by Lizzie Shane
The work of two months would be filmed in one marathon week.
All part of the magic of television.
She pulled through the gate of the estate at a quarter to nine, following the gate guard’s directions to park beside a trio of cargo and passenger vans. She climbed out of her SUV, smoothing the wrinkles out of her skirt nervously as she headed toward the front door—which had been propped open.
Part of her—stupidly—hoped that she’d be able to catch Josh alone, but when she stepped inside the first person she saw was a slim, dark-haired woman with the intense, slightly-manic air of a producer.
“Sidney! You’re early! Aren’t you a champ? Let’s get you into hair and makeup.” The producer caught her arm and began to steer her rapidly through the massive main house, power-walking alongside. “I’m Dani. We spoke on the phone and I’m the one sending you all those emails. I’m very thorough.” She laughed abruptly, as if she’d made a joke and Sidney smiled awkwardly. “I’ll be playing EP this week—sort of my little audition—so we’re just going to keep everything running smoothly, aren’t we? Okay? And here’s Eunice.”
Dani handed her off to the hair and makeup people, who fussed over her cheerfully for the next half hour while the chair beside hers remained conspicuously empty. Where was Josh?
The maestros of hair and makeup released her, pointing her toward another room where she obediently changed out of her own pastel skirt suit and into the pastel skirt suit they had chosen for her. She emerged, received nods of approval from the wardrobe consultants—and still Josh was nowhere to be seen.
She returned to the front of the house, where camera crews were setting up the first shot, and there he was.
He looked entirely too good—and his eyes passed over her without even pausing as he called out a cheerful, “Hey, Sidney.”
“Hey.”
She joined him at a craft services table behind the cameras, but before she could grab a coffee Dani appeared and directed them to the front door.
“Remember, this is your first time seeing the place. We just need you to verbalize all the reasons why it’s perfect as you walk in. Remember that the other places were too small or too ostentatious…”
“Or smelled of fish,” Sidney muttered under her breath.
“What was that?” Dani chirped.
“Nothing. I’m all set.”
“Great! And just remember Josh is here for you, so really use him. Play off him. Really let a natural rapport develop. Flirty, argumentative—feel free to play around with different dynamics and we’ll see what works. Okay? Okay!”
Dani hustled back out of the shot and Josh moved up to stand beside her.
“You ready for this?” he asked with his trademark perfect TV smile. But again his gaze passed right over her. TV’s Josh Pendleton, ladies and gentlemen.
Sidney slapped on a smile. This wasn’t about Josh. This was about Once Upon a Bride and she was a professional, damn it. “I was born ready.”
*
“Mmm, that is positively orgasmic.”
“And I think we have a winner, folks.” Josh’s deep chuckle dripped with sensual promise.
Sidney opened eyes she had closed to truly savor the raspberry Chantilly cake. “I know this one will be Caitlyn’s favorite,” she said with absolute confidence fueled by the fact that Caitlyn had tasted this exact cake last month and declared it beyond heavenly. “We’ll do alternating tiers of this one and that decadent gluten-free chocolate.”
“Perfect. Now we may have made our decision, but we can’t let the rest of these cakes go to waste,” Josh said, his eyes glinting. He scooped up a giant forkful of the lemon chiffon and wagged it in front of her face.
“Nice try, but I’m immune to your temptation,” she teased. “My heart belongs to the raspberry Chantilly.”
“You don’t know what you’re missing.” That wicked spark glittered in his eyes—so much naughtier than he usually employed with his flawless made-for-TV smile—and he shoveled the heaping bite into his mouth, groaning contentedly. “Delicious,” he declared after he made a show of slowly chewing and swallowing. He licked the last of the buttercream from the fork—and Sidney stared, envying the fork.
“Cut! That’s perfect. I love the bit with the temptation. Sidney, Josh, we’re done with you two for the day if you want to take off.” Dani dismissed them, turning to the cameramen to instruct them to get some nice panning shots over the display cases at Sweet Indulgences.
Sidney set down her fork without tasting the light raspberries and cream cake, her appetite vanishing as Josh’s expression went from charmingly wicked to blank and distant in point two seconds.
Sweet Indulgences Specialty Bakery was their last stop on the fourth day of filming and the producers were in raptures—especially Dani. Apparently she and Josh had electric chemistry, the kind of natural rapport that money couldn’t buy. He made it easy—she was never awkward in front of the camera with him, or even aware of them. Dani practically clapped with glee every time they flirted and bantered for the cameras. She teased them, asking them if they were sure they weren’t attracted to one another—and Sidney would have been worried that the jig was up, except all that lovely chemistry evaporated every time the cameras stopped rolling.
Josh’s expression just died, going flat and blank, and he still seemed incapable of looking at her when they weren’t on camera. She would think it was all an act for the crew’s benefit—but he hadn’t called her once and she kept getting his voicemail, he never dropped by after hours, and even when it would have been convenient for them to drive between locations together, he had avoided being alone with her.
And it was getting harder and harder to tell herself that everything was okay.
The cameras began to move, filming the cakes on display and Sidney got out of the way, moving to the far side of the small tasting room to collect her purse. If it happened to be near where Josh was standing—well, that was just a convenient coincidence.
“Any big plans for tonight, Pendleton?” she asked, mindful of the fact that half the crew could hear them.
“Just a movie premiere and few after parties,” he said, the same way another man might say sitting on the couch, watching a game and drinking a beer. “Olga keeps me busy.”
Sidney managed not to cringe, reminding herself it was all an act. He wasn’t really with Olga. Or at least he hadn’t been. Was he throwing his imaginary girlfriend in her face now for a reason?
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. So why was she giving it to him?
But before she could find a way to get him alone and have it out with him, an authoritative voice cut across the low mumblings of the crew at work.
“Don’t tell me I missed all the fun.”
Miranda Pierce stood in the doorway—and Dani jumped as if she’d been tazed. “No, no, we’re just finishing up here. Right on schedule and under budget. Everything is great. Have you seen the footage? Fun stuff, really fun!”
“I saw,” Miranda drawled, her eagle-sharp gaze finding Josh and Sidney in the corner. “That’s why I wanted to come see for myself.”
“Well, as you can see, everything’s under control!” Dani enthused.
Sidney sidled closer to Josh, asking under her breath, “Why does Dani look like she’s about to puke on Miranda’s Jimmy Choos?”
“She wants Miranda’s job,” he said, meeting Miranda’s gaze across the room, a frown tangling his brow. “This is her audition and Miranda’s vote will count for a lot—all of the junior producers are sucking up hardcore in the hope of getting her recommendation.”
“I’m surprised no one is sucking up to you. Doesn’t your recommendation mean anything?”
“Me? I’m just the talent. They fawn all over the talent, but your opinion doesn’t actually mean anything.”
“I thought you were producing.”
“Which just meant I followed you around and said, ‘Let’s shoot here’ and ‘The network wil
l approve this.’ Everyone’s a producer in this town. And now my job is to go where they tell me and be charming on cue—beyond that they don’t really care what I think. And speaking of being charming on cue, I have a premiere to get ready for. See ya tomorrow, Sidney.”
“I’ll walk out with you,” she said, louder than necessary.
The tiny parking lot of Sweet Indulgences overflowed with crew vans, so Sidney had parked down the street at Once Upon a Bride and walked, but Josh’s silver convertible was sandwiched between two of the large white vans. He didn’t react when she followed him into the small lot.
She waited until they were hidden by the vans before speaking, keeping her voice low because there was still a crew not thirty feet away, filming exteriors. “Are we okay?”
“We?” He turned to face her, his eyes blank. “We’re fine. Why?”
She knew he couldn’t show his feelings in front of the crew, but they were alone now and the least he could do was look her in the eye. But even facing her he seemed to look through her.
She was done playing games. “Because you’ve been fake with me all week and you can’t seem to look me in the eye since you woke up at my place.”
His gaze darted to the left and the right as he stepped closer, bending his head and lowering his voice. “I know I should apologize again for showing up at your place drunk like that—”
“I’m not looking for an apology. But I wouldn’t mind an explanation as to why we’re suddenly back to where we were two months ago.”
“Sidney, we’re filming. We can’t be—”
“I know. I know. We have to be careful in front of the crew, but is it more than that? Did I do something?”
“No, of course not. It’s only…” He hesitated. “I don’t know. I guess I thought we’d pretty much run our course anyway.”
Ouch. “So you vanished and that was it. Is that why you canceled on Saturday?”
“No. I was busy Saturday. I haven’t lied to you. Things are just—work is fucked up right now with Miranda leaving the show and no one willing to sign on as Miss Right. We were supposed to start filming in a couple weeks, but everything’s been pushed back now. And when we do start filming, I’ll be gone, so I didn’t figure a few weeks one direction or another really mattered.”
“And I don’t get a say?”
“What was there to say? We were never really official to begin with.”
Double ouch. He’d practically said he loved her just a week ago and now he was acting like she was a convenient booty call. No one can make you feel inferior…
“You could have at least done me the courtesy of sending me a brush-off text message to let me know we were done,” she snapped.
“You’re right. I’m sorry. I was waiting for things to fade away naturally, but I should have said something.”
He’d expected them to fade away. She’d been falling in love and he’d been fading. She swallowed around the thickness in her throat, fighting to keep her composure. “You’re probably right. You have the new season coming up and I’ll be crazy busy as soon as the special airs. And the Veil list comes out in a few weeks. If we’re on it, you know how nuts things will get.”
“Exactly.” He smiled, but his relief seemed false. “Though if you decide you’d like some extra exposure and want to be the next Miss Right, we’d still love to have you.”
She felt like she’d been sucker punched. “You’re asking me if I’ll be Miss Right?”
“Well, we need one and your name keeps coming up. And you don’t seem as uncomfortable on camera anymore.”
His words buzzed in her ears, incomprehensible. “Do you want me to be Miss Right?”
“I’m not going to stand in your way if that’s what you want. It could be a great opportunity for you—”
He kept talking and she wondered how the producers would react if he showed up for filming the next day with a fat lip because she had punched him to get him to shut up. “It doesn’t matter to you? You’d be totally fine if your job was to help me find my dream guy?”
He shrugged. “It’s what I’m good at.”
She didn’t think he was trying to hurt her—but somehow that made it that much worse. If he’d been a malicious prick, that was one thing, but he was getting out of the way of her happiness—which would have been great if she wasn’t realizing with shattering certainty that she was in love with the idiot.
“I have to go.”
Hugging her arms tight to her body, she walked away before he could stop her—but he didn’t even try. She’d known from the start that he wasn’t a forever guy, but her heart had tricked her into forgetting. Just another case of seeing Prince Charming when all along she’d been kissing a frog.
But why did kissing frogs have to hurt so much?
Chapter Thirty
That had not gone well. But it had gotten the job done.
Josh stared after Sidney, his chest aching, waiting for the certainty that he’d done the right thing to take hold. But for some reason what he felt when he watched her walk away felt a lot more like regret. All week he’d been off. He knew putting distance between them was the right thing to do, but it had felt so wrong.
“Josh, you idiot. How long have you been sleeping together?”
Somehow he wasn’t surprised to see Miranda standing at the front bumper of his car when he turned around. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nice try,” she said, though the tone said Don’t insult my intelligence.
“Is it obvious?”
“It’s in the footage. Though I think I’m the only one who’s noticed.”
“You always did see more than anyone else. The Suitorette Whisperer.” And now she was leaving, just another thing making his life feel wrong and off-balance. “You sure you wanna leave all this?”
“Sure? Never. But certainty’s overrated.” Miranda cocked her head, her gaze intent and direct behind her glasses. “You sure you wanna stay? Because if you do, you might want to look into having that morality clause rewritten before you sign anything.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s over.”
Miranda snorted. “The way you looked at her when she was walking away? That isn’t over. I don’t know what that is, but it isn’t over.”
Josh fished his keys out of his pocket. “I should go. I’ve got a thing to get to.”
“Do you love her?”
His head snapped around. “Of course not.”
“Does she love you?”
“It’s over, Miranda.”
“She looked upset. Were you a dick? Never mind. Of course you were.”
“Aren’t you supposed to forbid me from seeing her?”
“Is that what you want me to do? So you don’t have to man up and own your feelings?” She held up a hand as if to stop him, but he wasn’t speaking. “Never mind. I’ll just leave you with this. I’ve known you for a lot of years and I never once saw you look at Marissa with half the feeling you had watching Sidney walk away. I have been in this business for a long time. Long enough to see a lot of people trying to force themselves into feelings they don’t have—talking themselves both into and out of love—and the one thing I’ve learned is that the real deal is rare. But you don’t mock the fates when they see fit to give it to you, because they don’t give many second chances.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a date with Olga.”
“Excellent. Try to act surprised when she breaks up with you.”
Josh froze in the act of getting into his car. “What?”
“That role she landed because you helped rehab her image? Turns out she’s started having an affair with the director and they think it will help the box office down the road if they go public with it—so she needs to be well clear of you before all that comes out, strategically timed around the premiere.”
Josh stared. “Do you ever think this business is insane?”
“All the time.” Miranda
grinned. “Isn’t it great?”
He’d used to think so. Now he wasn’t as sure.
Josh climbed in his car, fired it up and looked at the clock. He’d have to hurry if he was going to have time to get cleaned up before the premiere. He had a breakup to get to—and since the pictures were likely to be in every tabloid in America, he’d better look good.
*
Sidney took it as a personal victory that she didn’t shed a single tear in her march down Main Street toward Once Upon a Bride.
She opened the door and called out, “It’s just me!” toward the back office—hoping that Victoria would be so engrossed in whatever she was doing that she wouldn’t emerge from her lair and Sidney could slip upstairs unnoticed.
But her luck was consistent, if nothing else. Victoria appeared seconds later and her face instantly tightened with concern, proving Sidney wasn’t keeping it together nearly as well as she’d hoped.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.” She headed toward the back stairs, already regretting that she hadn’t snuck around the building to come in through the parking lot and avoided Victoria entirely. She loved her friend, but right now she could do without the reminder that she’d been an idiot and Victoria had seen it coming.
Tori trailed behind her, keeping pace. “It’s Josh, isn’t it? What did he do?”
“I really don’t want to talk about it, Tori.”
Victoria blocked the way when she would have started up the stairs. “Sidney.”
Sidney stopped trying to evade her. “You were right, okay? Get your I-told-you-sos ready.”
There was no satisfaction on Tori’s face. Only understanding and sympathy that made Sidney feel like even more of a brat for snapping at her. “What was I right about?” she asked gently.
“Me. Josh. Getting hurt.”
Her voice broke on the last word and Tori stepped forward to envelop her in a lavender-scented hug. “Oh honey, I didn’t want to be right.”
As soon as Tori’s arms closed around her, the last of her resistance broke and Sidney sank onto the steps in a defeated heap, half-dragging Tori down with her.