze. “It’s…what was your Angelina Jolie phrasing? Complicated? It’s complicated. She’ll get it.”
“She won’t need to get it because I haven’t agreed, Theo.”
His long fingers tap impatiently on the table. “You’re the one who made this meeting happen and it’s a much, much better option than anything else under discussion. I’m not asking you to live with me or perform a single wifely duty aside from pretending you find me bearable in public.”
“Pretending I find you bearable is a lot harder than you’re making it sound.” This is not entirely true, but I’m still a little annoyed by the disgust in his voice when he said, “I’m not telling the world I’m married to her,” moments earlier.
But this show would totally sell, because who wouldn’t want to watch a good-looking couple who married too fast visiting beautiful places while their relationship implodes?
She wants to party in Ibiza but he wants to hear about how they laid marble in the thirteenth century! These hot idiots won’t last the season!
I’d watch the shit out of that show, the company would finally be everything my dad wanted, and Linda would keep her job.
It would be fake, obviously. But…I press my hands to my face as I realize what my objection truly is. It’s that Bronwyn will be upset. It’s that she won’t be able to marry him if I’ve already pretend-married him.
Because ten weeks have passed and a part of me still thinks she’s coming back, still wonders what I should get her for graduation and if I can convince her to move to LA afterward.
She should be the one here. Man, she’d love to be in the predicament I’m in. Theo would have fallen head over heels for her, and it would have been the cutest story ever.
Instead, it’s the saddest, and if I agree, I’m betraying one of the two people I love most—a person I still can’t accept is gone.
Lars and the others are laughing and cheerful as they reenter the room, but I guess no one is trying to force any of them to get married.
“We’ll do it,” says Theo.
I glare at him. “I still haven’t agreed.”
Theo and Lars exchange a glance, the kind of glance Jessie used to share over my head with my dad. Jessie’s saying, “God, isn’t she tedious?” and my dad’s saying, “Give her a minute.”
“Rebecca,” Lars says gently, “there’s really no other choice.”
I look between them. “Why does it feel like it’s 1640 and you’re not really asking but telling me I’m getting married? Is this some European thing? Because we don’t do that in America.”
Lars smiles. “No, Bex, we don’t generally force women into marriage in Europe, either.”
“Well,” says Theo, “they do in wizarding communities, but nowhere else.”
For a moment we grin at each other before we realize we’re doing it. Before we realize that we’re acting like people who make jokes and get along and eventually marry.
Oh my god. We are. We’re people who make jokes.
And we’re apparently going to be people who marry.