The Malibu Marriage Arrangement

Chapter 1

Chapter One

THE UNWANTED MEETING

Celeste

“Celeste,” my immediate superior, Elaine Kresky, says in an irritating, sing-song voice.

I can’t help it—every time I hear her, I think of the boss in the movie Office Space - I’m going to go ahead and ask you to work this weekend, m’kay?

Not that Elaine is that irritating. It’s just that when I’m in the zone, I’m in the zone.

I don’t want to be interrupted. “I hate to ask you this, but I have to.”

“Hate to ask me what?”

“You have to meet Max Kensington tonight. At the Patrician Club in Beverly Hills.”

My head snaps involuntarily. Oh, jeez. I have to meet who?

The Max Kensington, the 29-year-old playboy wonder CEO of Kensington Pictures?

Why the hell would I be meeting him? I’m not liking the sound of this.

I don’t want to drive all the way out to Beverly Hills tonight—or any night.

It’s a 45-mile drive from our Claremont studio, an hour and a half in traffic. No thank you.

“Nothing doing,” I tell Elaine. “Got Pilates tonight and can’t cancel late unless I want to get stuck with a $25 charge. Plus, I’m not dressed for that place. Some other time.” Today’s a day I don’t have any meetings, so I’m allowed to wear what I want, as long as it’s not jeans.

I turn back to the stack of notes I’ve scribbled all over Arlene Chase’s latest draft.

The pages are a sea of red ink, Post-its, and coffee rings.

Chase—whose last limited series pulled eighteen million viewers its first weekend—has written a period piece set in 1920s New Orleans that’s bloated with unnecessary subplots.

As a development executive for Dreamscape, it’s my job to diplomatically butcher her darlings without bruising her ego, transforming her 180-page behemoth into something Netflix executives won’t immediately trash.

Elaine sits down in the chair next to mine and I sigh. No getting rid of this woman right now, apparently.

“I don’t think you understand,” she says.

“Max Kensington is the CEO of Kensington Pictures. And he’s…

not happy with you.” I stare at her like she’s grown another head.

She must think I’m stupid if she thinks I don’t know who Max Kensington is.

I know him, and his reputation precedes him.

I’ll be going into the lion’s den if I meet him and have no desire to do that.

Kensington Pictures is merging with our boutique studio in a matter of months.

Our boutique movie studio in small-town Claremont will soon be relocated to Burbank in a sprawling campus, and my commute will become unbearable.

As it is, I bike to work every day because the Dreamscape studio is only five miles from my condo.

I try to avoid Los Angeles like the plague, even though Claremont is considered an outer suburb of the City of Angels.

“You know what?” I lean back in my chair, crossing my arms. “I’ve never met Max Kensington.

I’ve heard the name, sure, but if he’s upset with me, he can send an email like a professional instead of summoning me across town like I’m being called to the principal’s office.

And why would he even care about what I do?

Doesn’t he have other things to worry about? ”

“He heard about the whole Nora Davis thing.”

Ugh. The Nora Davis thing. I apparently won’t ever live that one down.

Nora Davis wrote a wildfire-popular memoir about her suffering from DID, or multiple-personality disorder as most people know it, and I jumped on it.

I found her memoir and championed it to our senior leadership.

I was anxious to develop it as a limited series for Netflix.

Unfortunately for me, almost every word of her memoir was fake, fake, fake.

The upshot was that Dreamscape had to eat the $2 million development costs, because the project was pretty far along.

A script doctor was involved, a showrunner was hired, directors were attached to the first few episodes, and a team of writers was on board.

But it wasn’t my fault—everybody was taken in by Nora Davis and her bogus memoir.

“And? How is the Nora Davis thing his business?” The CEO of Dreamscape Pictures, Iris Dimas, was somewhat annoyed about the project going south, but she understood.

It happens. People lie in their memoirs, and the lies sometimes come out years after publication. Even Oprah was taken in by a liar once.

At any rate, Nora Davis was on every program imaginable promoting her book—The View, Kelly Clarkson and Drew Barrymore’s shows, and all the late-night talk shows.

“Kensington Pictures is merging with Dreamscape,” Elaine says. Mistress of the obvious, that one is. “So…”

I take a deep breath. "So my screw-ups will soon be on his balance sheet.

Fantastic." My grandmother would call this a fine kettle of fish.

I've always found those old expressions oddly comforting, even when they make zero logical sense.

Drunk as a hoot owl? I've never seen an owl stumbling out of a bar at 2 AM.

Dead as a doornail—because doornails were once alive?

And what's so "fine" about a kettle full of fish anyway?

All I know is it means to be in deep trouble, which pretty much sums up my current situation.

“And if I refuse this lovely offer?” I look down at my clothes and shoes.

Dreamscape is a casual place for the most part.

We’re encouraged to wear business casual if we have no meetings on a given day—wide-leg trousers paired with colorful kimonos and casual loafers; elevated jeans with espadrilles, a soft t-shirt and a blazer; modern gauchos with scooped-neck boat shirts.

As for me, I’m wearing a short-sleeve sweater with a blue corduroy mini skirt and rainbow combat boots.

Not exactly attire for a super high-dollar, exclusive club where annual dues are upwards of $50,000 and the initiation fee is a cool half-million.

Nope. I wouldn’t fit in. The restaurant at the Patrician Club is Michelin-starred, a place where CEOs, movie studio heads, top athletes, mega-selling rock and pop stars, and Hollywood A-Listers dine.

It’s popular with the tippy-top elite—the billionaires and actors that everybody knows: your Brad Pitts, Timothée Chalamets, and Zendayas.

Your Spielbergs and Scorseses. A valet parks exotic cars worth more than my lifetime earnings while their owners glide inside wearing couture that would drain my bank account for a decade, all expecting the staff to anticipate their whims without being seen.

I could go home and change, but I don’t have a single thing that wouldn’t brand me as a peasant who doesn’t belong.

My salary—$60,000 a year—doesn’t go far in LA County, especially when I’m giving every spare penny to my mother and sister.

So I’m a consignment-and-thrift-store girl.

Nothing wrong with that—I find awesome clothes and shoes at various Plato’s Closets in LA County.

I’ve even grabbed a Chanel suit, gently worn, on one particularly productive trip to the store in Long Beach.

But a gently used anything won’t fly at the Centurion—the Michelin-starred restaurant at the Patrician Club.

I might as well wear what I’m already wearing.

It would actually be a silent middle finger.

If this Max Kensington wants to summon me with zero notice, he can take me as I am—rainbow combat boots, wrinkled mini skirt, and the coffee stain on my sweater sleeve that I’ve been hiding all day.

Let him see the dark circles under my eyes from staying up late helping Mom with her meds.

Let him see my chipped nail polish and the hair I haven’t had time to trim in months.

If I rushed home to squeeze into my one decent dress or dabbed on the fancy perfume sample I’ve been saving, it would signal that his royal summons deserves my effort.

“If you refuse, you’ll probably be fired.”

Fired? What the hell?

Now I’m feeling bile rising to my throat.

Truth be told, this isn’t my dream job—not even close.

I’m a screenwriter, if not a working one—I’ve written fourteen screenplays in the past decade and haven’t been able to attract an agent.

My dreams of seeing my work brought to life were long since dashed after getting over 100 rejection letters from every agent in town.

Each time I crack open a screenplay to develop it, something inside me stings.

Not the gentle pinch of a bumblebee, but the searing burn of a hornet that leaves my confidence inflamed.

Don't misunderstand—I adore shepherding projects to their full potential, yet every manuscript I touch—whether screenplay, pilot, treatment, or bible—whispers the same cruel reminder that the door to that exclusive A-List screenwriters' club remains firmly shut in my face.

While this job isn’t my dream realized, it’s a job and I’m good at it.

I can wade through the slush pile, plucking out the rare script with a heartbeat while others see only paper.

Give me a treatment with even a flicker of promise—a single character that breathes, one scene that surprises—and I’ll polish that rough stone until studio execs see what I saw from the beginning: something that glitters in the dark.

So to think that I might be fired if I don’t meet this pompous ass just chaps my hide.

This meeting is just one more reminder that I don’t matter—that, in Los Angeles society, I’m just a peon.

A nobody. I can apparently be summoned at a moment’s notice and not be given a choice about whether I want to spend my evening schlepping to Beverly Hills, shopping for fancy clothes I can’t afford, and sitting across the table from an arrogant nepo-baby who has no clue about the struggles of a girl like me.

He no doubt never has to worry about a mother with Stage-3 cancer who can’t work and a sister in college who can’t carry financial weight.

I have to carry them, in addition to worrying about my own bills, so every moment in my life is literally valuable.

I have no interest in wasting any moments on people who obviously don’t respect my time.

“Celeste?” Elaine says. Apparently, I’ve been staring at her for the past few minutes, not saying a word. I’m trying not to seethe about this whole scenario, but, goddamn, it’s difficult not to. “Uh, I hope you decide to meet Max. We can’t afford to lose you.”

“Since when does he control my employment status?” I ask, crossing my arms. “Last I checked, the Kensington logo isn’t hanging in our lobby yet.”

Elaine leans forward, lowering her voice. “The merger paperwork might not be signed, but Iris has already handed him the personnel files. He and Iris are making lists—who stays, who goes.”

“So if I don’t drop everything for this dinner tonight, I’m automatically on the chopping block?”

Elaine’s perfectly lined lips press together before she answers. “Max Kensington operates like the sun—everything revolves around him on his schedule. Cross him once…” She draws her finger across her throat with a soft shhk.

I nod. “Got it.” I turn back around, ready to work on my project again. I have to prepare to meet with Arlene Chase next week and make a decision on whether I want to champion her series treatment. And I want Elaine to leave so I can seethe in private.

“6 o’clock,” Elaine says.

“Okay,” I say, checking my watch. Six o’clock—the exact time I’d planned to finish the Arlene Chase notes before checking in on my mother and then going home.

I picture Max Kensington checking his Patek Philippe, probably inherited from daddy dearest, while a driver idles outside in a car that costs more than my student loans.

My jaw tightens as I gather my things, the rainbow combat boots suddenly feeling heavier on my feet.