"Breathe," Warren reminded me as he eyed my bag with a grimace before he grabbed it, grabbed my wallet, then threw the rest of it on the backseat.
"What are you doing? I need that!"
"No one needs that much crap," he countered, holding out my wallet to me. "You need your ID and your sketchbook. That's it."
"You didn't bring any sketches," I realized as he just stood there, arms down at his sides, casual as could be. Like this wasn't the thing we were both pinning all our hopes on.
"No," he agreed, not even bothering to shrug.
"And your website is sparse," I added, head starting to spin, body starting to sweat. Which would be great. Just great. Showing up an anxious, sweaty mess when I needed to be calm and collected and convincing.
"What is this?" he asked callously, waving a hand at my obvious distress.
"This?" I hissed. "This is a professional who came to a business meeting prepared to talk business. And for us - in case no one has explained this to you, Mr. High-and-Mightly, that means we come prepared with examples of our work for the clients to see."
"If they looked into me, they could find my work out there."
"Out where?" I shot back. "I couldn't find your work when I looked."
"Stalking me, huh?" he asked, letting that damn smirk of his pull at his lips.
I'd never really been the type of person who felt moved to physical violence much, as hot as my temper often ran. But, good God, the urge to reach up and slap him was overwhelming. So much so that I needed to curl my fingers into my wallet and sketchbook to make sure I didn't do anything that might undermine our chances here.
Chances.
Which were getting slimmer by the moment thanks to his blasé attitude toward something that should have meant the world to us.
And, I reminded myself, even if - by some miracle at this point - we did get it, I would have to pretend to love this careless, arrogant man for a year.
As much as I wanted this, I didn't know how I would pull that off.
Forget all the designs I had worked on in my life, pretending to love and be married to this man? That would be my opus. My goddamned masterpiece.
"I Googled you. Being the professional I am, I researched the person I was about to work with. And since I could scarcely find anything, I doubt that anyone else..."
"Oh, there you two are!" a newly familiar voice called, happy, excited. "Fantastic." Yep. Rachel. The woman who held our future in her hands. Hearing us bitching. Again. I half-turned to find her walking up behind me from her car, a tray of sweating iced coffee drinks in her hand. "My assistant is enjoying some well-deserved time in the sun," she explained, waving the tray of drinks. "You two are right on time."
I shared a look with Warren, one that seemed to say I don't think she heard us.
"Were those some agitated voices I heard?" she asked, putting a pin in the balloon of hope in my chest.
"Someone didn't bring a sketchpad," I said, sending her an eye-roll, hoping she would take it as a typical lover's spat.
"Oh, that's not a problem. We did our due diligence. Found some amazing homes he has worked on."
Without thinking, I shot Warren a scowl to the smirk he was giving me.
Recovering faster than I could, he sent Rachel one of those mega-watt smiles of his that he was capable of here and there. "Brin here was just lecturing me about how she couldn't find any of my work online when she first met me."
"Online? No. But we did find you featured in a few magazines," Rachel said, giving him a smile that said that she wasn't exactly unaffected by Warren's charms.
Magazines.
Right.
Of course.
I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me to look there, as important as I knew they still were, even in this digital age. I guess I had figured that if he hadn't put the money or effort into getting a proper website designed, that he would never take the time to get himself featured in magazines.
I had a lot to learn about the man, it would seem.
"And you, Brinley, you can just relieve yourself of that sketchpad too. We have looked at your website and all your social media extensively. We know everything you have to offer as well."
Taking a deep breath, trying to tamp down my pride at being proven wrong yet again around Warren, I put my sketchpad in the back to cover my purse, and gave her a nod. "Okay, great!" I said, smile so fake it made my cheeks hurt. But I knew because I had been trained to be hyper-aware of such things, that it came across genuine.
"Ready, baby?" Warren asked, arm dropping down across my shoulder, making my whole body jolt unexpectedly.
Baby?
I mean, I knew we were supposed to be in love, but... baby? Was that supposed to be a crack? About how small I was? Or how badly I took defeat?
I wiggled instinctively against the touch, trying to dislodge it. "I'm sweating," I objected, suddenly aware of our audience, knowing I was supposed to crave his touch and other disgusting things like that.
"Yeah, you are," he agreed, not doing the gentlemanly thing, and ignoring the truth of my statement.
"Love this," Rachel sighed, holding up a hand like she was swearing to a higher power. "Come on, you two. Let's get the formalities over with."
Formalities.
That wasn't lost on me as Warren - and therefore me, since he was still one-armed-hugging me like a couple of lovesick teenagers at the mall - fell into step with Rachel as she gushed about the area, about how perfect it was for the show, about the amazing, sweeping drone views they could get for opening credits of the beach, the pier, shots of the destruction.
"That is part of the point of this season, of course. After the hiccups recently, we decided we could revamp the interest in the show if we focus on redoing some of these homes brought to devastation by Sandy all those years back. There are so many that have still been sitting vacant, you know," she added as we moved into the lobby of the hotel.
It was beachy.
Of course.
The design, the decor, it was meant to complement a beach town - all white-painted ever-loving shiplap, blue and seafoam green accents, shell designs. Actually, while it was done well enough - and expensively, I was sure - it was just a tad overboard. It looked like a beach-themed birthday party just threw up all over it.
But, I reminded myself, that was likely what the people who came to stay wanted.
"Right through here," Rachel guided us away from the elevators and down a hall where the conference rooms were likely situated. "We are going to talk to Mica Vich, she's the creator of the show. And Andy Walling. He's, well, he's the money," she told us, giving us a shrug. "Just be yourselves. Don't put on a show. They will appreciate the real you. The one I keep happening upon."
In we went into a somewhat sterile room with none of the accents found in the lobby or halls where we found a long fold-up table where two people were situated. Mica was around Rachel's age with fire-engine red hair that she had chopped so short it was barely hair at all, putting all the focus on her sharp, cat-like features and keen gray eyes. Long shell earrings dangled, dragging your attention to the spindle-thin column to her neck and the off-shoulder hem of her white shirt that showed off the sharp juts of her collarbones.
Andy was older, somewhere in his sixties wearing an appropriate tan-colored summer suit, impeccably neat from his black hair that grayed only at the temples to the brown leather shoes that I bet cost more than my car did. Though, admittedly, I probably couldn't give that damn car away at this point.
"Mica, Andy, this is who I was telling you about. Warren and Brinley."
Warren remembered his manners before I did, reaching an arm out to shake each of the interviewer's hands, his arm falling a bit down my back as he did, making the front of my shirt slide up, the collar cutting into my throat.
I yanked instinctively out from under his arm, grabbing the material to drag it back down. "You were choking me," I informed him when his head swiveled in my direction.
I took a deep breath, shrugging it off, introducing myself with a smile.
"Have a seat," Andy invited not a second before I felt Warren's hand snag me at the small of my back, strong fingers curling into the waistband of my pants - and panties! - then dragging backward, making me fall with a grunt onto his lap.
"A little warning," I said, giving him a hard look since I was turned away from them to do so.
"Where's the fun in that?" he shot back, shooting that smile of his at me. Even though I knew it was just for show, just for our audience, yeah, I got it. I got why girls forgot how to keep their saliva in their mouths when he flashed it at them.
"So," Mica started, giving us a smile as I shifted slightly to be able to look at them better, pretending to ignore the way Warren's arm was around my back, his hand situated on my thigh, heavy and possessive. For show, I reminded myself. For them. "Why don't you guys tell us how you met? What your first impressions were of each other."
"We met..." we both started in unison.
"We met on a job," I started when he didn't continue. "Warren was brought on as the contractor. I was the designer. We knew about working with each other, but hadn't met before then."
"And your first impressions?" Mica pressed.
"Well, it took about, I don't know, five minutes for me to decide he was the most impossible man on the face of the Earth," I told them truthfully, smiling when they all chuckled.
"And you, Warren?" Mica asked as I tried to make myself relax a little, look comfortable in my position.
"I thought she was beautiful," he started easily, making me jump, my head swiveling in his direction, looking for insincerity. "That I was a lucky man to get to work with her for a few weeks." He was telling the truth! I didn't just get taught to school my own body language, but how to read it, interpret it. He was being honest. He thought I was beautiful? "Of course, then she opened her mouth," he went on, making me snort hard, as the others laughed as well.
"So not exactly love at first sight?" Mica asked.
"We couldn't even have a civil conversation," I admitted, smiling a bit because it was true. "Everything was an argument. From what I wore to the actual design plans. Every day was a battle."
"Until..." Rachel piped in, reminding us about the inevitable. The love story part. The part we really hadn't come up with.
"Until she started really talking about her work, how much she loves it, how she enjoys making people's lives fuller with pretty things. You don't see that kind of passion much these days," Warren said easily. As though it was true.
"And you, Brinley?" Mica asked.
"One day, he was talking about his grandfather, about the farm he grew up on, about how he learned to build things at his side. I guess it kind of helped me see him as a human instead of, excuse my language, a thorn in my ass."
There was more laughter at that, and I could feel Warren's fingers give my thigh a squeeze, silently telling me we had them.
I had the same feeling.
"It was a whirlwind, huh?" Andy asked, tone skeptical.
"I know what you're thinking," I agreed, nodding. "I'm a skeptic by nature too. I've certainly never believed in love at first sight. But it was a lot of early mornings and late nights. We spent most waking hours together. It sounds fast, but it felt natural to us. I think... when you find something - or someone - who makes you happy, you have to hang onto them. We don't get a lot of that as adults, y'know? The kind of joy that makes you feel like it is going to burst through your fingertips and toes, like you can't contain it all. We decided it was silly to wait just because that was what society expects of us."
"So sweet," Mica mumbled to Rachel, and I knew that was it. Even if Andy wasn't a romantic, we had them. If we had them, they'd get him on board.
They spent the next half an hour explaining how the process would work - them buying most of the houses and footing he redesign bills, except for in two cases where there were owners and their budgets to work with. Telling us the time expected for each project, the teams we would have, the expectations for us to do promotional photoshoots and press tours if necessary. When shooting would start. What a day of shooting would entail.
By the time we had the documents in our hands, my head was spinning.
"I think I need to get some food in her," Warren explained for me. "We got on the road early this morning. Can we bring these back to you after lunch?"
"It's kinda ridiculous that I have to keep reminding you to breathe," he informed me as we stepped into the hall.
"That was a lot to take in," I told him, pulling away from the hand that was around my hips after the door closed, giving me the space I needed.
"I'm sure we will get it all on paper once we look over and sign the documents," he told me casually. Everything seemed to roll right off his back. Nothing was worth getting worked up over.
They would like that, the producers and creators.
He was the yin to my very anxious, prone to obsessive overthinking, aggressive yang.
"Are we eating here?"
"Where they can eavesdrop on us?" he asked, steering us toward the doors. "No. Do you know any restaurants here?"
"No. But if we just walk, I'm sure we'll happen upon some."
That was what we did, both silent as we did so, lost in our own thoughts until we finally settled on a seafood - of course - place, got a table, and placed our orders.
"Alright, here," I said, handing him one of the folders as I flipped mine open. "Tell me if you find any red flags."
But there weren't any.
Not a single one.
Nothing that said we had to be married.
Nothing that said we would be fined - or worse - if some scandal broke out. Which was surprising given the history of the show.
It was just all about what was expected of us, our obligations to filming and promotion, what the length of the contract was for.
"Wow," I said, exhaling my breath as I got to the part about money.
"What?"
"Twenty-thousand," I said, looking up at him, finding him still a page behind me.
"What?" he asked again, brows knitting.
"Twenty-thousand to us per episode. The season is sixteen episodes."
"Shit," he said, something I could only call hope completely overtaking his face.
"I know you need it," I said, surprising even myself. "The money. More than I do really. I'll take fifty."
"I don't think you mean what it sounds like you mean."
"I do. I'll take fifty of that. The other..."
"Two-hundred-Seventy," he supplied for me.
"Yeah, that can be yours."
"That's ridiculous."
"It's a lot of money," I countered. "I don't even make that a normal year," I added, trying not to let that hurt my pride too much. It wasn't like it was my fault, or that forty-two-thousand was chump change or anything. "And we're already halfway into this year. It will be like making two years' salary this year."
"It won't be enough to get you a house."
"No. But I could get an apartment of my own. No more roommates. Besides, this wasn't about the money for me per se. I just needed the visibility. I can make my own money from this. I know I can."
"That's really generous, Brin," he said in a careful way, a way that said he thought I was going to snatch it back.
"So, when we get back... we can just say to put the two-seventy in your name, since we... share that account. And then the fifty in mine because..."
"Because you want to start a brick-and-mortar office when all this is finished. It will ring true enough."
"Okay," I agreed, giving him a nod as the food was served.
"You're sure about this?" he asked, still unwilling to accept the deal I offered at face-value.
"Yes, I'm positive. Now, we just need to find a way to tolerate each other for a year."
"For three-hu
ndred-twenty grand, I think we will be fine."
We weren't, of course.
We learned that the very next week when we had to start the promo work.
It was going to be the longest year of our lives.
We never did get the ice cream he promised me either.
FIVE
Brinley
He had a death wish.
That was the only actual explanation for his behavior.
It had been two weeks since we signed the papers, since we informed our families and coworkers of the situation. In my family's case, the truth about the sham, making them swear on my life to keep it under wraps. In his workers' case, we told them the story, fed them the lies about our whirlwind romance, listened to them tell us about how they knew something was up between us, that no two people could argue as much as we did without there being some serious chemistry behind it.
The clients were elated.
First, because they thought they brought us together.
Which, well, was true.
Second, because they could brag to their friends when the show aired that we had fallen in love while redoing their home.
Those were some serious bragging rights in the correct circles which they did circulate in.
We didn't see each other that much on the job site, mostly because we were focused on different rooms. He was finishing up the guts of the bathroom while I put the final touches on the kitchen area. Then by the time he was done with the bathroom, there was nothing else for him to do there.
"It's the only way," I insisted while he just kept right on polishing the countertops, ignoring the hell out of me. "You know it," I added, even if I was about as enthused about the idea as he was. Meaning, not at all.
"We already agreed that we are going to stay at the rental house while we film."
Since the drive would be two hours for us, they had offered - without us even having to hint at it - to rent us a house for filming.
"Yes. On filming days. But we will have weekends and odd days off here and there. We need to appear like a happy couple then too."
"You seriously think they are going to follow us?"
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