Tail Me the Truth (Paranormal Dating Agency #111)

1. Celina

ONE

CELINA

The air in Celina’s trailer was cool, filtered, and smelled faintly of Tasha’s setting spray and the lavender lotion Celina used to calm her nerves.

Outside, the low hum of the studio lot was a distant, manageable thing, but inside, the atmosphere had thickened with the weight of Rennick’s focused attention.

He stood by the small kitchenette, his tailored suit looking out of place among the casual clutter of a working set, holding her script for Savannah’s Choice. His thumb traced the margin notes she’d made in her looping handwriting.

“The blocking for the office scene feels static on page sixty-seven. We should talk to Martin about bringing Devon around the desk earlier. It reads as hesitant, not powerful.”

Celina kept her gaze fixed on her reflection in the brightly lit mirror. Tasha, a woman of remarkable focus and few words, carefully blended a highlighter along her cheekbone.

“Martin liked the hesitation in rehearsal. The vulnerability reads just fine.” Celina’s voice was even.

“Vulnerability is one thing. Weakness is another. We’re building Devon as a love interest, not a man who can’t cross a room.” Rennick flipped a page, the sound sharp in the quiet. “This is the pivotal moment where the audience falls for him. It needs command.”

It needs command.

The phrase echoed in the confined space. It was always about what something needed. What the audience needed, the studio needed, and her career needed. For thirty years, Rennick’s assessments had been the gospel. Now, they just felt like walls gently closing in.

Her phone, face-up on the vanity, lit up with a text. Daya’s name glowed like salvation.

How’s the lion’s den? Figuratively speaking of course.

A real laugh threatened, warm and sudden in her chest. But she smothered it, her lips barely twitching.

Would be better if the den’s zookeeper decided to take a lunch break, she typed back, her thumbs moving swiftly.

Tasha leaned back, squinting critically at her work. “Lip color next. The kiss-resistant one. You’re up in twenty minutes.”

“We have time,” Rennick said, not looking up from the script. It wasn’t a rebuttal to Tasha; it was a reassertion of his own timeline.

Daya’s reply was instantaneous. Typical Rennick. Should I stage a fire? A minor plumbing catastrophe? I have a guy.

Celina’s heart ached with a desperate squeeze.

She wanted a Rennick-less moment so badly she could taste it—a breath of air that hadn’t first been filtered through his analysis.

These days, acquiring such a moment required strategy usually reserved for covert ops.

A fake urgent call from Bates Films. A sudden, mysterious migraine. It was getting exhausting.

“You’re unusually quiet today,” Rennick observed, finally setting the script down and leaning against the counter.

His posture was relaxed, but his brown eyes were actively scanning her mirrored face.

“The Oscar nominations are next week and the press cycle will be brutal. We need you focused, not fatigued.”

There it was.

The segue from script notes to life management. He had seamlessly included himself in the requirements of her own life since she was four years old and a rising child star.

“I’m fine, Rennick. It’s a standard shoot day. Braxton is professional and Martin knows what he’s doing.” She kept her tone light.

“It’s not the shoot I’m worried about. It’s the background noise. Your production company…” He said ‘production company’ the way one might say ‘interesting hobby.’ “It’s a distraction you can’t afford right now. Especially with the upcoming Oscar nominations. The world is watching you constantly.”

A hot sensation climbed her spine. She watched her own green eyes in the mirror, willing them to stay cool.

Bates Films was not background noise. It was the only thing that felt entirely, unquestionably hers.

Founded in the raw, gouging grief of losing her mother, it was a monument to Joyce Bates’s belief in honest stories, Celina’s one act of rebellion, and the first truly independent decision since childhood.

And Rennick resented it. He’d never said it, but she felt it in every subtle redirect and every prioritized reminder about her primary career.

“Managing my time is my responsibility,” she said, the words crisp. “And Bates Films is a part of my time.”

“Of course it is.” He spread his hands wide.

“But Celina, be realistic. You’re carrying the weight of a major studio picture, an upcoming Oscar campaign, and a start-up production company.

” He paused, meeting her gaze in the mirror.

“No one can sustain that. Let me handle everything. You just focus on being the brilliant actress you are.”

Let me handle everything.

The mantra of her life. For so long, it had been a comfort.

Now, it felt like being slowly wrapped in velvet chains.

She thought of Savannah Voorhies, the character she was about to go and play—a woman who built her own business, who fell for her boss not out of need, but out of chosen, fierce desire.

Celina had taken the role precisely to live inside that feeling of autonomy, even if only for twelve hours a day under the lights.

But what she really wanted at this moment was to snap back at Rennick for once. Snap back that Bates Films wasn’t a start-up, that it was a fully functioning production company. Snap back that her mother’s legacy was not a distraction. But the words sat on her tongue, heavy and dangerous.

Instead, she took a slow, controlled breath. “Thank you. But Daya and I have Bates Films under control.” She met his gaze in the mirror. “And right now, I need to get into the headspace for Savannah. It’s a close scene.”

A beat of silence hung between them, charged with everything unsaid. He heard the dismissal in her voice, and his jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

Finally, he pushed off the counter, straightening his cuff. “Always my talented star,” he said, and the smile he offered was polished and utterly unreadable. “Meet you tonight at Bruno’s for a late dinner after you wrap.”

He turned and exited her trailer with purposeful strides, the silence he left behind immediate and vast.

Tasha, who had been pretending to be a statue, let out a soft exhale. “Manager or not,” she murmured, picking up the lip color, “that man could use a hobby that isn’t you.”

A genuine laugh escaped Celina this time. “Tell me about it.” She picked up her phone, the screen still showing Daya’s last text about orchestrating the fictional plumbing catastrophe.

False alarm, Celina typed. The zookeeper has left the den. For now.

She placed the phone face down, closed her eyes, and tried to remember what it felt like to simply want something for herself without first having to run it by Rennick.

The knock on her trailer door came with a sharp rap that made the makeup artist pause. With a slight shrug, Tasha turned and crossed the short space to the door.

Celina didn’t move her head, keeping her gaze level in the mirror. It was probably a production assistant with a schedule change, or maybe a courier with the revised pages. She let out a slow breath, the residual tension from Rennick’s visit still knotted between her shoulders.

Instead, a petite older woman with brilliant white hair and a magenta pantsuit that looked like it could conduct electricity stepped into the trailer. She was a stranger to Celina, but that was nothing new. Fans, somehow, always found a way to find her.

Tasha caught Celina’s eye in the reflection and gave a small, knowing tilt of her head. “I’ll finish up on set. You’ve got five minutes until they need you for blocking.”

“Thanks, Tasha,” Celina said, turning her attention to the older woman.

The air in the trailer shifted, feeling suddenly lighter and charged with a crisp scent of vanilla and ozone.

“I’m so sorry to barge in like this,” the woman said, her voice warm and rich with cheer. “I’m Gerri Wilder. A huge fan.” She extended a perfectly manicured hand.

Celina stood up, accepting the handshake. “It’s a pleasure to meet you. Would you like an autograph? A photo?”

“Oh, I would love that.” Gerri’s smile widened. “Both, if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Not at all.” Celina moved to the small desk, pulling a glossy headshot from the neat stack she kept for such occasions, and uncapped a pen. “Who should I make it out to?”

“Just ‘Gerri’ is perfect.”

Celina inscribed her usual graceful signature, adding a quick ‘Thank you for your support!’ Then she handed it over. “And a picture?”

“Absolutely!” Gerri produced a phone from a pocket in her dazzling jacket. She sidled up next to Celina, who leaned in, turning her head to share the frame.

“Wonderful,” Gerri said, tucking the phone away but making no move to leave.

She tapped the headshot against her palm.

“You know, I’m not just a fan of you, dear.

I’m a fan of your films. The ones from Bates Films. The Last Light of August?

I wept so hard. Those films are so raw and so honest. I can’t get enough of them. ”

A familiar pang of anxiety tightened Celina’s chest. The compliment, so genuine, felt like a needle probing a bruise.

And lately, Bates Films was the bruise. Her dream was hemorrhaging money, the budget projections for the next slate a spreadsheet of red numbers.

She’d been lying awake at night, trying to calculate how many more scripts she could option before the well ran dry and she’d have to tell Daya they were pausing everything.

The words came out before she could filter them, laced with a fatigue she never showed. “That’s incredibly kind. But I’m not sure how many more we’ll have coming out, to be honest. There are some… financial pressures right now.”

Gerri’s face fell, a genuine disappointment that seemed to deepen the fine lines around her eyes.

“Oh, that’s too bad.” Then, as if a switch had been flipped, her eyes lit up, the blue seeming to shimmer with an inner gold for a fleeting second.

“But I have an idea. If you’d be willing to hear me out. ”

Curiosity, thin and desperate, sparked in Celina’s gut. “Sure. Why not?”

“I could get you an interview with Osias Fellan.”

Celina blinked, the name landing like a physical thing in the quiet trailer.

Osias Fellan. CEO of Fellan Entertainment.

He funded the kind of projects studios rejected—the authentic, difficult, beautiful stories.

The kind Bates Films wanted to tell. A meeting with him was the stuff of legend, rumored to be harder to secure than with a monarch.

“He absolutely adores authentic projects,” Gerri continued, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “Maybe you two could make some sort of arrangement.”

Celina’s mind raced. An arrangement. A collaboration. An infusion of capital, or resources, or simply the prestige of the Fellan name attached to a Bates Films project. It could be the life raft. The thing that kept her mother’s legacy—her legacy—from sinking beneath the waves of pragmatism.

She looked closer at Gerri, the woman wearing confidence like a second skin. “You could arrange a meeting with him?”

“Of course,” Gerri said, as if scheduling a coffee. “I happen to know his VP. I could get a meeting for you tomorrow.”

Tomorrow.

“That would be… fantastic.”

“Consider it done.” Gerri winked, a flash of gold again in her eyes. “Meet me at Fellan Entertainment’s office tomorrow morning. Nine sharp.”

“I’ll be there,” Celina said enthusiastically.

With a final, sparkling smile, Gerri turned and left, the trailer door sighing shut behind her. The silence she left was different from the one Rennick had created. This silence buzzed with potential.

Celina stared at her own reflection in the vanity mirror.

The flawless makeup, the perfectly styled hair—it was the uniform of Celina Bates, Academy Award-winning actress.

But the woman looking back, the one with the slightly widened eyes and the breath held in her lungs, that was someone else.

That was the founder. The owner. The woman who had built something with her own hands, for her own reasons.

This company was her baby. Her one space untouched by the fingerprints of managers and publicists and expectations.

This opportunity wasn’t just business; it was a lifeline thrown to the most real part of herself.

She smiled at herself in the mirror, hope fluttering in her chest, then she turned and exited her trailer with renewed purpose.

Outside her trailer, the Los Angeles studio lot sprawled before her, a maze of soundstages and faux facades baking under the afternoon sun.

She started toward the outdoor set where they were shooting the park bench confession scene, her heels clicking a steady rhythm on the pavement.

Within seconds, a figure fell into step beside her.

Braxton Fellan, already in his tailored costume, smelling of expensive cologne and studio-grade hairspray.

“Everything going okay?” he asked, his tone casual, his movie-star green eyes scanning her face.

“Much better now,” she said, and it was the truth.

The hope was a warm, steadying flame behind her ribs.

She offered him a smile but sealed her lips against the news.

She knew enough—from vague industry gossip, from the occasional loaded comment Braxton himself had let slip—to understand the relationship between the Fellan brothers was a complex, sensitive thing.

She wasn’t about to stir that particular pot, not when her own dreams were balanced so precariously on the edge of this sudden chance meeting with Osias Fellan.

“Well, that’s good to hear, I guess,” Braxton said, a flicker of something unreadable in his expression before it cleared.

Then he launched into a discussion about their upcoming scene, the technicalities of hitting a mark and the nuance of a line reading. Celina listened, nodded, and felt the familiar, seamless shift begin.

The worries of Celina Bates—the financial spreadsheets, the meeting with a legendary Alpha and CEO tomorrow morning, the desperate hope—receded and folded inward.

In their place, the concerns of Savannah Voorhies expanded: the flutter of attraction for her boss, the fear of professional ruin, and the delicious tension of a slow-burning romance. By the time they reached the bustling set, surrounded by crew and equipment, the transformation was complete.

She was Savannah. And Celina, for the next few hours, was safely, necessarily, left behind.