Chapter 49
Tabitha
I stiffened at the exec’s question to Tim. Why was this woman asking him about my online comments? And why hadn’t Tim mentioned it? The woman had taken my confessional too, but mine had only taken a couple minutes.
“Comments?” Tim asked her.
“Saying she’s dull and boring and dreary, a bit of a shrew, and she doesn’t seem at all fun.”
Onscreen, Tim visibly flinched. I couldn’t breathe.
How could they amplify those bloody nasty comments? The real Tim beside me shifted in his seat. I wanted to turn to him, get reassurance, but I wanted to hear what was next.
“What do you think?” she pushed.
Say it, Tim. Tell her to fuck off, without saying those words.
Beside me on the sofa, the real Tim cleared his throat.
Onscreen, he visibly dithered.
She pushed him again.
“We’ve been at odds about a lot of things, but—”
“C’mon, Tim. What do you really think? You can tell me.”
She was being all chummy, and it was so, so obvious what she was doing.
“Is she someone you’d normally work with?” she asked.
This was easy. Not only would he work with me again, he loves me.
“Not…normally,” onscreen Tim answered. “But—”
“But what?” she pressed. “What are you saying? You’re not friends now, are you?”
I knew we’d agreed that he was playing the role of my antagonist, but it still felt like a stab in my side.
“Are you telling me you two are friends?” she asked.
“Oh no. Not friends, of course not.”
He scoffed, which hurt more than it should. Like I was so uncool, so boring. But he’d turn this around.
“Yeah, you’re right. She can come off as dull and boring and not much fun,” he said. “Like you say, not someone I’d want to work with. But sometimes you have to work with people you don’t want to hang out with.”
He shrugged. Shrugged.
The woman exec laughed, and a few others laughed in the background too. Not the camera guys, I was sure. Not Phoebe on the boom. Not Simon. Maybe Simon. And the other two execs visiting that day. Even if Tim had been lying, those people were all laughing at me. And that hadn’t been fake.
A sick feeling spread from my stomach and around my body, visceral, hot, nauseating. This beautifully friendly, colorful kitchen that I’d spent months designing and had absolutely loved a week ago, even a few seconds ago, closed in on me until I couldn’t breathe.
Beyond the tightness in my chest, my racing heart, the searing heat in my face, I could feel the cringing mortification from everyone there. Isla and Declan, Ishani and Kingston, Sunny and Shikha, and the brothers.
When Darcy muttered, “You call this guy your boyfriend?” shame hit me hard.
Isla grabbed the remote from the coffee table and switched off the television.