Rugged(74)

“I get what I want,” Davis says simply. He knows if he told me, I’d find a way out of it. But now, there’s no time. Now public opinion’s against me even if I recut everything myself. Now I have no choice.

“This is my show. I produce, I don’t star,” I say, folding my arms. Davis doesn’t even blink.

“This is your show at my company. One day, if you move up to my level, you call the shots. Until then, if you want this to air, you’re going to be starring alongside Flint McKay. Got it?”

There are so many amazing curse words that are pirouetting across my tongue, doing pliés and arabesques. But I want to keep a roof over my head and food in my stomach, so I make them sashay on down to the back of my throat. Taking a deep breath, I say, “All right. I guess that doesn’t change the interviews we’ve got set up for Flint. All the promotions are still on.”

“They are,” he agrees. Then, “And of course, you’ll be joining him. It’s great publicity, if you think about it. Producer steps out from behind the camera and into the limelight. If you can keep that banter you have going with McKay, it’ll be even better.”

Okay, my brain is exploding. Everyone please duck under your desk and cover your neck, this is not a drill. “I can’t join him on the press junket!”

“You’ll learn fast. It’s one of the things I always admired about you,” Davis says. I think I read sincerity in his eyes. “You’re a fighter. Only the best are fighters. You have what it takes.”

Yeah, but I slept with the star, and now I spend half my time missing him and the other half wanting to strangle him. If I were a man and told him that, Davis would probably pour me a drink and promote me. Being female, I know I’m going to have to keep my mouth shut to avoid being outed as ‘unprofessional.’

“Do you understand what I want?” Davis says. The only other choice is to lose everything I’ve worked so hard to earn. But maybe it’d be worth it to save my sanity.

I take a long, deep, steadying breath.

“All right,” I say. It sounds like I croaked those words, but Davis doesn’t deserve my happy professional voice right now. “I just can’t believe you sprang it all on me like this. Sir.” The last word is tinged with a bit of acid. I think he likes that.

“Get in touch with Gretchen, Flint’s publicist. She’s going to have you very busy this next month.” And just like that, he walks away.

Amazing. It’s not just that I’m going to be jammed up against Flint this whole month. I’ll also soon be experiencing the pleasure of having our awkwardness aired on national TV, for all the world to enjoy.

There he is, standing in a cluster of people, shaking hands and talking. He finds my eyes across the room, a look of quiet desperation on his face. I shake my head slowly, letting him see the doom. We’re stuck together. Better bend over and grab your ankles, because Hollywood just brought the lube.





28


“Aren’t you a little young to be having these frown lines?” my makeup artist asks, pursing her lips. Her name’s Leigh, and she works for Good Day Cali, a morning show with the brightest and most chipper host known to man. I’m pretty sure the host, Kandy Kristi, would’ve smiled while talking about the Hindenburg disaster. ‘And look at that! So many lives lost in that fiery inferno! Oh my gosh, the humanity!’ Twinkle.

“I like to think I’ve earned these lines,” I say, frowning some more as Leigh tsks and moves toward me with more foundation. She’s sassy but fierce, with platinum blond hair and on-point eyeliner, and she is not having my attitude this morning.

“You’re nervous,” she says, and nods. “It’s your first time. Makes sense.”

“I’m not nervous,” I say, mostly to convince myself. See that, self? You’re not nervous. No way you should try popping a few Xanax before you go out there. No way. I couldn’t even get the doctor’s prescription.

Flint’s sitting in the chair next to me, that little paper bib clipped just under his chin to protect his clothes. He looks suspiciously at the lip gloss, but for the most part he’s being a good soldier. His makeup girl, a cute redhead, keeps blushing and giggling and quivering whenever he looks at her. I know how that feels, hon.

“You don’t have to be nervous,” Flint tells me as Leigh moves in with some kind of cream to fight the apparently enormous bags under my eyes. “I can do most of the talking.”

“Can you believe we’re in a position where you’re saying that to me?” I ask him. At least, as well as I can ask, what with Leigh smearing something on my lips. “What happened to that scared, rugged man ready to fling himself off a cliff before the cameras started rolling?”

“I guess I got used to it.” He frowns as the makeup girl artfully messes up his hair, but he doesn’t fight it. “I’ve always been good at adapting.”

That’s true. Flint usually keeps a cool head. Even now, when he’s talking to the woman he cruelly pretended to have actual feelings for, he’s chatting easily. The awkwardness of our first day back together is mostly gone—mostly. Sometimes Flint and I still don’t know what to do about eye contact, or we get into a throat clearing game of ‘please don’t make me say something, oh look, a squirrel.’ But Flint McKay now seems more at home in the glitz and glam of show business than I do. Funny, that.