Chapter 10 #2
“Listen,” I say, laying a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes meet mine, wide with concern. “I’m touched that you care enough to be worried about this. But you have to trust me, okay? I’m going to take care of you through all of this. I’m sure you’ll fit in just fine.”
She fidgets, her gaze straying back to the conference room door. “What if we go to some corporate party, and everyone can tell that I don’t belong there? What if I do these interviews and everyone mocks me?”
“No one will make fun of you,” I promise. “You’re perfect. And you’re exactly what I need.”
A flush creeps over her cheeks, and despite the tension in her shoulders, she smiles begrudgingly. “Okay.”
“Okay?” I give her shoulder a squeeze.
She nods. “Yeah. I’m… I’m okay. Thank you.”
A warm feeling blossoms in my chest, and I’m suddenly overcome by the random urge to hold her. I almost do it—almost pull her close, almost wrap my arms around her—but I stop myself at the last second with a firm mental admonishment: Don’t forget where you are.
Right. We’re at Eastwood’s headquarters, standing right outside a conference room, working out the particulars of a PR plan.
This is business. It’s all business.
Instead of hugging Olivia, I step past her, placing my hand on the door. I clear my throat and say, “Are you ready to go back in?”
Her expression is hazy, unfocused, like she just woke up from a dream. At my words, she blinks rapidly, then nods, determined.
As we re-enter the room, I pretend not to notice the irritated looks that the PR team shoots me. I’m used to those expressions from these people; I’ve had plenty of one-on-one meetings with all of them in the wake of my more serious offenses.
But when we sit back down, I remind myself that, while I might be used to this, Olivia sure isn’t—and she doesn’t deserve to bear the brunt of their ire.
If anyone’s going to be difficult in this meeting, it should be me. And I’m more than willing to do it.
The marketing VP clears her throat, raising an eyebrow. “Are you two ready to get back into it?”
“Yes,” Olivia says clearly, and I nod.
“Okay. So. About these interviews—”
“Marcia, if you don’t mind,” I interrupt, “planned interviews are only part of the picture. You know as well as I do that most of the press interactions are going to be impromptu.”
Marcia folds her hands on the table. “What are you implying, Mr. Eastwood?”
“Given that Olivia will almost certainly be subject to plenty of scrutiny from the press as it is, couldn’t we adjust the number of official interviews down a little? To, say, one or two?”
It’s quiet in the room as the PR team considers. Then Marcia says, “Two.”
I glance down at Olivia. “Is that alright?”
Her body language is much less tense than it was earlier. She takes a quiet breath, then nods in assent. “That’s fine. Two. But I need plenty of advance warning before each of them.”
“Of course,” Marcia agrees, waving a hand. “We fully intend to sit down with you before each interview and make sure that you’re prepared for whatever they may ask.”
Olivia seems relieved, her shoulders dropping. “Okay. Good.”
For the remainder of the conversation with PR, I do my best to shield Olivia, anticipating what she will—or won’t—be comfortable with. Olivia is hesitant about a lot of public-facing stuff, so I shoot down a lot of the team’s suggestions about interviews or publicized appearances.
“We don’t want to make this look forced,” I remind them. “The media is going to keep a close eye on me whether we want it to or not. We don’t have to push Olivia out into the spotlight for them to know about her.”
Marcia exchanges a glance with one of her people.
Both of them seem irritated, but less so than they were earlier.
“Fine,” she says at last. “You don’t have to speak at the charity banquet, and we won’t do the press conference.
But you do have to make appearances sometimes, Ms. Quinn. You know that, right?”
Olivia nods, though her face is drawn. “Yeah. Of course.”
“Good.” Marcia flips through her papers, then says, “When it comes to the engagement, there are several details we ought to discuss. Social media is going to be one of our best tools for cultivating your image. With that in mind, engagement photos—”
“No,” I interrupt immediately. “She doesn’t have to do engagement photos.”
I’m expecting Olivia to agree with me, but to my surprise, she makes a small, dissenting noise. I glance at her, startled; the whole reason I shot down the idea was because I thought she’d be uncomfortable with it.
She shrugs, looking up at me. “That would be okay.”
I hold her gaze for a moment, then turn back to Marcia. “Ignore me, then. I guess that’s fine.”
Beneath her glasses, Marcia’s eyes flick between the two of us, like she’s analyzing something. Then, after a few seconds, she shrugs and jots something down in the margins of her paper.
“This is a good start,” she says. “We’ll have to meet regularly to ensure that everything stays on track. I’m assuming the two of you are amenable to that?”
“Of course,” I tell her. Olivia nods, though I can tell it’s a little reluctant.
“Great.” Marcia closes her binder with a snap, then tucks it under her arm as she stands. “We’ll put the announcement out by the end of the week.”
Under the table, Olivia grabs me by the arm. Her grip is tight enough to cut off my circulation, but I don’t react to it—not in front of the PR team. Instead, I just nod at Marcia. “That sounds fine. If all of you don’t mind, could the two of us have the room?”
The PR team seems confused at that, milling around the edge of the table.
“We have to discuss something upon my father’s instructions,” I add, trying to clear them all out. Mentioning Lionel seems to do the trick. Nobody wants to be on his bad side, even if they don’t have much respect for me.
Once the team is gone, I turn in my chair to face Olivia. Without seven pairs of eyes scrutinizing her, Olivia has dropped the confident mask she wore throughout the meeting. Now, she looks like she’s in full panic mode.
“Reed,” she says, her voice high. “Did she just say ‘by the end of the week?’”
I nod apologetically. “We gotta get this show on the road.”
Olivia swallows. I can practically hear her mind churning—she looks like she’s internally freaking out all over again. “That’s a big step, isn’t it? There’s… there’s no going back from there.”
I take her hands in mine, rubbing my thumb across her knuckles instinctively. “It’s gonna be okay,” I tell her soothingly. “I promise. I know it’s scary, to make this whole thing ‘real’… but listen… it’ll be easy. And I’ll be right there with you, the whole time.”
She bites her lip, inhaling through her nose as if to calm herself, and nods. “Yeah.”
I give her hands a gentle squeeze. “We’ve got this. Maybe it’ll even be fun.”
“Yeah.” She flashes me a grateful look, and for a moment, I feel a rush of protectiveness. This is my mess, and I pulled Olivia into the thick of it. I owe it to her to make sure everything turns out okay.
I remember the clause she added to our personal contract, the one about her reputation. That must be the thing she’s most afraid of—that her reputation is on the line. Silently, I turn that clause over in my head.
For better or worse, we’re a team now. My failures are her failures, and vice versa. If we get through this with our respective images intact, it’ll be because we did it all together.
But if everything falls apart… well. We’ll be together for that, too, bound by our promises to each other and by the ink of the contracts we both signed.