Chapter 7
SEBASTIAN
The tarmac at six in the morning should have been quiet, but our little corner of it was absolute chaos.
I might have been a tiny bit out of my depth, but that wasn’t going to stop me. All I really had to do was observe. People all seemed to know their duties. My job was to make sure they all did them.
Garment bags floated past like ghosts, carried by harried wardrobe assistants.
Camera cases the size of coffins were being counted and recounted by nervous cinematographers.
Models clutched their carry-ons and complained about the early hour.
They were all dressed like they rolled out of bed in various styles of pajamas.
Some had eye gel patches stuck to their face. One even had a green face mask on.
My eyes scanned the tarmac and I had to admit I was impressed. All this effort, all these people, all this equipment—everything coming together for one campaign. My campaign.
“Careful with that!” I called out as two guys from the loading crew manhandled a lighting rig toward the cargo hold. “We’ll never hear the end of it if that gets broken. Please save us all the lecture.”
They laughed and adjusted their grip. I took another bite of my granola bar, mentally running through my checklist for the thousandth time. If I fucked this up, my brothers would never let me forget. I would be cut out from managing anything and forced to keep posing.
“Nervous?” A woman’s voice startled me out of my thoughts.
I turned to find Elizabeth beside me, looking far too put together for this ungodly hour. She wore comfortable travel clothes—leggings and an oversized sweater—but somehow made it look chic and effortless. She was a natural beauty. I could understand why Adrian was attracted to her.
“Nervous? Me? No.” I shoved the rest of the granola bar in my mouth. “Why would I be nervous?”
She smiled a knowing smile that suggested she could see right through my bullshit. “It’s okay if you are. I am.”
I chewed, swallowed, and considered lying again.
But something about Elizabeth made that feel pointless.
She’d been through her own trial by fire when she first started working with Blackwell—the fake engagement with Adrian that turned real, the pressure of designing under the family name, and all of it playing out in the public eye.
“Yeah, okay,” I admitted. “It’s a big deal. I’m ready for it, though. I’ve had all these ideas over the years, you know? Concepts I wanted to try, creative approaches I thought would work. And now I actually get to put them into action instead of just showing up to smile for the camera.”
“I know you’ll do great.” She squeezed my arm. “I trust you to help introduce my designs to the world. I believe in you.”
I didn’t let it show but butterflies exploded in my belly.
Elizabeth had no reason to trust me. She barely knew me, really.
We’d had Sunday dinners together, sure, but this was different.
This was her putting her career and reputation in my hands.
I had given her absolutely no reason to trust I could handle the job.
“Thanks,” I said, aiming for casual and probably missing. “I just hope I don’t disappoint you.”
Like I’ve disappointed so many women before, I didn’t add. Although the reasons were different. Those disappointments usually came when they wanted something serious and I wanted to keep things casual. But disappointment was disappointment, and I had a track record.
I disappointed the female population. Period.
Except in bed.
That made me grin—to myself of course.
“You won’t,” she said with a confidence I wished I felt. “Adrian sees it. Your mother sees it. I see it. You just need to see it in yourself.”
“I can’t believe my brothers aren’t coming along as babysitters,” I joked.
“Like I said, they trust you.”
“That’s very sweet, but we both know that’s bullshit.”
My brothers were staying in New York for the next week to handle things at the office. They wouldn’t be flying out until the runway show at the end.
“They know you’ve got this,” she said. She pulled out her phone and sighed. “I have to find Annika. Relax. You’ve got this.”
I watched her go, then turned my attention back to the organized chaos. This was it. The next two weeks would either prove I was capable of handling this level of responsibility or they’d confirm every doubt my brothers had ever had about me.
No middle ground. No room for error.
“Mr. Blackwell?” One of the production assistants jogged over, clipboard in hand. “Everyone’s loaded. All equipment is secured. We’re ready for boarding.”
I nodded, taking a deep breath. “Alright. Let’s do this.”
The chartered plane was massive—a full-size 737 that probably cost more to rent than most people made in a year.
But we needed it. We had an army to transport, not to mention an entire production set.
None of the equipment we needed was available on Miratoa.
The island was deliberately underdeveloped, preserving its natural beauty by limiting tourism and modern infrastructure.
Which meant we had to bring everything from the lights to the backup generators for the original generators.
Every little detail had been thought of.
It was like mounting a small military operation, except instead of weapons, we had swimsuits and flowing dresses.
I boarded the plane. Inside, the plane had been configured with comfortable seating.
It wasn’t some cramped commercial flight.
The seats were more like recliners and divvied up into different seating configurations.
I noticed immediately how the people had naturally clustered by department.
The models had claimed the back rows, already pulling out sleep masks and neck pillows.
The camera crew sat together in the middle, arguing about lens choices. Wardrobe had taken over one side.
And sitting alone near the front, looking like the new kid on the school bus was Bernadette.
She wore another one of those pantsuits.
It was black and not the kind of thing you would see someone wearing on a tropical island.
Her hair was back in its severe bun. She had her phone out, probably reviewing safety protocols or calculating the statistical likelihood of various disasters.
I hoped “plane crash” wasn’t on her list of incidents that may or may not be covered.
I was not interested in a dip in the Pacific.
At least not from a thirty-thousand-foot drop.
Feeling generous and wanting to smooth over the weirdness from the workshop, I made my way down the aisle and slid into the seat beside her.
“This seat taken?” I asked, even though I was already buckling in.
She looked up from her phone, surprise flickering across her face before her professional mask settled back into place. “It’s a free country.”
“That’s the spirit of hospitality I was hoping for.” The sarcasm almost made her smile.
The flight attendant came by to check our seatbelts as the engines started their pre-flight whine. The cabin door closed with a solid thunk, sealing us all in together for the long flight to Miratoa.
I turned to Bernadette, planning to ask if she was looking forward to the trip while easing into some light flirting that would make the next two weeks less adversarial.
“We need to talk about environmental protocols,” she said, pulling out a tablet from her bag. “Specifically, how careful we need to be to not spoil any of the natural areas where we’ll be shooting.”
I blinked. Was it too late to change seats? “Right now? We haven’t even taken off yet.”
“When better? You’ll be busy once we land, and I want to make sure we’re on the same page before we set foot on the island.”
The plane started taxiing toward the runway. Any hope of switching seats vanished. We were buckled in, the seatbelt sign was illuminated, and I was trapped next to her for at least the next fifteen minutes or so.
This was what I got for trying to be nice.
“Okay,” I said, resignation settling over me like a weighted blanket. “Hit me with the environmental protocols.”
She tapped her tablet, pulling up what looked like a PowerPoint presentation.
Of course she had a presentation. “Miratoa is known for its mostly untouched natural beauty. The government is very careful to limit the number of tourists at any time, and they have strict regulations about development and environmental impact.”
“I know. That’s why we picked it.”
“And part of your agreement with the Miratoan government is that you’ll leave no trace behind. Everything you bring in, you take out. No littering, no disturbing wildlife, no damaging vegetation. They have inspectors who will verify compliance after you leave.”
The plane accelerated down the runway, the force pressing us back into our seats. Through the window, I watched New York fall away beneath us, the city shrinking as we climbed into the morning sky.
“I’m aware of all this,” I said, trying to keep the irritation out of my voice. “It’s in the contracts we signed. It’s in your binder. We’re not going to trash the island.”
“I’m sure you don’t intend to,” she said, and somehow made it sound like an insult.
“But intentions don’t matter if the execution fails.
Do you know what happens if even one member of your crew leaves trash on a protected beach?
If someone disturbs a nesting site? Do you know what they’ll do if your equipment damages the coral reefs? ”
“We get fined?”
“The Miratoan government shuts down the entire production. Immediately. No runway show, no final photoshoots, no global streaming event. Everything you’ve invested is gone. And my company has to pay out millions of dollars because you couldn’t be bothered to follow basic environmental guidelines.”
I looked at Bernadette and her pinched expression.
“You think I don’t take this seriously,” I said.
She shrugged. “My job is to make sure you do.”
The woman made a killjoy look like a good time. And I was going to be stuck with her for the next two weeks in a place many would consider heaven.
And she was going to be the sentry at the pearly gates making sure none of us enjoyed ourselves—especially me.