by Ella Frank
“Thanks, Carmen.” Xander said to me, “Try not to talk too much in there, would you? I find you’re less offensive if you aren’t speaking.”
“Sure thing, Alexander.”
Xander’s eyes flared, and again I was captured by how unusual the shade was. Like the water around a tropical island. They just drew you in and made you want to linger there.
“Okay, so your hair might be real, but you definitely wear contacts, right?”
“What is wrong with you right now? My eyes have always been this color.” The expression on his face relayed what a complete and utter moron he thought I was. “How long have you known me?”
Over thirty years, my brain instantly supplied.
“Let’s go. Marcus doesn’t like to be kept waiting.”
I nodded and gestured for him to go first, and as he brushed past me, I heard myself say, “You can’t blame me for asking. Your eyes are fucking… Wow. Can’t believe I never noticed them before.”
But then again, I’d never really had a reason to.
11
Xander
YOUR EYES ARE fucking… Wow.
It had been nearly an hour, maybe more, since Sean had whispered that in my ear, and I was still trying to wrap my head around it. I couldn’t decide if it had really happened, or if I was in such a weird headspace after the last twenty-four hours that I was imagining things. It sounded like Sean, but it was not like him to compliment me at all. Especially on something so…personal.
The meeting with Marcus had gone just as I expected. He’d done most of the talking, I’d barely said a word, and then Sean had explained his plan to come on board as my bodyguard in the role of my fake boyfriend.
I’d thought Marcus would nix that idea as ludicrous, but I was in for a shock. Instead, he’d given a brisk nod and then, thankfully, left for another meeting, because if Sean had had to go into detail on how exactly he was going to fill that role, I had no idea how I would’ve handled it with Marcus.
God, I needed to pull it together. Yes, this situation was weird, and yes, I’d rather not be in it. But wishing it would just disappear wasn’t going to change the fact that someone was out there hunting me, and I needed protection. So the sooner I wrapped my head around things, the better.
After filling out a mountain of paperwork and HR issuing Sean an access badge—something Marcus felt he needed, to have access to the newsroom and my office at all times—we stepped out into the hall, where I caught sight of the clock and grimaced.
“You got somewhere you got to be?” Sean asked.
“Yes, actually. I had to miss tonight’s first rundown so we could get this all cleared up, but—”
“Now you need to get up there. Gotcha. Let’s go.”
Sean started to walk off. I took hold of his arm and drew him to the side of the hallway. “Are you going come with me? Right now?”
“That is the reason I just signed my name on five thousand sheets of paper.”
“Of course.” I looked over his shoulder to the people busily working behind their desks, and then back to him. “So we have to start pretending to be…”
“Dating?”
I screwed my nose up, and Sean chuckled.
“You can’t do that.”
“What?”
“Look like you just swallowed something gross every time I say we’re dating.”
“Oh God. I can’t do this. I’m not that good of an actor.”
“Yeah, you can. I know this is like something out of bizarro world, but it’s important. Your safety’s at risk, and we need this—us—to be believable. So suck it up, buttercup.”
I swallowed back my immediate impulse to argue. “You’re right. You’ve been right ever since I knocked on your door. This is all just so…foreign.”
“I know. But we’ve got this. Try to stop worrying.”
Easier said than done. As we made our way down to the level the newsroom and my office were located on, the glass doors loomed up ahead. I looked over to Sean to gauge his mood, and when my eyes caught on his baseball cap, too-long hair, and his Chicago Bulls t-shirt, I groaned.
“Sean? Wait up a second, would you?”
He stopped, and I tried to imagine telling people we were dating with a straight face…and just couldn’t.
“What?” When I stood there in silence, he let out a breath. “Xander?”
“Nothing. Sorry. I just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page when we walk through those doors, that’s all.”
Sean glanced over his shoulder to where a flurry of activity could be seen beyond the glass.
“Ah, I see. Trying to work out how to explain us, huh?”
“Something like that,” I said as my head began to throb with what would probably be a constant headache until all of this was over.
“Hmm.” Sean crossed his arms. “What were you thinking? I’m your hot new lover who won’t let you out of my sight?”
Definitely not. “No. I was thinking more that this is brand new and you wanted to come and see where I worked.”
Sean shrugged. “What about Monday?”
“What about Monday?”
“Well, I’m going to be dropping you off and hanging around, so once this little tour is over, then what’s my reason for being here?”
Yes, that headache wasn’t going anywhere. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and this will all be over by then.”
Sean shook his head. “You need a better plan if that’s what you’re pinning all your hopes on.”
“Okay, okay. On Monday, after you drop me off, I’ll find a place for you to hang out. Somewhere private.”
“Somewhere I can watch over you.”
Though I knew that was why Sean was here, something about the way he said it made my pulse skip a few beats.
Not wanting to examine that too closely, though, I agreed. “Right. I’ll talk to Marcus, and we’ll have somewhere set up so you can see the broadcasting studio and the feeds for the newsroom.”
“Your office, too. I need to be able to see in there. But yeah, that works.”
Sean sidled up next to me then and slung his arm around my shoulders. As he tugged me into his side, I stumbled into him. The move was awkward and…well, weird, and when I glared at him, he grinned.
“You’re gonna have to sell it better than that. The fact you find me irresistible.”
Okay, I really needed to stop thinking of him as Sean—Bailey’s annoying older brother—if there was any hope in hell of making people believe I was into him. I closed my eyes and channeled all of the drama classes I’d ever taken in high school. When I reopened my eyes, I aimed my most sensual smile in Sean’s direction.
He chuckled, and then lowered his mouth by my ear. “Keep that up, Mr. Thorne, and I just might just start to believe you myself.”
Shit, what the hell was that? Goosebumps covered my arms, as my entire body seemed to react to the way he’d just said “Mr. Thorne.” Jesus, Xander. Get it together.
“You ready?”
No. “Yes. Let’s get this over and done with.”
“Great attitude.”
“My attitude is the least of my concerns.” My confused body was now number one. I took in a deep breath and then let it out. “Just…don’t oversell it, okay? No one will believe it if you do.”
“So you’re saying I shouldn’t make out with you on your desk right away?”
I groaned. “Sean…”
“I’m just fucking with you. Relax. This is gonna be a piece of cake.”
He squeezed my shoulders, and I glared at him as he led us toward the doors. When he let me go to pull one open, I felt like I was stepping into the Twilight Zone.
“Oh good, you’re here,” Ryan said from across the room when he spotted me. “Jim is looking for you. Something about an update to the first run-through he wants you to look over before he approves. But he said he’ll catch you in the final.”
Completely ignoring Sean, Ryan continued on as though it was
a normal day and I didn’t have a gigantic shadow looming over my shoulder.
“Your suit is hanging in your office, but they left off the tie. I told them to get it over here ASAP, but they couldn’t guarantee it would be here before you went on air. Stephanie is trying to track one down as we speak. But if worse comes to worse, I’m sure we can find someone around here wearing one we could use.”
Ryan finally acknowledged Sean by giving him a once-over, but then shook his head. “Clearly not him.”
“Got it,” I said. “Thanks. Anything else?”
Ryan seemed to think about that for all of two seconds then shook his head. “Nope. Team’s ready when you are for the final run-through, but everything else is good to go.”
“Okay. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll be there.” Then, because I could feel Sean boring a hole in the back of my head, I plastered a smile on my face.
“Sean, this is Ryan, my assistant.” I looked to Ryan and repeated on a loop in my head, Sell it. Sell this ridiculous lie and get it over with. “Ryan, this is Sean. He’s going to be sitting in on the broadcast tonight. A behind-the-scenes tour.”
It didn’t escape me—or Sean, judging by the coughing fit he suddenly came down with—that I’d purposely left out who Sean was. Guess I wasn’t that great of a liar after all.
That was soon cleared up, however, when Ryan held his hand out and Sean shook it.
“Hi. So, um, are you going to be working here?”
“Ha.” Sean laughed and put his hand on my shoulder. “Nope, that’s all Xander. I just wanted to come and see where my boyfriend spends his nights when he’s not at home with me.”
Was he kidding? What part of “don’t oversell it” did he not understand? He might as well have stamped PROPERTY OF SEAN’S on my forehead.
“Boyfriend, huh?” Ryan’s eyes found mine and I schooled my expression, hoping it didn’t scream, Not in this lifetime. I must’ve pulled it off, because he grinned and waggled his brows. “You never said anything about a boyfriend.”
Think, Xander. Think. “I know. I was keeping things quiet until it got serious.”
“Oh, a serious boyfriend.”
Fuck.
Ryan grinned as he looked Sean over. “Well, I can see why you’d keep him a secret. I’d keep him to myself too until it was locked in.”
Was Ryan actually checking Sean out? It was official: my life was getting more peculiar by the second.
“Well,” Ryan said when he managed to drag his eyes away from Sean. “I know what the news is going to be about around here tonight, and it’s nothing that’s in the rundown.”
Great. Just great. Sean chose that exact moment to take my hand in his, and it took everything I had not to jerk away. How was he acting so natural, so normal under such abnormal circumstances?
“There’s no news here,” I said, my tone much more clipped than usual, as I started off toward my office, tugging Sean along behind me. “Just let everyone know we’ll do the run-through in fifteen.”
Ryan turned to watch us go, and somehow I knew that wouldn’t be the only thing he’d let everyone know by the time he was done.
Oh well, Sean had wanted our cover story to get around. Wish granted. This gossip was about to spread through the station like wildfire. I just hoped he was ready to face the heat.
12
Sean
“I THINK YOUR assistant likes me.” I looked out the glass door of Xander’s office to where Ryan kept glancing over his shoulder in our direction. “He keeps looking back here. Think I should wave?”
“I think you should sit down and stop making a spectacle of yourself.”
The pissy tone with which Xander delivered that suggestion told me he wasn’t impressed by my acting chops back there. But I thought I deserved an Oscar. It wasn’t easy pushing past my automatic impulse to annoy the shit out of Xander. Not to mention touch him and hold his hand like it was an everyday occurrence.
I was trying here, but it was only going to work if he loosened up.
“No thanks. I’m fine standing. But you wanna maybe tell me what crawled up your ass between the HR department and now?”
Xander looked up from his computer and pinned me with what I was going to refer to as his I wish the floor would open up and swallow you whole look.
“Nothing crawled up my ass,” he said as he slowly rose to his feet. “But maybe you could explain how announcing to my assistant that you are my boyfriend was not overselling things?”
“Well you weren’t going to tell him.”
“No, I was going to let him speculate.”
“Speculate?” I walked over and stopped at Xander’s desk. “We don’t have time to let him speculate. We need this whole office buzzing over your new piece of man meat as soon as possible. And in case you missed the memo, that happens to be me.”
Xander clenched his jaw and pressed all ten of his fingers into the top of his desk so hard that I thought he might break them.
“You are quite possibly the most annoying human being I have ever met. Did it ever occur to you that I might like to ease into things? I have to work with these people, and now they’re all out there gossiping about me.”
I crossed my arms and gave him a bored look. ”And?”
“And I’m not the kind of guy who parades around his latest…”
When words seemed to escape him, I suggested, “Fuck?”
Xander’s eyes blazed as he jabbed a finger at me. “Stop it.”
“Stop what?”
“Acting like this should all be so fucking simple,” Xander thundered, and his voice was so loud it all but blasted me out of his office. Seeming to realize that anyone on the floor could’ve heard the commotion, he took a deep breath and said in a much calmer tone, “My life was turned on its ass last night.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” Xander marched around the desk until we were standing toe to toe. His jaw was locked, his fists balled, and he looked more furious than I could ever remember seeing him. “You seem to be acting like this is all some big joke. Ha ha, I have to play Xander’s boyfriend, no sweat. I’ll hold his hand and tell everyone we’re fucking, right? Well, this isn’t some joke to me, Sean. This is my life.”
I wasn’t quite sure what to say. Of course I didn’t see this as a joke, but I could see how he might have taken it that way.
“Xander—”
“Not now,” he said, and held a hand up. “I have to go and sit in on the run-through and write up my script. Then I need to get ready to go on air.” He took a step back and moved around me. “You’re welcome to come with me, or stay in here. But if you step out of this door and back into my world, so help me, Sean, you will keep your mouth shut.”
Deciding to concede this round to him, I nodded. Clearly I needed to rethink my approach.
“Good, I’m glad we understand one another.” Xander pulled the door open and stormed out, and all I could think as I stared after him was that I didn’t understand him at all.
But this was a great place to start.
THE WAR ROOM—that was where I found myself sitting not too long after our little blow-up, and I was one hundred percent convinced that I was the dumbest person in there.
Positioned in the back corner of the room, I had a good view of everyone as they went through the bullet points on the whiteboard, which, I quickly discovered, was how Xander worked out what he was going to report on when he went on air.
There were four segments, each known as a block, and as they went through each of the possible stories that could go in the A block, B block, and so on, Xander yea’d or nay’d them, rattling off reasons for each decision as he went along.
Not important enough for the top of the program.
Too important to be at the bottom.
Don’t have enough sources to consider the story credible.
Can’t get hold of a professional in time to confirm facts.
I mean, shit, who knew how much time went in be
hind the scenes to put on a thirty-minute news program? But the place was a hive of activity, not an idle hand in sight, as they all worked to figure out the order of things before Xander had to sit down at his desk and inform the country.
Speaking of Xander, he was seated about as far away from me as I figured he could possibly get, and everyone in the room was focused on him, waiting to see what he was going to approve or throw out.
Directly next to him was a frazzled guy, Jim—he was Xander’s EP, whatever that was. He was definitely someone I wanted to know more about, though, since he seemed to be the one Xander listened to above everyone else.
“Okay,” Jim said, and then pointed to something on the papers in front of Xander, who nodded. Then he looked at the rest of the group. “Does anyone have a problem with any of the stories on the board?” When no one spoke up, he said, “Good. You all have your assignments. Stephanie? Try to see if you can get someone on the phone that has any kind of expertise in child psychology. If you find someone, we’ll somehow fit the story in around the A or B block.”
“Got it,” Stephanie, with the blonde ponytail, said.
“Good. Everyone else, we’ve got an hour until go time, and I don’t want any fuck-ups.”
As everyone got to their feet, Jim pointed to the guy sitting directly in front of me. Brent was an intern, someone had said earlier, and I wondered if his beard was as itchy as it made me feel looking at it.
“You’re on the assignment desk,” Jim said. “Anything comes in, you let me know. Got it?”
“Got it,” Brent said, and then disappeared out the door.
When everyone had left except for Xander, Jim, and myself, I waited for my next cue from the man of the hour. I’d done as he’d asked and kept to myself while he worked, and I’d be damned if I stepped out of line now.
If Xander wanted me to play it cool, I could do that. Let him explain me.
“Hi there,” Jim said as he headed in my direction. “I didn’t get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I’m Jim, Xander’s EP.”