by Holly Rayner
First Time Lucky
Holly Rayner
Contents
First Time Lucky
1. Josie
2. Matteo
3. Josie
4. Matteo
5. Josie
6. Matteo
7. Josie
8. Matteo
9. Josie
10. Matteo
11. Josie
12. Matteo
13. Josie
14. Matteo
15. Josie
16. Matteo
17. Josie
18. Matteo
19. Josie
20. Matteo
21. Josie
22. Matteo
Epilogue
His For A Price
Introduction
1. Julien
More Series by Holly Rayner
First Time Lucky
Copyright 2018 by Holly Rayner
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part by any means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the explicit written permission of the author.
All characters depicted in this fictional work are consenting adults, of at least eighteen years of age. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased, particular businesses, events, or exact locations are entirely coincidental.
Chapter 1
Josie
Josie tried her best not to touch her head. It wasn’t easy—the elaborate headdress perched up there was hardly what you would call comfortable—but if all the insiders’ opinions were to be believed, it was a thing of beauty. Everything this designer did was, according to them. And hadn’t everyone been telling her for the last few weeks how lucky she was to be picked for the show?
She knew it was true. She knew that, especially at such a young age, being chosen for a runway show with one of the top designers in Miami was something she should be extremely proud of. And, extremely grateful for. But right now it was difficult to think about any of that. It was difficult to think about anything except how badly she wanted to itch her head.
Positive thinking would be easier when she could get this thing off. When this whole experience was over. Of course, she was supposed to enjoy this part of her work. It was supposed to be exhilarating. But as always, moments before she walked on stage, it was difficult not to let the nerves and the uncomfortableness of the costume get to her.
Most importantly, she needed to make sure that nothing got her out of the “fashion zone.” The zone where she was a cool girl—just slightly unattainable, above the plane where everyone else lived out their daily lives. Where she was the pinnacle of feminine beauty and grace. She needed to get into the “model” frame of mind.
And she was most of the way there, too, when she caught sight of someone out of the corner of her eye that made it very difficult indeed.
Lewis. How long had it been now? How long had they been together to begin with? Not long. She tried to put the whole thing behind her. Sure, it ended well, as well as these things ever can really end. But the entire relationship had been such a stressful experience from beginning to end that she had done her best to put it out of her mind.
Had they been together a week? No, it had been longer than that. She had lasted nearly a month, she remembered now. Nearly a month of him being extremely charming. A month of her not being able to put her finger on why she didn’t want to stay with him. She couldn’t give him a concrete reason not to keep moving forward, not to go places with him that she had never gone before. Emotionally, sure, but physically, too.
And maybe that was what was wrong. She had no real reason to give him for ending it. So, even though he had been understanding about the whole thing and hadn’t pushed her for reasons that she didn’t have, seeing him was still a distraction. Why was he here working the audience? He didn’t care about fashion. Oh, he cared about models. Or, at least he cared about her. He had cared about her. So what was he doing here now that they had been over for so long?
She couldn’t think about that now. She needed to walk. To be in the zone. But she couldn’t help but wonder, even as she began to step out toward the audience. What on earth was this man she hadn’t seen in nearly a year doing sitting in the front row?
It went well, her walk. The strut and the acting and the performance of it. At least, that was what her friends and fellow models were all eager to tell her backstage. And she was happy to believe them, all things considered.
But she couldn’t get her mind off of Lewis. Why had he come? Would she need to go looking for him to find out? The most obvious explanation was that he was here to see someone else and it was sheer coincidence that she was in the same show. He did have a history of dating models, after all. And Josie was glad to find that when she turned the thought over in her mind, it didn’t upset her. Maybe, she had made the right choice after all.
“Josie!”
Well, she was about to find out. In preparation, she put herself mentally into the role that she would need to inhabit in order to survive this conversation. Again, she was cool. She didn’t care, at least not that much. She hadn’t been surprised to see him. She hadn’t been wondering what he was doing here.
“Lewis! How wonderful to see you! How long has it been?”
He was coming in for a hug and a kiss on the cheek. That was all perfectly normal. At least one thing had been drilled into her throughout the last few years of being involved with the world of fashion; her body was very often not her own. There was no such thing as personal space, at least not when people in this industry were involved.
She returned the hug and the kiss. And she put on the standard face to show that whatever he was saying must be the most interesting thing she had ever heard. Even while she was still scanning the room for someone more interesting to talk to, as she was always supposed to be doing. Make them believe you’re interested, but never be interested. That was the golden rule.
“Who can say?” he replied. “A year? Now, be honest, that seems like far too long doesn’t it?”
“It seems like too long for us not to have seen each other? Oh, you don’t think it’s been that long?”
He smiled, and all at once Josie remembered how it had been when they had been together… The way his smile made it seem like there was a genuine person in there somewhere, somehow. She didn’t miss that part of speaking with him, or of knowing him.
When he spoke again, it was with the exaggerated tone that she had become accustomed to hearing from so many in the industry. That over-the-top flattery that she wasn’t sure whether she should interpret as genuine or feigned.
He wasn’t like that when they were away from all of this. She remembered that now. That was probably why it was so strange to see him so casually affect all the little mannerisms of her industry when he was around it. Not that his own industry— the world of entertainment and all things reality television—didn’t have plenty of superficial mannerisms of its own.
“Oh, darling! As though any time since I’d seen you could seem shorter than it was!”
In spite of herself, Josie laughed. He had gone a step beyond over-the-top straight to full-on satire. And now, she could remember how she’d gotten so close to him in the first place.
“So…what brings you here?” she asked, cutting right to the chase.
He took a breath as though he wanted to answer. But something was stopping him. He then nodded his head toward a nearly unoccupied clutch of couches away from the more fashionable part of the room where they
were currently standing. She nodded and followed as he led her toward them.
They barely had time to sit down before a server in a short skirt wandered over, offering the cocktail of the day to them from her tray. It was more enthusiastic service than Josie usually got, and she realized as she watched the girl that she probably knew who Lewis was. It’s a good thing we aren’t together, she thought, I might feel jealous about all the attention that Lewis’s job brings him from a certain kind of young woman with ambitions.
When they were settled with their drinks, Josie fixed him with a businesslike look.
“So, are you here to see anyone?” she asked.
Lewis smiled. “Isn’t it obvious? I’m here to see you.”
There was a certain amount of smarminess in his demeanor, but the charm was there all the same. Josie involuntarily returned his smile.
“For any particular reason?”
Again, the smarmy, charming smile.
“Oh, for quite a few reasons. But yes, for one that may be a little more urgent than the others. I have a new project I’m working on, and I’ve got to be honest—I think you’re a perfect fit.”
Josie leaned back a little bit into the couch. She wasn’t supposed to fully relax, not at an industry event like this. She was always supposed to be striving toward the most attractive version of herself. But her mind was racing, and it was hard to keep her focus on her appearance in moments like that.
“You know I’m not an actress.”
“Yes, I know. That’s why I think you would be perfect for it.”
Josie sighed. “We’ve had this conversation before. What you do is acting. You know that.”
“Yes,” he said. “I know that. But you also know that what you do isn’t exactly not acting either. If you’re honest with yourself, it’s not so far from what I’m asking you to do.”
He gestured at the party around them. “Besides, all this might be nice, but you’re not involved with this because you like the designer’s aesthetic. You’re involved because he’s a stepping-stone to the kind of thing you really want to do. And what I’m offering you is just as much a stepping-stone to what you want to do as modeling is. And it’s only slightly further from what you’ve done before.”
When they were dating, he had brought up this idea of her working on a show he produced once or twice. At the time Josie had the easy out of being able to say that she didn’t want to work with a significant other. But now, she didn’t have that excuse. Plus, there was the fact that, whatever his show had her do, at least she probably wouldn’t have to do it with an uncomfortable, itchy headdress on top of her head.
He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re interested?”
She couldn’t completely deny it, so she didn’t say anything at all. Instead, she let him launch into the pitch that she knew for a fact he had practiced at least three times. It was smooth. And he did make the show sound kind of fun.
It was going to be all drinks and romance on the beach. Daiquiris and dashing men. Well, one dashing man. The intended show was the standard format of a bunch of pretty women and one lucky man who had to choose among them. The catch, the hook in this particular reincarnation of the format, was that the exotic, foreign, and extremely rich bachelor was only going to speak to the women in his own native language.
“The working title so far has been Beyond Words, but honestly we’re still deciding.”
“Really? How is that supposed to work?”
This time, it was his turn to sink back into the hardly comfortable couch they were sitting on.
“What you mean?” Lewis said. “It will work the way these things always work.”
Josie shot him a look. “I mean, how is anyone supposed to believe that two human beings would ever form a meaningful connection when they can’t speak to one another?”
“Oh, Josie. You’re buying too much into the fairy tale of the thing. No one really believes that people on shows like this are finding true love.”
Josie wasn’t convinced, and she raised her eyebrows skeptically. “I think more people want to believe in the version of reality you’re selling then you acknowledge. Why would they keep watching otherwise?”
And there it was: the smirk Josie had gotten so used to seeing that she almost believed it was on his face even when it wasn’t.
When he answered, he had that same affected tone of voice that he had used to gently mock all the overly affectionate garbage in her industry.
“Darling, they watch for the same reason people watch anything. They watch for the entertainment. And I can’t imagine anything more entertaining than watching some idiot billionaire from far away believe that he’s truly worthy of someone like you.”
Say what you would about Lewis—and after they broke up her friends certainly had—but he did have a way of gently implying that under all his bravado, and under all his sarcasm and carefully crafted layers of meaning, there was something sincere and affectionate.
Maybe it was that sincere, affectionate mirage that made Josie pause before offering her refusal.
And that pause seemed to be all it took. Lewis lifted his glass and offered a pseudo-toast before taking a deep drink.
“I’ll send over the details to your agent,” he said.
Josie did her best to look offended. “I haven’t actually said yes, you know.”
Lewis shrugged. “Tell me no, and I’ll stop celebrating.”
Chapter 2
Matteo
Matteo regretted his decision not to charter a private jet. Sure, it had only been a short flight down from New York, and his usual jet was in for maintenance. When he had spoken to his assistant about making the arrangements, flying commercial hadn’t seemed like such a bad idea. But now, standing in the crowded terminal of Miami International Airport, sweltering under the burden of a broken air-conditioning system, Matteo wished he’d gone with the private jet option.
“Sir!”
The voice was eager and a little bit frantic. Matteo would have recognized that tone anywhere, even if he didn’t know the voice of the man—boy, really—who had spoken. He turned his head in the direction that the sound had come and saw George, all windmilling limbs and manic energy headed toward him.
“I’m sorry I’m late, sir,” George said while taking the bag from his employer.
As he always did when he saw George after a while of not seeing him, Matteo had to stifle the impulse to reassure his assistant. There was no amount of reassurance that would make George any less nervous about doing his job to the very best of his ability. And, after a few years of enjoying the results of George’s overly enthusiastic assistance, Matteo had come to simply accept it as a fact of life.
“You’re not late. The plane was early. Tailwinds, I imagine. I wasn’t really paying attention.”
They headed out toward the parking area. Matteo could have hired a driver, but George had always seemed more than happy to shuttle him around Miami. Besides, it saved time and worry to have both roles consolidated into one person.
It also made this entire experience feel less as though he was being greeted by an employee on a trip that was, essentially, all about business, and a little bit more like he was being greeted at the airport by a friend. And with the sheer amount of superficiality that he knew the next few days to weeks were going to require of him, that honestly felt nice.
George wouldn’t stop talking, and that was fine—that was his job after all. He had plenty of things he wanted to go over with his employer. Mostly, they were meetings that he had been arranging over the last week while Matteo had been in New York, though there were some other little bits and pieces that he needed approval to confirm.
Matteo took in all the details while he looked over the changelog that the app engineers had sent over while he was in the air. It was all standard—the meetings lined up for him and the changes the engineers had made. Bug fixes and club openings, events and optimizations. He got into the rhythm of approving changes and app
roving social obligations, and the ride from the airport to his penthouse went quickly.
It all felt comfortingly familiar. That was, right up until George got suspiciously quiet.
Matteo looked out the window around them. They weren’t where they should be. He didn’t know Miami overly well as he’d only spent about a third of his time there over the past few years, and most of that time had either been spent planning his new app or negotiating the sale of his previous successful app. But even so, he knew that where they were now was not on the way to his penthouse.
“Where are you taking me?” he asked.
“Sir.” George seemed to be gathering his courage for something. “You know how we had that discussion about taking the initiative?”
Matteo wasn’t sure he liked where this was going. “Yes…”
“Well, I’ve been thinking it seems like taking the initiative is a good thing for me to do.”
Matteo sighed. “George, just tell me what you’ve committed me to.”
“Sir, I want you to keep an open mind…”
This was not a good sign. George was less than entirely assertive at the best of times, but this was a little much in terms of moderating expectations, even for him. Instead of rushing to reassure him or prodding him forward, Matteo just sat, expectantly. Silence was often the best way to spur his assistant forward.
“It’s a TV show.”
Matteo knew the world of app development and promotion. It was what he had spent all of his time on over the past ten years. He had had some failures early on, and it had spurred him toward his great success. That had given him the wealth and prestige to pursue even greater successes. And at no point, in either of the failures or the successes had a TV show had anything to do with his work.
“And you’re telling me about this why, exactly?”