Dream (Fighting Fate Book 5)

by Maree Green

  The corner of her mouth crept upward. “It is. Okay, so there’s way more to your story than you’ve told me so far.”

  I wanted to deny it. Not for my sake, but for Josh’s. He’d been so worried about our time together getting out, and I didn’t want it to be because of my stupidity. “Can we just pretend you didn’t see that and go back to what we were talking about before?” I asked hopefully.

  Her head tilted to the side a fraction as she studied me. After a long while, she gave me a tiny nod. “All right, but I expect at least a partial explanation one day. Deal?”

  I had no idea if I could trust her, but what other option did I have? Looking her square in the eye, I nodded back. “Deal.”

  I only hoped she was true to her word. Or things were about to get messy.

  Chapter 42

  Josh

  Standing in the set kitchen, I reached for a dish towel and picked up a sudsy dish off the rack. With my face molded into an expression of contemplation, I dried it and placed it on the counter beside the sink. Then I picked up another.

  When I was almost done, I whipped my head upwards in a sudden, deliberate movement, and looked out the window with fear. I let my eyes rapidly flash from one point to another, as though I was searching the darkness outside for answers to the distress I was feeling.

  My body tensed, my hands tightening on the plate, my chest began rising deeper and slightly faster. A second later, I clenched my jaw and pushed my brow into an expression of pain, leaning forward to slide the plate onto the counter, while I pressed my palms onto the edges, hanging my head, helpless.

  “And cut!”

  Straightening, I sighed and rubbed my neck. This was the third take we’d done, thankfully, all just from different angles.

  “All right, Josh. That looks good. Take fifteen while we set up for Hannah,” Steven said, giving me a little salute.

  I nodded, heading for the snack table. I was starving. We’d been running the home scenes since dawn, and there hadn’t been many breaks at all. I didn’t mind too much, though. The quicker we got these scenes done here, the sooner we could head back to LA.

  Picking up a ham and pickle sandwich, I thought over how well filming had been going. I’d been thoroughly impressed with Steven’s drive and vision. He seemed to know exactly how he wanted each scene to go, and his ability to explain what he needed from us was exceptional. There had been very few retakes needed with the scenes we’d produced so far, and I knew that had everything to do with his creativity and experience. Every scene he’d had me watch back looked incredible.

  The scene we were shooting next would be my first with Hannah, and I had a nagging feeling that it was going to be awkward. It was a part that was near the end of the movie, and we were supposed to be quite familiar with each other, so considering we hadn’t even shot one scene together yet, it was going to require some skill. I just hoped Hannah was going to be as easy to work with as I’d heard.

  Tina, my PA, dashed through the door, her large eyes dark as she approached. Holding out my cell phone, she tilted her head, almost appearing bored. “You have some messages.”

  Taking it, I quickly scrolled through them. Most of them weren’t important, but the one from Ian didn’t bode well. I sighed, deciding to call him now and get it out of the way. At least this way I’d have an excuse to get off when Steven called for me.

  He answered on the first ring. Crap. “Josh.”

  “Ian. What’s up?”

  “The production company are still pushing for publicity, Josh.”

  My jaw clenched. “I told you, man. I’m not signing a contract that locks me in to be pretend dating anyone.”

  He sighed, his frustration evident. “I don’t see why you’re fighting them on this, Josh. You’re not dating anyone, so there’s no one to hurt.”

  My jaw twitched. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not signing any fucking contract, Ian.”

  I heard him huff loudly. “I know. And I told them. But they still want you and Hannah to be seen together in some kind of dating capacity. Even if it’s just out for dinner or lunch or a fucking coffee every now and again. Can you at least do that?”

  I pressed my lips together and rubbed my forehead, momentarily forgetting about my makeup. “Jesus Christ. I don’t know, Ian. I guess I can give it a try, but I’m not fucking signing anything.”

  “You know they’ll want you to.”

  “And you know I don’t care. I won’t do it,” I said, getting pissed off. “They can take my word or they can leave it. It’s their choice.”

  He sighed again. “That’s what I thought you’d say. All right. Leave it with me.”

  “Thanks, Ian.”

  “You know I’m going to be completely gray by Christmas because of you, don’t you?” he said gruffly.

  I grinned. “Ian, the silver fox. It’ll suit you, man. And the ladies will love it.”

  “Urgh,” he grumbled. “I’ll call you tomorrow. Be nice to Hannah.”

  As if his words summoned her, Hannah sashayed through the door toward me, her face lighting up when she saw me watching her. “Josh!” she said, opening her arms wide. “It’s been too long!”

  I smirked, looking over the special effects bruise and cut on her cheek before welcoming her in for a hug. “It’s been three months.”

  “Exactly! Too long.”

  She clung to me a little longer than necessary, letting me know her intentions might not be strictly platonic. In the past, I would’ve played along without a care in the world, but things felt different for me now. Spending time with Liv over the summer had made me see things in an altered light. ‘Playing’ wasn’t an option for me anymore, because I now knew it was just a watered-down version of what was actually possible.

  “I’m so excited to get into this,” Hannah continued. “I’ve heard you’ve been making awesome progress.”

  I nodded, her excitement rubbing off on me. “Yeah, it’s been an amazing week. Steve’s fantastic to work with.”

  Having worked with him before, I knew she’d understand. “He really is.” She bit her lip, her eyes turning contemplative. “Hey, listen,” she said, lowering her voice a fraction. “I know you didn’t sound too keen when we spoke on the phone, but I really think we should hang out a little between shooting, you know, just be seen together, to draw some attention to the movie, drum up a little more interest in it. What do you think?”

  My eyes automatically narrowed. I was starting to feel as though everyone was teaming up to beat me down about this damned contract. I mean, I knew it was for the benefit of the movie to get people interested and all, but there had to be a balance. There had to be some distinction between my work life and my private life. If I let the line blur, how was I supposed to distinguish the difference between what was real and what was pretend? I honestly believed that was why so many people fell in love with their costars. They let the lines blur too much.

  I turned on a smile. “Sure,” I said pleasantly. “I don’t see why we couldn’t hang out a little. As friends.”

  Her brow twitched with confusion before she turned her smile on full beam. “Perfect. I think it’ll be good for us to get to know each other a little better.”

  I tried to stop my head from jumping to the negative. Hannah and I were scheduled to spend the next four months together. It was important that our relationship maintain a positive vibe, both onscreen and off.

  “I didn’t mean that to sound harsh. I’m just not in the head space for dating—pretend or otherwise—so as long as you’re okay with that, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  The smile she gave me was the definition of fake, but there wasn’t much I could do about it. It was virtually impossible to be honest and nice at the same time in these kinds of situations.

  “Of course,” she said. “I’m over the drama of it all too. Everyone seems to have an agenda these days. No one cares who they’re stepping on, on their way up.”

  She almost seemed sincere. M
aybe she was. Maybe she wasn’t. That was the problem with the industry I worked in. Everyone was good at pretending.

  Steven clapped his hands, and a short, red-haired man came running toward us. “Places, people.”

  As he ran away again, I gave Hannah a smile and gestured with my hand. “After you.”

  As she pleasantly turned on her heel and strode onto the set, I drew in a long, deep breath. I had a feeling things were about to get complicated.

  Chapter 43

  Olivia

  Shoving my cell phone into my handbag, I slung it over my shoulder and rushed for the door. Sam laughed as I dashed past her, coffee in hand. “And I thought I was the late one.”

  I huffed as we made our way down the four flights of stairs. “Sorry about that. Mom gets a little talkative sometimes.”

  Her eyes bugged, oozing with sarcasm. “A little? You were on the phone for, like, two hours.”

  Pushing through the building’s front doors, I laughed. “Yeah, that’s not unusual. We’re still getting used to the fact that we don’t see each other every day.”

  Weaving through the crowded sidewalk, I quickened my steps to keep up with her. Sam smirked at me. “I wish I had that kind of a relationship with my mom. We can hardly stand to be in the same room with each other for more than ten minutes. After that, the gloves come off.”

  I wasn’t sure if she was joking or not, so I went with a smile instead of laughing. “It can’t be that bad.” Sam grabbed my arm and yanked me toward her, a second before a bicycle courier flew past at break-neck speed. I was starting to doubt I would ever get used to the fast pace of the city. “Thanks.”

  “No problem,” she said, resuming her pace. “And I’d love to say I was kidding about my mom, but I’m not. We don’t get along very well.”

  I contemplated what that must be like as we pushed into the office building that housed World Aid Matters—or WAM as Sam and I liked to call it. Pulling out our security passes, we rushed past the security guys and took the left corridor, following it all the way to the end.

  When we reached WAM’s door, Sam stopped and smiled at me. “Thirty seconds to spare.”

  “The fact that you’re an expert in rushed time control worries me, Sam,” I said, sliding past her with a grin.

  “But I bet you love me right now, though, huh?”

  As we made our way through to the conference room, I let out a soft laugh. “Maybe just a little.”

  As expected, we were the last to arrive, but no one even so much as gave us a dirty look when we slid into our seats. Mike flicked through a few papers in front of him, looking over his notes before glancing up to start the meeting.

  “All right, guys. This is going to be a quick one because I need to get downtown to see about this McLeod’s donation thing. David, I need you to liaise with Peter Simpson and set up a meeting with Ashton. As soon as possible, because I want him in on the next UN meeting. Becca, where are you at with covering the United Care blanket drive?”

  Becca paused her scribbling and looked up at Mike. “Cara is meeting with Leroy this afternoon.”

  Mike nodded then met my gaze. “Olivia, good work on the blog. I’m impressed. That article was brilliantly written.”

  My cheeks warmed. I wasn’t used to receiving such publicized accolades. “Thanks, Boss.”

  He gave me a brisk nod before carrying on. “Now, it looks as though the West Coast group are going to head on over to Uganda earlier than planned to give some aid to the Cooper family, so, because of that, they’re bringing the medi-trip forward. That means we’ll need to run the campaign for the drive a month earlier, so Sam, I need you to team up with David to get that off the ground on time.”

  Sam nodded, scribbling in her notebook furiously.

  Mike look down at me. “Olivia, I’m going to give you the UN meeting.”

  My eyes bugged. “What? I can’t cover the UN meeting. I’ve never even been to one.”

  The look he returned to me was pure no-argument. “Of course you can. It’s only going to be a small meeting. There won’t even be any heads of state there.”

  “Okay,” I said, simply because I didn’t want to lose my job. I still wasn’t confident I could cover a UN meeting, but it appeared I had no choice now.

  Mike hurried to dish out the rest of his notes, finishing up the meeting by congratulating everyone for the work we’d all put in to get the blog back up and running. When he finally sped from the room in a figurative puff of smoke, Sam and I went to the coffee station to hopefully get ourselves a boost for the day.

  Sam gave me a sideways glance as she grabbed her mug out of the cupboard. “So, a UN meeting, huh?”

  I shook my head, grabbing my own mug. “That’s crazy.”

  Placing her mug in the machine, she added the grounds and pushed the buttons. As she fiddled with sweetener and creamer, I tried to clear a space on the counter for her to place it, but with my mind still off with the UN fairies, I accidentally knocked the magazines to the ground.

  “Oh my God,” I said, crouching to bundle them up. “Can we just go back to bed and restart the day?” Straightening the last magazine, I banged it on top of the others and scooped them all into a pile. I was just about to dump the whole lot of them on the coffee table when the picture of the top one caught my breath.

  I froze, my mouth popping open with surprise.

  “Here,” Sam said behind me. “Liv?” When I didn’t answer her, she peered over my shoulder. “Oh, no.”

  With slow movements, I placed the pile of magazines on the table and took two steps back, but my eyes were still stuck on that top one. It was a picture of Josh with a beautiful brunette. But it wasn’t the picture that upset me, really. It was the caption. It read: Joshua Emerson and Hannah Bryant tie the knot in Florida!

  I honestly didn’t know that words could hurt me so much. Josh and I weren’t anything to each other, really. Just a summer fling. A small moment in time. But they did hurt. They hurt a lot. And Sam knew it.

  Picking up my handbag, she threaded my arm through the straps and draped it over my shoulder. Then she picked up her coffee and her own bag, and she led me out the back to the store room and closed the door behind us.

  Turning to me, she pinned me with a gaze that was both kind and firm. “Now,” she said, “you’ll tell me what Joshua Emerson is to you.”

  I nodded, feeling as though I was in a daze. “Okay.”

  Chapter 44

  Josh

  Tossing the magazine on the seat next to me, I clenched my jaw. Across from me, Ian raised an eyebrow with amusement. “It’s perfect,” he said.

  “It’s misleading. You know people are going to read the headline and assume we got married.”

  “And?”

  Irritation was rising. “It’s about tying actual knots, Ian!”

  He sighed and rolled his eyes. “And people will know that when they read the article.”

  I was seriously regretting my decision to join Hannah for the tutorial. I mean, it was important for one of the scenes that we know how to tie a certain knot, but I should’ve requested to do it separately. “And how many people will just read the cover without bothering to read the article?” I demanded.

  He shrugged. He didn’t give a shit. But then again, he didn’t care whether or not there were people out there whose feelings I was trying to protect. Pressing my lips together, I stared out the window. I had no doubt Liv would inadvertently find out about this. It was inevitable, really. Even if she didn’t read the rags, she’d see them spread out for sale somewhere. The urge to message her and tell her not to believe the shit she saw about me was astounding.

  As the limo drew closer to the Orlando Airport, I tried to push it all from my mind. I had one day off filming to attend the Willow’s Way game launch, and that was going to require some charm. Something I felt very lacking in at the moment.

  “Have you organized transport back to my apartment?” I asked, attempting to change the subjec
t before I lost my temper altogether.

  “I just booked a room at the Montage,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “It was part of the promotion.”

  I resisted the urge to lose my shit at him. It didn’t even make sense for me to stay at a fucking hotel when I had my own goddamn apartment. And I didn’t want to think about how much it was costing me. “How long have I got?”

  “We should arrive at the Montage by four. The launch starts at eight. I’ve had a suit delivered to your room. Black, blue shirt, like you asked.”

  Drawing in a slow breath, I gave him a nod. That should give me enough time to get my head into a better space. I hoped.

  As we went through the process of security stops and checks, we eventually drove through to where the private plane was waiting to take us to LA, Daniel and the other guys in the rental behind us. Without waiting for the driver to open my door, I climbed from the limo and turned to the crowd of screaming fans beyond the fence. Giving them a wave, I strode forward, determined to put this mood behind me.

  The screams grew louder the second they realized I was coming to see them. I smiled at their enthusiasm. “Hey, girls. How are you all today?” I said, taking a pen through the chain link fence and scrawling a signature on a piece of paper through the gap. When I finished, I studied the fluffy pink marker closely. It looked like a sharpie that had been hand crafted. Meeting the owner’s gaze, I held the pen up. “Did you make this?”

  She was almost crying, she was that excited. “Yes!”

  The girls around her screamed and pushed, trying to get closer. I grinned at the girl. “This is pretty cool. I like it. What’s your name?”

  “Sally Miller,” she said, bouncing as much as she could with the shoving that was going on.

  “Do you mind if I keep it, Sally Miller?”

  Surprise made her eyes enormous. “Oh my God, no. You can keep it!”

  “Awesome. Have you got a cell, Sally?”

  Confusion made her brow crease, but she pulled out her cell and showed me anyway. I put my fingers through the gap in the fence, trying to avoid the dozens of hands attempting to grab at me, and waited for her to pass it to me. It always amused me how willing people were to just hand over their phones to me, but they did.