by Ember Leigh
He grinned. “Excellent. See, it’s not all bad.” He squeezed her shoulder as he shuffled past.
Paige took another sip of her champagne. It wasn’t all bad but it sure as hell wasn’t great either. The room had emptied considerably; in the far corner, Josh and Bridgette talked near the doorway. He’d glanced at her as she watched them, and she snapped her head away.
She needed to escape before she was forced to talk to anyone again—or before she was able to look at him again. The shivers zipping beneath her skin weren’t all angry. No, there was a certain thrill of excitement she couldn’t deny whenever her eyes landed on him. That made her even angrier. So it was best to just avoid the whole thing.
Besides, Gary had broken the ugly truth to her. When Paige signed that contract, she’d given herself to IBC like the virgin sacrifice, and what they did with her was only up to them. So the similar show she’d signed onto was, in fact, this gig on Hawaii—eerily similar to “A New York Minute”, though not at all based in New York, and certainly not the live show she was used to filming.
Gary still didn’t know what her role was on the show, nor could he get his hands on a script or any sort of show plan, details that made her skin crawl. She would be the host; she had to be the host. What confusion could there possibly be? But the presence of Josh and Bridgette continued to irk her…there was no reason for them to be here.
Josh was some sort of corporate overlord, maybe sent to oversee the show in the beginning days, while Paige got her feet wet with the new program. And that Bridgette lady, who could tell? Probably Josh’s escort. The equivalent of a pet Chihuahua people carried around in their purses.
She downed the rest of her champagne, making a beeline for the door with eyes to the ground. As she neared the elevator, someone cleared their throat. Loudly.
“Wait.”
Josh appeared at her side, leveling her with his gaze. Her cheeks flushed. Probably the champagne. He should know it was just alcohol and not the manly scent of him at her side. “What?”
“I want to call a truce.”
She watched him carefully. “And?”
“I know how much you dislike me. You’ve made it very clear. But if any of us are going to make it to the end of the week alive, I suggest we try to put what happened in New York behind us.”
“You mean me, don’t you? Just put behind me the fact that you cancelled my show for no good reason.”
“In not so many words, yeah.”
“Screw you.” She walked away again, but he raced in front of her, blocking her path.
“I’m serious, Paige. I know you’re good. Careers are constantly evolving and moving forward. Some companies eat others. It’s the nature of the business, and you know it better than anyone.”
“Yeah, but a lot of the time careers don’t just derail in the middle of a perfectly successful run. So excuse me if I’m bitter a week after you ruined my dreams, but I’m still in the grieving process.”
“Ruined your dreams?” he scoffed. “You don’t seem like the type to give up so easily. Besides, you signed the contract. Nobody forced you. Hell, nobody even asked you to.”
A thousand snarky replies jumped to the tip of her tongue, mixed with the dim simmer of embarrassment deep in her core. He was right. He hadn’t ruined her dreams, he’d just put an infuriating kink in them. She’d brought herself here. God damn you, Josh, for being right.
“All I’m asking for is a hint of civility,” he continued. “I’m not even asking you to like it here. I’m just asking for a truce.” He gazed coolly at her. She couldn’t catch a trace of doubt, insecurity, any sort of human emotion. He was like a robot. A gorgeous, green-eyed, impossibly cool robot.
“You have a point,” she conceded, jabbing a finger into his chest. Why had she done that? She didn’t jab strangers. But God, it was firm. It was really firm. She tucked her hand into a fist at her side. “I will be civil. I’m no child. Though…though I feel like I could be angry about this for a year.”
She pursed her lips, leveling him with her gaze. “If what you came to talk to me about was about what happened in New York affecting my work performance, you don’t have to worry. Nothing affects my performance.” She crossed her arms and steeled herself for his response.
“You don’t have to touch me to make your point,” he said wryly. He paused, looked as if he was about to say something but thought better of it. “I’m glad we understand each other. Have a pleasant evening, Paige. We’ll see each other on set tomorrow morning.”
When she walked toward the elevator again, he didn’t stop her. Once she was inside the elevator with the pleasant hum of orderliness and solitude around her, she sighed heavily and buried her face in her hands.
The guy was a creep, that much was certain. He was a sexy creep, though. A fact Paige’s body refused to ignore. Her body reacted to his nearness no matter how many mental daggers she sent during their conversation. It was a contradiction so infuriating she wanted to climb through the emergency exit in the elevator and scream into the shaft until something shattered.
Why didn’t his cockiness and shallowness override the physical part, cancel it out like an elegant math equation? This was amateur shit, meant for schoolgirls or bored housewives—certainly not meant for women like her who demanded quality and consistency and standards.
Paige was famously clear-headed, and Josh was someone who, for the first time, inspired thoughts she couldn’t rationalize away. She was sharp enough to make him think otherwise, but she alone was privy to the fact that when she’d jabbed him in the chest, her panties got wet.
Josh Lambert must be avoided. She wouldn’t speak to him, wouldn’t look at him, and most certainly wouldn’t be analyzing the swish of fabric over his ass as he departed any room before her. She’d do her job—civilly. Professionally.
Piece of cake.
Chapter Four
It was Paige’s experience that whenever Josh got involved, things went from bad to worse.
“Am I hearing this correctly?” Her voice cracked, betraying emotion. Surely Josh would pick up on it, like a shark tasting blood. “No, really. Say it again. I want to make sure I have this 100% accurate.”
“You are the news anchor for the new show,” Josh repeated, condescension ringing clearer this time. He sat across from her in an elegant wicker chair, flanked by palm trees with the hint of a smile on his face, glowing in the early morning sunlight.
She figured he was amused by all this, like it was some sort of sadistic game. He was probably going to go jack off about this moment later. Doling out bad news had to give him a hard on. Gary reached for her hand under the table, and she snatched it back into her lap.
“Screw it. Screw it. I’m not going back to that. I worked for years to get away from that. It’s like being a professional baseball player and then being forced to go back to Little League. I won’t.”
Doing so would be a humiliating slap in the face. Paige had entered the entertainment world upon graduation from her prestigious New York college, though even during her schooling she’d interned on a variety of shows—reality TV, documentaries, even a scummy talk show dedicated to revealing couples’ secret lives and lies.
Daytime shows had an attraction she couldn’t ignore. So immediately upon graduation, she got a low-level, news anchor gig, which lasted for a few years. Then came the leap into lifestyle hosting, her first chance to showcase her personality and develop a fan base. Several successful years as a lifestyle host had catapulted her high enough to find Gary.
With Gary, the chemistry was immediate. Something about the way he got ruffled and perspired attracted her, made her feel more human, much as her prissy and exacting nature seemed to delight him and even propel him to greater productivity. It was a match made in heaven, beyond their understanding. After she’d rustled up enough of a voracious fan base with her lifestyle spots at a couple different outlets, Gary led her to NYCBC. The birthplace of her brainchild—and ultimately, the gr
ave.
Gary massaged his temples. He muttered something to himself, looking somehow more aged in the ten-minute span.
“This contract Paige signed, it guaranteed a position of similar standing. If you’re trying to tell me that a news anchor is of a similar standing to a regular host, you must be fucking—”
“It is similar, and every lawyer at IBC will agree with this determination,” Josh explained, his smile looking forced. “Redistributions and mergers sometimes call for unexpected arrangements, as I’m sure you’re both aware. This was the spot we had available. She’s on air and delivering information to the audience.”
A heavy silence hung in the air. Paige’s chest heaved as she struggled to digest the information. Sweat prickled on her upper lip from the humidity; a strange blessing earlier but now, combined with the sunlight and anger, it was an irritant.
Gary leaned closer to her. “This is all we have for right now,” he whispered. “Just go with it as we take a closer look at the contract and try to figure a way out. Let’s be real, once you get out there and show your stuff, I’m banking on a reorganization.”
The heat of the sun and the anger pounding through her veins was a deadly combination. Wilt, scream, or punch? She didn’t know which might occur first. The first day of filming new projects was always the worst, when confusion ran high and tempers flared. She tried to find the path they’d walked down to get to this makeshift on-set office. If she ran to the west down the beach would it take her anywhere useful?
All she could see, however, were crew members milling around, backdrops being clicked into place, and Bridgette lounging on a couch nearby like a gangly mannequin, being touched up by a makeup artist and looking smug and plastic.
“Gary, this is ridiculous. They duped me.”
Josh sighed, crossing his arms, and his muscles flexed through his thin white T-shirt. A pair of fashionable sunglasses rested on his head; piercing green eyes trained on her. “Oh, please, Paige. You weren’t duped. You signed the contract yourself, and if you didn’t take a closer look, that’s your own fault. Business is business.”
He tossed a folder onto the table between them. “There’s another copy for you in case you didn’t bring your own from New York. You’ll find that the organization of this new show completely complies with the agreement we drew up and you signed.” He rested his temple against the tip of his fingers, face expressionless.
Her mind throbbed with insults and protests. This couldn’t be happening. She was a caged animal, a modern-day entertainment slave—lured to a foreign paradise with the promise of continuing a job she loved, only to be forced into an arena doing news bits on repeat.
“You think I’m going to do a good job if I hate it?” She leaned toward Josh, challenging him. But the words had flown out of her mouth without thinking. Of course she’d do a good job; a fact she, herself, had confirmed to him yesterday.
Josh looked smug, as if sensing her thoughts. Sunlight streaked across his face, highlighting his jawline, forcing Paige to look at it again. Like the slave she now was.
“I think you’ll do just fine.” He offered his hand to Gary. “Good meeting, guys, I’m glad to have you both on board. Let’s have a great first day.”
She glowered as he walked away, his words echoing in her head though her eyes stayed glued to his ass.
A girl with a headset smiled at her, looking like an undergrad intern. “Ms. Alexander, I need to take you to makeup now. Just follow me.”
Paige rose from her wicker chair, staring at Gary as she did. “We’ve got to get out of this,” she hissed.
He looked more helpless than in all their years together and nodded, wiping at his forehead with the new green rag he’d been toting around the island. The rational part of her knew this was a dead-end—she’d be captive on this island until her contract expired, which was what, another six months? A year?—but she wasn’t ready to stop kicking and screaming about it.
Paige followed the crew member toward a trailer, mind reeling with ways to get back at Josh. He couldn’t have the last word, and he certainly couldn’t win this battle. Maybe she’d insist on only delivering the news report in a foreign language. Except she didn’t know a foreign language. Or she’d concoct a plan to hold up filming—strange animals in Bridgette’s bathroom? All the camera cables mysteriously severed?
It was hopeless. She couldn’t grow the balls to hijack anything. It wasn’t in her nature. But it would probably be a piece of cake for someone like Josh. He’d probably hijacked plenty of other people’s shows or careers to get to his rung on the corporate ladder.
The girl with the headset led her down a smartly manicured stone path that wound through dense shrubbery. Heady scents of jasmine and snapdragons lured her away from anger. Wild pops of color reminded her how much she didn’t know about the floral ecosystem on the island, how many blossoms she might like to put in her hair.
They approached a trailer at the end of the path, a small, rectangular building completely at odds with the greenery around it, and the employee pushed open the door.
When Paige stepped inside, someone shrieked, “Oh my God, it’s Paige Alexander.” At the makeup counter a chubby yet well-manicured guy hopped from foot to foot. His face was angular and perfect enough to be airbrushed, like a living magazine ad. Keeping with the trends of the Big Apple and other stylish big cities, he sported an intentional unibrow, one that arced gracefully across his forehead.
She grinned, already loving him. “Hello. You seem to know me already. Who might you be?”
“I’m David Galliano, and I loved A New York Minute. I watched it every freakin’ day.” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Of course, that was back when I lived in New York City. I never knew you were going to be on this show.”
She forced a smile. “Neither did I.”
“Please, sit down. We’ve got to get started. They’re starting the first run-through in a half hour.”
She eased into the chair, the cool leather sticking instantly to the back of her thighs. David’s energy helped her forget about the outside Hawaiian Work Hell, if only for a little bit.
“Oh, honey, you have beautiful skin,” David cooed, reaching for powder as he sized up her face. She caught a whiff of vanilla lotion. “Seriously, I used to watch New York Minute and think about doing makeup for your crew. I always knew just the tone I’d use on your skin—and look, here we are. I get to use it.” He laughed. “It’s NC 42, by the way,” he added, leaning in close to her.
David got to work. She pinched her eyes closed as he powdered her face. When she opened them again, he was smiling at her.
“You are a daaaaaahl. So why did you end New York Minute? Why are you with these weirdos here?”
She laughed. “I take it you didn’t see the end of New York Minute? It wasn’t exactly my choice…in fact, a certain Josh Lambert killed it, to say the least. So here I am. Bound and gagged in my contract.”
He gasped, placing a hand over his heart. “You’re kidding me.”
She grimaced.
“Well if this show is what’s supposed to replace it,” he paused, making a face, “they’re never gonna make it with Bridgette as the leading host.”
“She’s the main host?” Her brain grappled with this fact, unable to accept it, like expecting a bite of ham sandwich and instead getting a spoonful of rice milk. Curse words made a mad dash to her tongue, but she couldn’t pick one strong enough. “Who is she? I doubt she’s ever had an internship in this stuff.”
“Yeah. Don’t even ask me why. Word is her uncle is big time in IBC. But also she’s probably sleeping with Josh. Who knows?”
Her heart twisted in her chest, and she couldn’t figure out why. Probably the fact that Bridgette was a novice nobody taking over the post that was rightfully Paige’s and not, for instance, related to the fact that Josh might be frequently casting those gorgeous green eyes at her. She swallowed. Jealousy wasn’t something she tasted often, and she wanted it go
ne. “Who’s the other host?”
“Josh is.”
She snorted. “Are you kidding me?”
“Nope.”
“How can a corporate nut be a host? Is he out of his mind?”
“Honey, he started in show business, just like you. Hosted a nightly show and everything. I think he just got sick of it, or maybe he wanted more money. Who knows? He used to be the Vice President of Something at IBC…and this show now is his. Well, his and Bridgette’s.”
Paige was rocked into a stunned silence. Josh had been a host once? Imagining him sitting beside her on a show, like Raymond had done, seemed awkward. If he had a TV personality, it must be bottled up tight.
But she knew a thing or two about showing different sides. These days, all of her natural spark and fun had been replaced with outbursts and unrelenting anger. The Paige she was showing to the world was more beast than beauty.
You have a damn good reason. Nothing would get accomplished if you just sat back and took whatever shit they dealt you. You needed to fight back.
But her resolve was crumbling. She was stuck in every possible way—physically on this stupid Hawaiian rock even if it was the projecting top of a volcano according to Gary, and legally in her contract, one she herself had consented to. Was this what Edmond Dantes felt like in that jail in Count of Monte Cristo?
She needed to remember that, to use on her next show, whenever it was, maybe in five years at this rate, when she talked about this phase of her life someday. She scrambled for the tiny note pad she always kept in her pocket, jotted it down—I am the modern Edmond Dantes, wrongfully incarcerated, forced to chisel my way out of this entertainment prison—and then relaxed in her chair. All brainstorming for the future aside, until her contract ran out, she was with IBC and forced to bend to their will.
Already they were demoting her, forcing her into a role she’d outgrown, like a hermit crab five shells ago, making a mockery of her perseverance. But what else? Would they make her strip naked and dance in front of the audience? Get on all fours and proclaim her love for IBC and Josh Lambert? She shuddered. “What is Josh really like?” She kicked herself for even wanting to know.